ProDave

By the sounds of it the only insulation that is really "safe" to be in contact with cable is mineral wool / earthwool type. I have never found a cable in contact with those to have suffered any damage (except overheating due to being encased in too much insulation) How do LSF cables fare with EPS? any difference to ordinary pvc?

I've climbed all the Glen Coe munro's but not the ones accessed from Glen Etive (yet) I met Jimmy Saville at his cottage in Glen Coe. Perhaps not something to be proud of any more

Pray tell us who does unlimited mobile data for £10 per month. I want one.

We only get slow "broadband" here and no prospect of that improving (by BT) for a long time. But there are two interesting developments. One is the community is looking to set up a high speed wireless broaband network which they expect to cost about £25 per month. The second development is a planning application for a new 4G phone mast in line of sight of our house (at the moment we only have a very weak 2G signal) I can see a future without a landline.....

Sounds fun. the A82 can be a bit of a slow grind in summer.

How far down the Glen are you. It's a long way to the end (and then you are a long way from anywhere) and liable to be cut off by snow in a decent winter. Dorran houses have a reputation for concrete cancer and being hard to get a mortgage on. But they are basically sound if not particularly well insulated. No shortage of places to go walking there!! One has to ask being so remote what do you do for a living? I can't imagine being that remote as long as I still have to work. But having my boat on a mooring at the top of Loch Etive sounds very attractive.

Hi and welcome to the forum. A semi detached Dorran house with no garden does not sound much like a building plot? I assume that's just somewhere to stay while you find the perfect plot?

I thought getting the extra two property stamp duty back only worked over a short timescale, to effectively exempt someone buying their new main house before they sold the old main house.

In contrast, my trreatment plant cost about £2K so my "saving" on Crofters system would pay for about £25 years running cost. I estimate £130 pa for electricity, and £150 to desludge every 2 years. So about £200 per year. I have no idea what mains drainage would cost, it's not available here, but mains water is about £250 per year so probably a similar cost.

Same here. BC wanted to inspect and witness a pressure test on the drains before they were covered. When I called them to inspect the final 3 metre run when I connected the plant they were too busy. They were not the least bit interested in the discharge pipework.

I thought 2.5 metres only applied if it goes right up to the boundary. If it's 1 metre or more away then the height is 3 metres eaves height. Even my static caravan just squeaks in under that (I left exactly 1 metre between the 'van and the boundary fence)

You mean it hasn't left the site yet? Search you tube for machinery falling off the low loader, low loader getting bogged down, machinery and low bridges / power lines. That will ensure you don't sleep until it's off your land and not your problem.

Looking at your plot layout in your other thread. http://forum.buildhub.org.uk/ipb/uploads/monthly_2017_02/Concrete.jpg.19ae38850212e87cce0c54671b07f7df.jpg and Even if you can get around the back with the dumper, it would repeatedly be going over the same narrow strip of ground that would turn to soup in no time. And you will never reach the inner sections of the pour. As others say, get a concrete pump, or someone with a decent sized digger with a large bucket and long reach (long enough to reach the back of the house while sitting at the front 65m3 sounds a lot. Is it a particularly large house or are you doing a deep trench fill?

I was given several bags of rockwool offcuts. Most of them were used in the garage ceiling to stuff in between the webs of the posijoists (and normal frametherm in between the joists) I had some left over so used it as the first layer in that bit of the floor for no other reason than using them up.

Finally the correct fitting arrived and I got this finished. Floor going down, never to be seen again (I hope)

I have looked at this for my house. I only need the "Fascia A" profile with no soffit, to over clad my wooden fascia. I don't see how installation of this differs in any way from any other sheet cladding system?

All good stuff. I didn't know the glaciers were that far south (I don't suppose many people talk of you being in the south do they) Glacial boulders are everywhere here. Did they let you have a go driving it? In essence it;s just a slightly modified digger (take off the bucket, replace with a vibro rod)

Mixed feelings on this one. Our static caravan is 28 square metres and into that fits a living room / kichen / dining room, 2 bedrooms, a WC and a shower room. That layout would not pass building regs for a "house" because it would not meet any of the "accessability" rules that force a certain amount of space in front of showers, toilets, kitchen "circulation" space, corridor widths, even space needed next to a bed. I found all these accessability rules very restricting on what you can do when designing our new house. Wider stairs and provision to fit a stair lift in the future, leaving space and provision to fit a downstairs shower etc. So to get a more compact house it's building regs that have to change, not planning law. I guess most people who would like to make smaller homes are builders wanting to make smaller apartments so they can get more into a block? If a self builder wanted to make a particularly small detached house, then he can do so already by building a "portable building" and be exempt from building regs (as it's classed as a "caravan" in law so exempt from BR)

I am not sure what your first floor make up will be, but you your electrician may curse the fact there are no holes in any of those steel to feed cables through.

My long extension lead is made of 2.5mm 5 core YY. It was a work of art getting two 2.5mm into the L and N terminals of the plug.

The annual desludge is something most treatment plants (and septic tanks) need. It's a man in a tanker with a big suction hose to suck the contents out. Costs us about £150 every two years. The one I looked at on Friday wasn't belt drive but a very lose coupled gear system. It looked like the motor and gearbox unbolted as one unit, but it looked a long reach over a stinking pond. At the very least I would want to put a few scaffold boards over it so you could lay on those above it to work from.

The best I have seen for the Tescon Venna was about £20 a roll from someone on ebay from Ireland, but the postage to the UK was expensive. so 5 rolls free of postage at that price sounds good. I am almost certainly going to buy the Protect Barriair membrane which is very similar to the non reinforced Intello, which Jewsons have quoted me £99 per roll which is still cheaper than that site.

That looks like good prices. How much do you have to spend to get free shipping to the UK?

I'm not sure I understand this "slot" in the back of the oven housing? Just about every oven I have ever seen is way to deep to allow the housing to have a back panel. Sure some are supplied with a back panel, but you almost always have to remove it to allow enough depth for the oven. You can probably allow the back panel to remain behind the microwaver shelf as they are not so deep. so all you needed was to get the cable exiting the wall somewhere behind the oven housing, and chose the final location of the socket or CCU once it's ready to put the oven in, then using a plasterboard fast fix box which personally I much prefer for this type of install.

I can't see anyone complaining if they take a long time to add a new property to the list and so don't charge you council tax straight away.