JanetE

We have the same windows and I intend to put roman blinds on the short windows and curtains on the long windows sitting outside the reveal in the living room/bedrooms. Woodslat/metal Venetians sitting just inside the reveal on most of the other windows. We do have 60% reveals on our window openings. Vertical blinds are a practical choice on large windows if you like them, you can also get wide flat panels (called Japanese panel blinds) Ikea do some, which slide over each other now a bit like verticals which can also look good.

@Barney12 was your floor also glued down?

@PeterStarck interested to know who you're insured with. We've been renewing our building insurance at a pretty high cost, like you, our new place is in the garden. Our insurance company said it's Building Insurance until it's signed off by the building inspector, and only then can you insure it as a normal property.

@Nickfromwales notice you have the former the same height as the floor boards. Surely you need to reinforce the floor with some kind of marine ply or cement board if you are going to tile on top of it all??? Out of interest our formers are AK Wetrooms. V reasonable on fleabay.

What was the profile of this expansion strip? Was it glued down?

Ahh, thought it was the crickets that had escaped!! Four tarantula's??!! Health and safety would have a field day

I'm interested to know wether you can move in before sign off from the BI and the Planners? We are reaching the stage where we are running out of cash and need to sell the old house.

Yes but what happened to the tarantulas????

Finally got around to ordering our wooden floor and have gone for an engineered oak. It will be a floating floor (I know you don't like them Jeremy!) But I have decided that it will be the easiest to lay. I was wondering how to deal with the expansion gap at the head of the stairs, presumably an oak beading of some kind would be used as I believe we cannot butt them up against the wooden stair. Hope you lot can help

We used the hep20 on recommendation from here. I Iaid all the pipe and connected up, really easy to use and so convenient. We have a manifold system no hidden connections and as Jeremy says it's really easy to connect up copper to.

Yep, we had the same. Same kind of slab as you. Had to go with it as there would have been a long delay if we'd appealed. So we contacted a local archaeological company recommended by the local council (yep, jobs for the boys). They stand and watch as the surface is scraped off. Luckily nothing was found, as we would of had to have paid for their extra time! They wrote a report & I think the bill came to about £1,500 or thereabouts for the whole lot. So just keep your fingers crossed that nothing comes up !!

We went with MBC and also found the standard of work second to none and the attitude of all their workers of the highest order. One of the main reasons we choose them was because they did the whole package, slab, u/f heating pipes, frame, insulation and not forgetting air tightness. So no problems with interface between the different tradesmen. When we were researching which company to go with we visited a build in progress of another timber frame company who didn't do the slab, what a mess, the builder who put in the slab had made errors in his measurements for the internal walls resulting in the frame erectors having to use a club hammer to get the panels in by the time they got to the top floor. So going with MBC was a 'no brainer' as far as we were concerned.

These results would indicate you have a rather larger body than Faye.

Anyway I really think I also like the idea of underfloor heating for our bathroom Terry, it'll be great for drying the bath mat, along with the heated towel rail everything will dry out really well, shame we can't have the fluffy towels, maybe we will need a tumble dryer too, we could fit it in the utility maybe

@JSHarris I recall you posted a picture of yours Jeremy, can you look it out for us please? We're just about to commission the supply end too and I'm not sure exactly where the best place is to put it.

That's actually a heat detecting one in the kitchen rather than a smoke one, so it doesn't go off every time you burn the toast!

We're having Bamboo on the top floor. It will be loose laid and I intend getting the uniclic as I think it will be easier to lay. I was wondering what underlay to use as I think it will be a bit noisy when you walk around on it. Also wondering what thickness of Bamboo to get. I notice that Bamboo Flooring Co, do a 10 mm thick which I think would be fine! Interested to know what others have used.

@Bitpipe well our flush plates are the standard cheapies which fit over the top so shouldn't be a problem for us!

Well the two ring gas hob is connected. The guy who connected it and certified it for us charged us £100. The cylinder and connectors including the deposit was £105. He made a really neat job of it too. So a good result for us. So maybe @joe90, can show the pictures to his wife

So I took a piece of OSB which was a bit bigger than the hole. Put a screw in the middle so I could hold it. Put some glue round and screwed it in. Left it to dry. Cut a piece of ply to fit the gap and glued and screwed it. How's that @Nickfromwales??

Thanks for the info which is really helpful. But back to the original question; is an 'order confirmation' acceptable if it has a VAT number and my name and address on it? I have emailed a couple of suppliers asking for an invoice and only got back another confirmation of order!!

I clean our extractor regularly in the current house and I have to say it really picks up a lot of grease. I think you need one to do just this as otherwise the fat in the air will settle on near surfaces and I suspect your MVHR extractor will also pick up a lot and be pretty difficult to clean.

Just been checking the height of our toilets in the new house as they look a bit low. We followed the installation instructions on the Gerberit frame and added the build up for the floor finish. So I measured the height of our current toilet to the top not including the seat and it is 40cm. Checked the ones in the new house and they are just over at 41/42cm. So this seems standard unless you've got very long legs then you can set the Gerberit a bit higher!

I was wondering if anyone has any experience of exactly what paperwork is needed for Reclaiming VAT. Do I need to supply an actual invoice or is an order confirmation itemising the goods,vat etc., with the VAT number on it sufficient to make a reclaim?? I don't want to assume that an order confirmation is adequate and then have the tax man reject it.

Got it! Thanks Nick, you're a star