ProDave

I installed a pit. Only shallow at about 1 metre deep, so that when sitting (on a duck board) my eyes are about level with the floor. Makes simple things like an oil change a whole lot easier.

Mine's an old Landrover, but you knew that.

We planted a Laurel hedge at the previous house, thinking it would be more manageable than Leylandii. Well after 10 years, it has not reached 3 ft tall. As a hedge for privacy it is useless. It has only had a very minor trim to even it out, not because it is too big. It either does not like our soil or our climate up here, so I could not recommend it. It does tick the low maintenance box.

I will have to confirm with a tape measure, but I am 99.9999% certain the OSB we get here (made by Norboard next to Inverness airport) is 2400 by 1200 metric size. It certainly fits 600mm centre studs, and then when battened metric plasterboard fits perfectly. Reading between the lines, some of you are only able to buy 1220 by 2440 imperial OSB?

Interesting. Almost without exception every TF house I see (usually the ones I wire) are 600mm spacing, my own included. Though (don't ask me why) I have very awkward 450mm spaced rafters. I have built all my internal stud walls to 400 spacing. 400mm spaced JJI joists downstairs. 600mm spaced posi joists upstairs

Are you taping and filling, or plastering? Completely different answers depending what you are doing.

I'm in the "it looks just fine as it is" camp. If you fill it with anything it risks looking poor in the future. Grout may crack. Sealant may discolour or become dirty and grotty looking. If anyone asks, you have left a carefully engineered "shadow gap" instead.

You can terminate directly into RJ45 plugs if you prefer to avoid sockets and a patch panel. Somewhat more fiddly but doable. https://www.cableorganizer.com/learning-center/how-to/how-to-terminate-RJ45.htm

Get your building control inspector for a walk around to check he is happy with everything as built to date. That's what I did before paying the final stage payment.

We can get the same here. I recall one Christmas a few years ago driving from the Highlands to mid Wales for Christmas with the in laws. It was - 10 all the way down and the only time I have driven over 500 miles and had snow alongside the road all the way. A few days later we went to bed with the temperature at -10, and woke up to +10. I mused at the time at the phenominal amount of energy needed to heat the whole of the land mass of Wales (and beyond) from -10 to +10 overnight.

Our tv aerial is on the shed, about 10 metres or more from the house. We have a masthead amplifier there mainly to overcome the loss in the cable from there into the house, where it then feeds the distribution amplifier.

Solution. Put the drain cock at the lowest point.

Ze is the earth loop impedance at the origin , Zs is the earth loop impedance of a particular circuit. So you have Ze 0.3 ohm from the PME earth and 4.1 ohm from the rod. These are both connected in parallel. So your actual Ze at the origin will be a bit under 0.3 Ze at the sun room will be Ze at the origin plus the impedance of the cable, so 0.25 sounds suspiciously low.

I think they are trying to establish it has all the basic needs for you to live in it safely and perform all usual functions you would expect in a house. I am sure there is a great deal of flexibility. We intend to start sleeping in the house soon, but will still be using the static for cooking, washing etc.

Actually, if there is drainage for a sink (and therefore a bath) but no drainage for a WC, then you could consider a Warterless Closet (composting toilet) so not necessrilly a deal breaker. Building regs (at least in Scotland) allow a waterless closet, and I have seen one sold as a packaged system that looked quite reasonable to use and service.

You need to do some research. There might be enough land for a private drainage system, but expect any excavation works to come with a whole load or archaeological conditions. It looks close to the village so mains drainage might be possible, but even if it is, you would need a right over some land to lay drain pipes.

I would echo Jeremy's comments above. Can you post a site layout or something similar? How much land comes with it? That can be an issue with churches. Does it actually have planning permission to convert? I recall reading of one on here where PP to convert a church was refused because it was liable to flooding. I don't know if that ever got resolved.

My BC insisted on a vent through the roof unfortunately. I had hoped the vent at the end of the run at the static caravan would have been sufficient but he took the view that might one day be removed and the vent capped. He would have accepted an external vent up the gable end of the house, but unfortunately by the time I knew this, I had already concreted the parking area so it was too late to do that. But if you are still able, you should be able to connect into the pipe run and put a vent up the gable wall of the house.

