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You absolutely could, the ply would need to be screwed down in a tight grid format, through the insulation and into the floorboards. Ensure you aren't going all the way through in case of pipes/cables etc. Alternatively you could use something like a Marmox board along with their fixings. Any reason for not taking the floorboards up and insulating between the joists?

Hey all. Just wanted to say - over a year after the original post - I bit the bullet and had the roof replaced with Solum low-pitch tiles by a local roofer (in a perfect world I'd have tried it myself, but with all the recent rain, I wanted it done quickly, and I think they've done a pretty decent job) It seems to have done the trick as, even with the downpours we've had, the eaves seem bone dry. Thank you to everyone who offered an opinion and steered me in the right direction. Pain it had to be done but money well spent I guess! (PS. This means I have around 1,500 Heritage hand-made clay tiles left behind, that I'm going to put an add on for if anyone is interested! Just saying 😁)

Redoing the floor in one GF room, the existing floorboards are all sound but a bit gappy and VERY draughty, the ventilation is clearly doing its job very well. I have to put 6mm ply down to prep for LVT which I know will take care of the major gap draughts but the floorboards are always very cold in winter, I'm wondering if I could put a thin insulation layer between the floorboards and the ply or if that would be a bad idea. If it is a good idea, what would be recommended?

@fatgus I agree with your overall assertion that your design choices should be informed by through-life cost benefit trade-offs. You need to granularise to make doing this practice e.g. Wall U-value 2 vs 1.5 vs 1.2, etc. Also recognise that as-built might well vary from the design calcs due to mistakes in the design or construction quality issues: missing or sloppily fitted insulation, major leaks or missed thermal bridges. For example, our house works pretty much as design except that our slab losses are maybe 30-40% higher as build from a detail that caused edge bridging. So your heating / cooling system needs to have enough margin to cope with likely variations. Also remember that your heating / cooling system must be capable of adding / removing heat as needed. For example, we have a 3 storey house with only ground-floor in-slab UFH: no wall mounted rads and pipework anywhere; no heating on the top 2 floors. That is huge initial and ongoing cost-avoidance. See my blog for details.

It was one year ago that we started our house build, and we moved in 4.5 months later on July 3rd. Well, that's the headline to catch attention, but there needs to be some qualification. A year ago we started building above ground. Before that, we had 3 months of asbestos removal, demolition, site clearance, excavation, concrete slab, drains and scaffold. But still, 19 weeks to build everything above ground is good. Our method: MBC completed the timber frame in 8 working days - that was a great head start. We had a fixed price contract with a general builder for all the external finishes. This meant we could leave him to manage that whilst we concentrated on the interior. We had plumbing, electrical and carpentry trades working on site in parallel. The house was big enough to have separate working areas. We (the client) were always present to create the culture of collaboration and courtesy. Me and the Mrs worked full time on the build without employment to distract us. One of us would be on site before 8am to open up whilst the other was doing desk work: chasing quotes / delivery / documentation etc. We had very few times when the site was unsupervised by one or other of us. We were disciplined in making decisions in the right order and not changing our minds. We lived a 5 min cycle away in a rented house. Cycling is ideal because you don't take up parking space on site, and you can come and go without asking trade vans to move. Our builder saw the advantage and started cycling too. We had Travis Perkins, Screwfix and the electrical wholesaler all within a 10 minute drive. I could collect ad hoc materials before 8am with an estate car + roof rack so the trades weren't waiting for materials. Our builders merchants is a favoured supplier for kitchens / bathrooms etc based 100 miles away. We worked closely with them to keep their supply of materials ahead of the trades. I did three months of carpentry assisting the proper carpenter. If I wasn't supervising deliveries, doing a site induction for new workers, cleaning up, moving materials then I was doing carpentry. The site was always clean and tidy with waste promptly taken off site. The site was working 5 days a week, every week but typically not weekends. And when we moved in, there was another 6 weeks to completion and then the landscaping after that. Photographs attached from one year ago Build photos here: https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/45435-project-finished-mbc-timber-frame-self-build-220m2-over-three-floors/#comment-634389

The Starlink cable is proprietry and a standard ethernet cable will not work. The ends of the Starlink are slightly different. They also claim that because their antenna is quite high power that ethernet cable cannot cope.

