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I am hoping to build a lot of the panels/frames of the structure myself in an onsite shelter of some sort and then pay people to help me erect it. Hopefully that will mitigate the issue of paying more in wages if it takes longer. I don't earn much more than minimum wage and in the gig economy that is further reduced by not getting sick pay, holiday pay etc. It's more cost-effective for me to build as much of this as I am able rather than work my job for the equivalent of something like a tenner an hour to pay someone hundreds a day. Gus is going to design it with that in mind.

Agree, though if you are paying for help in any form, then quicker is usually cheaper too. Simpler also = quicker. In terms of performance I expect you can get exactly the same performance from either option. I think it would be very difficult to build any wooden structure solo. Two pairs of hands minimum, so either there are two of your with a fairly unlimited time budget or you are paying for help/asking for favours (which have a limit). Then having a simpler structure that can go up quickly is a huge benefit. Building out of ICF as John suggests is much slower but a lot of it could be done single handed with only lintels, etc, needing a second pair of hands. But then you have to do the roof. Portal style, you build each frame on the ground then stand it up (and brace it). Repeat. Then you board. Single storey makes things a lot easier. One point with the portal style is that I have a feeling (but not at all sure) that you would be able to avoid the need for a big long beam along the ridge of the roof to hold the roof up as each frame section can be self supporting. You just need to brace them against movement. This could be a large cost saving (big glulams are not cheap or easy to install) This really isn't an area I can say much more about. Gus is the expert. However, my main concern from this thread is that finances are really so extremely tight that all decisions really need to be made on a cost first, performance second basis. Not saying you can't get a high performance shell, but a lot of the conventional approaches to achieving that don't really consider cost as a primary factor.

We have 2 Ikea basins with these wastes. No issues with them. I probably used a bit of CT1. I do clean all sink traps once a year to fill some time!

Of the famous 'pick 2 of 3' I would go for cheaper and better before quicker. My funding isn't all in place and there will be a significant gap between the tranche that will fund the wind-and-watertight shell and the tranche that will fund the interior fitout. So taking longer to get things right and save money isn't a huge problem.

Building a larsson type arrangement is definitely not the cheapest option. An I-joist portal could be constructed for less labour (maybe higher material cost) and preserve the deep walls. Probably needs to be more on the slab vs overhanging it though. Two people + a telehandler could likely stand the portal up in a short period of time with temporary bracing and then you have to board it. Edit: but any time savings from doing that might be wiped out if you have to do complex details around big windows.

Yes some sort of solar pergola/brise soleil was what I have been thinking. I will make a separate thread on that though as it will get lost in here.

Seems a lot of complexity and possibly high labour costs, for someone on a tight budget. I wanted something similar but in the end went Durasol (now Ecobrix), really easy, made from recycled material. It was very cost effective. With service void it gives a wall U value of 0.14. But you could lime plaster direct and have a fully breathable high mass wall that is airtight, leave out the service for a slightly higher U value. Add additional external insulation if you need to increase the U value.

I owned a house in Florida for 17 years and I was appalled at the construction standards and methods. Mine was built in 2004, concrete pad with a timber frame and a central pair of concrete walls from which everything was hung. All the windows were single-glazed metal frame, It absolutely relied on AC to stop humidity tearing it to pieces, termite control was an insurance requirement etc etc Over the years I had a number of improvements and everything was done "to code" which is their local building regs - not impressed. What was weird was that everything was the same. Every door had two holes in the same place for install, they didn't really do aluminium for doors and so every external doorframe rotted and fell apart from the external humidity and rainfall. The plumbing seemed archaic and the flapper toilet flush was an abysmal piece of engineering One particular thing absolutely drove me wild. Americans are obsessed with nails, sometimes I wondered if they had ever heard of screws. My granite kitchen guy took me to see a house that was being remodelled. I was there when the brand-new factory-fresh kitchen units were installed. All the (pristine) trim was nailed into place. Where we would glue mitres they would nail them and then spend an eternity patching and filling the nail-holes with specialist fillers - I watched this being done and I could have cried. I did enjoy watching the roofing done, it was just crappy felt shingles over OSB, but the speed at which those guys could work was astonishing Regards Tet

