ProDave

We built an extension to our 1930's house under a building notice. My experience was the building control inspector was very thorough as he had to check every detail on site as there was nothing on any drawing to be approved. So there were a lot more site visits and a lot more interaction than the house I am building now. Regardless of the BC route taken, the outcome should have been the same.

I would agree with that in principle. BUT I am sure I heard somewhere, that combination of mineral wool insulation with this cladding also failed the test. If that is true what was the fuel source for that? Does mineral wool really burn?

In my case it's om the corner of the utility room. The only place sound from it can go is outside or into the garage. But good point if it's adjacent to another room.

The top of the fascia board needs to be raised a bit because the bottom tile is not sitting on top of another tile. So if it's flush, the bottom tile will droop. Best way is to mock it up, put the bottom two tile battens on, sit the bottom 2 rows of tiles on, then offer up a bit of fascia board complete with a strip of the over fascia vent on, and adjust it's height until all the tiles sit at the same angle. That then gives you how high your fascia needs to be in relation to the rafters. Some styles even like to kick up the bottom row of tiles slightly but personally I don't like that.

Glider pilots and sailors. Sailing on Monday, wind coming off the land (not the normal prevailing direction) Contrary to what most people would think, the wind was stronger, the closer in to the shore you got, very strong at the bottom of the cliff A mile out and there was hardly any wind at all.

That's not especially small. My first house 1 bedroom starter home rabbit hutch, was only 12ft wide. They build a whole estate nearly 100 houses like that. The 2 bedroom ones were just as narrow, just a bit deeper. But on a practical note. Looking at the picture, the left hand property appears to have windows overlooking the alleyway. Can you just block up someone's windows without their permission? I like the split level layout that in effect makes the whole middle of the house a stairwell.

Mine I put so the edge of a straight coupler was just touching the wall tight into the corner. My builder advised me this was too close. I ignored him. The theory is once I have battened my walls for the service void and then plasterboarded, the boxing in at the corner for the stack pipe will be a lot less bulky as in effect the back of the stack pipe is set 30mm in from the face of the wall already.

In the electrical industry, when something goes wrong one of the first places anyone looks is the "Manufacturers instructions" In this case the MI were clear, does not need propping. That is the end of it. I would be perusing the manufacturer for the cost of the damaged blocks and the labour to rebuild the collapsed section of wall. Until you have that satisfaction, make as much publicity as you can on the internet about how that particular product, when used according to the MI, failed. And make sure the manufacturer is linked to that bad publicity so they know about it.

I would say so. Check the condition of the boards. When I bought my first lot, I then stored it (badly) for nearly 2 years, then found half my boards were rotten, so I had to buy a whole load more. My "test" was to support both ends of a board on a concrete block so just a few inches off the grounf and then jump up and down on the middle of the board. If it didn't break, I used it. If it did break then it was only a few inches to drop and no harm done.

I sold a batch just slightly less than that amount (only 30 boards and only 10 base jacks) for £1100 last year don't forget to get some diagonal braces as well.

I lived for 18 months in a park home in my youth. We then spent 18 months is a static van on out last build, and have been in just a few months this time. So I think I know all the problems. The basic issue is the walls are so thin, the insulation levels are dire. When it gets cold, you WILL get condensation, lots of it. A dehumidifier will help but I can't tollerate the noise of that all the time so we ration it's uses. The biggest source of moisture is the occupants just breathing, cooking, and showering. If the wardrobes are on an outside wall, forget any notion of keeping clothes in them, unless you like damp mouldy clothes. We keep most of ours in the adjacent touring caravan. Although it's just as cold, with nobody breathing, cooking or washing in it, it doesn't suffer from condensation as there's no moisture to condense. To remain comfortable you have to keep throwing heat into them. Grit your teeth and just console yourself that your big electricity bill is less than the rent you were paying. you need an electric convector heater with a thermostat in every room. I also fitted extra insulation under the floor. Only a few panels had any. I could not work out if it was built with insulation under the floor and most of it fell out, or whether it wa built with none and someone gave up after insulating a bit. I also fitted a lot more lagging on the pipes to stand a chance of surviving a winter without freezing. And ye I have paneled in the gap around the bottom. as ours is remaining I have done a reasonable job, and put doors in to access the large storage area.

Another +1 for needing a second pair of hands. You can't build a house with just one. I have been doing my damnest to achieve that for over a year now. I have only go this far thanks to SWMBO not being afraid to lift, carry, hold stuff when I need it She is pretty handy at erecting and dismantling kwikstage as well. Current job plasterboarding, just cannot be done alone. Occasionally when I need a stronger / more skilled assistant, I have a couple of friends I can call on as well. But don't underestimate the task alone, it will take a long time. There are days when you really wish you could go and do something else, so you really do need to make time off the job as well. (myself just back on the job after 2 days off playing on boats)

What a sad state of affairs. It just makes me feel lucky I had such a good mutually trusting relationship with our builders. Before you just sack them, I would call a meeting, and highlight to them your exact concerns in every last detail. It might help them to agree that parting company is the best way forward.

