ProDave

My gutter brackets screw directly to the fascia and allowing for the thickness if the brackets,it's probably 10mm from the fascia to the edge of the gutter. funny enough I am looking to order my box profile roofing soon so we need another thread to compare noted and see who can get the best deal. But my thinking is to base my measurements on the roofing overhanging the fascia by 50mm, AND at the ridge, the two sheets not quite meeting with say a 50mm gap between them. That gap will be covered by the ridge piece, but will also allow a bit for "adjustment" of the final eaves overhang if that makes sense. Let's discuss that further on another thread so as not to take this one off topic.

Remember you only "need" this if you sell within 10 years. After that, any warranty would have expired and therefore it would not be an issue. I paid for NHBC solo for self build on the present house in case we sold it. That expired last March so was a "waste" of money. I enquired about the same for the new house and the costs had gone up a lot, so on the basis we are building as a retirement house, not to sell, I have not bothered. The only bit of paper I am interested in is a building control completion certificate.

There are definitely regional variations. Up here they still give you SWA phone cable and tell you to direct bury it in the ground. Other places use soft cable and put it in ducts. (the only place I used a duct was under the road crossing)

Looking at that plan again: I would speak to No 12 and No 10. If they would let you run the pipe under their front garden and connect to the spur that runs up alongside No 10, then that would avoid all the road opening and traffic management fees. Start by offering each of them £1K for permission to cross their land and the disruption caused. Making good a front garden after the work has to be cheaper than re surfacing a road and the cost of the works should be less. Alternatively lok at the same crossing No 14's back garden and into the end of the run behind No 16

Yes look at what No 14 does. Presumably the plot originated as No 14's garden. Are you ion the process of buying the plot or have you already completed? Id still negotiating (and assuming you are buying it from No 14) make sure you get a right to lay services under no 14's land and connect to a sewer connection on their land if possible.

Do I take it, the answer from the "issue" you had a few weeks ago was the "wrong" result?

If I did that here, the hole in the ground would fill with water every winter if there was the slightest pin hole in any tanking membrane.

I have UFH (upstairs and dowsnstairs) with a Firebird oil boiler (basic non condensing) Never had any problems and I can't say I particularly notice the boiler short cycling. The blending in the UFH manifold mixer seems to take care of everythign and ensure a reasonable return temperature to the boiler. Unless you have insufficient under floor insulation, there is no reason UFH should be any more expensive to run than radiators. How long has it been running and how much oil do you think you have used?

LPG in 47 Kg bottles is VERY expensive, Just filled 2 of mine (used for the gas hob so each one lasts nearly 2 years, so long you forget to check until BOTH have run out. oops) and that was £150. I would not be using it for hot water or space heating. We only use it for coking because nothing beats a gas hob. An electric boiler on E10 actually makes sense, you can pretty well heat a well insulated house real time just by heating in the off peak times with no need to use any peak rate electricity for heating. If you are going to be moving 47Kg bottles about, get a gas bottle trolley. I still favour heating the DHW tank to about 45 degrees with the ashp and using an in line modulating instant water heater to raise it to final temperature if there has been insufficient solar pv to do so already with the immersion heater.

We had a SE involved in the design and BC approved their drawings and calculations,.but the SE is not in any way supervising the build. BC have inspected the completed bare shell and agreed they are happy it has been built to the approved design and don't want any further inspections until completion. so it appears you don't "need" an engineer involved to supervise the build.

It's not just random guesswork. the designer of my house did a moisture analysis that shows there is no condensation risk. It also shows a thermal time constant of 13 hours so it should not heat up / cool down to quickly. (interestingly the analysis shows on a hot day, the house will reach peak internal temperature about midnight) u-wert-berechnung (10).pdf

I never got a price per sq metre for the wood fibre board. the builders that built the shell supplied it so it was lumped into the price of the shell. As it happened I had to lay them off due to lack of money so I ended up fitting it all myself then employing the guy to render it. Yes the wood fibre board costs money, but in my case that is offset against not having to pay for blockwork and someone to lay the blocks, and simplified foundations. the fact it can be DIY fitted is another saving in labour of you choose. My argument was a blockwork skin and cavity on a timber frame adds very little insulation. This wood fibre skin adds insulation, and helps impiove the air tightness of the build on the outside.

