ProDave

I am very pleased with my Euro top hung outward opening triple glazed windows. I am on the side of wood burners, as long as you have free wood. I would not entertain the thought of having one and paying someone to deliver chopped firewood to your door.

In storage in our old house (rented out but loft space and garage not included in rental)

There was another one where they used stainless steel yacht rigging wire stretched across at seemingly random angles. It clearly fell foul of the "will not pass a 100mm diameter sphere" and in a final sequence, a polycarbonate sheet had been added to make it pass, with the clear implication it would later be removed.

It's normal to include temporary permission for a residential caravan as part of the planning application for the house. I suspect you would be okay even if you didn't as there is some law that allows temporary buildings related to the build. You pay band A council tax. We had the council tax valuer sniffing about very early on, I met him on site twice. When we did finally move in and I contacted him, he said "let me get your file...... Ah I see I have been to your site 17 times" I recon he must have been visiting monthly so see if there was any sign we had moved into the caravan. Re post. In our case there is not even a street name, so all houses just have a house name, the village name and postcode. We chose a new name for the house and started using it, first on the utility bills. We have no problem getting post delivered. when the council tax man came, he put it on the valuation list as "caravan, house name, village....." he said that was so that when we occupy the house they can delete the caravan from the valuation list and add the house name on it's own to the list. This is the only post we receive addressed to the caravan. You can get a used static for as little as £1000 but you will probably want to pay more for a better one. We paid £4000 for ours but that was because it has a very unusual layout that suits us better and suits future use of it better, so it was buy it at that price while it was available. It was probably a fair price, it is in good condition. They will be very cold and damp in the winter (we are hoping to start sleeping in the house before Christmas to avoid the worst of the cold) You can mitigate that with lots of heating and accept your heating bills will be high, but offset by road fuel savings. I have just put a wood burning stove in ours so at least some of the heating is free. What I found here is buying from a dealer is easiest (there are two within 10 miles of us) as they will deliver a 'van they sell for free. Neither of the 2 dealers are very interested in delivering 'vans they do not sell. When we sold the last one from our previous build. the buyer had to get a haulage firm from 50 miles away to transport it as neither of the 2 local dealer would move it for him.

I haven't watched this one yet (don't watch commercial tv live) But just last week on George Clarke's "ugly house" they created a first floor balcony that only had posts and a top rail, not even sheets of glass to fill in the gaps. I wish they would concentrate more on the technicalities like heating system, insulation levels, ventilation system and as build SAP value, but I guess that would be too boring? Running out of money, nowhere to live and (a recurring theme) new baby on the way are much better entertainment value.

If it's a one off, ebay. I bought my 20 way Hager and 10 rcbo's for about £80. Not all from the same seller.

I used the frametherm rolls. Cut the rolls with a panel saw while they are still rolls. Dead easy and not very messy. The small offcuts are perfect for floor insulation or odd gaps.

This brings us onto site insurance. I HOPE you all have a self build site insurance policy in place? If so that will include your employers liability insurance. So far only one person has asked to see mine, and that was the builder who built and erected the frame.

I was originally having blown in insulation in my 190mm frame, until I found out the cost, and you need a man with the machine to do it. I changed for the frametherm instead, it gave the same U value and was half the cost, and was a DIY job to fit it. 190mm frame with Frametherm 35, 100mm wood fibre external insulation then render, OSB, service void then plasterboard inside gives a U value of 0.14

For my ground work, and then the construction and erection of the frame, I paid in stages in arrears. When I got the same builder to supply and fit the windows, I paid 50% of the window cost up front to them, and the remaining 50% and the labour for fitting once they were in. But by that time there was a lot of mutual trust between us.

Did you go "full plans approval" with building control? If so your "non standard" build will have been detailed in the plans, which they have agreed. Therefore ALL you have to do is build according to the approved plans and they will have to pass it. They only have cause to complain if you deviate from the approved plans.

I think that is a condition imposed on all the Graven hill plots. Not so much a planning issue but a condition of sale.

The PME earth and caravan thing is to do with failure of the cable. With a PME, it comes into the house, usually in a concentric cable with the outer being a combined neutral and earth. It is not unknown for that CNE conductor to fail. If it does and a caravan is connected, then the metal caravan skin (which should be bonded to earth) can raise to L potential. This can be VERY bad news for someone entering or leaving the 'van with one foot on the ground and reaching up to grab the door handle. A TT earth avoids that issue, and while Neutral might rise to L potential, the caravan skin will remain at local earth potential. Same issue for site tools (if not 110V via a transformer) This I believe is also the reason for the change to the regs to fit an additional rod, as usual we the electricians are having to take on the responsibilty of sorting someone elses shortcomings.

I was going to mention sheds. And that car port that covers half the car (Aesthetics has trumped over practicality?) If you are having a car port it needs to cover both cars completely. Sheds can be dealt with under permitted development, UNLESS PD rights have been suspended, in which case your planning needs to cover a lot of sheds, you can never have too many. That bunk room, I would not call it that or include the bunks. It will impact your drainage requirements (I assume it's mains drainage) Just call it a multi function space and by all means put the bunks in later after completion sign off.

All relays will be able to switch AC or DC. Their current rating for DC switching will be lower than for AC switching.

There is nothing wrong with you connecting your own earth rod to the main earth terminal to supliment a PME earth. After all, the ethos of a protective MULTIPLE earth system is there will be an earth rod, or pigtail at every connection point. Indeed the draft of the 18th edition of the wiring regs looks like it will become a requirement to add a local earth rod to a PME install. In my own case I have the supply head and meter remote from the house, and a local earth rod by the house to supliment it. A static (indeed any) caravan should not be connected to a PME earth.

CPC do lots of relay boards http://cpc.farnell.com/search?st=relay board

Hi and welcome to the forum. Looks like you have secured a nice plot there. We will be watching with interest how this proceeds. Some of us are a little skeptical about the limitations on how and when you build, so will be interested how you find it first hand. I am intrigued by the layout, particularly the "bunk room" and the thinking behind that.

Check the current requirement of the LED's. Cat6 cables are tiny CSA and won't carry much current.

Ah lofts. You get to see all sorts in my line of work. The ones where you can't get 6" beyond the hatch due to all the junk carefully stored treasured possessions that are the most "fun" And the ones that have 3ft of loft insulation added so you have no chance of finding the joists to stand on.

I would want the cylinder closer to the kitchen. (that is indeed what I am doing) the kitchen hot tap is the one that gets used a lot and waiting ages for the hot water to get there is a pain. Bathrooms get used once or twice a day so less important that they get the hot water as quickly.

Yes it is as simple as that. A bit of 3 core & earth 1mm cable.

I wonder if my plant room would get away without anything if I had a fire door between it and the habitable part of the house, and a smoke alarm?

Your frame is 140mm, your insulation is 100mm so a 40mm gap. Add 12.5mm plasterboard and you have 52.5mm Plenty for a 35mm or 45mm deep back box. What's the problem?

I would be mighty impressed if you build even a small house start to finish in 3 months. On the subject of financing and pensions. I have one small non defined benefits pension. I will start drawing this early next year when I hit the magic age of 55 that allows me to access it. I intend to put it into a drawdown fund, initially taking the 25% tax free lump um then starting with a low monthly drawdown with hopefully the flexibility to raise the drawdown amount when I need to. I would not necessarily recommend using a pension to fund a house build, but it makes sense in my case as this is only small pot that in terms of monthly pension if you took it in a conventoinal way is rather trivial. Plus I have other more worthwhile defined benefits pensions that remain for that purpose. Also when the new house is finished and the old one sold, we should have plenty of capital, free of any "pension" restrictions.