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I just don't like the brittle nature, and I've done UFH with P5 + plywood so many times with great results, I just don't want to change. If it works, then happy days, plus the plywood conforms to the floor shape / undulations, whereas cement board will just snap or fracture, no Bueno afaic, sorry!

That's what I did in my porch, just forced the chipboard down onto the fibre-bouncy spreaders 👍 Thanks Nick, appreciate the info. Any reason for 6mm ply as opposed to a cement based board? I'm thinking for heat transfer.

Who are the intended occupants, and what are they going to do in it?

To go an alternative route to this question , if you were designing an off grid metal clad sheperds hut for one person for all year round use that will use the minimum of heating fuel how would you insulate it ?

Go for spreader plates, but allow some rockwool under them, atop the PIR, so the plates are sprung upwards slightly. Then, when you screw the 22mm P5 deck down there will always be great surface contact between the aluminium plates and the underside of the P5. Without this, the heat transfer suffers somewhat. I've never used backer board and only ever 6mm or more of plywood (glued and screwed down) and then tile straight onto the ply. For 6mm ply and 22mm deck you use 25mm 4.0 x 25mm screws to lay the ply so you don't hit a pipe.

What kind and thickness of insulation have you got ?

There will be no connection to mains electricity. The reason for the wood stove.

Great progress again. Fingers crossed for the move in.

Evenin. I'm onto planning my bathroom and looking for advice and general opinions, which will be ongoing... Searching buildhub via Google seems to have gone by the wayside and I can't seem to word what I want in the site search so here I am. I'm going to extend my UFH to the small bathroom (3x3m) and I'm struggling to find the build-up that would be best. For info the bathroom doesn't really need it, putting it in just to take the edge off a cold floor when barefoot. My initial plan is PIR between joists, pipes clipped to it (or spreaders). The original floorboards need to go, so this is where I'm struggling for info. Replace subfloor with chipboard/ply? Then if I want to tile, do I need to go over this with say 6mm cement board? Insulated tile backer is adding insulation that I don't need. I assume I don't tile directly into the subfloor. Cheers friends.

...or "home slaves". MVHR just ticks over and you go about life. Just why would you go for anything that needed any such diligence aka compromise on lifestyle.

Good on you for doing the sums. They're the only place which hides the truth, forget payback times like @JohnMo says. Think thermal comfort. Once you get anywhere near Bregs airtightness and thermal bridging become massively more important than U values. Detailed excellently a 0.3 U value house would be very nice to live in. As for the windows why not PVC? https://sbwgroup.co.uk/products/veka-softline-82-md/ These are the same as ours (Different installer).They've been excellent. €16k inc VAT for 32m² of glazing in 2020. Gealan, kommerling, rehau and Internorm all do high quality units.im sure there's more, just avoid the cheap crap.

Interesting study that. Undoubtedly there's marked humidity buffering effect with the hygroscopic materials. The test was done in the presence of controlled mechanical ventilation. Had this been turned off I suspect RH would have climbed higher than desirable in both cases. Passively/manually ventilating can work with the proviso you have one of the following. 1. Heat driven stack effect. 2. Very large internal volumes. 3. Diligent occupants. Hygroscopic materials will undoubtedly help smooth out the worst RH extremes with the latter two. However for almost all owners I would think mechanical ventilation would still provide much cheaper and more consistent control over IAQ.

Rogue photo at the end for those who enjoyed the mud. 🤷‍♂️

No mains gas and used oil in the past. New self build, air tight, MVHR, 3G etc. 275sqm. RHI was available so paid for kit and install. Our personal use for 2025 was 2700kWh for hot water and heating. However, I would not recommend ASHP in average insulated home with mains gas available if cost is a major factor.

