ProDave

So you would rather he didn't put anything there, and the lorries use the "verge" as part of the "road" and it turns into a rutted, muddy chewed up mess? That is what he is trying to avoid, to make the place look nicer. Try and see it from his viewpoint. I had this discussion with the highways about what is "the road" and "the verge" and it appears in the case of unfenced land, they can claim the first 3 metres from the edge of the road is "the verge" and therefore part of the highway. If, as we do, you own the land right up to the road, then the solution is to fence it right at the edge od what you own and then it is no longer "the verge" I have a row of large stones along the edge of my plot at the moment to stop cars and lorries driving onto the grass until I decide how and where I am going to fence the edge

Another revision, would moving the vent cause an issue: Taking the vent straight up, would mean more "boxing in" If instead, I made the turn to pan 2 a branch, that could then continue and turn upwards to the vent through a bit that is already being boxed in. Would that cause issues?

I thought if I did that, then when you flush pan 2 it might suck pan 1's trap dry unless you have another AAV. I thought it best to not have any shared horizontal runs?

My drawing skills are not as good as Nick, but this is what I want to achieve: the left hand branch follows the front of the house (in between two joists) and then turns 90 degrees up through the floor to pan 1. the right hand branch travels a short distance, through one or possibly two posi joists, before turning 90 degrees to run between joists, then turning up 90 degrees to go up to pan 2 in the other bathroom adjacent. I can't see there being a "swapping incident"

Well I have just ordered one of Nick's first link, but from a different ebay seller. And it was a bit cheaper. I can see the "swapping contents" issue if you just branch at pan outlet level, and have two very short runs to the two pans, but I am branching under the floor, 2 runs under the floor then each turning up and through the floor to it's respective pan. I HOPE I won't be starting a "swapping contents" thread in the future when it eventually all goes live.

That's exactly what I mean. as usual it's a case of knowing the correct name for what to search for. I had a feeling it must exist, I could see no reason why someone could not make one, but I have never seen one, and they are not in the common places like TP, Screweys, toolstation unfortunately, that one "does not post to Scottish Highland" But I see several people selling the same thing, so I am sure one of them will post it here. Question. Looking at that, it appears both branches are push fit with a ring seal, but why are the details of the two branches different?

Did you just get the one quote? I had about 6 quotes in the end, with Internorm being the most expensive at double the cheapest. Rationel were cheapest and only very slightly poorer than Internorm in terms of Uw values. I chose aluminium clad, as sanding and painting or varnishing wooden windows is something i wish to consign the the "used to do that" pile. I ended up paying £8.5K for 10 windows, two single doors and one double door pair.

I can't see that happening unless the stack is not well ventilated. One toilet will be close to the branch, the other about 3 metres away. the two branches will run within the posi joists then turn 90 degrees to go up through the floor to each pan. What I want to avoid is the two toilets sharing a common horizontal pipe run. that's why I want them to branch at the stack.

I have been putting up the stud walls that define the bathroom and en-suite rooms. That means having a think about the layout of both rooms so I know everything will fit and the doors are in the right place etc. At the same time I have been thinking about how I will plumb all the wastes, and have hit a problem. I can't seem to find the waste fitting that I will need. I will try do describe it: Imagine the 110mm waste stack coming up from the room below (the utility room) right in the corner. as you stand looking at that corner, I want one 110mm pipe to branch left along the front wall of the house to serve one toilet, and I want another 110mm pipe to branch off to the right, along the side wall of the house to serve the other toilet. So I need a 110mm branch that will take TWO 110mm pipes in at 90 degrees to each other. I can't find one. I have seen a double branch with inputs 180 degrees apart, but not 90 degrees apart. It has to be all in one fitting as I want both branches to travel to their respective WC's within the posi joists, so stacking two branches one above the other won't work. Any ideas?

Another thing that skews the market tremendously, is the "help to buy" initiative to lend buyers the deposit. It only applies to new builds. The result is the few new builds in town seem to sell quickly, but "second hand" houses, even modest ones in the town seem to take a long time to sell. Initiatives like this are probably seen as a "success" because they get houses built and occupied, but they do nothing to stimulate an active property market at all levels where people can sell and move up when they need / want to. Is the next generation doomed to be stuck all their life in "starter homes?"

In Jewsons today 6 * 2 regularised £1.72 per metre 4 * 2 regularised £1.28 per metre Same as I paid in December, so it's not gone up yet. More worrying for a self builder was the notice saying from 4th January, cash sales under £150 ex VAT will incur a £17.50 + VAT delivery charge. They waived the delivery charge today and I brought home with me a Self Build trade account form to avoid that in future even on small orders.

That's an interesting one. Just because a house is built as a "portable building" does not mean it has to be rubbish. Yes you could build little more than a shed as you don't have to comply with building regs, but you could equally build a really well built super insulated building that far exceeds what building regs would require. This is one area where mortgage companies should take the findings of a surveyor, who might well report it is a well built house, rather than saying "it's non standard" or "it's a park home" and we don't lend on those. Re the portable buildings thing, it is perhaps a loophole in the caravan's act. As already linked to by Crofter, the Highland Council make it clear a "caravan" does not have to actually be on wheels, and lifting it by crane is an acceptable means to qualify as portable, as long as it fits within the size limits. In point of fact you can actually build a larger "caravan" in England and Wales. That's because at some point the Caravan's act was updated there, but the Scottish version never got updates. Surely one of the English or Welsh councils will have a similar document that will give the maximum sizes there.

