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Vaseline and lots of it to seal the bungs and threads! Anne Summers volumes don't cut the mustard, go for the 500ml tubs. For adequate water testing..the pipes need to be filled to give a 1.5m head from memory.

I like your idea.. in principle.. is it a material consideration for you on how your idea may impact on the value of the house. If it's not then go ahead and have fun! It's your money after all.

Inflatable horobin air test kit or similar worked for me after trying bailey wind up stoppers and others alike which air leaks slowly.

It's something I actively investigated and discussed with my builder, before chickening out. A few key points of difference though - ours is not a passive house, only built to BR standards. We had specified UFH on both GF and FF as the missus wanted it. I wanted active air con - and I actively looked into ditching the UFH on the FF and replacing it with a multi-split air con system that would cover all the rooms on the FF (not hallways and landing etc as that would be heated from the rising heat from the GF). It was definitely doable as the A2A units can do both heating and cooling though we were asked one key question by the builder which made us change our mind - would you buy a house with no source of heating on the FF? Most buyers wouldn't consider air con units to be source of heating so it does limit the resale potential quite a lot, and even though we aren't considering selling our place - it's something you have to consider as situations change very rapidly.

These type of videos are always good to watch, informative. As a designer I see stuff that makes my hair curl a bit, I've not got that much left mind. Their rebar is a bit of a disaster for example. Anyway I'm not going to point out where they have made life hard for themselves and by the looks of things paid for something that has not actually been delivered on site. It looks like they are happy folk so leave it at that. This is key to good design in the self build market is.. keep it simple so you don't end up paying for something that does not serve it's intended purpose as a result of it not getting delivered on site. The positioning of their UFH pipes at the underside of the structural slab is "innovative". I would tend to put the UFH pipe towards the top of the slab as it reduces the response time not least. The Isoquick is one effective solution. But if you are doing a full hands on self build then I would look at other options where you use standard insulation, be that PIR or EPS. As a kind of hands on SE I like the flexibility it gives you on site, especially around openings or where you may have high point or line loads. Here, if hands on self build we would look at cash flow, maybe it's best to pay as little as you can for the materials that are easily sourced from a local merchant as your labour is "freeish"? "Raft" type foundations are fascinating things to design..there are many permutations, some are generically described on BH as rafts.. but they are actually not. From time to time I'll sit down with a Client and design from the ground up and explain in terms they can understand what I'm doing as a designer and it gives them a feel for the ground and how the structure works from there up. This allows them to make informed choices. The decisions you make on the ground, foundations translate all the way up though the structure. I really enjoy this process as it triggers the enjoyment I get from teaching. You see a light bulb coming on in the Clients heads where they see the jigsaw coming together, I see their confidence building. It doesn't matter if the Client has never done a self build before or if they have technical knowledge. I always start with a "refresher course" as it helps the Client and I explore our technical ability, our strong and weak points. The door swings both ways here. I don't know everything! As I've said before. If you set up your build well and find the right designer for you it is hugely rewarding for both. Of course there will always be issues on site.. hiccups all the way to what seems like a disaster! .. but if you plan well you can often avoid the worst. Even if something "bad" does happen then if you have spent time with a helpful designer then you can phone a friend and also use the skills they have taught you to find a work around. @Square Feet Keep researching!

Well that is great news for your project. Although you may find siblings tricky, at least they know your foibles and are not such a PITA as contractors can be.

Sorry to hear about your issues. In terms of flexing, the door dropping common issues are: 1/ It's the glass that holds the door leaves stiff and prevents distortion, dropping. If the glass is not packed properly in the frame this will happen. 2/ The door frame is not properly secured to the surrounding structure. 3/ The hinge screws have been over driven ( the screw threads are stripped) and the hinges are moving. 4/ The structure is moving as it gets loaded sideways. You can experiment yourself to see what is causing this. The following notation is.. A relates to item 1 and so on. A. Is the glass packed properly? Get some 50mm masking tape. The wider the tape the better. When the day is not too hot or cold and the sun is not on the doors gently put strips of masking tape between the glass and the frame. Let it bridge over the gasket, i.e not touching the gasket. Don't stretch the tape, let it settle but not touch the gasket. . Do this each side of the corners of the glass, in the middle vertically and mid point of the head and base of the glass. Open the door a little and see if the tape wrinkles. If it does it means the glass is moving relative to the frame. Repeat but this time smooth the tape around the gasket so it is in contact all the way round. Carefully take a Stanley blade and cut between the glass and the gasket and the gasket and frame. The objective here is to see if the glass is moving relative to the gasket, the gasket moving relative to the frame or both. This is a bit of a moot point but later we may want to check is the correct size of gasket has been fitted. If the door is dropping by 10mm and it's a glass packing problem then you should be able to see this with the naked eye or a magnifying glass. What we are doing here is the same in principle where we may want to accurately monitor a building for settlement. B. You can carry out a similar exercise to the above but where the frame meets the walls. C. The hinges often have a vertical adjustment. You may have 3 or 4 hinges. If they have not been balanced (to share the vertical load) then all the vertical load and then a share of the sideways load ends up on one hinge which can over stress it. If the screws are stripped the heavily overloaded hinge may be moving. It's tempting to fiddle with these yourself.. but as soon as you do the last man on the job gets the blame.. which will be you! But have a look at them and see if they look like they are carrying equal loading. Look for unusual gaps between the shims and see where there is no gap in others comparatively. D. You say that the door drops as soon as you open the door? The loads at this stage from the door leaf will be mainly in the plane of the wall. If the movement gets greater as you further open the door then the structure may be flexing. This is the last thing we would look at, try and rule out common issues first. @paro I see you are using a spirit level and a laser level. Often the accuracy of these is disputed. To avoid any doubt at your end go to B & Q and get a bit of clear plastic pipe. Get some water and put a dye in it, mostly fill the tube and tape it to the door leaf at eye level when shut. Now we have a water level and the physics of this cannot be disputed. Mark the BOTTOM of the meniscus. Open the door, remark, measure the difference. This is going to be within 1-2mm accuracy at worst. In terms of the gasket and brush bar fits.. it does look a bit rough. Bare metal cuts are common, often these are hidden. Here we may want to get some touch up paint. If you fancy having a go at this it should help inform you or at worse rule out what is not causing the problem.

