Ferdinand

Just read your reviews - excellent. That must be a great satisfaction. Delighted that your guests all agree with the Hive Mind.

I take it those are track-articulations rather than scoop teeth. Desperately hunting for consolation, did it happen to be in a useable position when it broke?

Do I have the wrong end of the stick? Thought this was on the roof. Is it an underground garage or similar?

I have that, but it is run as 2 systems with 2 controllers fed from one boiler. My house is OK rather than superinsulated ... 2010 regs then a bit. Ferdinand

Reinstall it on a slight slope so it runs off . Patio cleaning brush? Or yardbrush?

I do not think there is a ‘best way’. You need to spend time finding out what you want / like, and develop the background to determine what that is and how to do it. Or communicate your requirements to a designer when you know what they are, and pay the appropriate. Comment here can help, but also eg studying other houses, staying in places eg Landmark Trust or AirBNB, Open House Weekend in London on 22-23 September etc can help. https://openhouselondon.org.uk/ Ferdinand

Skylights of roof windows bring in about 4-6 times as much light as the same area of window. May effect what you put where. Glazing bars can also have a significant effect ... do the calculations. If you end up needing to enhance it then things light pale surfaces near windows or mirrors in the reveals (or facing a window) can help a great deal. Ferdinand

Good piece. I would add a number on the contingency - 15-20%. 10% for the usual slings and arrows, and te rest for the things that were forgotten about or are desired gold plating.

So presumably you can get a caravan to be your haven of peace and quiet !

My T who built a conservatory was planning to repurpose *my* backdoor as the new conservatory until I stopped him with a "no" and "if you do that it will have to meet Building Regs". Got one off ebay for £30 within the hour. F

I wouldn't worry on the Topo as long as he is competent and accurate. The Council are unlikely to reject that one for lack of a qualification (unlike perhaps the Soil Survey or Bat Survey or Tree Survey or Archaeology Survey, all of which would possibly require an appropriately-lettered ologist). My reminders: - Make sure he covers all the areas you need, such as verge boundaries and street furniture and the road far enough for visibility splays etc, and also points inside your plot. - Make sure that he gives you an electronic copy that you have software to understand. - Make sure that there are no restrictions on use that are unacceptable to you. Is there an advantage in creating your reference datums first, so that these can be included? Ferdinand

Another axiom is Simplify ! Simplify ! Simplify ! I would not call it consensus, but some of us find that simpler central heating controls are appropriate in a more highly insulated house. If your whole house is so well insulated that you need minimal heating (say approaching passive), then it is more practical to keep it all warm and not have say 8 roomstats, the wiring and the fitting expenses. The financial balance of loads of gubbins vs the lifecycle saving that results can be modelled. Another example is to have no major heating upstairs in the same circs (and either put some minimal preparatory plumbing or wiring in, with nothing attacked or accept that you will have some sort of portable elecric heater as a backup just in case your calcs were optimistic. There are various strategies. Ferdinand

Just checked the price on this one from Howden's with my local branch, which to my eye looks potentially to be a little more robust due to the solid sides, and they said £175 + VAT.

@Jude1234 Been reflecting on the "getting under control and saving money" process. Trying to work towards something a little more defined, and the decisions made will be informed by how drastic the changes are you need to make. Very much a work in progress. 1 - Create a list of work packages or items still to do, alongside the stuff about what you are committed to and your estimates. We have talked about this up thread. Ideally 1 needs to be complete and in a spreadsheet so dependencies and totals can be buggered-about-with, but I guess that "must haves for the build" can be safely identified to a degree. The overall aim is to avoid spending *any* money unnecessarily, and to identify the stuff that can be not-done now. 2 - Categorise each work package as: a - Must haves for the build - stuff you have to do to build the house eg cannot leave insulation out of the walls or stub electrical wiring to things you are delaying which is going behind plasterboard. b - Must haves for your personal needs or regulatory / planning requirements. That is eg at least one bathroom, some sort of cooker etc , but also things to meet planning conditions etc when they are required. c - Things that can be delayed. What I call WIBNIs (Would It Be Nice If). Everything else, and may include "requirements" or "essentials" that can be delayed. eg you *could* leave the rendering on your garage for some time if it is still weathertight, or all the other bathrooms. 3 - Use 1-10 list to decide what to do with each work package. 4 - Review, reflect and rebudget. Ferdinand

That is a fair point, and I do not know But it seemed wise to mention it. My list of "needs" is drawn from what I would regard as a minimum, and what would be required by a mortgage lender (insight from which auction properties are / are not mortgageable). One way to check might be to have a conversation with a planner about when they would enforce. I think the test on enforcement is "is it expedient", so they have a lot of leeway. I would expect a greater likelihood of enforcement by planning or environmental health if there are complaints about nuisance or noise, if there is a safety issue, or if there is a situation which may go on interminably. And the process would take months. Ferdinand

Oh good ... the mistress has mistresses have not been discovered. ? ? ? You need to have been brought up by my mother ... she it was that found a Derbyshire Hall that had been empty for 2 years. We moved in on January 30th. If it is any consolation, that renovation took about 25 years. F

You have enough different opinions on this thread that you are inevitably going to ignore most of us ?.