My actual build cost for a bare shell is currently under £100K I am confident however it will go over £100K, there are a lot of big ticket items still do be bought and having to wait until we can afford them. To build it for absolute minimum, then it would have needed cheaper much less good windows and doors, no luxuries like mvhr just basic trickle vents on windows, no en-suite, just one bathroom with a very basic bathroom suite. A very basic cheap kitchen, no nice wooden floors just chipboard and cheap carpets everywhere, no UFH just ugly radiators, no attempt at being green and using an ASHP, just a cheap basic oil boiler. It would not end up as the house we want. There are a lot of costs associated with building a house these days, like detailed drawings, SAP reports, structural engineers reports, drainage reports. A mass builder will win here because one set of design costs gets spread over perhaps hundreds of identical houses. I still don't know why more people are not using the "portable house" model to avoid building control and a lot of these costs. you can build a single storey "portable" building up to 100 square metres without a building warrant, that is plenty big enough for a 2 bedroom bungalow.

You might not mind if you were just living in a completed house, and if you ever sold it you know the replacement house would also be 30% lower. BUT if you were living in a house and trying to sell it, while at the same time part way through building the replacement, and a 30% drop in value of the old (5 bedroom) house would mean the sale value of that would no longer cover the costs of building the replacement 3 bedroom house, then you WOULD mind VERY MUCH.

Did they say WHEN it was going up? I need to order some 6*2 and 4*2, sounds like I had better do it sooner rather than later.

This still brings me back to my pet gripe. houses are NOT overpriced HERE. If you build a new bespoke house now, I think you would be really lucky to sell it for enough just to get your money back. That's if you CAN sell it. Yet again though they tell me house prices here has risen 4% in the last year . I DO NOT SEE THAT AT ALL. So please don't talk to me about house prices need to . Not here they don't.

A lot of the new builds I see, I see money being "wasted" by inefficient layouts and a lot of wasted corridor space or over larger entrance halls etc. That was a "failing" in our current house. I always said the large entrance hall and galleried staircase was a waste of space. I was told it gives the house a "wow factor" Shame none of the few people that have viewed the house have been wowed by it. The new one is a lot more eficcient on floor space with the hall and landing being much more modest, and my rather quirky combining of the utility room with the downstairs toilet. Having just built a house with a vaulted warm roof and now see how something as simple as moving the insulation from the upstairs ceiling, to the roof line can so dramatically improve a building, I would not advocate deliberately making "cold" parts of the house. I am actually staggered how little I have spent on insulation for my whole house, so the savings would be quite small to make one bit a less well insulated space.

"Build in a factory transport to site and erect" There is a local firm here who builds modular, portable homes to good standards of insulation. I have seen how they are built. Basically they are built exactly the same way as a stick built timber framed house. The only "benefit" of building in a factory is the weather does not bother you. I don't see a great saving there being possible. Then you have to add the transport and craneage cost to get them onto site. I will add at this point, what they build is mostly bespoke houses, so each one is of course individual. Now I could see big savings being made, if we were talking about hundreds, perhaps thousands of identical houses. Then I see scope for automation of at least part of the process Speaking as a self builder doing most of the work myself (now that the heavy work is done) materials cost is still a big issue. Even with zero labour cost, you can't get the price of a house down that much So to build a house for £50K including paying labour I see as nigh on impossible. Perhaps Crofter will confirm, but I think his materials cost will be in that region? so now it only becomes possible if you can build for free (hence large scale production of the same design automated)

I didn't have to pay a fee and don't know anyone else that did. In my case the OR engineer showed me where the phone trunk cable was and gave me a coil of underground phone cable and basically left it to me go get the cable there (which was actually easy)

Terry It's not necessarily the case that all mvhr pipework is "within the warm environment" I have recently wired a new house, where the mvhr unit, and a lot of the distribution. pipework is up in the cold, ventilated loft space. Without lagging that would be a condensation nightmare (it might still be so) If I could give just ONE recommendation on modern house design, it would be DO NOT have an old fashioned, ventilated cold roof space where you rely on insulation at ceiling level. Even if you are not doing "room in roof" it is SO much better to have a warm roof design where the insulation is at eaves level. SO much easier to detail to get an air tight house etc etc. This new house I just wired, the builder was so smug about how well insulated and sealed (he thought) the house is, but i still noticed if you remove a light switch on a windy day, you could feel the cold air coming out of the hole, no doubt leaking somehow from that cold loft space into the service void behind the plasterboard.

Not so much the boards, but the pile of blocks. I love the two "cranes" I won't mention the lack of toe boards or handrails (oops I just did) Nothing I didn't wouldn't do. It's all looking very good, and I agree a wonderful location.

Lets keep this thread on topic about stairs and related joinery please and not veer off into a political discussion.

On our previous build, I sold the static 'van on Gumtree. A private seller is at a disadvantage, because of transport. Up here there are only 2 people capable of moving them, and they are the two local caravan dealers. One flatly refuses to move vans not sold by them. In fact when I sold ours, the buyer had to get someone from much further away to move it, as the local guys would not play ball. On the other hand, buy one from (or sell one to) a dealer and they transport it for free. So find out what the local dealers will offer you and make that your starting price on ebay, or ask a bit more on gumtree. There are two dealers near here that both have a yard full of them, anything from quite decent ones recently off a holiday park, to old wrecks that they sell for £500 as site offices or storage. The one we have on our new build was actually offered for sale ON a site. I wanted it because it was such an unusual layout (centre lounge, bedroom at each end) and they agreed to take it off the site and deliver it to us.

I did the wiring for a kitchen designed by Howdens recently. When put together as designed, a drawer unit in the corner, the drawers would only open half way, because the handle on the oven stuck out too far.

And YOU will still be blamed when it does not all fit.