Ferdinand

If you go for the oscillating saw, then they usually come as one attachment to a "multitool" as linked above. Multitools often come up in Aldi and Lidl special buy days, and can be quite reasonable in price. It is also a tool you may find many other uses for. F

We have always had a butterfly net to catch things than come in. At this present place I have maybe one a year in he conservatory, but open the door or an upper window and they have all found their way out. The butterfly net costs about £10-20. eg https://www.amazon.co.uk/Telescopic-Butterfly-Catching-Insects-Stainless/dp/B07QTKHCPX/ You won't catch a golden eagle with it, but for sparrows and small birds it is ideal. F

Remember that caravan usually means a 12 x 40 static rather than a towable one. It is bearable (I am told ?) for a time. Winter, multiple years, lack of careful planning, mud and the bracing weather of the Highlands are the challenges. F

To me that looks pricey, bit depends on the scope. Can the tree survey be done by the ecologist in one package?

Three things for my perspective. Slightly contrasting view. 1 - Is it listed? Need to consider that if so, but you still get to do repairs. 2 - If it needs to be done it needs to be done. Dry rot is cut out and / or repair plus treatment, depending on the attack. Hope it is not dry rot. 3 - y perspective is that a necessary repair is exactly that, and a modern repair is part of the rich story of the house. Don’t cry over spoilt milk or sunk costs (even if not spent yet). If it needs to be done it needs to be done. I am sure you can get a hand crafted thing, but imo a thing done using the modern materials in the modern age is quite possibly more appropriate - unless it is a conservation place. Personally my taste is towards an honest modern repaired that is appropriate, rather than a simulated traditional one.. It is what it is. yes appreciate the craftsmen, but current craft is just as honest. Hope it is not dry rot. F

At least you are getting options :-). It always goes No No No No No No ... Yes. ?

My niece used to do that when you took her for lunch. She sort of had an internal spreadsheet that would absorb the entire menu in 15 seconds, do a sort by price, and choose the one at the top without any visible action ?.

I would expect a survey to give both an 8 or 10 figure grid reference and the GPS coordinates, plus ACAD to let you specify the origin point - and for that to be in the survey data. But I have never used ACAD.

Todd Doors have a whole page here at that bigger size with quite a few between £100 and £200, and more at 826, but perhaps you have seen these. https://www.todd-doors.co.uk/internal-doors#/specFilters=96m!#-!427&pageSize=30&viewMode=grid&orderBy=0&pageNumber=1 Don't get too enthusiastic until you have talked to them and checked the quantity as it is quite possible that for certain ones they only have a few. I love the pun of a flush door on the loo. TBF here, we are all running through door suppliers we have found to be OK. Ferdinand

I assume internal doors are what you are after. Is the main issue that no one does the size, or that everyone does the size and no one does a style you find attractive? Can you give an indication of what you are looking for eg is it an unusual wood or unusual style or different material or colour etc? Does there have to be a Firedoor version? Is there an approx max budget - eg £50, 100 or 250 per door? All that info would help. Sorry for the questions, but I don't want to pepper you with suggestions that are wrong for reasons we can know first. F

On the ducting stuff, there may be something in Jeremy's blog at mayfly.eu, as he seems to have everything everywhere eg I believe he has electrical power in 3 separate places in his garden. But I am not aware that he has listed everything in one place. When I put ducts in I usually use the blue water pipe with nylon rope as a pre-installed draw string. As said above, you suck one or two through with a hoover and a moving plug such as a cloth. On occasion I have put an empty duct in the same trench as the one in use just in case the first goes tits-up, and the prices of the pipe are such that it uses a larger quantity up. The possible reason for two is because some clown will always forget to tie another one on the other end at some point in the future. But you choose your level of redundancy. F

Is there any reason why you can't just concrete in two or three fenceposts closer, and put your datum points on those? It would need a real survey of the exact locations when set up, but should help after that. Concrete fence posts exist that come with bolt holes already in them for a mount. No one knows where the permanent structure is apart from your surveyor having surveyed it; he can surely survey a semi-permanent structure created on site. That's probably what I would try and do, and I'm interested to know any reason why not. Don't you just need a slightly out-of-the-immediate way-but-close-by place on your plot that will not be disturbed during the build? F /ministry of innocent questions

welcome.

I worked for a time near there. I love that there is a village called Moira and another one called Conkers. Lots of nice trees and bicycle paths locally in the National Forest so an increasingly fantastic place to be in the next few years' time.

