ProDave

You know some remarkable people. In between working, it has taken me a year to roof and clad the exterior of my house on my own, install the drainage and landscape the site. Only in December did I start on the interior. Very minimum of another year but I expect the money to run out before then so I will then have a wait until early 2018 before some funds become available (unless of course by some miracle someone buys our present house)

A friend of mine started a steading (barn for the southerners) conversion in 2005. It quickly became a knock down and rebuild. It is still not finished thought they have been living in it for many years as they gradually add bits. I understand he has had some issues with BC over the length of time it is taking.

Definitely yes. The alternative is a tent and probably no toilet (who packed the shovel?). We backpacked the Cumbrian way and definitely the best nights were the wild camp nights. We find AirB&B a bit disappointing. We listed on there the beginning of last year. Deathly silence. then a spate of bookings in August, followed by a return to deathly silence. Booking.com does MUCH better for us.

That graph shows what I had long suspected, that we entered a housing recession in 2008/9 and we are STILL in that housing recession.

I'm over his time limit already and I have little more than an empty shell, so I won't be applying. Let me guess, this is aimed at the "daytime tv" market?

Interest rates and inflation have been so low now for so long it has become accepted as "normal" But with that comes it's own set of problems. I grew up in an era when interest rates of 10% were normal, and inflation was not far behind that. So when I took on a maximum mortgage to buy my first house it was a struggle to start with as morgage payments were over half my take home pay. But it was only a few years before inflation linked pay rises made that a much smaller percentage of my take home pay, and enabled me to take on a bigger mortgage to move up to a better house. If I had been starting out today in this low inflation climate, a mortgage that started as s struggle would remain a struggle for a longer time, and the prospect of borrowing more to move up would be much less likely. Of course now later in life when I have done with mortgages and stuff, I wold love higher interest rates so I can earn something from savings. All this goes to show what a blunt instrument adjusting interest rates to control the economy is. In fact thinking back I think raising interest rates to slow the economy was just a completely futile exercise. I desperately want some house price inflation here so that someone might actually think my house is worth what the surveyor said it was worth 2 years ago. If you believe what you see on tv about house price rises, it should now be worth 10% more than the surveyor told me 2 years ago, so I had better put the price up then?

Yes I guess so. If there is any chance you might want to convert the garage, then put the footings under the door, but I just saw it as a waste of time and concrete.

Building control were happy with me not continuing the foundations under the garage door opening. They did mention if ever I converted it I would have to dig up that bit of floor and pour foundations but I am 100% sure I will never want to do that.

I think it was a D5 I drove down under, but I can't find a picture of it. Yes that's it, two brakes and two clutches, to turn left, you pull on the lever to brake the left hand track.

This is me on a "proper" roller. At my BIL's farm in Queensland a few years ago. That re defines the meaning of "shake rattle and roll" It was the most weird thing to drive. It was basically controlled with a hand throttle (that kept adjusting itself) with a decelerator peddle if you want to slow down. Mind it was nowhere near as weird to drive as the buldozer......

Hi and welcome to the forum. It sounds s very interesting project. Why not start a blog here to document your progress? Glad you found us in our new home.

Was this a ride on roller? I thought you were talking about a push along.

Where's the "this thread is useless without pictures" icon?

Whatever make you choose, definitely go for the cross line type. It will get your downlighters in a straight line and all sorts of other useful things. The rotary one is a one trick pony, it will give you a horizontal line all the way round, but ONLY a horizontal line.

The buttress just confirms it is a single skin wall and you need those in single skin walls to add a bit of strength. I like the lifting beam and crane. you can do your own engine swap (if the car will fit) 2.6 metre internal width is small, and by the time you have built a proper wall upstairs, won't leave much width in the room.

I used a dewalt laser level for all my setting out. Even outdoors (at dusk). Mine is a laser line level so as well as projecting a horizontal lint, it will also project a vertical line. Damn handy bit of kit.

That sounds remarkably like the description of a static caravan. Well apart from the low impact materials bit.

All looking good. That's a man sized digger he has got there, that should make short work of it.

I have to say I am totally underwhelmed by the "quality" of standard UK meter boxes. My main gripe being just how fragile the hinges are, and how easy they are to break if you don't treat them very gently. Letting in water does not surprise me in the least, that's what I would expect from such a "quality" design. Any electrician designing stuff to live outside permanently will use a decent IP rated sealed enclosure. Yet for out mains distribution kit, this excuse for an outside electrical enclosure is what we are stuck with. (I wonder how the DNO would react if you offered them a proper sealed IP rated enclosure but not to their "standard" design) In my case the meter boxes are in a section of "fence" so if water gets in, it can run out of drain holes at the bottom with no harm really done. Not so easy when it's built into a brick wall.

I was going to say I like a house with a garage and think converting it would be a bad move. But if you struggle to open the door of a MINI then it must be a pretty small garage!!!

I see, so in an official test, the fan speed is controlled in a closed loop system to maintain the pressure differential, and the amount of power needed to maintain that measured the air tightness.

Highlands, near Inverness. 2KW system, been in use 5 years. Total so far 7565KWh, so an average of 1513KWh per year. So your 3340 for 4KW being further south sounds about right.

I will answer your question, partly by referring to your REAL question, how to build your next house. I know someone who built his own house single handed stick built on site. He worked offshore and spent his 3 weeks between shifts building his house. I know the house well because I wired it. It took him nearly 3 years to get it wind and watertight, and I believe there were issues with his structural warranty company due to the length of time the frame was exposed. My present house was TF but built as a kit and assembled on site, normal (for the time) 150mm frame and block outer skin. This time around I didn't want to go that route. 150mm is not enough insulation, and the block wall is just an expensive rain shield adding little to the insulation. So this time I have a 190mm frame directly clad in 100mm wood fibre board and render onto that. So all 300mm of the wall build up is insulation of some form. this was detailed by a structural engineer. I then had the frame built (off site) and erected by some local builders and I am doing the rest. There is no reason given the time and inclination that I could not have stick built it on site myself and with the SE's drawings there would have been no "sign off" issues. If I could give two bits of advice (just my personal feeling) is forget a brick of block outer skin to a TF house. And make the roof a warm roof supported on a ridge beam so the whole internal space including any loft is within the insulated and air tight structure of the house. So much easier to keep everything sealed and less chance for things to go wrong.

I have been pondering this. I believe I have a large mains powered fan on the way (15" diameter fan) so you can run the fan and measure the pressure difference between inside and out. BUT there is a "missing link" to actually measure the leakage. In a perfect house, once a certain pressure difference is achieved, there will be no air flow through the fan? is that right? So to measure leakage into the house you must measure the air flow exiting through the fan. Anemometer? or will the flow be to low for that? without that measurement, yes you can suck air out and go looking for obvious leaks, but you have no measure of how good it is.

You are not supposed to ventilate the service void, at least not to a room above or a floor void, there are supposed to be fire stop battens in place,