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Congratulations and thank you for documenting the project. I have said before we are behind you (now more than a couple of weeks!) but your project has been a touchstone for keeping the faith that we are on the 'right lines'. There is always an element of luck in these things, but often we enhance the luck we are offered, and I think you have both demonstrated that. Wishing you many happy years in your new home.

Be gentle. Toughened glass is already under a lot of tension, and etched toughened glass has an increased chance of shattering. I'd personally be tempted to start with some sort of windscreen treatment like Rain X and see whether that reduces the appearance of etching. If it works, you'd need to re-apply it every few months, but you'd need to clean it far less often, as water won't stick to it. If that doesn't work you can always move on to something more aggressive.

As always depends on your situation. Short runs from the manifold? Especially if run with smaller diameter pipe (10mm copper, hep2o plastic, etc), don't need HRC. If you have long runs, especially of 15mm+ pipe then HRC may make sense. I can't find it right now but there was an online calculator/diagram that someone posted before that would neatly show how quickly a tap would take to warm up given length of pipe + pipe diameter. Maybe most of your sinks are close to the manifold so won't need HRC but one is a long way away and for that one you want a HRC (connected to PIR in the room so it only runs when someone is near the tap).

You're not alone. I think there must be a gravity well here. I keep on unsubscribing to the thread and as my finger moves itself to click on the mouse button, my head is going, no, no don't do it, and then I'm back in again, uh!

but the sheep can escape the worrier.

Oops, done it again. I've been forgetting which thread is the annoying one.

I don't know how your browse activity on here but if like me you use the activity view then switching it to the condensed version makes it a little better if you want to ignore things (or even just not see every update).

Congratulations. This has been a masterclass in successful self building by managing contractors! More important than that is the contractor selection, project management, etc, and I think it's you (with assist from Mrs P) that has done that so you can feel great satisfaction with how this project has gone. I'm guessing (maybe you said before) your background is in project management and if not it's an even greater achievement. When you have time and if you have the energy I and I'm sure many others on here would appreciate it if you could share as much as you can on your process for managing this project. What your average day looked like, tips and tricks, preparation, etc. I think this could be really useful for those of us with less project management experience!

Yes, we moved into our new house on Monday last week, pretty much 9 months to the day since we broke ground and 15 months after we purchased the plot. We know we’ve been very lucky with our build. The weather has generally been in our favour and we had no supply issues or delays. Above all, we’ve had some excellent people working for us without whom we could not have achieved the build. There are too many stars to mention here but if you look through the blog you will see them all get a shout out for their excellent work as it happened. Ahead of the move, Mrs P. did a superhuman job getting everything packed, and the move itself went relatively smoothly, with dry weather and no mishaps. Amazingly, Mrs P. also managed to unpack most of those boxes within a few days, though we do still have some residual boxes to deal with in due course. Moving in day: As we all know, moving house is always a stressful business and moving to a new house is no different. But it is a relief to finally get in - there is always the nagging fear that some disaster will strike at the last minute while the house remains unoccupied. But of course, all was fine. Is our build complete? Not quite. We have some minor electrical and joinery items outstanding, both inside and outside; we have the garden landscaping well under way but some distance from completion as you will see from the photos below. Beyond that, there is a list of jobs of the sort you’ll have following any house move: curtains, blinds, wardrobes, shelving, etc. - but these are ‘house move’ rather than ‘house build’ tasks imo. We do still have to obtain Building Control sign-off and there’s a VAT reclaim to do. On the BC front we had our ‘As Built’ air-tightness test performed by Richard Harris of Peninsular Energy Compliance this week (highly recommended). The result is 1.16m m3/m2 at 50hPa on the envelope basis. Virtually the same figure for Air Changes per Hour , as our envelope area is 583m2 and our volume is coincidentally 580m3. We are very happy with 1.2 ACH. Air-tightness test under way: We have been in the house for a week now and we are really happy with the way it feels and works for us. It’s warm, draft-free, well-lit, quiet, and comfortable; the layout and spaces are working just as we hoped. We are both sure we are going to really love living here. The plant room is (to me) surprisingly warm, running at 25-26 deg C due presumably to the amount of heat-generating equipment in there. I raised this as a separate Build Hub topic but the consensus seems to be that it's not an issue, so I shan't worry. As a side benefit, it does make a splendid clothes airing room. https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/46744-hot-plant-room/ Energy use The combination of solar panels, batteries, ASHP and insulation levels seems to be working well - in our first week we used 0.7kWh from the grid and exported 63kWh. Not bad for February. I need to work out our best tariff option but that’s a job for the future. Enough talk, time for some more photos (some taken just before we moved in)... Kitchen/dining/lounge: Hall: Bathrooms - master ensuite: Shower room: Guest ensuite: Bedrooms Master bedroom: Guest bedroom: Bed 3 / hobby room (Ok, so we still have some unpacking to do.) Landscaping - plenty to do yet. The layout is literally as clear as mud to me... I'm sure it will all be fine in the end(!) And finally... Troy likes the new house - it still has yogurt pots that need licking out Dashboard: Contractor days on site this past two weeks: 15 Contractor days on site since build start: 587 person days That 587 days is well over the 500 days which requires HSE being notified of the build using form F10 (which we did). HSE have not spoken to us or troubled us at all and the F10 notification is simple and costs nothing, so I would recommend any self-builder do so - if you are unfortunate and have an incident it’s surely means less chance of getting into hot water if you registered properly. Budget: I confess that in the final weeks we have gone a bit beyond our self-imposed budget contingency and dipped slightly into savings, but that is really down to choices we have made about the quality of the fit, e.g joinery, kitchen, bathroom equipment etc., and also the extent of the landscaping we have chosen to do. We could probably have remained well within contingency had we needed to but luckily we had some leeway. Plan: We did it! Conclusion: Overall, we set out to use the entire proceeds of our previous house sale to buy a plot and build a better house, and we believe we have achieved that. Thanks once again to all the dedicated and skilled people who have worked on our house and made the build a success. Especial thanks to Mrs P. who indulged my yearning to do a build provided brilliant design input and kept the whole show on the road throughout - a truly wonderful person! That then dear friends is the final blog! Thank you for following us and for your kind words of encouragement and support through our project.

