ProDave

There's a lesson here. If you are going to take a long time, leave one room completely bare and not first fixed. Preferably one at the front that any nosey parker can look in and see a bare room.

Hi and welcome to the forum. Whatever you buy, make sure it has at least outline planning permission. Some plots are serviced, some are not. that's not a big issue as long as the price reflects it, and you are sure services ARE available. (note the recent Grand Designs house who left the water connection until last, and only then found it cost £40K) Building a house for £200K should be possible, I am trying to do that including the plot price.

Is it just an inspection chamber for rodding, or is there a branch at this location? (take the lid off and rake a picture?)

I believe I heard that a croft can have 3 "caravans" on it's land. this was told to me by the owner of a croft camping site who would take any number of tents, but only ever 3 caravans at a time.

I bought from this seller in Germany on ebay, works out about £14.50 per roll http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/20-Rollen-proclima-TESCON-VANA-All-round-Kle-be-band-30-Mtr-x-60-mm-/381452848613?hash=item58d05c8de5:g:DG0AAOSwwbdWMxxx Better than the £20 or more per roll that all the UK sellers charge.

Don't screwy's sell individual lengths as well? I have a feeling they do in the shop but only sell the packs mail order? I guess it's a long drive to get to a shop? What to the BM's on the island have? The downpipe seems a standard size I definitely mixed makes, using the bends in TP as they could more easily be shortened than the ones I got from BP plastics

I suspect there may be a fireproofing issue, effectively having a garage and the house linked by ducting through what is supposed to be a fireproof wall. Perhaps if you had a fire alarm and fire dampers?

That's them. I placed quite a big order a whole load of drainage, inspection chambers, gutter and downpipes. Delivery was quick. I ordered underground drain pipe in 6M lengths as that was cheaper. they phoned me to say there was an issue with delivering 6M lengths and would I accept twice as many 3M lengths instead (which would normally cost more) so I said yes.

Then 2 the same, 112.5 Either will do, it just puts the "return" piece at a different angle. In my case because the soffits are so close to the wall with little overhang, I had to choose the make of joint carefully so it could be shortened. You wait until you try and get a sloping down pipe around a corner and find nobody makes the "correct" angle to do that without some "straining" With tin roof I would use the high capacity gutter as the run off will be quite fast. I got all mine from BP plastics on line.

Not sure about "vapour control" but for air tightness the cheapest I found was Protect Barriair

I think it's largely down to how reasonable your council is. Some seem reasonable, some seem to want to grab every penny they can even if it's unreasonable but "legal" Ours did not seem bothered charging CT for the static 'van until we actually moved in. Others seem intent on charging it as soon as you are able to move in regardless of whether you do or not.

If it's on the list in your name and you extend it, then the valuation and banding does not change until it changes ownership so you night be better off just paying it at the old rate. If as pointed out you get it off the valuation list, then you can be sure it will be in a higher band when it is re listed later on. Our static van is on the list now. If we suddenly moved out to live back in our old house, I can't see any way to get that off the list short of removing it from the site so that is stuck on the valuation list now until the new house is complete.

195 frame filled with frametherm, 100mm wood fibre and render outside, OSB, service void plasterboard inside. U value 0.14 allowing for bridging.

Yes I left the electrical connection to my treatment plant until the last minute, just in case. But it seems here the CT assessor wasn't bothered until you actually move in. When I phoned him he said "Let me get your file..... ah yes I see I have visited your site 17 times so far" Just looking to see if we have moved in yet.

Travis Perkins sell an adaptor that fits into a 15mm compression fitting and takes 16X2 pipe into it. Pretty much so assuming you are using standard room thermostats. I know at least 1 system where the stats all connect to one common "bus" and that pretty much ties you to using that make of wiring centre.

We "Escaped" the SE of England in 2003, it was getting too busy and congested for us.

Hi and welcome to the forum. so where is you current project? Wales?, Scoltand? Other?

