ProDave

The brown tinge in Scottish water is almost certainly peat. Our water comes from Loch Glass, about 6 miles away. when we first moved here when it was windy, our water would turn slightly brown. It was described to me as the water outake from the loch was quite low, and in windy weather, the waves stirred up the silt. About 5 years ago they built an upgraded treatment works and no more brown water. No chlorine or other stuff either. It is very common for isolated houses wiith private water supplies still to have often VERY brown water. As Crofter says, there's a limestone band all across the top of Scotland. A small isolated group of 5 houses 10 miles from us share a common borehole into that limestone aquifer. I have replaced one of their immersion heaters every 5 years. and when I do so, I spoon a good bucket full of limestone out of the bottom of the HW tank.

That won't cut the mustard with SWMBO, it has to be a proper 3G unit with the stained glass bit in the middle.

There's only one glazing company up here that can do it (and even then I have not looked into any detail with them) but I am not necessarilly happy with their product (largely because we had two 2G panes replaced by them ant their performance is abysmal) I would have to be a lot more clear about our requirements if we used them again. Other than that I can only find "artists" who want to make a bespoke unit at a bespoke price.

15% timber stud does not mean 15% of the frame has NO insulation. If you really wanted to be pedantic, you would look up the λ value for timber and insert that instead for that 15% of the wall.

But some of us are cash poor, time rich, so I will hapilly spend a couple of hours to save £10

I'll ask one. Our landing window, wants a stained glass pane. So my question is do you know anyone who can make a tripple glazed unit, ordinary glass outside, stained panel in the middle, and toughened glass on the inside, with a reasonable U value? Willing to take a stock design rather than bespoke.

Someone on here has some offcuts going begging. Perhaps you can make a mosaic.

We do most of our shopping a Tesco. the clubcard points earned pay for our joint personal RAC membership with recovery. Last year, the vouchers left over after that annual purchase on a 4 for one offer bought a new laptop pc. We had to pay the £12 shortfall because we didn't have quite enough points. so an (almost) free lappy and RAC membership just for doing our shopping.

For my money, if I was in that situation, I would pay for a structural warranty. If it's the ticket you need to avoid the CIL then it suddenly becomes much better value. At least this thread has outlined the hoops you need to jump through and the pitfalls that could make your claim invalid.

Play nicely gentlemen please.

A VAT registered contractor should zero rate parts AND labour for a new build. you certainly won't be able to re claim VAT on labour, you will be told to go back to the contractor and re claim it from them as it should not have been charged.

I paid a builder to build my shell and all the work he charged me was zero rated as it was a new build. If I had paid him to do the whole lot, it would have been charged VAT free and I would have nothing to reclaim the VAT on.

I like the thinking. Leave the reel (part used) of lead free kicking about. But in all honesty do you even expect the BC inspector to ask?

Very useful post. However: So if you have paid cash (no mortgage), not bothered with a structural warranty, and paid a contractor to build a house ready to move into you won't have a VAT claim as it will all have been charged to you VAT free. Might be a problem for a few?