Welcome to the ranks of caravan dwelling self builders. Winter is not much fun. We are hoping to at least be sleeping in the house by then as it will no doubt be a lot warmer, even if that's all we are using the house for this winter.

If you can (in effect) run the cables on the surface, between the insulation behind them, and the plasterboard in front of them, then I don't believe they need derating. I stand to be corrected as the regs are ambiguous, but derating applies when IN insulation, not when ON insulation. For the sake of making a narrow service void, you can totally avoid derating, and I waa suggesting a way to achieve that may be in effect to chase a channel into the insulation for the cables to sit on. imho if you sink a conduit into the insulation then foam over that, then the cables are IN insulation.

Do you even need duct? Surface mount the cables on a tiny recess cut in the insulation. Note to anyone reading, do NOT do that if using EPS or XPS, pvc cable and polystyrene do not mix. +1 to 35mm boxes. Don't be fooled by some flat plate accessories that claim to "fit" 25mm back boxes. I found some that just came with a spacer for use with a 25mm box. Hardly the flush look you were hoping for,

We have been having this conversation. In our last house we had two hifi units, one in each of the living rooms. I thought it worked well. But this time SWMBO doesn't want "stuff" like that on show. In her world, music would just appear from "somewhere" probably streamed from her phone (yuk) The compromise we have come up with, is one of our existing hi fi units, the one that has remote control (not my ancient 1980's amp) is going to be put in the "electrical" cupboard where it will be out of sight, but readilly accessible. A couple of remote control extender senders in each room will ensure it can be controlled from anywhere. We are still having proper speakers, my floor standing pair in the snug living room and a wall hung pair in the familly room. I hope this compromise means we can have the "no clutter" look and still be able to listen to proper quality audio. Independent of this, both rooms will have a surround sound system for their respective tv's with all speaker cabling for those built into the walls.

Let us know how you get on. Ebay seller bookmarked for future use (unless you tell us the service or product was rubbish)

It's SWMBO who has decreed "No sealant, no channels" EVERY shower door, screen etc we have ever had that has had some form of channel that the glass fits into usually with a rubber bead strip of some form, ends up going mouldy unless you keep spraying it with bleach. It's a wet room we are having, so I don't see an issue if there is a few mm gap between the glass and the wall and the glass and the floor with just a few stainless feet and brackets to hold the glass.

We will be wanting a similar look to that. BUT I don't want the glass to touch the floor, and I don't want a channel where it joins the wall. Instead I want the glass to stand a few mm above the floor on two stainless steel feet, and similar stainless steel brackets to fix it to the wall with a very small gap (absolutely no channel or sealant to attract grot allowed) the only ones I have found seem to have one to many zero's on the end pf the price tag.

Of it's a COMBI boiler (most oil fired outside boilers I see are) then you are going to get hacked off at how long the hot water takes to reach the tap.

You should be okay with that. Getting permission for discharge from the EA seems a whole lot easier than from SEPA up here in Scotland. I had so spend months proposing different schemes, which each got rejected before SEPA would give permission to discharge to the burn, something they only do here as a last resort.

Drainage is the key. If there is no mans sewer then you need a treatment plant. That has to drain somewhere. So you very first test is get some test pits dug and get a percolation test done. The results of that (and the size of the house) will tell you what area of infiltration field (soakaway) you need to provide. Then you need to work out if you have room for that and still have room to build a house. Or are there alternative arangements like a soakaway under an adjoining field etc. No drainage solution = no house so this is crucial.

We frequently drive form the Highlands to England or Wales. The one thing you miss out on wanting short stops to speed up the journey is there are usually 2 of us in the car, both drivers. One can hapilly rest or sleep while the other is driving. The only stops are to refuel the car or empty one's bladder. Eating and drinking by the resting driver is done in the car on the move. For this sort of journey, the EV would not cut the mustard. This is where the deal of offering a period of free rental of an IC car comes in perhaps?

I has no stress with mine. Perhaps I approached it differently? I directly approached half a dozen quality window suppliers. After the first round of quotes I had pretty much settled on Rationel for the reasons I have already mentioned. There followed a bit of fine tuning of the spec and a bit of shaving off the price. Then, instead of just ordering the windows, I got the builders that had just built and erected my frame to supply the windows on a supply and fit basis. This had the benefit they could supply and fit free of VAT so there was no VAT sum tied up until I could claim it at the end of the build, and I would after all need someone to fit them, it's not a 1 man job. At this point they took most of the responsibility. They came and checked all the measurements were right. I had to pay 50% of the window cost up front (as I would have if ordering direct) and then paid the ballance of the cost and the labour for fitting them once they were all in.