This is certainly doable. Many many older timber framed houses around here have no vapour layer and they don't seem to rot away. The normal was a 4" frame with just plasteboard on the inside. If you were really lucky they sometimes used foil backed plasterboard, but often only in the bathrooms. The designers of my house, the local portable eco building company do not (or to be more accurate did not a few years ago) use a vapour membrane on their own builds. All they did was tape the joints of the OSB inner skin and seal any penetrations. So what you are talking about seems very possible. Indeed the vapour analysis they did on my house for the building warrant showed my house the same, with just taped OSB on the inside as the racking layer and air tightness / vapour layer. It was partly the builder who built and erected the frame, and partly this forum that made me decide a separate air tightness membrane on the inside was a good idea. I have 2 layers of 9mm OSB with staggered joints as my racking later. But if you want the OSB to be the finished layer then one sheet of 18mm would probably be better. I did wire a house where the customer wanted plan OSB as the finish and for that the builders used 18mm OSB sheets, and routed grooves into the edges and joined the joints to adjacent boards with biscuit joiners to ensure a tight straight joint (not sure what happened to the idea of leaving a 3mm expansion gap!!!) For the outside, the wood fibre board is available in anything from 20mm thick upwards. For some strange reason the thinner sheets come as 2400 by 600 sheets somewhat larger than the thicker sheets. Be aware the thin sheets are not very strong. I used some on the back wall of the garage where a slight miscalculation meant if we had used 100mm it would have intruded into the reveal of a window on an adjacent wall. Because mine was being rendered, and only supported on studs at 600 centres, I was advised to put an OSB layer on first to give it a bit more strength. But as you are not rendering then it should be okay, just be careful not to knock a hole in it before the cladding goes on. Lastly I can't finish without recommending Knauf Earthwool Frametherm 35 for the frame insulation. It's made for the job. It's somewhat stiffer than most mineral wool types of insulation, so you push it into the frame between the studs, and it just stays there without falling our or slipping down. I had a test piece inserted between the rafters in my roof/ It was there unsupported for 6 months, it did not move or fall out in that time. It's also a let less nasty to handle than some other types of mineral wool. The cheapest place I found to buy it was SIG in Inverness

Why 2 dishwashers? I once heard it discussed to save emptying, you just leave it in the first one, remove each item as you need them the put into the second?

Just a thought, would it not be a whole lot easier to treat it like a caravan, fetch your water from the standpipe in an aquaroll, and deliver it to the taps with a caravan 12V submirsible pump?

Re going length on stairs. I have never had a staircase with enough going to accommodate the entire length of my slippered foot, and I have never had an issue tripping or slipping. If you must have a long going, try and match it with a near maximum allowed rise to reduce the number of steps. Go to somewhere like stairbox or pear stairs where you can design a staircase on line, play around with rise and going and see it in 3D We are aiming for a slightly shallower staircase, just because we can but I doubt we will have a going more than 270mm

Another one not bothering with a structural warranty. Not planning to borrow or sell. The previous house had the nhbc warranty, but the cover from that expired last year so proved pointless in the end, but this time around I found the cost had doubled so making it even more of a waste of money. I also found some ridiculous things like the nhbc inspector was telling us to do the exact opposite of the building control inspector, ended up having to pretend to each we had done it "their" way.

I would echo what Jeremy has said. PIR /PUR types as you are proposing have a relatively low decrement delay, meaning the house will cool down quicker when it gets cold out side (very basic version) I am using Earthwool Frametherm 35 to insulate in between the studs (195mm studs in my case) and 100mm thick wood fibre board as external wall insulation. Both have a longer decrement delay (though you need more of them to get the same U value) Frametherm or similar is a lot easier to fit into a stud wall (that's what it's designed for) Stiff enough to push in and stay without slump even in a sloping roof, but compressible enough that you don't need to be perfect with your cutting. Fitting solid slabs into a timber frame you need to be precise otherwise you leave an air gap, or be prepared to fill any gap with expanding foam. I hit a brick wall at the early stages of planning my build. As soon as I mentioned to a standard timber frame kit builder that I wanted to upgrade and add extra insulation, they refused to quote. I ended up getting a more experienced architectural technician to detail what I wanted, and a local firm of builders to build the frame to that spec and erect it.

There's quite a few here from Scotland, but as far as I know only 1 who is north of me. Welcome to the forum

You can design your stairs and see them in 3d at http://www.stairbox.com/