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NotJustANumber99 posted:Its not a self build if I pay someone else to make all my mistakes for me though. That definitely would still count as a self-build.
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Jul 26, 2022 09:32
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I agree 100% that a good project manager would be a godsend for a first-timer, but how do you, the naive consumer, choose a good one? You're putting your eggs in one basket somewhat. I went with a well-regarded architect and used their recommended builder, and he turned out to be poo poo. Local word of mouth is a lot easier when you already live there and your neighbours can tell you what a good job Gary Fences did on their fences, but when you're self-building you're probably not in the area yet and it's not a very common project. It's a bit of a catch 22, right? You don't know what to look for even in testimonials and previous customers' builds until you've got some experience of your own.
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Jul 26, 2022 10:22
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Jaded Burnout posted:Local word of mouth is a lot easier when you already live there and your neighbours can tell you what a good job Gary Fences did on their fences, but when you're self-building you're probably not in the area yet and it's not a very common project. The most eye watering recommendation was from my gran in law who recommended a roofer with the caveat that I probably shouldn't leave any money out, any alcohol in the fridge, or leave my wife alone in the house with him. Thanks gran.
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Jul 26, 2022 12:01
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NotJustANumber99 posted:Its not a self build if I pay someone else to make all my mistakes for me though. Yeah but at least then when you inevitably have to rework things you can curse their name instead of your own.
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Jul 26, 2022 12:37
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Going wi th family recommended builders is a recipe for disaster
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Jul 26, 2022 13:43
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Jaded Burnout posted:I agree 100% that a good project manager would be a godsend for a first-timer, but how do you, the naive consumer, choose a good one? First homeless guy on a bike that talks to you: quote:That’s when a man pulled up on his 10-speed bicycle and started chatting with Julian. His name was Robert. He was in his 50s, wore a short-sleeved plaid shirt, jean cut-offs, a rumpled hat and white running shoes. He was missing a few key teeth and didn’t like wearing socks or, as he later informed us, underwear. Robert didn’t own a car and spent his time collecting stray pieces of metal, wood and other junk he’d find on the street. Yet, despite his alarming appearance, he was charming and knowledgeable. https://torontolife.com/real-estate/parkdale-reno-hell/ What could possibly go wrong?
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Jul 26, 2022 14:29
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It’s a wonderful tale.
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Jul 26, 2022 15:01
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Project manage eh? Well, I'm not doing much actual block/brick laying at the moment so I push ahead with procurement, namely the roof, which goes on top of the walls. Clay roof tiles are quite pricey but are mandated by my planning in the conservation area, and given my very efficient house design of loads of foundation, not much house and then loads more roof means I need to find the right tile at the right price. Also the weird covid/brexit scenario is messing everything up further. I am hearing scare stories from everyone of roof tile lead times being 6 months plus. The new, machine made tiles I can't really afford but are maybe closest are also pretty miserable and disappointing in looks. Price rises bring reclaimed tiles in to play and I try to talk to a few reclaim places but they still want loads of money. And I need ~ 20,000 tiles. Places struggle to provide in this volume. So I just start trawling ebay and gumtree. Do the tiles need to be all the same? I mean mixing them up will probably look nicer? Its certainly cheaper. yeah we'll do that.  whet my appetite with a small ~ 600 tile load from a lady nearby. She's a crazy ex TV exec who has like a million adopted children taking various A levels and I think wants me to take my shirt off whilst I load the tiles? She points me to a ship reclaim yard to get doors of a submarine for my internal doors! Nice lady. Then I find a like whole roof worth of the same tile a little over an hour away, too much for the saab.   I am defo overweight on this lol, it takes several trips over two days, loading tile by tile by hand both ends.  But I now have like 8k tiles all the same. Get a little more boutique and end up at some really flash pads hoovering up their leftovers, these aren't old, brand new and unused handmade. They stuck this in with their forklift, it was too much I had to park back up after a half mile and rearrange    Another load of maybe 2k unused hand made tiles, oh and some ventilation pipe. A massive scrounger.   Another lovely mansion in the making... had to wait all day though as the guy clearly had no project manager and the scaffolders were in the way. Also the tiles were right down the bottom of a very long inaccessible site. Lovely guy but very unfit and basically collapsed after helping me load one wheelbarrow and had to do it all myself. Also they were kind of poo poo tiles.   Obviously I'm renting lots of vans and pickups here but only ever for a day or two and the savings I'm making the cost is neither here nor there.  This guy is much more organised and has palletted and wrapped everthing up and has his own cool, bend in the middle off road forklift. You can see his extension in the background. These tiles I'm buying were on that for a few months, but it leaked cos the roof pitch was inappropriate so he had to strip them all off and sell them on. Most of the guys I pick these tiles up from are nice but do mention how cheap I'm getting them. Yeah... I know. This guy is especially cool though and says his wife ordered them all and was badly advised whilst he was abroad being his teenage son's snowboard coach as he was trying to get into the Olympics. Not super rich people. He also gives me a pep talk about sticking it out. very cool. I basically rip him off.  And I don't even need to handball them off at the end as he's packaged them up so well.  Last few a bit messy So yeah theres roughly 20k of mixed, reclaimed/handmade tiles. We're talking over a quid a tile for most of these bought new and god knows what lead times. I get some of these for 9p a tile. Probably average 30p ish a tile. I am the greatest project manager the world has ever known.