For a certificate of temporary habitation the house must be basically safe (i.e handrails on stairs in place etc) must have heating, one working bathroom and toilet, and a working kitchen.

My old house is still for sale. you will get the last 20 years of the FIT contract as well.

I am not sure I agree with that. Our last house was built to normal standards for 2003. Actually I suppose it was cutting edge then as it was built with a 150mm timber frame. Just a year or 2 earlier the normal was a 100mm frame. It had good under floor and loft insulation but no attention placed on air tightness, pretty standard basic timber double glazed windows and no mvhr. It was a very comfortable house. Never a spot of condenstion or mould, even when hanging wet washingon the airer in the utility room to dry. Annual heating cost was about £800 for heating oil (perhaps peaked at £1200 when the price of oil was higher) Of course I hope the new house will cost less to run than that. BUT the old house had solar PV at the original higher FIT rate, that was paying us about £750 per year, almost paying for the annual heating costs. The irony of the whole downsize to a smaller, lower energy house plan we had, is that in the time it has taken, the FIT has dwindled to almost nothing, and for political reasons it was impossible to get the FIT until the house is complete so we were unable to install the solar PV while the FIT rate was worthwhile. So the sad reality is, with no FIT then with, or without solar PV fitted, our new house will not in fact cost us anything less to live in than the previous one did. There are some rather sore issues with this that are like an itch that just keeps itching. Sometimes I do wonder if we should have just accepted the old house was good, and our new "better" one may not actually in practice be any cheaper.

We also didn't move out of the old house until the basic shell of the new one was complete. So the loft of the new house is already full. We have the washing machine and tumble dryer set up in the house (you really don't want that shaking the caravan) and I have my office set up in the new house, where I am typing this.

Back to the original topic. I have just watched it now. What a complete shambles with the first basement contractor. I wonder how it works when you have a tiny site and you are building on the entire site. Do you rent the adjoining space from the respective owners to work from? How does connecting services to a house like that work, again never any details. If I read it right, he added an extra 100mm of external insulation that was never planned. If he was right up to the boundary to start with, the building is now trespassing on adjoining land by 100mm all round. I did see the sun amp, but no mention other than high tech energy saving heating system. There were lots of rolls of white ducting so assume some form of mvhr? Agreed non compliant stairs. The brief preview of next weeks episode appeared to show another staircase with no banisters.

I don't think architects are "tossers" I did however have an issue with the business model that some architects use. My example is our previous house. I had designed the house. What I wanted was someone to take the design, suggest perhaps some improvements, then detail the design and produce a set of drawings for planning, building control and ultimately for the builders to work from to build it. I did not want the architect to project manage it or put the build out to tender. What I got was 2 of the architects didn't bother to turn up to the site meeting, and the 2 that did, seemed to ignore the scope of the work package that I wanted, and instead quoted quite ridiculous fees that seem to be based on a percentage of the build cost, and not related to the man hours of work they would need to put into the project. To add insult to injury, their estimate of the build cost was not far off double what it actually cost me to build in the end (and therefore their fee was nearly double), and if it really had cost what they said it would, then the project would not have been viable and I certainly would not have afforded to build it. It was a very disappointing exercise. For that build, in the end I employed a local firm of builders to build the shell, and they charged £2500 for the planning and building regs drawings. There was no "architect" input at all. With my present build I just could not face that again, so this time it was all detailed and drawn by an architectural technician, with input from a structural engineer.

It is also worth mentioning do you have a use for the 'van after the build? We do. I want it to remain as a studio and workshop. The planners were not initially happy with that. But then I pointed out that on the day of completion, I could remove the 'van from site, then immediately replace it in an identical position, then it would qualify as a permitted development garden building. they then changed the condition to "habitational use of the caravan will cease upon occupation of the house" meaning we can keep it as a studio, but can't use it for accommodation after the house is occupied.