ProDave

What did they survey say about the roof? surely you knew about this issue before you bought it?

the lesson from that, in my case where for aesthetic reasons I plan to put one each end of the wall, is make the inlet the one that has the long run, and the outlet to the one that has the shorter run.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I like those SS cowls. Do you want to sell your spare ones Jason? if so I'll buy them then I just need two lengths of rigid ducting to put through the wall.

So it looks like I need to size a unit based on the square metrage of the house to find out what size inlet and outlet ducts it uses, even if it's not necessarilly the exact unit I will be using.

I see there are national tv adverts promoting smart meters at the moment. The only benefitt they seem to be telling customers is you can "see what you are using". Well you can do that by reading an ordinary meter but let's not rain on their parade.

My solicitor picked up a possible "ransom strip" issue. When my plot was last sold, the access road was private, and the plot came with a right of access over that private road. In the intervening time the road was surfaced and adopted as a public road. My solicitors concern was that if the new public road was not built on exactly the same line as the old private road, say it was built a little bit further from the plot, then there could be a little strip of land between the plot boundary and the new route of the public road that we didn't own and had no right to pass over. I concluded that in order for that to happen, the new road would have needed to be built entirely on "new ground" with no part of it on the course of the old private road. I thought that was very unlikely indeed so I took the risk. As it happens, when they dug up the road for the services, there under the new tarmac road we found the old concrete private road surface confirming the new public road was indeed exactly on top of the old private road. I had also checked by comparing the route on old and new OS maps and could see no difference in the line of the old road and the present road.

got a link to what you ordered and from where? So they can be a long way apart so one each end of the wall for aesthetic reasons will be okay, even though that means one of them will have a longer duct than the other to the mvhr unit.?

Another thread got me thinkng about this and I have to do something very soon. I am a LONG way from deciding which mvhr unit to use let alone from buying it. But I do know where it will be going. It will be in the "plant room" above the garage. I plan to have the intake and outlet vents through the end wall of the room. Now, I will be cladding and rendering this wall very soon. So even though I know nothing else about the system, I really need to fit the inlet and outlet vents through the wall so they can be rendered in. So the question: Are they pretty universal? So can I just buy any make (suggest one and where to buy please) and then it won't matter if I later choose a different make of ducting etc? OR do I have to chose the make of ducting for the entire system now and use that make of wall vent? Second question: The mvhr unit will sit on the floor of the room. So what's a typical inlet and outlet height above the floor of the room? do they go side by side? one above the other? what sort of separation between them? I assume the wall vents connect to the mvhr unit with flexible or semi flexible ducting so there should be a bit of tolereance if my initial "guess" at the vent location is wrong?

How deep was that excavation? I did a similar thing with my 3t machine, ranging from 0.5M to 1M deep, but I kept all the soil on site (abot 200t I estimate) for landscaping. That was just removing the top soil, then I dug the strip foundations. It just takes longer with a smaller machine.

With regards to covenants putting people off, I suspect the answer is no. Whenever I have been looking for houses before I always want to know what, if any covenants apply. Things like "no caravans" would put me off buying it for instance. But what I found without exception, was it was almost impossible to find out anything about existing covenants befre you make an offer. The agents just said "your solicitor will sort all that out". My point is I wanted to know before I wasted everybodies time and them pulled out when I found a covenant that is too restrictive for me. And most owners you speak to have not got a clue what, if any covenants apply. So I suspect it will not even enter the mind of pospective buyers, though I must say I would not be happy if my neighbour tried to tell me I can't have my WBS.

^^ The caveat is WHEN you are connected to the internet. I typed a long post once, went to submit it, and found my router had crashed, which alse meant it had not auto saved anything. Now, before hitting the button, I highlight the whole text and control C to copy it to the clipbaord as a further backup in case of internet connection problems.

See the tread on dowsing. Get or make a couple of rods and go and practice.