Don't know if that was a deliberate pun or not, but blinds are definitively the most effective, but also the most costly option. Not to keep banging the drum but a south-facing room in full sun is almost unusable. In my previous house we had a south-facing garden and our kitchen diner was out of bounds during the summer. Only by shutting the curtains could you keep the temperature reasonable. After a few years I also had a removeable shade sail over an outside pergola to mitigate the sunlight which worked fairly well My new place has 17sq m of vertical glass and 6m of rooflights. This summer was a challenge despite having full blinds on all the verticals, I actually covered two of the rooflights with some leftover PIR insulation panels to stop the solar gain - this is despite solar-control glass and the main glazing being east-facing From your design, none of your openings are too large, so curtains would be cheaper, but you could consider some external shading as an alternative Regards Tet

Early 1980's build 4 Bed Detached with 113 m2 of floor area across 2 floors (Garage not included) Background in a thread below

Nothing wrong with open web joists, and exposed they can look really good. A couple of things I'd check first though. Most manufacturers rate them for service class 1 and 2, so covered and dry. A carport with two open sides should still count as covered, but ask the supplier to confirm, and specify treated chords and a good galvanised finish on the metal webs, because the nail plates are the bit that suffers if they get wet often. Also tell the SE you want them exposed and how they'll be fixed. With uplift the bottom chord goes into compression, so they may want a strongback or bracing along the run, and each joist will need a proper strap or hanger at both ends rather than just sitting on the plates. As for the swallows, lovely to have, but maybe plan a board above where the car parks!

How big is it, is it new build. For comparison.

Thank you! These failing is a lot let worrisome than a mains fed flexi failing. I'm trying to limit my use of braided flexi hoses to downstream of taps so between a deck mounted tap and a separate spout. I like the ridgeline alternatives (https://ridgelinetubes.com/flexis/)

I like these stainless steel flexis. I've only installed a couple so far, but they give me more confidence than a standard braided flexi at not much extra cost (Monster). https://ridgelinetubes.com/flexis/

+1 to above from JPM. Generally a VCL is not required with this form of construction, perhaps with the exception of high humidity buildings such as swimming pools. Check MIs and relevant BBA cert for your chosen insulation and breather type roofing membrane. Adding a VCL will make the roof safer from condensation risk.

It's worth being clear what the VCL is actually doing in this build up, because it answers both of your questions. With a breathable membrane above the PIR, any moist air or vapour that gets past the deck and into the insulation joints can reach the cold side and condense on the underside of the membrane or on the battens. The foil facings on the PIR are very vapour tight in themselves, but the board joints, the screw holes and the edges aren't. So the VCL isn't really about the dew point in the OSB, it's about stopping vapour getting into the insulation layer at all. Taped OSB will give you a decent airtight layer, but I wouldn't rely on it as your vapour control. Its vapour resistance varies between boards and with moisture content, so it's not something you can design to with confidence. A separate membrane laid over the taped deck is cheap insurance. The screws aren't the weak point you might expect. They go through under compression from the counter battens, and a self adhesive membrane tends to seal round the shank reasonably well. The places that need real care are the laps, the junction between the roof and your wall airtightness line at the wall plate, and anywhere services or roof windows go through. Get those detailed on the drawings before you start, as they're much harder to put right once the PIR is down. A liquid applied membrane over the whole deck would work, but it's slow and costly on a roof that size. Where liquid or paste products earn their keep is round awkward penetrations and at the wall to roof junction. As mentioned above, get the fixing design for your exact build up from the screw manufacturer, as long fixings through two staggered layers of PIR on a pitch need to be calculated, not guessed.

We are doing the same thing, specified by our architectural technician - as @Gus Potter says above special fixings through the PIR and VB+underlay (Proctor products). Below is an excerpt of one of the drawings that may be useful.

You outside corner post is going to get a bit of uplift. Depends on where you are in the UK. That is the SE starting point for wind uplift. How much of the slab can you mobilise to resist up lift? You SE is going to want to know how the slab is reinforced. Now even if you know that you can't be sure where the rebar is. If I was designing this I would want to make a base plate that is capable of alternative fixing, you start to drill a hole, then hit the rebar.