You will find span tables online for joists if needed.

Ask the stair company to encompass this so the interface with the stairs is seamless?

“Use the force, Luke……”

You just need the will power not to click on the thread.

6 X 2 joists along the front (where the stairs land) and back (against a wall) with 4X2 joists spanning between then at 400mm centres. The front one had intermediate support from the half landing newel posts that go all the way to the ground. No calculations just using up left overs and "it looked right" so don't use that as evidence if your BCO needs any.

Yup. I use it all the time, totally different beast. The only control you need with foam is your trigger finger. Part fill voids, walk away, add more as necessary. After a few trial runs you’ll become one with the foam and wastage / trimming will be minimal; don’t expect to not have to do at least some trimming etc, obvs.

How do I turn this subject off? I have deleted "follow" but will still see anything from the respected contributors whom I don't want to turn off.

Is there a brand that is controllable to some extent? I'm thinking someone said illbruck was best.

just cut it after it dries?

Water is great isn't it. I'll probably dilute the pva a bit too to minimise the content. Sorry, I meant if using expanding foam...

Yes, he gave an interesting stab at us over that foolish assumption. Who’s have known the cooker and cooking utensils lived outside. I was going to post this, but I fear someone may like it and then I’ll get bullied for that. He has a heating system, it works, it won’t get used. At least the house will dry out in the summer. 🤐

Wasting our time bud.

I suggested that on pages 14 and 16 but apparently a 30kW oil boiler won't do the job!!

Can be cleaned as you go if just using PVA?

You won’t see the ply as the rest of the floor covering comes up way higher than that. You’re very brave putting SLC straight down onto the chipboard, but if someone says they’ll warranty the job without even a 3.6mm (aka 4mm) ply binder then it’s on their head I guess. I’ve never laid anything directly onto particle boards, ever, but I have had lots of insurance work from others who did so.

We will have a membrane over it all for separation. I think I will trial a mix of eps granules in pva. This should trowel into the odd curves around the pipes and up to whatever level, where it can even floated to a controlled level. Big gaps can have lumps of eps or pir pushed in as bulking. This currently feels like a ready solution that will maximise insulation and provide even and adequate floor support. I inherently don't like expanding foam because it is the easy resort for fixing bodges (and has cost me a lot of money and aggro when Mr Nobody has used it badly). Where I see any I examine closely for what it is hiding or fixing. But maybe it is the pragmatic answer here. I need to buy a few cheap floats on the basis of writing them off?