We looked at stick on panels and then decided against. After the standing seam roof went up we couldn't bring ourselves to cover it with panels on the SW front of the house so installed panels only at the rear, where nobody will ever notice. And some on the flat roof garage to catch some rays in the winter months. For the standing seam roof we used the s-5 railess pvkit. Neat enough for the back but, IMHO, too ugly for the front.

I've subsequently discovered that you can cut a 45 degree angle on the PIR to hide the edge. One final question. How do you get a smooth enough finish on the slab for PIR. Do you simply use a piece of timber with a side to side motion and then use a bull float at 90 degrees. I really need to be able to do the slabs myself with my brother as I struggle to find anyone to do it without changing lots of £££

I've been watching this playlist by Buildhubber @CJO on how they prepped and built their passive slab using Isoquick. It's really well put together and very well explained. The methods may not be universal but I have a lot more confidence that I understand the process and how to go about it now. (I tried to link to the whole playlist but it just takes you straight to the most recent video which is annoying. Here's the first one of three - I'll link to the others individually below).

Great looking job, very well done!

I don't think you are at fault. We do actually have a couple of single origin doors ourselves which we are very happy with. I wonder what exactly happened regarding your survey - did they produce dimensioned drawings afterwards and gain your explicit sign-off/approval of them prior to manufacture ? Did the drawings show or specify the distances to the wall as an explicit design constraint ? Did they change your cill design when they realised the wall mistake and adjusted the fitting ? Were you always going to have a traditional cill rather than a low profile one ? Looks like a 50mm error - did someone build the wall out of position ? I just wonder because if there was some clear evidence that the wall issue was their reponsibility to take account of and they failed to do that then I would have thought you would have been within your rights to refuse the original fit. I found there is actually quite a lot to think about for the sizing and positioning of doors and windows - exact FFL, handle clearances, reveal clearances, threshold fixings, lintel/steel fixings, plaster lines, render lines etc. I attach our bifold drawing to show the level of info specified. You almost need to be autistic about it all. ID Systems fitters came across country last summer and were still working until 8pm one summer evening to get everything right. I would query that seal and the gasket. I think both should be fixable. When new stuff finally gets installed it is easy to be euphoric and not check it all over. On the unfinished cut edges, you could go back to a showroom and examine the showroom origin doors - do they have the same finish - if not you could raise it. Does the fall angle on the open bifolds match the non-plumb angle on the frame install ? When you build up the outside with slabs where will your drainage falls go anyway ? Normally a fall away from the house. In the end certain things are fixable with different degrees of consequence: Changing seals Changing gaskets Replacing Framing pieces Reinstalling the whole frames and doors Cutting a notch in the wall for the bifolds to open into Fitting a whole new door set made to different dimensions Replacing with different bifold make or different fitters All depends how unhappy you are, and how much you may or may not be willing/able to spend to address it.

My panels went up on my standing seam roof i absolutely hated them, for a couple of weeks I considered removing them and not bothering with Solar at all, two years later I don’t even notice they are there. people even ask if I have Solar and I have to point them out.

We looked at that system, years ago now, and eventually decided against it. If the bonding fails (and it’ll get bloody hot up there) or the panels fail what could you actually do about it with the roof in situ? Do you mean conventional panels? That’s what we went with in the end. Black PV panels mounted on the seams of a dark grey SS roof, looks nice IMO and no room for birds etc to get underneath the panels, but those panels hide a lot of expensive zinc. If you’re going with SS and dead against conventional panels then I’d say @JohnMo’s advice is spot on. Get a big battery and TOU tariff.

Thanks Spinny. Re the seal in the pic. Would you see that as a problem? The company that did mine came out and surveyed twice yet still managed to forget the position of the retaining wall in relation to the door opening which mean the doors ended up being set further back than intended meaning the cill didn't cover the bottom of the wall. They tick the box on looks but seem like hype in every other way. Described as the Bentley of doors but seem more like a ford escort to my untrained eye. My fault for not doing my homework.

👍👍👍

If your only option is stick panels at silly prices I wouldn't bother, just get a battery and that allows a TOU tariff and use cheap periods during the peak ones

Seen that - thought this was a slightly different topic and didn't want to change the focus of that thread. Roof was actually specified by us. The whole build is going to be barn-like in appearance and, for our area, metal roofing is the more common solution. The only other common option around here would be clay tiles and I'm no fan of those.

Lack of space and being in a national park limit options somewhat but, given the opportunity yes I'd agree would be much easier/cheaper.

No it started a few days before I posted. Had been running for 6ish years without issue. I suspect adjusting the level just temporarily resolved the issue, time will tell!

By putting in UFH pipework, you can always run it off a Willis heater for very low capital cost. That way you can bake the clay floor. (I put earth flooring in the same category as lime concretes, we have improved alternatives now)

I knew nothing about it until quite recently! Worms would be an interesting addition...

We did the same and you're absolutely right, it probably makes sense to put the pipes in regardless as a backup... we'll only get the one chance to do it.

As I didn't know that a traditional floor had linseed oil in it, you'll gather I now nothing. I had a house with clay paviors straight on earth, probably clay. There were worms.

That would make me popular I can see why that would make sense, but with the system we're using the heat would be problematic during the cure.