Just a few comments for a bit of fun. Things I like about the Yanks, oh can I include Canadians? 1/ I love the way they often do stairs. They knock up the structural part in cheep timber. Then when all the messy trades have gone they over clad in high quality timber. 2/ Yes when you have a big house the soil dumpling in the middle needs much less insulation. @saveasteading and I know that the majority of heat losses take place around the perimeter of the building. On a big house we will take advantage of that and insulate the perimeter more. Also take the perimeter edge insulation down to the top of a strip found if we have one. 3/ USA and Canada have a huge variation in climate. They deal with the different types of soil, the presence of trees and frost protection in a different, arguably a more pragmatic way. In the UK the default position from SE's etc is to refer to the NHBC guidelines for example.. we can end up with trench fill going down to 2.4m depth, then forced down the piling route etc, just to satisfy BC and to be arguably lazy. This all costs money. Yes, because our politicians who are making policy are generally complete idiots. But on the other hand no, because we often in the UK have this "conscience", for example we consider making reparation for slavery a good idea, forgetting of course it was the Brits that strove to end it. Our commitment to that apparently was absolved in 2015? We seem to also be making the mistake around this drive for energy efficiency, it's zealotry at times, but for many it just "feels good" and are happy to pay for that good feeling. Fine for some, but if you are on a low income, getting taxed to death then you may take a different view? I'm all for building energy efficient homes, but it's got to be pragmatic and evidence based for the UK in our political climate / approach which is not going to change drastically over the next few years. 4/ I have learnt a lot of the stuff I know about insulated rafts and their permutations from American and Canadian text / research. A lot of that is about designing cold stores, frost penetration, soil heave and so on, then reversing the physics at times to apply to the UK climate. It's actually good fun for me to see folk on BH coming up with all these new ideas. My job is to turn these ideas into reality by say calculation. Things I don't like about the Yanks / Canadians. A/ They sell us timber and sheet materials in converted to metric material sizes. B/ They post these videos of barbecuing sides of beef and shrimp, by 1100 hrs I'm starving. Now on the upside do you fancy Welsh Rarebit? To many, it's cheese on toast. But now you can do it with sourdough, chives, unsalted butter not least. Salted butter lasts longer by the way, hence why the salting for folk that could not afford to use it willy nilly. It's changed days.

Hiya Will. Welcome to BH! Your starting point here is to really understand how a flat warm roof works. Research this and it will give you a good basic understanding of the principles. It's essential that you have a impermeable VCL between the OSB and the underside of the insulation. Have a look at Alutrix type membranes. Once you get your head a round how a flat warm roof works that then pitch it up, as you now understand the basic principles. Key things that will change are that as you pitch the roof up to say 5- 35 degrees is that everything that is above the trusses will want to roll down the roof, like slip off. The fixings and roof make up need to be designed for this, what we call roughly rolling shear, to stop everything slipping off the roof! The fixings need to be carefully designed as the rolling effect causes them to bend not least. It can be done but you have to learn a bit more first. Much also depends on your actual roof covering, each type of covering needs a different set up. Give hybrid roofs a miss until you have learnt more. You're best bet is to post a sketch of what you think you may like to do.

Hi Folks, Looking to better understand the role of the vcl in a warm pitched roof please, and keen to hear what the general consensus is. If there is post that covers it, apologies and pls do link in/ elaborate. About to start our first (and possibly only) self build. Planning an insulated slab, icf walls and a truss roof with osb/ ply over rafters with 2 staggered layers of PIR, then battens, membrane, tile battens and then tiles. Conscious people typically spec a VCL between the osb and the pir. Question is twofold- is this actually doing anything assuming I have properly taped the outside of the osb / junctions with wall plate (and assuming the osb is airtight (?)and given its on warm side too so dew point issues are mitigated ?). And secondly, if needed, is there a more foolproof way of doing it than laying a vcl given i will be driving long hex screws through pir into osb (ie is there any value in a liquid/ paint applied vcl or perhaps a peal and stick)? And finally, is there anything you'd do differently. Not keen on hybrid roofs with insulation between rafters and trying to make as simple for me as possible to make airtight given sealing from inside with truss connections will likely be a nightmare. Thoughts appreciated, Thanks Will

I am indeed in mid wales. Where i can afford what i wanted. Yes, of course, if you are near Edinburgh or Cardiff then clearly to wont be cheap. I assumed that was a given.

Assuming the HP came with a new build 2 years ago then it will likely have a controller or app that will display COP or SCOP. Have a look at the user manual and find the COP/SCOP. Once you've found that value look up the HPs data sheet and compare your value to the values in the data sheet. If you've got a value near the top of the range(higher value is better) then you're doing OK and you'll have to teach yourself alot to improve things for what may only ever be a small gain/saving. If youre lower down the range then the gains/savings may be greater and worth your while reading up on HP efficiency so you can assess your system and make changes. Finding out your COP/SCOP is the first step.

This type of waste is fairly common in France. During my previously mentioned hotel experience when flexible tap connectors were bursting all over the place, there were zero problems with flexible waste pipes blocking or leaking, so I wouldn't be concerned.

If you want some better quality feedback then this is the way to go. There may well be a simple solution to this. You may not be seeing the wood from the trees. It maybe that someone on BH comes up with a simple observation?