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Are you planning on stick building the frame? Have you considered blown insulation AKA cellulose. There's lots going for it.

You could suggest that you will make an official complaint. Your LA should have a complaints procedure.

Good layout, Nice to see a sensible square foot print. Personally I would pay the digger man another hour to level the site and forget about the step. It will make half the house unusable for anyone with a wheelchair or a pushchair.

Sliding sash looks pretty but is the draftiest window you can buy. I was in a new build of some neighbors, 0.15 walls floor and roof, compact foot print, wet plaster and plenty of airtight tape and MVHR. And sliding sash windows........ You could feel the cold breeze on the back of your neck sitting in the kitchen.

Ask him how underpinning works.

Nope not at all. Just have too many things running around my head and find sometimes the easiest way to stop thinking about an idea is to spend a day or two deeply researching it.

Would have to be a first! A government department making things striaght forward? It'll never catch on 🙂 If you are looking at the rules are planning a car build soon?

Any pictures? Is it mid bearing of the hollowcore slab or end?

Any newly installed blocks can be left to fully set. I had thought this would be a reasonable enough solution to replace the block but blocklayer seems adamant that no matter how good a job he does there will be additional settlement with the floors above and an overall weaker section.

MVHR is ventilation. Aircon is heating and cooling, it's not ventilation. You need both ventilation and heating. MVHR doesn't solve the heating and Aircon doesn't solve your ventilation requirements. Your builder is talking out of his .... MVHR or another ventilation system is a must have. It's not something a heating appliance will replace

You don't absolutely require MVHR, dMEV will give you adequate fresh air at less capex and slightly higher opex. However you'll have holes in the windows and you'll miss the chance to filter the incoming air for dust pollen etc. You will have more outdoor noise and drafts. I think your plan is a good one as you said. To throw a spanner in the works you could have an air driven heating system and allow the A2A units do everything and omit other central heating. There's drawback there too but it is a option.

Yes, comparing apples to strawberries is an apt summary as is the fact that I do want both. In an ideal world, both would get installed at the same time! The builder does fully understand the importance of airtightness and also what an MVHR system does and achieves, and how that compares against the Air Con. It was my pointed question at what he would choose for his own house when he said Aircon will give you the noticeable comfort, whereas MVHR is part of the fabric and not really that noticeable. Plus, our usage means we'll probably end up negating most of the advantages of the MVHR with the missus' need to crack open a window and let 'fresh air' in - blowing a hole through my airtightness layer! I guess a better worded question would be - is putting in MVHR a must have?

How long have you been in this situation?

ps. have you considered external blinds on the windows that will have solar gain? our blinds keep those rooms cooler than the rest of the house but we also need AC as we've not got blinds everywhere and we like to actually look out the windows. 🤣

Just a council employee who us allegedly off sick. There's no way of contacting him.

agree with @MikeGrahamT21 and sounds like your builder doesn't actually know the difference or what MVHR is for! if the house doesn't need MVHR then the airtightness isn't good enough and if the airtightness is good enough then MVHR isn't a choice it's a requirement! so sounds like your builder isn't aiming for a airtightness score of below 3ACH which i believe is the max for mechanical ventilation requirement. so, really your choice is an airtight house or not. if you want AC and don't want MVHR then you need to design for a poor airtightness build. if you want airtight then you need MVHR and then the decision is whether you want to spend on AC. in my opinion, you want both! it's not easy, in my opinion, to retrofit AC without a lot of hassle or having pipes up the side of the buildings from the unit. when it's an empty shell you can run them and cover them up.

You are comparing apples to strawberries, they both do entirely different things. If I had to choose where to spend my £7k, it would be MVHR every time. The air quality and comfort you get from one is very hard to describe and quantify, but very real. Besides, grants are coming in for A2A HP's soon so you might be able to get one retrofitted later under that if you want cooling/heating from an AC unit

If the blocks are installed and left to fully set, you can hard pack and shim with zero issues. Done Christ knows how many knock through jobs over time.

So our build is reaching the point where we need to make a call on whether the MVHR system goes in. Its a standard masonry build (block and block with 150mm cavity), silicone render on the outside and some attention paid to airtightness. We were all set on having MVHR, and have had a design done, posi joists laid, routes confirmed pending final design etc. However, in a conversation with the builder when I asked about Air con - his recommendation was to go with Air con over MVHR if there is a choice to be made. The reason is that the living areas and master bedroom are both South/West facing, and we have large vaulted ceilings in the master bedroom which may become quite hot and oppressive as the heat is trapped due to the solar gain. They will both cost in the region of £7k ish supply and install. I know people have done it cheaper when doing a self install and commissioning but that's not a realistic proposition for us so it would have to be done by the builder/subcontractor. He's actually been quite helpful and given me a week to make the final call, but it's put me into a bit of a tailspin and I've tried to summarise my thoughts below: MVHR (Pros and Cons) Can only do it when the walls and floor are open - so its now or never Avoid trickle vents in the windows (I don't like the look of them, but do I not like them £7k worth? Not sure!) Better airtightness No mould and condensation issues Some heat recovery though not enough to wash its face in terms of install cost (Capex) and running cost (Opex) So it's very much a 'luxury' good and a nice to heave. Expensive for something that most buyers wont put a value on (when it comes to resale time) Air Con More immediate and noticeable impact as we have a South/West facing garden and master bedroom which will get a lot of solar gain Works for heating and cooling so a reduction in gas usage for some months when air cooling/heating in certain rooms would be sufficient Probably more of a noticeable feature and buyers may put a 'slight' premium on it at resale time - though this is not an imminent event! Will make the house much more liveable in the warm summer months - and running costs will be further subsidised by the Solar PV and Battery storage My current thought process: Install MVHR (£7k) as its virtually impossible to retrofit cleanly. Put the power and condensate pipework in for the Air Con (£1k-£2k now) and the actual units in a couple of years once we've lived in the property and know what rooms to install it in. If you are building a new house, is MVHR a must do and has anyone built without one? What was your experience? TLDR: What would you put in, if you only had £7k to play with and were asked to choose between MVHR and Air Con?

Think you have chosen it, easy enough to do yourself.

Hello, any advice before I put down a dry sand and cement mix? Warren.

Too much looking down at smartphones (It's a joke but you have my sympathies, not a good situation to be in).

I looked fairly recently and it seemed easy enough. I'm guessing the articles you looked at were from a time when regs for everyone were getting stricter and the Mondeo was made under older regs. (Maybe the big co's had more time to adapt).

See Your in Cheshire A factory built house went up last summer which I think was Danwood, but may be wrong. I t was built on a raft foundation and was bolted together and roofed in less than a week. I have no idea if it had MVHR or other tech. It’s on the west side of the A49 in the 30 mph zone of Spurstow , Bunbury .

Having just had this done I can advise one concern. The guys putting the insulation in were very cavalier at such intrusions, and were keen to hurry the job and get away. Anticipating such issues I put my heel on the membrane at all such, and one gave way drastically. I settled on the fact that screed would fill the dent and make it solid. That's provided that the membrane isn't punctured and tape still in place. In your case thus concern applies outside the green foam. Inside the green circle perhaps stuff with insulation offcuts and put a sandcand cement screed on top. For anyone approaching the insulation stage I'd say either watch these guys all the time or do any fiddly cutting yourself and leave them with the easy cuts. Eg we had drain pipes with mortar bedding, some near stud walls, leaving slopes into small voids. I spent a day cutting triangular pieces to leave a flat and solid surface, and very glad I did. My mental test was to imagine a heavy concentrated load, eg bed leg or grand piano. Under an island it is more a matter of tidiness