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Jul 26, 2022 22:02
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Great job, nothing better than a bargain. This is where self build can pay off, because you can use materials that pros can't risk specifying or won't take the time to find. We bought karndeen flooring box ends for 8 months and saved a fortune on our kitchen floor.
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Jul 26, 2022 22:48
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Absolutely love the tile story and getting a deal/bargain. And you probably helped relieve the sellers of a bunch of crap they wanted out of their hair anyways
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Jul 26, 2022 23:06
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Just looking at this gave me unloading anxiety. Well done on hoovering it all up, rip to your arms.
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Jul 27, 2022 05:06
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They'll be ripped for sure now
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Jul 27, 2022 06:20
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NotJustANumber99 posted:She points me to a ship reclaim yard to get doors of a submarine for my internal doors! Nice lady. poo poo, now I kinda want a bulkhead door leading to some kind of random drawing room/pantry.
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Jul 27, 2022 22:49
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Here you go!  https://www.trinitymarine.co.uk/shop/salvaged-naval-bulkhead-doors-crank-wheels/
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Jul 27, 2022 23:04
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Methylethylaldehyde posted:poo poo, now I kinda want a bulkhead door leading to some kind of random drawing room/pantry. As long as you lose the knee-knockers
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Jul 28, 2022 00:17
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gently caress that's the coolest thing I've seen in awhile.
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Jul 28, 2022 00:35
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Pigsfeet on Rye posted:As long as you lose the knee-knockers Those are the best part of a bulkhead door though!
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Jul 28, 2022 00:53
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Methylethylaldehyde posted:Those are the best part of a bulkhead door though! I've been on crutches far too long in my life to intentionally put poo poo like that in my house. Looks cool as hell though.
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Jul 28, 2022 04:22
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Right so I'm going to need something to put all these bloody tiles on. I had a vague generic online quote for roof trusses from like... earlier when I was coming up with budgets for finance stuff. I dredge this poo poo up and go to talk to a company I engaged earlier. They ignore me. That seems to be whats happening now, we are post covid and all building is ramping back up. Pathetic only one house builders like me are capitalistic chaff. Eventually I find a company nice enough to speak with me and they're really cool, and the lad talks to me about stuff I don't understand but no they can't do it without a design. I thought roof truss people on a relatively simple build did that for you cos they wanted your business? Anyway I download all the relevant documents and design it myself. This is what I want. I'm pretty sure?  So I send it back out to a few people, largely ignored but one company comes back and says one small part of it is breaking their calculations... Er OK cool change that bit? Yeah theyre up for it and I've designed myself a roof.  Yes. My original quote was 6k, we are now at over 12k. This is boris and all that lot rat loving me again. Great. But yeah they can deliver within a few weeks! Hmmm I need better forks on the digger to unload this. Some straps and leftovers later:  All set   And here we are unloading hugely succesfully  That delivery lad was mental I can't even remember but something about my socks? I dunno i don't suit this world  Yeah, just carrying a bunch of roof. Anyway set it down against the container on some blocks   Yep, all this other roof too that'll need making.  Finished  Lol now that full of himself and my socks lad has to get out... a million point turn later... still stuck  he escapes but lol.
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Jul 30, 2022 00:22
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NotJustANumber99 posted:That seems to be whats happening now, we are post covid and all building is ramping back up. Pathetic only one house builders like me are capitalistic chaff. I got lucky with my joist manufacturer, they used my job as filler when their big real customers all got delayed when the UK ran out of bricks(!). NotJustANumber99 posted:I need better forks on the digger to unload this. Some straps and leftovers later: I thought those were going to be used as extra long forks for a minute. NotJustANumber99 posted:Lol now that full of himself and my socks lad has to get out... Man, delivery guys. They're either the nicest in the world or they're talking your ear off about how their giant outbuilding totally skirts building regs because it's "technically a portable building" because you can "technically remove it with a big enough crane" (true story).
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Jul 30, 2022 07:14
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Bit boring, but in the background block and brickwork is continuing (apart from the month it wasn't where they just disappeared)  Having a brick "feature" wall at one end of the vaulted open plan room   Drone  Sweep up a bit   Yeah, happening.