They must be a bit more hot on that up here, or I look like a dodgy plumber. In my present house they demanded an air test of each stack so I had to get the roof ladder up to plug the vent pipe out the roof, then grovel down in a chamber to get the test bung on then pump it all up. "Why is is only pumping up to 3" not 4", there must be a leak."? "Because the shower trap is only a 3" seal and any further pumping just blows bubbles through the trap (moron)"

It can fail the pressure test while building control are watching....

Hi Matt and welcome to the forum. I am glad you found us here. A lot of us were gutted when the old place closed down, which is precisely why we set up the new one. If you know of any others still out in the dark, point them in the right direction.

When you find the solution, let me know, I have EXACTLY the same issue trying to take a 68mm rainwater pipe around a corner.

For you, yes. I'll bet the plasterter cursed you doing that, and I wonder if the plaster finish around them was compromised either in flatness or quality of finish having to work round an obstruction?

Interesting Jeremy that you internal fit out costs were more per square metre than the shell cost. If mine ends up the same, I will definitely have a house that has cost more to build than it would ever sell for.

Interesting observation. I had just the base layer of tarmac laid for my site entrance, expecting it to be trashed and have to be dug up and re laid. It has had all sorts of delivery lorries parked on it. Wheeled and tracked diggers, and probably the heaviest of the lot concrete lorries over it. It is still fine. It won't need digging up, just a scrub up and the top layer can go on. It's laid on 300mm of type 1 that I laid and compacted myself. To my mind, paviers are just the "top layer" and how well they stand up to traffic depends on what base they are laid on. There are a couple of roundabouts up here that have been laid with a ring of paviers around the roundabout. The idea being the light vehioles go round, but busses and larger lorries end up driving on the paviers and they don't budge an inch. My biggest concern would be if the lorries have to make a tight turn from the paved road onto your site, with the inevetable tyre scuffing, that is where any damage will be done.

Okay here are some rough calculations, bearing in mind it's not finished yet. Build cost so far £93,500 Included: Foundations Timber frame construction and erection Roof tiling wood fibre board cladding and render All house windows (Rationel ali clad 3G) most of the insulation (walls and part of the roof) Drain and services connections Waste treatment plant NOT included: Site costs Cost of getting services to site Planning, building warrant, design and "professional" fees Garage doors and windows not yet purchased Sun room doors, windows and roofing not yet purchased. No internal work at all Will need to buy more insulation. Landscaping The house is 154 square metres so that's working out at about £607 per square metre for a nearly finished shell. I don't know if that is good or bad.

Okay, I have to mention it. My static caravan. It's primary purpose will be somewhere for us to live when we eventually sell the old house, while we finish the new one. But I thought ahead, and bought one that has a more useful layout to later become a studio and workshop / storage space. Then I put it on my planning application that it was to be retained after the build was finished as a "garden outbuilding" . The planners were initially against it, until I ponted out on the day of completion (when permitted development rights come into force) I could remove it from site, and immediately replace it with an identical one in the identical position and it would qualify under permitted devemopment rights as a garden outbuilding. They then saw sense and the only planning condition relating to the static 'van is that residential use of it will cease within 1 month of completing the house. Of course to do that I had to ensure it's position was indeed within the permitted development rules, i.e in my case alongside but not in front of the house, and 1 metre away from the boundary (otherwise a very low eaves height would have applied) Although we are not living in iit yet it has been a very handy tool and material store, particularly in the early stages before the house was build when I was doing ground work.

I think you are supposed to supply a toilet. I got around that because I live just 2 doors down the road and the toilet in our existing house was available for them, but few took up that option. There are a lot of trees on the site and most "made their own arrangements"

I doubt very much if you will be able to swap the levers from one make of tap to another if that is what you are suggesting? We have a B&Q bathrom suite at the moment using the taps that came with it. One of the ceramic cartridge units failed and i tried to get a replacement, but nobody that I tried could match it as the number of splines where the levers fitted on was totally different to anything the plumbers merchants had in stock.

You can pressure test by fitting the shower bar before the plasterboard is on and testting. @Nickfromwales posted a much better fixing bracket arrangement for bar mixers before.I am sure he will be along soon.