ProDave

@Stones How ar you getting on with Iresa? they were supposed to take over my supply on 14th April, and I submitted a meter reading on line on that day. I have just had a bill from SSE up to a few days ago and on querying it, they say they have not had any notification of a change of supplier or a final reading from them. I have just submitted a support ticket.......

The thing about a block skin on a timber framed house, is building regs require the cavity to be ventilated, so even if insulationg blocks were used, the cod air able to enter the cavity would negate most of any extra insulation provided by the block skin. That's why I wanted to avoid it. The other advantage of an EWI system with render is because there is no cavity, there are no vents needed, so you get a crisp clean render, not interrupted by rows of vents you get with the render on a blockwork wall.

You will need to work out the U values of the wall, but I think with just a 150mm frame (filled with insulation) a cavity and a blockwrok skin, you will struggle to meed building regulations. It is now considered normal to put a layer of Kingspan type insulation on the inside of a timber frame of that thickness. Remember the blockwork skin is mostly an expensive rain shield. It adds very little to the insulation as the cavity has to be ventilated, and you are not supposed to fill the cavity between a timber frame and a block skin. What is the motivation for a blockwork skin? is is just appearance or "that's what we do"? You could consider what I have done, a 195mm timber frame, and 100mm wood fibre external wall insulation board which directly takes render. Same overall wall thickness but much more insulation. Fitting the wood fibre board was DIY and I just got somebody to render it.

You don't need to act dumb when talking to BT, they act dumb enough for everybody to share a bit of dumbness. Re the bad connections, they were old ones. Basically running down our road is one 20 pair cable as far as the big submerged junction box. From there it splits to two houses by that junction box, then carries on down the road as a 10 pair cable. For some odd reason there are two junctions in this chamber, with about a metre of cable between them. As far as I can tell all pairs were connected in all cables. then to compound it, a few years back there was a line fault, and a portion of the cable was replaced and a new junction pit installed where the new section met the old. So when they came to connect us it was a case of find an unused pair, of which there were two, and the first one he tested was "faulty" so we had the only good one left. the Engineer who came yesterday, who I have to say was streets ahead of the original one, re made a lot of connections in this one junction pit. He said they all looked pretty ropey and corroded so as well as re terminating ours, he did another half a dozen of the worst looking, so he may well have improved the braodband of others in the street. He then ran some tests on the line and said the signal is somewhat weak and put in a request to change the exchange end to a different profile. Today a speed test tells me we have blisteringly fast 4Mbps download. It just makes you wonder how many people are suffering with poor broadband, and if they cared to complain and get it looked at, by taking the trouble to make sure all connections are good, running some tests and selecting the correct profile at the exchange end made a huge improvement. I guess they just can't be bothered to give that level of care unless you make a fuss.

It might help a bit to clarify this is usually a 2 stage process. At foundation time, Open Reach visited to advise where the nearest connection point is, and supply any cable needed (which we laid across the plot and under the road when the road was up for all the other services. Actually connecting that cable to the network only got triggered when we contracted with BT to supply a new phone connection. Only then did work start to connect us (and as you will see from my thread it wasn't a smooth ride)

Well a result. I finally got them to address he poor BB speed issue. This evening an OR engineer arrived (he had driven up from Hartlepool this morning!!!!!) He has only just left after spending 3 hours working on our line, pulling all the junction boxes apart, re making connections etc. When he arrived we had barely 0.9Mbps We now have 3.5Mbps, faster even than we ever got at the old house. Many of you will be thinking "gosh that's slow" but to us out in the sticks, that's fast. Just the compensation matter, now the technicalities are at last sorted out.

Watch the local bees don't take up residence

Open Reach, a communications company, are just about the hardest company possible to communicate with. I think we have all battled with them. Eventually when you get your job passed through to your local man on the ground all will get easier, but to get to that point is like pushing a rock up hill.

