ProDave

A bigger machine will dig the same hole quicker, it can lift more soil per shovelfull. Having the longer reach means you have to move the digger less when digging a trench. I found for moving soil (without a dumper) the dozer blade was the answer. Pile up a good 10 bucket loads in front of the blade and push. the larger machines have a bigger dozer so can move more, but the really big machines tend not to have a dozer at all. When you start pushing, some comes out the side, but you soon end up with a tramway like this and then you lose very little on the way, and it's easy to go back and clear up when you are finished. My site insurance covers the digger. The bit to be aware of is all those neighbours who say "I see you have a digger....." I declined to do any work for others because then there would be no insurance cover off my own site.

Another caution about "12V" stuff is a battery on charge can easily be close to 14V. One example of this was Sky once made a mini sky box that ran from 12V but they would have a habit of blowing up if connected to a battery on charge at close to 14V. Motorhomes were the big problem and anyone using one in a motorhome was advised to unplug it when driving the vehicle which was when the charging voltage would be highest.

Just man up. I carried all my roof tiles to the roof up a ladder.

Isn't at least one of the Ford Transit variants rated to tow 3.5 ton? It's regularly mentioned on the boating forums for that reason. If you are driving a vehicle over 3.5t for private use the tachograph laws don't apply. Or at least that's what I was told on the two occasions i have hired 7.5t vehicles for private use. You are also exempt from the goods vehicle operators licence if it's for private use, e.g you see a lot of 7.5t horse boxes. but I guess that doesn't help you if it's business use.

And pre 1960 has the advantage of no MOT either. (I would have a series 1 Landrover if I could find one at a sensible price)

It is possible to get a fork lift attachment for a digger to lift stuff, but it would not be very good on an old machine like mine that tends to be a bit jerky in its movements. They are good for picking things up with slings or ropes, I used the digger to lift the treatment plant into its hole I wouldn't have wanted anything smaller than my 3 ton machine. On the other hand the builders I used brought their 13 ton machine to pour the concrete (for its greater bucket capacity and much longer reach) but it was very tight moving that around our site so that size would have been too big for general use on our site.

I will post my off the peg unusual take on vehicles. We are being driven (excuse the pun) to smaller and smaller less powerful and less poluting vehicles. That's fine for personal passenger transport, but a big problem when you want to shift stuff or tow something. I do a lot of both and my Subaru Forrester does the job well, but it's very old now and won't last much longer. As we head towards retirement I can foresee a time when we don't really need a car each, so the one shared car will probably be something small and low emission. That is part of the reason I bought my old Landrover a few years ago, Made in 1972 it is a "historic vehicle" so the road tax is £0. Comprehensive classic car insurance is £80 per year. It's rebuilt on a new galvanised chassis so that should outlast me. So it's just a case of fix things when they break which is all basic engineering, no electronic gizmo's to spell a premature end to the vehicle due to silly costs. It's rated to tow 2 tons. So I can foresee a time when we have one nice modern small car, and the Landrover for the towing and when we both want to go to different places at the same time. Of course the Landrover is anything but low emission, and it drinks petrol like it is going out of fashion, but the point is, in all other ways it is cheap, and it won't be doing much mileage. And I know for a fact it is already worth more than I paid for it, another advantage of being old, it won't depreciate in value. It's my way of sticking two fingers up at the "establishment" that is trying to force us to drive tiny under powered cars that can't tow anything or carry a decent load.

I've just done some sums. So you paid £4K for the lease of the plot, £9k to build it, and £90 per month ground rent for 20 years which is another £21600 So a grand total of £34,600 for 20 years, or an average over the period of £144 per month It's probably like owning a boat, you should NEVER add up all the costs of ownership and never ever write it down.

I certainly didn't have that problem when I tiled mine in December and January.

I hope they plugged the ends!!!!! I can see why they want to do it that way to make power floating the concrete easy, but I would want it in the contract that THEY are responsible for ensuring the drains pass the pressure test, and they are responsible for fixing any damage to the pipes in the proceess of uncovering them.

There was a Grand Designs where in the boy's bedroom there was a Tardis in the corner. Open the door and it revealed a fireman's pole down to his play room immediately below. I often wonder what Building control made of that. A pub in a coastal village over here for a while had an upturned boat hull (steel I believe) in its garden use for discos etc but the council objected and his application for planning permission to keep it was refused so it has now gone.

I still say my digger has been the best buy of the job. It's not just the savings on man & machine hire (in that respect it has paid for itself already) but the fact it is there all the time to be used whenever I need it. So I don't have to plan to get a machine in to do a job, and I don't have to group it all up into a "package" I can do little bits as time and site conditions allow with no pressure to get the machine off hire. I would say the same is true with my own scaffold. It's been a slow proces with me doing all the work on the outside of the house, but at least there has been no hire charge racking up and pressuring me to rush the job.

