Kelvin

The main thing is who is buying the stuff and if you’re paying for stuff up front (and providing the builder with the funds). This is where you can be financially exposed. In my case I’m buying everything myself.

You can get cold lay stuff though specifically for repairs. When we do our driveway entrance it will be a good day as it will be one of the last things to be done. Marks note in diary February 2027.

Hello and welcome. I love visiting the NSBRC and have done several times including a few courses and that’s despite me living in Scotland! The reception team are brilliant, friendly, welcoming, and helpful.

There is a thing called a small works contract in Scotland which is what I’m using or trying to. There will be something similar in England (I’m assuming you’re there btw). The bump I’ve run into is the groundswork guy typically doesn’t do contract’s although can put one together for me. My building contractor also doesn’t really do contracts although we’ve pulled an estimate together. This seems all pretty normal where I live and typical when you use small one man band trades. Both come highly recommended and even the BCO said they were very good. I do have contracts in place for other aspects of the build though so it’s not all a wing and a prayer just the important stuff 😂

NOx refers to two gases. NO and NO2. NO is colourless and doesn’t smell. NO2 is a browny red colour and has a strong smell.

We have a plastic storage box we keep the outside cushions in and it’s surprisingly watertight. A bit big for your purposes but you can get smaller versions and probably second hand on gumtree of Faceache marketplace

Closing this point off. They don’t cover Scotland (despite their coverage map saying they do) Happy to sell me the unit but I need to provide them with the fGas installers details. However for the rest of you in England this seems like a reasonable way to get an A2A unit installed for a reasonable fee. They’ll zero rate the VAT if doing supply and install.

Yes my timber wall is a closed panel system so makes all this a bit easier as you have something to screw into

Yes this is one of the reasons I went with our Graf One2Clean. Plus the control unit can be mounted in a remote box up to 25m away. I also got the 7 PE for a decent price which always helps the decision making 😂

Ah right. In my case I’m screwing into OSB. @Nickfromwalesshowed a detail he does where he builds a frame around the services metal box to give you something to screw it to.

You can screw them through the airtight layer as the membrane self seals (depending on the membrane). You can also put butyl tape on the membrane where the box is going to go for extra air tight security. The issue is if you remove a screw and don’t cover the hole.

Just spotted this thread and showed it to my other half who still mentions her annoyance at me deleting the stove from our build. We’ve made every decision together but on this I was quite adamant I didn’t want a stove for exactly this reason. We only have one neighbour and she died last year and the house remains empty. Even when she was alive I never saw any smoke from the chimney. Fortunately the prevailing winds tend to blow away from our plot towards the neighbour so even if there was smoke it should be fine. But I can see it being a much bigger issue in more built up areas.

We’re going with electric towel rails. Had them before and they are fine.

Coming back to the question of you’ll find it hard to get someone to fit it. These guys do a complete purchase and install service for not a lot of money. It’s unclear if they cover Scotland though as despite their map saying they do the person I spoke to said they don’t but is checking for me. https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/content/air-conditioner-installation My slight issue is the size of the space at 10.5x6x4.2 (ridge height) so to size it for the space would likely require two units. My plan is to create an office within the garage anyway so will likely just size it for that.

You can also get non-slip porcelain that has a slightly rough surface

I don’t know about them but we were told Nordan were increasing their prices by over 20% in February. We placed our order last week.

Yep. Necessity being the mother of invention and all that.

I started a similar thread early last year. Our budget has gone from comfortable to build everything we wanted to tight and compromised. First thing that went was the timber garage with space upstairs with cladding and roof to match the house to be replaced by a large insulated metal garage which was half the cost. I had a landscape budget but it has gone into the house. I was going to do full home automation professionally installed now I’ve scaled that back and doing it myself with the electrician. We wanted Abodo cladding but have swapped that to local Scottish Larch. The zinc standing seam roof is now a metal standing seam roof etc. I’m project managing and will be doing some of the work myself. Doing all that is what is allowing us to continue otherwise I think we might have been in trouble. Edited to add that our house is two simple rectangles totalling 202m2 with a straightforward roof design. We had originally planned something more complicated but ditched that due to cost.

So far yes but we’ve hardly started. Plus being a kit it’s a big one off sum for kit, windows and doors, insulation, and membranes. It’ll fall apart soon enough 😂

The price matching example I gave is from a well known self build insurer many will have used. The sewerage pump example is from Scotland’s main pump distributer for that brand.

Do all the prep work for it while the build is going on as it won’t cost much and much harder and costlier to do afterwards. Contact your DNO and get a budget estimate for adding 3 phase. There’s normally a form you fill in. 3 phase can obviously complicate your electrics especially PV and battery storage. Ditch the electric patio heaters and buy some warm blankets.

That’s not the same thing though as it’s a bit hard to negotiate when you’ve already started as you have no leverage. You have some leverage before you decide who to go with as you can choose to go elsewhere. In the example above the guy even said to me you never start with your best price. An odd thing for a sales person to say. Another example from today. I got two warranty quotes back. One 30% higher than the other. They phoned me when I said I’d be going elsewhere and they offered to price match. Clearly their real price is the lower price but likely only because there will be a proportion of people who just pay whatever number they come up with.

We elected to go timber kit with a supply and erect to weather tight contract for exactly these reasons. We’re also not using a main contractor for the rest of it and will be using local recommended trades and doing stuff ourselves. It can feel a bit overwhelming at times. I’ve had a few moments where I’ve thought what the hell have I done we could have bought a little cottage somewhere and I wouldn’t have any of this worry. However as long as you keep doing ‘stuff’ then things keep moving forward and you get closer to completion. I’ve had a productive day today for example with lots of decisions made and good progress.

I always assume there is wiggle room with every price because in my personal experience with just about everything I’ve ever bought there has been with no difference in quality or at least to the quality I was happy with. If, on the odd occasion, they reply that’s my best price then so be it.

Every price is negotiable and they never start with their best price. Handing everything over to one company is adding many thousands to the cost for two reasons one of which is they aren’t as motivated as you to get the best price. Case in point. I’ve been finalising my borehole plant and sewerage treatment plant today. In the space of a 15 minute conversation I got £3000 off the total cost. Now I don’t reckon that’s down to my brilliant negotiating skills it’s more that everyone seems to take the piss until you ask but ask you must.