ProDave

Probably short spans between sleeper walls, used o be common. Why use breathable membrane, surely you want it to be air tight?

Screwfix sell a wall stand off that will clamp onto ant ladder.

So this DNO scheme to use your car for grid storage. Am I right in saying battery life in the main is the number of charge / discharge cycles, not time? So if your car is used as a grid back up it will be charged / discharged more and the battery life will be shortened? No doubt that's the small print they don't want you to read? I am indeed interested in any new battery technology. One that makes home storage of solar PV viable is the breakthrough that I want (mainly a battery life issue)

Electric cars are not zero emission unless charged exclusively from solar PV or wind power. Hybrid cars will be allowed after 2040. More green wash.

Assuming you have say a low energy 11W lamp, by the time that is converted to 12V that will draw over 1 amp from the battery, so a typical operating time of 50 hours from a fully charged car battery. Thinking outside the box now, take a trip to a caravan shop and look for a 12V caravan table light, or simply change the lamp holder and convert any lamp you like to 12V and cut out the inefficiency of the inverter.

I there anything, the other side of the wall, a cupboard for instance? I can't imagine what sort of portable power pack you are expecting? There is this sort of thing http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Ring-RPP265-Professional-Power-Pack-300W-Inverter-230V-AC-Mains-LED-Work-Light-/282672441252?epid=1036522425&hash=item41d09727a4:g:zWsAAOSwZM9ZzLh3 Mainly sold for jump starting cars but some like this have a small 230V inverter built in so can be used as a portable mains supply. Perhaps if the lamp sits on a table with a tablecloth to hide this underneath? My life would be a lot easier if someone invented "wireless electricity"

SSE quote 125mm duct for anything. My single phase cable looked lost in the 63mm duct, I'll bet so will your 3 phase cable.

Well TK stairs are at least £100 more than stair box for me, and I can't get their on line design tool not to put a stair on our 180 degree half landing.

@Onoff will make you one. You should have it by next year.

I still think if he had started the shouty match with me he would have been off the site. Thankfully I have never had that with anyone on our site. I did have a "heated discussion" with the joiner on a house I wired last year. That was very unpleasant. I nearly walked off the job as I found it almost impossible to work with him, it was only the fact I personally new the owner of the house that I stuck it out and carried on, trying to find out what days the joiner would not be there so I could work without having to interact with him.

It sounds like you do NOT want the extra subscription channels that a pay tv package gives you. So remove that from your list and install a satellite dish and use Freesat. Then concentrate on the best phone / internet service for your needs and don't forget to look at mobile offerings as well as wired offerings. We only get slow BB and only via a BT line. But in the near future the community council is launching a community broadband offering delivered to each home by wifi. Also EE are planning a 4g mast very close to us. So I will be looking at both those as a possible way to dump the landline.

LED battery powered light?

Can't help other than to say I hate "built in" microwaves because they are all just a bodge fitting of a free standing MW and a surround trim. Why does nobody make a proper built in microwave, built to standard built in oven dimensions to be built in properly?

A lot of phones, including I think most Android phones will give you a reading of the signal strength if you drill down deep enough in the settings.

We had a light tube (I believe the brand was Solar Tube) in our last house. It worked very well and never had any condensation issues. No doubt it leaked some heat, and was probably not that good for air tightness. The bit in the ceiling was very much like a low profile flush light fitting with diffused plastic, and confused a lot of B&B guests who said they could not find the light switch to "turn the light off"

How much have you looked at the plot? Do you know its history? For our first build, we looked at a plot like that, with a higher level close to the road, then dropping off to a lower level, and the PP said the house must be built on the upper level (lower level was a flood plain). But when looking around the site, it became very apparent that a lot of soil had been tipped over the edge of the slope, to try and make the upper building level look much larger than it was. That loose soil would have been no good to build from.

No issues with the slab being exposed. I see it a lot here on small developments (probably building the slab so the development is "started" to lock in the PP then leave building the actual house until some time later) Another point though, as you are having one contractor do the slab and another build and erect the frame. Get the frame contractor to come and measure the site, check it for level and squareness, then build the frame to the actual on site measurements, NOT the measurements on a drawing.

It may be obvious but start at the ceilings and work down. As above we put up a temporary platform over the stair well and moved it lower as we worked down. This is where every self builder needs his own scaffold of a scaffold platform. You also need a pair of dead men, or a plasterboard hoist to make life easier (we are just using the dead men)

@Crofter is your man to advise where to get what on Skye

I am surprised you think the wood fibre is the problem. Our last house had poor reception inside which I have no doubt was the result of the foil backed plasterboard. but our new house the signal inside is no worse than outside (still not good, but it works) I might still install a repeater to boost it though.

We were the same. Our subsoil is "sandy clay" and was declared okay for standard strip foundations but with a strong concrete mix with reinforcing mesh. I pretty much knew that as we had previously built 100 metres away. How far has the concrete lorry got to come? the hourly rate might start to push the price up.

I see the good, the bad, and the ugly in my line of work (electrician) but I can honestly say I have not seen that bad. It pains me to see poor workmanship, the usual being the boarders burst a board because it is too big to fit and shrug their shoulders and say "the taper will fix that" Best of luck getting it resolved.

Sorry but that is as rough as can be. I would be marching them off the job if they are not going to re do the rubbish bits. If they just skim that, round the sockets the plaster spanning mid air will just break off when the sparky screws a socket home.

Very true. In fact my own (metal) CU is mounted on the actual inner wall, so when the service void is boxed in, the plasterboard will in effect flush mount the CU leaving just the front showing. I will be sealing any holes with intumescent sealant.

In effect you re making your own bit of trunking, so your electrician just designs it for trunking.