ProDave

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/

We have a dehumidifier so I will bring it into the house and see how much moisture it finds.

I have put in my request to update the PAF. Last time I tried I was trying to get them to add the new address and hit the brick wall of only your local council can inform us of a new address..... This time, since I have found my electrical business has it's own entry, I have tried telling them that the business has moved,. i.e this is amending and entry in the PAF not adding one. It will be interesting to see how I get on with that (when they find the address I have moved to is not there)

Sounds like he is much more reasonable. Keep us posted.

I would have a metal one in a garage anyway, much less likely to get damaged. The metal ones are only mandatory in "domestic" so some delving into that definition is needed to determine if it really needs to be metal or not.

This raises a few issues: I thought insulating the cavity between a timber frame and the blockwork skin was a big no no? A lot iof insurers won't insure a timber frame that has had cavity insulation added. You are supposed to put fire stop beads in the cavity at first floor level and around windows, so that rules out a tapered cavity. I see no option but step the first block out, or take a course or 2 off and re lay (so the step is below ground) On our previous bui;d the brickies must have had a wonky tape, or miss red the drawings. The blockwork stepped in about 20mm, then 2 courses up, stepped back out 20mm. Thankfully all below ground level so not seen.

I am guessing that where it is it would not qualify a a permitted development garden building? We had a slightly similar situation with our static caravan, but it is located in a position where it would qualify as a permitted development garden building. Initially our PP granted temporary permission for the static 'van. That was until I made the point to the planning officer that I wanted to keep it as a workshop and studio, and pointed out that on the day of completion I could remove it from the site, then immediately replace it with an identical 'van in an identical position and it would legally be a permitted development garden building. Faced with that reasoning, they changed the PP to "residential use of the caravan will cease within 1 month of occupation of the new house" so it can remain as my intended use a a work space.

You have got me thinking. Where (on the originators site, e.g Royal Mail) can I access the version of the PAF with company names? If I can find that, I can point out to them that my electrical business has in fact moved to a new address, and that might be a back door way to getting the new address on the database?

I will see how this goes. Yes we are in a very much colder and windier location to Jeremy. I think this is a case of my expectations were too high, talks of 800W of lighting and stripping off to your shorts by the end of the day and I am asking why is my 1KW heater not doing the same?

There are obviously multiple versions of address database out there. If you go to Royal Mail and search there, then you just get (in our case) all the house names in that postcode listed (no houses here have numbers, the road does not even have a name) But last night I booked a hotel, and the address database that threw up not only listed all the house names, but all the businesses, including my electrical business, and a couple of neighbours trading names (some that I didn't know) The FB would get here just from the postcode. Our postcode just covers the one road with 12 houses in it.

It is the planners that decide when it "starts" Our planning had a number of pre comencement conditions, and then a condition saying the first thing we must do is form the new entrance from the highway. I got the pre comencement conditions signed off then notified the planners we were starting making the entrance and they informed us that the development had "started" So I guess in your case the demolition is the start, so get that CIL exemption before the digger arrives. I would get the site insurance in place. It's your public liability and there's plenty that could go wrong with demolition.

Just to add the building should be "dry" the walls have not yet been plastered or painted. It has been wind and watertight for well over a year. No slab, it's an insulated suspended timber floor. Yes there will be residual moisture in the timber but that's all.

I am steadfastly avoiding paying this "postcode database" tax. I thought it would come to a head when the Council tax man came to assess us (in the caravan) for council tax, but no, he seemed to accept the address. Likewise BT and SSE just accepted the address. So far the only "issue" is we are not on the postcode database so I have to keep entering the address manually. Normal post and parcels to the new address arrive without problem. I have tried a few tricks like reporting a missing address to Royal mail. They just say they can do nothing until highland Council inform them. I have phoned Highland Council Had a bizare conversation where they confirmed our address was in fact on the councils own address database, but until we pay the fee they won't inform Royal Mail. So I am steadfastly refusing to pay £150 just so the council can inform Royal mail of one address that is already on their own database. There is something about council fees having to reflect the actual cost. Well I recon if I pay their £150 I will be paying for a staff member for a whole day. So I am just not doing it at the moment. We will see what happens.

Re timescales. 8 weeks in, my planning officer STARTED talking to me. More than twice that before it was decided. Best of luck, looks nice and sharp. Hope the planners agree.