It was one year ago that we started our house build, and we moved in 4.5 months later on July 3rd. Well, that's the headline to catch attention, but there needs to be some qualification. A year ago we started building above ground. Before that, we had 3 months of asbestos removal, demolition, site clearance, excavation, concrete slab, drains and scaffold. But still, 19 weeks to build everything above ground is good. Our method: MBC completed the timber frame in 8 working days - that was a great head start. We had a fixed price contract with a general builder for all the external finishes. This meant we could leave him to manage that whilst we concentrated on the interior. We had plumbing, electrical and carpentry trades working on site in parallel. The house was big enough to have separate working areas. We (the client) were always present to create the culture of collaboration and courtesy. Me and the Mrs worked full time on the build without employment to distract us. One of us would be on site before 8am to open up whilst the other was doing desk work: chasing quotes / delivery / documentation etc. We had very few times when the site was unsupervised by one or other of us. We were disciplined in making decisions in the right order and not changing our minds. We lived a 5 min cycle away in a rented house. Cycling is ideal because you don't take up parking space on site, and you can come and go without asking trade vans to move. Our builder saw the advantage and started cycling too. We had Travis Perkins, Screwfix and the electrical wholesaler all within a 10 minute drive. I could collect ad hoc materials before 8am with an estate car + roof rack so the trades weren't waiting for materials. Our builders merchants is a favoured supplier for kitchens / bathrooms etc based 100 miles away. We worked closely with them to keep their supply of materials ahead of the trades. I did three months of carpentry assisting the proper carpenter. If I wasn't supervising deliveries, doing a site induction for new workers, cleaning up, moving materials then I was doing carpentry. The site was always clean and tidy with waste promptly taken off site. The site was working 5 days a week, every week but typically not weekends. And when we moved in, there was another 6 weeks to completion and then the landscaping after that. Photographs attached from one year ago Build photos here: https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/45435-project-finished-mbc-timber-frame-self-build-220m2-over-three-floors/#comment-634389 VID_20250219_094732.mp4 UBox_20250222_153442_246_019_P.mp4

Don't bother with a boiler or ASHP and get Aerobarrier instead. Find £100 for a willis heater and a 3Kw Immersion for now. Gather data for a year or two and then fit the exact ASHP that suits your house. You can also bide your time on eBay and display models this way and pick up a bargain.

Great to see a rainwater tank. What capacity? How will the water be used? You can put a catchpit just before the tank and it will catch all the dirt. I put one in before a 10m3 tank and it never needed attention in the 15 years I had ownership. Catch the leaves before they get on the system. 100mm pipe has to stay. Aco can feed into it.

I dont' think the TA even though about that 😞 A sump before the tank makes a lot of sense.

Are we meeting tomorrow. If so where and when

What sort of pre filter / sump do you have before the rainwater tank. if you run acco drains into it it will be full of sediment in a short time. or is it on the drawing to keep someone happy.

It's a bit like childbirth (I imagine). In the immediate aftermath you can't imagine wanting to do it again, but the memory of the pain fades and you find yourself thinking about it. I'd love to build again, but I couldn't manage it while having a day job. We might sell up when we retire and put the money towards a smaller new build somewhere a bit cheaper.

We have a level threshold around the whole house and therefore we need to install ACO drainage. As space is tight down the back of the property, I was wondering whether the downpipes from the guttering can feed into the ACO drain, instead of having to have a separate pipe system for the guttering downpipe. The tech architect who did our drawings has drawn an ACO on one drawing, but then seems to have drawn standard underground 110mm pipe for the guttering.

Thanks @Crofter That sounds very promising... I'm going to see whether I can visit their showroom this week 👍👍

Here are the screenshots from your LLH with both balanced and unbalanced primary/secondary flowrates.

It is good. Ive never had reason to complain about it. Never had to use SLC on it either its that flat. Always seal my dpm up well as like you say, its runny. Price wise it did used to be getting on for twice the price. But the rep helping you lay it was included in the price with all the gear they bring. It always made economic sense to me.

Probably. New ones will probably be in the 1.5% infrastructure part of the Defence Budget. (Ironically going to Poland !!)

Really depends on cyl size and how much has been depleted - I was taking worst case scenario in a house with 5 people I have 117 Litre Cyl (2 people) 4 showers a day (two morning and two evening sees the top of the tank at 38 and the bottom at 12 - I can guarantee you that the average cyl temperature is not 26 Deg C (best guess would be 10 L at 38 and 107 litres at 12 would be an avg temp if you mixed it of 16 Deg) @Bigdeadbadger would be in more HW trouble if his three kids were girls

This week works for me

But your cylinder average temperature most will not. My cylinder has the thermostat 1/3 up and it can read 7 degs, after a large draw off, but the water coming out of the cylinder is close to 50. So mean temp is quite a bit hotter.

Mine gets that low every damn day.............. Cold water in is less than 12 Deg C right now

Starting with which way up you fill the cone!

If it gets to that low a recovery temp, the cylinder stat is on the floor and the cylinder is sat on it?

https://www.scottishconstructionnow.com/articles/fleming-homes-opens-new-factory-and-invests-in-advanced-cnc-technology We used Fleming Homes for our house and did a road trip to the factory when it was being made. So we met the people who had helped us design it and the hands on makers. I was really pleased to see they are expanding their offer - secondary insulation, membrane and battens factory fitted… that would have saved us some time. Insulation = worst job ever 😆 and fitting up scaffolding in our vaulted ceiling was no fun. News of factory insulated roof ‘cassettes’ almost made me want to do another 🤣 (my biggest self-build fear is we’ll finish and I will want to build again…)