Mine is an old 3 ton Komatsu I dug off nearly a metre of top soil, shifting probably 150 tons of soil in the process Then dug the strip foundations And the deepest job, was digging a hole abourt 2.5 metres deep for the treatment plant, here we are almost at full reach down into the ground.

I think he means in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th pictures there are drain runs under the slab. but now the slab is poured, they don't come through the surface of the slab. Is that a "whoops" or are the positions accurately known so you can break through to them later (with the risk of damaging the pipe?) Again that site is far too tidy, you are in danger of getting builders a good name.

The DNO don't work to BS7671, if they did, they wouldn't be using concentric cable. They have (make up?) their own rules.

Quick question. You added the strips of CLS for extra support. So did you "put up" with a step up into the bathroom? or did you add strips of CLS throughout the whole first floor to raise the entire upstairs floor slightly to avoid a step? Having a level threshold from room to room is perhaps the one place where I am a bit OCD?

Calling a TNC-S connection to a single dwelling "PME" is a bit of a misnomer. Pme stands for Protective Multiple Earthing, and is an extension to TNC-S (you can have a TNC-S supply that is not PME) In a normal network like where I am, one transformer serves 8 houses. As well as an earth at the source, there is an additional earth where the cable to each house feeds from the network. this is usually laid horizontally in the trench next to the distribution cables. At the transformer there are usually separate HV and LV earths. In the case of a transformer feeding a single house there's not much chance for much in the way of multiple earths. The big difference between TNC-S and TT is of course the combined neutral and earth connection. That coupled with the DNO almost exclusively using concentric cable, presents a potention (pun Intended) problem. It is not unheard of for the outer core of a concentric cable to corrode and break. If that were feeding a TT earthed system, then your stuff would just stop working, but your house would remain earthed to local earth. In the case of TNC-S the multiple earthing system tries to carry the neutral current instead, and your "earth" potential can rise considerably. Not a problem inside a house, but can be a problem with outbuildings and it definitely a serious isue with a metal skinned caravan (step out of the door, one foor on real ground, one hand touching the metal skin of the 'van - ouch) which is why you must not connect a caravan to a TNC-S earthing system. But generally don't worry about it. As already said you can supliment the PME earth with your own local earth rods.

By shopping around and buying some job lots, I put my Hager CU together with 13 circuits all rcbo's for a total of £80, all from ebay.

Yes, cheapest of the cheap, but having said that I have installed a few and never had any faults.

I still like Hager, mainly because they keep the design of their stuff consistent, unlike some others. e.g fit a new MK mcb in an old MK board and it might as well be a comnpletely different make as they keep on changing the design. I have a Hager in my new house. I have fitted a couple of the BG new metal consumer units and I liked the ease of knocking out the knock outs, and the fact the top and bottom entry knockouts were mostly 20mm round, perfect for terminating SWA. My Hager CU is an "old" one that has a metal back but plastic front, I made sure it was fitted last year before the new regs came into force. I am flush mounting it, i.e the back of the CU is screwed to the OSB "back" of the service void, and when battened and plasterboarded, just the plastic front of the CU will show in front of the plasterboard.

This sounds a bit like sharp practice and very much "buyer beware" If they omit to price for any of the materials (and put the quantity at 0) then it gives a somewhat false and very cheap impression of what the contract price is, leaving a nasty shock for the customer later. That's fine if the customer is aware that there is no costing for some of the materials and that the final price will be higher, but was that made clear? or do they assume all customers understand "contract speak"?

Marbo used to be Volex / Wylex in disguise. At least they used to sell Marbo consumer units that were ideniticl apart from the name stamped on them to wylex boards. It's fair to say they are at the budget end. For my money, I will but using Scholmore Click Mode switches and sockets. Very cheap, but quite nice looking and well made.

We used Protect VP400. It was chosen by our builder as in his opinion it was one that would stand up to being exposed to the weather for a long time before being covered. It's a non tenting breathable membrane laid in our case onto the wood fibre board. Non tenting means it can be laid direct on the board and water won't come through (as in you touch the inside of a tent and it starts to leak)

First, if you want dry lining boxes, then without a shaddow of doubt get Appleby. They never give trouble, unlike some other makes which can be dire. I buy a lot of stuff from CPC, and I also use Screwfix (electricfix), toolstation, and TLC direct. I also buy a surprising amount from ebay, e.g I can't find anywhere else where I can get smoke heat and CO alarms as cheap.

You will need some scaffolding soon. Just waiting for my renderer to do my gable end then I will have some for sale (sorry for the blatant plug)