Okay lots of points there. That analysis I linked to was done by the architectural technician who designed the basic structure. The "spruce" layer I think was his best guess at what to use for the service void. Later in the design process a structural engineer detailed many of the construction aspects of the frame (including the fact that in many areas we have two layers of OSB inside to give sufficient racking strength). Also a company subcontracted by the AT did the SAP analysis for building control. they calculated the U values of the walls and roof more accurately allowing for the frame and came up with 0.148 for the walls, so slightly worse. But they only allowed for the one layer of OSB not two so that will very very slightly improve it. If ever we get an "as built" SAP I will make sure the details are corrected. My frame was built by a local building firm. They built the frame in sections in a steading (barn) 2 miles away and brought them here a few panels at a time on a large trailer. Some of the larger gable panels looked very precarious on that trailer and he admitted he drove very slowly! The roof was cut and framed on site. I really liked the idea of the twin stud frames and tried to get our AT to think of something on those lines but he couldn't or wouldn't come up with anything. I had tried MBC but not got anywhere with them, so unfortunately that option slipped away. So it's a pretty standard timber frame except of course being much thicker than the normal 150mm, and the peculiarity is the OSB racking layer is on the inside. SO many people told me I had put the frame up "inside out" I changed the insulation mid build. It was going to be filled with blown in wood fibre beads, that was until I found the price. I then changed to using the earthwool frametherm 35. The U values are near identical, but I suspect the decrement delay with the earthwool may be a bit poorer. In the end it's in some ways a compromise. Not as good as we could have got if only.... But a lot better than a standard off the peg timber frame. The other "change" I am making is I am installing an air tightness membrane all over the inside walls before the service void battens. The designer had specified the OSB with taped joints as the air tightness and VCL and is aparently all they do on the buildings they build, but largely on the advice of the builders that actually built it, a separate air tightness /VCL membrane seems better.

I'm not ruling it out. I'm just not sure if I am going to go from busy, to rediculously so. It's something like a 3 hour 130 mile trip for me to get to you so it will almost certainly be cheaper to get your local electrician. to do it. Is your boat in comission? should I bring my LJ?

CPC still sell 60/40 electrical solder.

2 layers of 90mm thick To add to Jeremy's point above, take a look at the analysis of the wall make up done for our house and see how little the internal temperature varies with a big swing in outside temperature. u-wert-berechnung (10).pdf

the Frametherm is a glass wool based roll insulation (you can also get it as batts) that's a lot less nasty to use than most glass wool type insulation. It's used to fill the frame. It's stiff enough that when you push it into the frame it stays there. As a test, I fitted a bit to the frame of the 45 degree pitched roof very early on as a test to see if it fell out or slumped before it got boxed in, and it just sat there for months without moving. Here is some going into the roof before I fitted the OSB to the inside

I used 100mm thick wood fibre board. It's available from 20mm to 160mm and you can use multiple layers if you want to.

Someone more clever than me will be along I am sure to show you how to do the sums. In the mean time what thoughts do you have on the external insulation slab? and what sort of frame thickness are you thinking of? I have a 190mm frame, filled with Earthwool frametherm 35 roll and 100mm Wood fibre board on the outside, achieving a U value of 0.14

Yes but don't you think it's a shambles that three different sized ranges of pipe can all be described as "50mm" From now on I will be referring to the pipe by it's actual size so I am currently plumbing with 56mm solvent weld. In my previous house I discovered that you can't rely on one make of push fit waste to fit another, particularly with some of the obscure makes sold by some of the sheds, so that's when I converted to solvent weld which generally all fits. Also in the previous house I used those rubber reducing plugs into a boss which are far more forgiving with slightly different sizes of pipe so hadn't discovered my current problem in that situation. Anyway I hope others reading this thread will take note of the "peculiarities" of the way waste pipe sizes are described and can save them some trouble.

If I wasn't so busy I would do it if he can't find anyone more local. I've done plenty of "stopover" jobs like that before. I have a supsicion in the next week or so it might go form a "bit busy" to "oh my god"

Stick it on freecycle. I got a car full of offcuts like that and used them to insulate under the floor of our static caravan.

Firstly you are in Scotland. There is no such thing as part P here (I get shot in another place for saying that) so if you are COMPETENT you can do it all yourself. Even if it did come under building control, all they want is an EIC which you are supposed to issue anyway regardless. Your best bet is find a local electrician who is willing to let you run the cables and then come and make the connections. you really need to find him before you start. He will give you the run down on what cable to run and more importantly Where to run it (look up "safe zones") If you run the cables first then ask someone to connect them, the answer is more likely to be no. Do you have a supply to the new house yet? This is certainly the sort of job I would do and have done, but a day trip to Skye is a bit too far.