Interresting about insurance. My site insurance is due for renewal this week. It's a pretty much complete building structurally but only just starting first fix inside. Do I renew the site insurance for another year, or convert to unoccupied buildings insurance?

Okay, this is what I am working on. View from above. I am creating a framework around the shower former area LEVEL with the top of the posi joists, and some cross members as well. I will later add cross members on the drain hole side of the former, one either side of the drain hole, but not until I actually have the formers so know exactly where that is (not theoretically) This is how it looks from underneath The cross members are screwed and glued to the underside of the top member of the posi joists, then packers cut and fitted in to also take support from the bottom member The plan is, the shower former, AND the boards for the rest of the room, will all sit directly on the posi joists, then the whole lot will be tanked and tiled. I am NOT planning plywood anywhere. There is another part to this, slightly related, is that most of the room will have a non structural OSB or ply deck suspended UNDER the top member of the posi joists, to support UFH pipes under the final floor. .

That's normal practice for under building here, known as "Block and flat"

No, that's quite separate. That is up to the council tax valuation surveyor to decide it is "finished", which may be before or after building control decide it's finished.

In Scotland you cetainly can. You ask building control for a certificate of temporary habitation. For that the house has to be basically safe, have at least one working bathroom and some heating.

I know certain electrical forums tend to be hostile towards DIYers, not something I personally support. At the length you have, it's the voltage drop (measured in volts not milliamps ) that is the limiting thing that determines the cable size to use, not the current carrying capacity. And the discussions about maximum demand can get interesting as well. There is nothing wrong with an unskilled person installing cables under the supervision of a skilled person who is going to test and sign off the work, but some in the trade don't even like doing that. Personally if someone wants to do the more tedious manual work then I am happy with that. Make sure you bury the cable deep enough, with some yellow "electrical cable below" warning tape in the trench just above it. P.S, I would have put your meter box in your wall at the back corner (top as viewed in the plan) It would drastically shorten the run to the house, but perhaps make the garage run slightly longer.

Thanks Barney. The waste in that 900 by 1200 is offset enough to miss my joist.

That will do it. Now all I want it a technical drawing of it showing the EXACT position of the drain. Why is such basic information so hard to find, surely that is something everyone will want before ordering one? What does one then use for the boards for the rest of the wet room? 22mm green "waterproof" chipboard? Surely the whole lot is going to be coated or painted in something to make it 100% waterproof before tiling?

Good start Peter, but I need 1200 (not 1300 or 1400) by 900 At 1400 it would be out of the room!!!

I was going to start a topic, but i'll share this one. Recommend me a 1200 by 900 former, 22mm thick (to match to 22mm floor boards) Waste must be offset from centre otherwise it will land on a joist. It's to fit over posi joists on 600mm centres. Can it span the joists (i.e is it structural like a floor board) or do I have to contrive additional support underneath?

Got a door on the WC. What luxury. When we moved into the last house we only had a cardboard door on the loo.

I think he means ply as a packer to space the aquapanel off the studs so it clears the soil pipe. Or machine out the back of the aquapanel to clear the soil.

In Scotland the limit is 10M3 per day under GBR (General Binding Rules) you can abstract that from surface water or borehole without licence.

The Conder, Vortex and Graff that get a lot of mention on here are all showing respectable results in that table, I wonder why the Biopure is not listed there? I would avoid most of the Klargester type of products personally as I don't like the idea of having to repair a treatment plant with moving mechanical parts.

You could always make the turning space out of "grass blocks" those perforated concrete slabs that let the grass grow through, but are strong enough to drive a car on.

We had the standard condition about turning, I think because there is no speed limit on our road. The fact it only serves 8 houses and has very little traffic does not seem to enter the equation. We can turn on our own land, but never do, we just reverse out onto the road. The planning condition says you must be able to turn, not that you WILL turn before exiting.

The only option I can think is trap door(s) to access pipes. I doubt you even have enough space to go crawling around under there.