Kelvin

Why? Our EV heats up just fine. It has a heat pump but I often just rely on the heated seats and heated steering wheel.

RobD advised the same so that’s what we have to every window.

Open them when you’re there especially any upstairs windows or rooflights. I have a couple of oiled filled rads doing the heating and we are about 50% plastered and we have condensation running down corners of the windows and handles. You can put a dehumidifier in too.

It took me a while to realise that they don’t care about your home as much as you’d like them to, even the very best guys I’ve had on site see it as just a job. For us it’s our eventual home that we’ve sunk a lot of money into but also a lot or ourselves into. It takes years to get to the building stage and we’ll have spent that time staring at plans and fretting over every element of the design and look. One of the kit builders kept saying it’s just wood and nails. Eventually my other half got so fed up hearing this she snapped at him one day saying actually it’s our effing home. I also made a point of calling it our home in any comms rather than house or building.

I feel your pain. I had all of that too. I fired my plasterers the other week. It’s not easy but you need to live in it and with it so well done!

You have massively misunderstood how the VAT reclaim process works. https://www.self-build.co.uk/our-guide-claiming-back-vat-self-build/ https://www.gov.uk/vat-building-new-home/how-to-claim

Good point. Fortunately ours is in the single story bit of the house. However the study is on the other side of the wall from it. In our previous house the pumps and controls were all in a cupboard adjacent to our bedroom. It made a right Royal racket.

We had an enormous L shaped patio in the previous house using indian sandstone. It was great except on hot days when it was unusable. It attracted flies it being a big radiator and was a death trap in the winter if it was icy. Apart from that. 😂 3m is too narrow. Mark it out with some builders blue marker spray paint or rope. Stick some chairs where you think they’ll go and walk around it. You’ll soon figure out how big it needs to be but 3.5m minimum I’d say.

I asked earlier. What are the Scottish regs on this?

I like to close threads off. The one thing that annoys me a little about some threads on here is people start them, lots of people contribute suggestions and you never find out how it ended and it’s helpful to know for the future when other folk have a similar problem. They replaced the window and the tint matches perfectly. However, they also damaged all the aluminium cladding and window beads in the process so I lost my rag a bit about that. They have all subsequently now been replaced too. This all started back in April when the windows were delivered two days earlier than planned and just before the scaffolding went up. I didn’t want to take them as the likelihood of them getting damaged was high. But Heb Homes knew better and said they’d accept the risk. Sure as eggs is eggs a window got smashed and everyone on-site denied it was them. The scaffolding company said it’s what insurance is for 🙄 I pointed out that it wasn’t the money as the timber kit company were covering that. It was the consequential hassle this would generate for me trying to get this fixed and I was right about that as it took 6 months and wasted hours of my time. No idea how much this cost Heb and Nordan but a lot. The good news the two incorrect glazing units were put to good use in some garden rooms in the local town.

Depends what else is going in your plant room. HWC, MVHR, UFH manifold and controls, centralised hot and cold water manifold, all your electrical equipment etc. I put ours in the centre with an outside wall and all of our plant equipment is in it apart from the water treatment which is in the garage. The benefit is all of our pipe, ducting, cable runs are relatively short and everything is in one place. The downside is it’s quite tight for space as I could have done with another 300mm of width and routing it all up into the ceiling wasn’t easy.

Just to add to this. I ordered some Tikkurila Anti Reflex 2 from DCO (website I posted earlier). This is my top coat. It’s really nice stuff. Covers beautifully and creamy smooth. £53 for 10l so not exactly a cheap option but not the dearest either.

They wanted to do mine a week earlier than planned because they’d gone to a job that wasn’t ready. Customer had forgotten to tell them! So they turned up at mine unannounced to see if I could take it. We tried really hard to accommodate them as it was all going to be dumped otherwise apparently but we just couldn’t get it ready for them.

The screw hole centres are at 60mm on the loxone boxes which I think is the same for single gang UK square boxes so you’d need to check that. They need to be mounted slightly offset to secure the mounting bracket though. Before anyone says it’s not level, it is it’s just my dodgy photography 😂

That’s sounds a nice detail. Can’t quite imagine what it will look like but birch ply is nice. Look forward to seeing it.

As you know I followed your advice and didn’t have a skip on-site so we have had little wasted timber. We over ordered plasterboard though.

Yes I found this out when I was calculating amounts. Being an amateur I worked out the total sqm then deducted openings, added back in reveals then a bit extra for waste. Presented this to various trades and they all said we just measure through. Same with the cladding I calculated it exactly accounting for the pitch then added 15%. They said oh we just square the building off and add 10%.

That would never have got in my drive!

Yes they dropped off the twoable pump the day before. All very slick. Team of three guys, lorry driver and another guy came to check it and sign off. In and out before my other half managed to drive from the rental to watch the pour. 😂

Yes very little waste.

Out of interest, why have you left them ?

Yes the guys that did mine had those wee spider level things and marked on a sheet the screed depth at each one.

There’s a reasonable amount of labour involved in doing the reveals. I know because I did ours. Took me a few days but I’m an amateur.

Slight thread drift. Are fire regulations for open plan kitchens, stairs and bedrooms different in Scotland compared to England?

Wouldn’t a thicker layer of whatever you use move more than a thinner layer?