I appreciate that you have identified yourself as an Interior Designer trying to understand the market up front. Thank-you - that gives the basis for a useful conversation. My comments relate to my use of an ID on a recent project as a small LL. I hope they are helpeful to you and also to other SBs. As an ID you need to pattern your engagement very individually, and IMO the key things will be understanding the requirements, and educating people as to what is possible. Each self-builder is very different, and the market is perhaps well-desribed as "micro-segmented into units of one", which you *may* find ways to aggregate *a little*. ? The example of upfront guidance and material provided by the Architectural Practice Allan Corfield may be a good parallel example you could learn from. I used an Interior Designer for the design and refurb of a student rental in the last 2 years, so my comments are 'notes for a customer' and relate to a customer view, not following the question structure. You need to look at the other side of this view to find your routes to market. The key aspect for me was that I as given advice by a professional lettings agent I already respected. It was left-field for me, and I had to do some work to appreciate the possibilities. - For an established ID with a proven track record the costs per day will not be that different to hiring an architect. - Proving experience is likely to be more difficult, but it needs the same due diligence as you are hiring an artistic skillset, which is more personal than a trade skillset. But IDs do not have a standard training route as well established as an Architect. Past portfolio is critical. - I treated PM as a separate skillset. Not all Architects are good PMs; the same applies to IDs. Needs a separate segment of due diligence. - £250 will honestly not get very much, unless using eg a student or getting a favour / loss leader. £250 is less than one day if you are only buying one day, which may not even be enough properly to understand your requirements - but £800-1200 plus expenses may be one week. You may get a few sketch ideas, or perhaps a piggyback off another project. - Like an architect, you get out what your put in. The only way to judge the outcome is if you have defined and communicated your requirements / expectations / scope well. If you have not, then your ID, as your architect would be, has nothing to go on except their own opinions and guesses about your needs. You need to have enough knowledge and self-knowledge to ask questions pertinent to both. - You need the skills to distinguish between style and fashion, and to communicate the your aspirations to the ID. - It is important to have enough creativity remaining in the project to give satisfaction to the ID. IDs and Architects are rightly not happy if they are reduced to a monkey dancing for the organ grinder. It needs to be a continuous collaboration, and it will not come down like a spaceship from the sky. - Cost control is probably best as much by adjusting scope and time taken plus looking for synergy, not by *excessive* arguing about rate. It is a rather different ballgame if your role is as a developer, when you are looking for perceived value, rather than personal value. In my case I was approached by my (excellent) lettings agent with a proposal to update, using an ID that they had used for previous projects which I could see. The PM was handled by the agent managing the ID who did all the purchasing and nitty gritty, and me giving detailed input in response to a detailed proposal which involved a certain amount of re-scoping then touch-bases throughout. ID was looking after all the purchasing and implementation. Project was a big success. I'm not talking about numbers online, but you could PM me. My comments. HTH. F

For less than £1295 you can get a top notch scaffold tower that should do the job. Unless perhaps you have a requirement for very long single piece runs. Edit - I see that the 1295 is the strip / replace cost. A scaff tower should be under £1000. Peter's £30 x 20m is in the same ballpark (ish!). ATB. F

Financial Times: https://www.ft.com/content/90c22b17-7f0c-4dfa-b582-419b8ef93d7d

Hi. I'm just up near J28. F

That probably illustrates the difference between very well insulated and well-but-not-brilliant houses - my walls are about 0.2 u-value, and floor a perhaps 0.18. Joe's is better I think. I use my plumbed in towel rail for basic heat in the downstairs bathroom (all upstairs Rads are off), but also with downstairs ufh on (really its a bit light on deliver-ability for very cold weather due to lower insulation than passive). All on timers. I open the bathroom for a boost after a morning 10 minute blow-through. Were I building it I would do it with more insulation, but it was already done. What you need is an appropriate setup for your chosen specification, plus a suitable strategy that will cope if you got your calculations a bit off. Ferdinand

The purpose of electric towel rails is, I think, for most people in near-PH houses or better, to provide a boost when needed, or even as an insurance policy if the upstairs turns out to need a bit of heat from time to time and they decided to have just that. If you were more sure that it would be necessary then you could plumb it in to the general system, just as happens for normal installation. Even as its own zone. Mine are on my main gas circuit (have ufh downstairs and rads upstairs with a boiler) but for both bathrooms are plumbed into the upstairs circuit - perhaps they thought plumbing in to the ufh was not acceptable. F

Perhaps lack of crud. (I'm the stereo speaker.)

A note on doors @zoothorn. If it turns out you are going to need to trim it top or bottom, then each type of door has a number in the specification telling you how much you can trim top and bottom. Some of them are just a few mm, whilst others go up to about 60mm in total, and potentially more if the door is a single slab of wood or a uniform board. The ones which can be trimmed more will be rather more money than your cheap doors, but be aware that that can be done if you need. F

I'm trying to understand the 12 month interruption on this thread. Does @joe90 not have any advice to offer from the experience of having now built the planned Tractor Shed he mentioned in the first half?

My Friday evening post-G&T-when-I -could-only-find-a-really-big-glass answer is that you could install a row of them like engines on an ecranoplan: Somebody will be along in a minute who has drink-taken less generously, and met the same issue. Reaching through the Mother's Ruin, and assuming no MVHR, I wonder whether the cooker hood (if you have one) can count as intermittent ventilation to meet the other standard, or whether the "whole house" calculation may offer a remedy. That 13 l/s continuous number in the Approved Doc looks suspiciously like a number which is designed to be just bigger than the kit normally used at some point. Another answer would be a 125 or 150mm fan or HR fan. With a backdraft shutter that would control your air leakage, and could be switched between different options later without doing further violence to your wall if you find that meets your personal requirements. (Though 2 100mm fans could be a realistic option.) I am sure that this challenge has occurred before, so I would not be worried (yet ?). A conversation with BC may help, or perhaps just not mentioning it and they may not either.