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Jul 30, 2022 21:29
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Not sure if your plant room is going to get enough sun that close to the fence
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Jul 30, 2022 21:32
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to be fair they put that fence in after I designed it all
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Jul 30, 2022 21:36
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NotJustANumber99 posted:to be fair they put that fence in after I designed it all I'm surprised they're allowed to put a spite fence right on the property line, especially considering how close your permitted already-established footprint building is to those lines.
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Jul 30, 2022 21:38
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Are there rules where you are about that? I'm pretty sure there aren't here... you can basically put a six foot fence up on your boundary regardless of anything. Conservation area and listed building stuff would have a say, but aside from that nothing I don't think. It is lol though isn't it. All my neighbours disgusted by my existence, spending thousands of pounds on fences and hedges and trees to pretend I'm not here.
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Jul 30, 2022 21:45
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i know where theyre coming from tho tbf
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Jul 30, 2022 21:51
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Have you tried telling them that people online pay  each to read your posts
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Jul 30, 2022 21:54
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NotJustANumber99 posted:Are there rules where you are about that? It's definitely by municipality/jurisdiction but there are almost always some manner of rules around any permanent structures on or near property lines. In general there's no way you'd be allowed to build hour house that close without some special arrangement (like what you have) and it's unlikely that a fence could be put within a meter or so of the property line without agreement from owners on both sides of the line.
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Jul 30, 2022 21:59
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Motronic posted:it's unlikely that a fence could be put within a meter or so of the property line without agreement from owners on both sides of the line. This would bankrupt the uk fence market. No homeowners would ever agree with each other. Failed Imagineer posted:Have you tried telling them that people online pay I hadn't thought about it like that before but yes you're right. I will start yelling this at them from my roof at the next opportunity. I've never spoken to the newly moved in rich fence having neighbour, only her 10(?) year old daughter who often appears to question me when I'm on the roof as to when am I going to get all this finished and how many children and dogs will live here? Gasmask posted:i know where theyre coming from tho tbf no totally
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Jul 30, 2022 22:07
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NotJustANumber99 posted:This would bankrupt the uk fence market. No homeowners would ever agree with each other. Or double it, with everyone having their own fences with a couple yards of scrub brush between them that nobody wants to mow.
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Jul 30, 2022 22:08
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Motronic posted:Or double it, with everyone having their own fences with a couple yards of scrub brush between them that nobody wants to mow. they would simply build buy to let houses there
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Jul 30, 2022 22:11
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Good question. How many children and dogs will be living at the L-shaped house? Will they be L-shaped children and dogs?
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Jul 30, 2022 22:51
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NotJustANumber99 posted:. I've never spoken to the newly moved in rich fence having neighbour, only her 10(?) year old daughter who often appears to question me when I'm on the roof as to when am I going to get all this finished and how many children and dogs will live here? The cutest harassment
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Jul 30, 2022 23:48
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Your giant goofy forks had me lollin thanks this is a great thread
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Jul 31, 2022 00:21
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One layer above the ground floor you have a single line of red brick, is this a racing stripe, air/moisture break, fire break or just some sort of spacer so you can use a standard 3m 2x4 or whatever I'm definitely not a masonry wizard but seems like in the states nobody is building their houses with racing stripes at ankle level (not sure what you call that in metric either)
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Jul 31, 2022 00:27
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makes it go faster in a landslide
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Jul 31, 2022 00:34
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Maybe so the top dpc could be horizontal?
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Jul 31, 2022 01:56
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You see the coursing block on the drawing helpfully quoted? Brickies decided against that and just put a course of regular engineering bricks in instead, on top rather than below the first course of block. Yes the intention is so the inner and outer leaves of wall are at the same height so you can put metal wall ties in every two courses that the insulation sits on in the cavity. Somehow it lines up. Just leaving it to them really and it's better than having to source a bunch of non standard coursing blocks. And that will actually be under/at floor level with 200mm of insulation and 65mm or something of screed still to go down
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Jul 31, 2022 20:29
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NotJustANumber99 posted:with 200mm of insulation I thought this build was south of the artic circle Edit: maybe this is australia, where heat sinks rather than rises
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Jul 31, 2022 20:51
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It is a bit counter intuitive I concede but apparently up to 25% of your home's heat can be lost through the floor. I have no idea how this statistic was arrived at. But I have underfloor heating to be installed in the top screed, so it makes sense that you want decent insulation under that I think. Previous building regs were pretty much at 100mm as the minimum (there is no actual prescribed minimum, its all about overall SAP calculations that take the whole house buildup into account) but the last time the inspector was out he said the most recent change in regs (that doesn't apply to me because I've taken so long I'm basically still on the flintstones edition) now makes it all but mandatory 150mm plus under the floor. I'll ignore the accusation of australianness
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Jul 31, 2022 21:34
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