I just registered and that gave that price. No apparent checks, but it is identified in the email as a Trade Account. And one of the options is landlord/property developer. Salamander Property Development? It is the price each, btw. F

LVT are more durable than they sound. Quickstep do a Uniclic version of LVT with a 20 or 25 year guarantee, but the normal cost is £32 per sqm or so. I was playing tag with B&Q for 3 months with their sales at half that when I was looking for the Little Brown Bungalow when they were replacing Quick Step with their own much inferior range. I think they have an underlay similar to laminate floor. In the end I spotted a sale lot of 25 year guarantee Uniclic laminate where B&Q had reduced to about £8 per sqm on a final sale, but somebody had left the leading 1 off the 14.00 price tag, so the were on the computer at £4 for almost 2 sqm packs. So I went for those instead. Still my best deal ever except for free. I got about 25sqm which was enough for kitchen, hall and bathroom with 4 sqm left over wear and tear or water leak repairs. IIRC even the Quick Step Basic Plus underlay ... £2-2.50 per sqm ... includes a dampproof membrane joined at the edge of the roll with adhesive strips. Ferdinand

Quick qu: How good is Sketchbook?

If it i a bathroom, a couple of coats of waterproofing would not go amiss too.

Hold your horses, Fanny Blankers-Koen! ? Aren't you driving this bus now? If there are no cost penalties to you in delaying or other BFO (eg contractual and you pay anyway) reason for doing so, then tell them to delay. Do not "offer an option" - you are the client, you now hold the swagger-stick, you are the project manager, so you decide what is going to happen. Then step back and do some reflection about your priorities - assuming that it is still all about cost savings as per last week. Why do you need an ensuite now, and to pay for it, now? Is there not going to be a family bathroom? Can you not put the ensuite in 2 years after you have moved. Delaying it will probably save you about 3-4k from this year's spend, that you will have more easily available in 2019 or 2021. At the very least it would be a little risky to go full steam ahead with this spend if you have not completed the evaluation and costing out we were talking about on the other thread. Is that 3-4k better applied somewhere else eg filling the hole that it will leave in the bank account? At least delay to think about it once you know the size of the hole you have to fill, not before. (*) If you are planning to save say £30-£60k on your (guessing) £350-£450k project (or whatever the number is), then this is the sort of thought you need to entertain. If you have to go ahead, then I see no reasons (plumbers such as @Nickfromwales may contradict me from a high tower of authority) for not doing the walls first. That is how I normally do it, in my case to avoid the risk of gunk or droppages ruining my nice new floor). If they must do it, then you could tell the tiler to leave 25-30mm at the bottom for eg a subfloor and tiles, or plywood and roll vinyl. Buying from what the sheds have in is the most expensive way - out of time, quality and cost you can only have two. And if your time is limited to "today", and your quality to LVL tiles, then you will get clobbered on cost and the limited selection may mean you do not get what you want. And I think good LVL is £25-£40 per sqm. Take off the time constraint and you will get your desired choice at perhaps 30-50% saving, or may discover something at £10 per sqm that is just as good, or put roll vinyl at <£10 per sqm down for the first N years. Ferdinand (*) It will also signal to your builder that you are deadly serious about the cost-savings.

To move in you need: Somewhere to cook. Somewhere to eat. Somewhere to shower. Somewhere to sleep. And you probably want heat and light in the relevant bit of house, and some doors on, and at least one cold tap. Plus any others you feel you need eg clothes storage (in extremis a suitcase under the bed unless the bed is a blow up mattress) and food storage (in extremis a fridge next to the camping stove you are cooking on). If children desire more comfort then not having it will be a character-building experience that will stand them in good stead later in life . You would have a fighting chance of raising not-snowflakes. If you have a caravan you can have a holiday-at-home for a bit, but I would not suggest that heading into winter. That is a bit tongue in cheek, and most people would have a bit more. F

I'd forgotten about those. For 20 years we had pull out wide backets about 150mm deep in 60mm base units. Like a less sophisticated version of these. They provide some of the functionality of what would be pullup shelves. I guess you can also think about wire shelves as used eg for storing sausage rolls in racks in food shops. Ferdinand

How are you getting in, @Jude1234 As I see it, with each work package (which might be as small a install a cupboard or as large as do a landscaping scheme), you have about 10 options wrt cost changes. I have left out things like major layout redesign or smaller house, as you are at second fix stage. 1 - Leave as is, which may involve increasing the budget. 2 - Delay into the future (easy one may be eg ensuite in small room), perhaps with a spec change too. 3 - Install facilitating infrastructure, but leave for later. Might be eg put plumbing in for ensuite behind plaster, but do not do it yet. Some on BH do this for things that may be needed in their dotage - eg leaving a space and an aligned gap in the ceiling structure for a lift, which is covered over for now. 4 - Find the same materials and supplies at a less expensive price. 5 - Reduce quality of finish, or materials, or products, or simplify (example - granite -> laminate worktop) 6 - Find less expensve labour. 7 - Do things yourself. 8 - Minor redesign. 9 - Leave out entirely. (Leaving out walls can be very creative). See William of Ockham 10 - Change something about the overheads eg move in earlier than planned and save the rent, even if this involves breaking the rules for a shorter time than it takes the Council to enforce. Ferdinand