Yes that's me. 100mm thick wood fibre board (Pavatex) over a timber frame, and a lime based render system straight onto it with a silicon top coat. There's more on my blog, but apologies I have still not copied over the early entries from the old ebuild blog. So a couple of pictures here for you:

Yes that is right. Unfortunately that applies to the standard design of meter box. I have yet so see one that does not have two tiny flimsy little pins as hinges. It seems to be what everyone makes. they need to be treated with care.

i bought two standard flush meter boxes for about £20 each on ebay.

My "concern" with a steel frame as you suggest, is at some point you need to fix wood and plasterboard to the steel frame. Of course fixing to a wod frame is easy, you use nails, but fixing to the steel frame? And as it's unusual construction, expect building control to want heaps of calculations from a structural engineer. If you can overcome those two issues and you are happy doing it, then give it a go, and post the results in a blog for us all to share.

I recall doing a loft conversion and BC failed the window as the cill was 1" too high. To get it passed they had to install a fixed step 1" high (I kid you not) in front of the window. I am certain if the house was on fire, and flames were licking up my aris, I would have been able to negotiate a cill 1" too high even without the step.

In which case, I would space out the flow and return pipes that are "passing through" at the same spacing as everything else, then make the hall zone what is left over.

I'm late to this thread. My comments: Do NOT bother with an UFH zone in the hall. Our present house, which is nothing special in terms of insulation etc has one, and it NEVER turns on. The hall is in the middle of the house and it only has a tiny wall area at the front to lose heat. It will gain much more heat from the adjacent rooms, so save pipe and effort and forget any UFH circuit in the hall. This will then allow you to space out any pipes that happen to flow via the hall to get to their destination. Same for a landing upstairs, that never turns on either so again do not bother with UFH on a landing upstairs. Don't cram the pipe runs from the manifold all into oner little gap, but space them out evenly across the width of the hall, and evenly where they pass under the stairs. This alone will heat the hall all it needs. The under stairs cupboard will be warm from the manifold, ventilate it to let some of the heat out to the rest of the house.

My trick with the digger when digging a trench, was to give it a final sweep with the bucket turned up, so the teeth don't dig anything and it is in effect the back of the bucket cleaning out the bottom of the trench and compacting anything left loose.

This is an interesting point. At the moment i consider a landline necessary to get broadband, and because we run 2 businesses from home a landline is pretty essential. We only get a weak 2g phone signal here, but with a booster and outside aerial that is usable ion the house but doesn't solve the broadband. Because we are out in the sticks and the broadband we do get is slow and prone to dropping out, the local community are looking to set up their own broadband network delivered to the home by wifi. Perhaps in a few years when we retire, and the need for a landline does not seem so important, then a mobile phone for voice and this wifi broadband might suit our needs an we could drop the landline altogether.

I bought my Wacker plate from ebay. Keep an eye there and on gumtree. I have never heard of using one to compact foundations trenches, just ground you have infilled. I won't be selling mine, it's one of those things like the cement mixer that I will be keeping. I have already hired out the wacker a couple of times and got half my purchase price back.

Refresh my memory with it's specifications, size, weight, power consumption and ventilation rates (size of building it will ventilate) And where you are and how much you want? Probably best to start a new post int he for sale section.

And 15 years ago I designed part of a laser machining system that makes these tiles, at the time we had lots of the bare pv panels kicking about during development of the machine.

That could be the case. Definitely my build method, wood fibre cladding on timber frame and render applied to that is not to be found in any "approved document". But here in Scotland you must submit full plans (no building notice option) and building control approved my design as detailed on the drawings so as long as it's built to the drawings (which it is) should not refuse to pass it. I guess these guys could have submitted their full plans including their retaining wall, foundations, wall make up, insulation etc. But I would have expected it to need supporting with calculations, and how does a structural engineer assess the strength of a yet to be selected round tree branch that will just have the bark stripped off then used?