I’ve got to be honest, there are times when it feels like we are inching towards the finish line ever more slowly, with lots of jobs nearly but not quite done. Pulling together this regular blog is really helpful in that respect: Every fortnight I start off thinking there is hardly anything to say so it’s probably not worth issuing an update. But once I start to look at what’s happening since the previous blog I realise that we have generally made good progress. And indeed it’s a case of more good progress over the last two weeks. It does now feel like we are nearly over the line. Several long-standing activities have been closed off thank goodness. So here are some of the things we’ve made progress on since the previous blog. (Confession time: I meant to take more photos of the bathrooms, kitchen and lighting but seem to have forgotten to do so, so you’ll have to wait for next time for those.) Bathroom After our disaster last time with the wall hung shower toilet, my brilliant brother came back over from Sussex to hang the replacement, even though he had managed to break his foot in the meantime - that’s what I call dedication to the cause! The (revised and up-to-date) instructions we were given with the replacement WC pan said to tighten the wall bolts to 7Nm torque. Which seems really very low - the sorts of torque used on bicycle parts. Anyway, that’s what we did to the best of our ability. It was just about enough to stop the toilet feeling at all wobbly and the good news is nothing cracked, nothing fell on the floor, and the toilet seems pretty stable. Especially now it’s been siliconed around the edges - though I’m sure the silicon doesn’t add any strength at all. While he was with us, Chris also fitted the small hand basin in our ensuite, tiled and grouted the splashbacks, then fitted a lot of sound insulation into the stud work between the three bathrooms (they all back on to each other, so good acoustic insulation is a definite plus!). He also bailed us out of a looming problem with our porcelain tile skirting… Tiling We were getting increasingly concerned whether our floor tiler would finish off the porcelain skirting tiles before we moved in. The quality of his work has been great, but since Christmas it’s been hard to schedule any time from him partly because he’s been ill and also he’s got a lot of other work, I guess. So we agreed to part company amicably, we agreed a payment for his completed the work, and my brother Chris stepped into the breach. Chris then spent a long day finishing off the skirtings, which really meant doing all the tricky mitre corners which had been left until last plus a few straight runs. For a simple, relatively open-plan house we had a surprising number of corners! Chris then went round and grouted 130 m of skirting. Great job Bro! We decided to hire a recommended specialist silicon guy to apply silicon around the bottom and the top of the skirtings, 260m in total. He did a great job, and very quickly. He is certainly getting a good rate for it! But I’d agreed a fixed rate and he did it to a good standard so, fair enough… Specialist siliconing is obviously where the money is these days! Anyway, all our tiling and skirtings grouting and siliconing is now officially… done! Kitchen Chris the carpenter has finished off all the outstanding jobs in the kitchen, including the final fit of ‘wall of ovens’ in the alcove where they sit. I’d been pondering the best approach to ventilation and with Chris’s help we came up with a what I think is a neat solution - creating a slender recessed ventilation strip above the ovens which is there but doesn’t catch the eye. Chris also fitted the plinths which make the kitchen look finished rather than work-in-progress. The Quooker tap is now powered up in as well as plumbed in and we have been using it for the first time over the past couple of days. I have to say I’m really impressed; it works really well and feels and looks great too. Electrics Progress on second fit electrics has been frustrating, I think mainly because our electricians have got too much work on and they’re trying to juggle multiple jobs. Also to be fair, our installation has been more complex than originally envisaged due to choices we’ve made. The rate of progress hasn’t been a problem until recently but it’s begun to feel like we might not have the electrics ready to move in: However, our main man Darren was in this week and made good progress, and we now have power and lighting throughout the house. All the kitchen equipment is powered up and whilst there could still be a fair few jobs outstanding after we move in (e.g. external lights) it’s clear that the electrics are going to be working well enough for us to move in as planned on the 23rd. Yesterday Nick, the electric contractors boss, demonstrated the seamless switch-over from mains to battery by switching off the mains supply without causing so much as a flicker to the lights. I wanted to try it myself when we had friends round later but Mrs P wouldn’t let me: “it’s not a toy” apparently. I was wondering whether we would actually know if we had a power cut, but the battery app sends us a message to say the power’s tripped over to batteries and then another one when the power is restored and it’s tripped back. I was a bit worried that, with the electrical work ‘growing’ and there being a fair few extras that we’ve asked for, the final bill was going to be way over the original quote. So I have been badgering Nick to give us a revised quote. He has finally done that, and yes, it’s going to cost us a bit more than he first quoted but actually not nearly as much more as I feared. Which is a result! Joinery Meanwhile on the joinery front, the oak we ordered to use as full width door jambs and the pocket door frame sections have all arrived. Mrs. P. has Osmo oiled them, fitting has started and they should all be installed by the time we move in. Rear landscaping Lots of activity is now underway on our rear landscaping. We have a fall of about 1.5 metres from the house finished floor level to the far end of the “residential garden“ part of our land. As I am a wheelchair user we are naturally wanting to have step free access to as much of that as possible. The garden design we have involves level access from the house to a terrace seating area, then 1:20 ramps down to three different further small seating areas between planting areas. That obviously involves quite a lot of low retaining walls and ramped paths. So given we are in the middle of the winter monsoon season, it was clearly an ideal time to start work on those walls, paths and terraces! Ashley and his team have made great progress despite the weather, as you can see - although if their landscaping work ever dries up (ha ha!) they could probably get good employment as World War 1 battle scene recreators. Front landscaping If the back garden looks like the Somme, in front of the house the parking/turning area is looking much more civilised. We debated about how to finish the surface, considering a number of options, but in the end we’ve gone for simple tarmac. Gravel is a no-no for the wheelchair, resin bonded is too expensive, brick pavers we don’t like the look of and need regular cleaning. In a previous house we had hot-rolled grit into tarmac and that does look nice but we found it collects dirt and is a recipe for bringing grit into the house, so we’re keeping it simple this time. The base coat is down and the front apron is being done tomorrow(!). The aim is to leave the top coat until all the heavy work in the back is done, to avoid damaging it. Ashley has told us several times we’re doing it the wrong way round - we should have started at the back and worked forward - but having that base coat down is transformational for me - no more wheeling through lumps of clay or getting bogged down in loose type 1. Preparation under way: Troy anointing the prepared sub-base. "May God bless her and all who walk/wheel on her": Laying down the blacktop: First flower bed planted! Focus for the next two weeks: Moving in! Dashboard: Contractor days on site this past two weeks: 45 Contractor days on site since build start: 572 Budget: No change - over budget but within contingency. Plan: Moving in on 23rd February. Issues and worries closed this fortnight: Hanging that toilet Whether the electrics would be ready Finishing the skirtings Current top issues and worries: Packing! (I expect Mrs P. has it all under control ;-))

Ah so a metal carrier then aluminium trim on the inside?

All the stone was cut to 50mm thick and stuck on, then with the big ones I cut a notch out of the back and they sit on a chunk of 50x50 angle the underside will have a coloured ally trim to match the windows and hide the angle.

At this point I was just testing if I could discount the option through on a cost basis. But you are well ahead of me in thinking of sourcing the skills, even if the work is affordable!

So did you cut the top ones like a slip?

Great points both. I was hoping that the work would be enough to be of interest but it may be well be "too much edge and not enough middle".

I couldn’t give a monkeys what these companies say on paper I would want to see the build quality and airtightness results. the figures for my walls would not pass current building regs, but I know every square mm is insulated exactly the same with zero gaps and no cold bridging, then with an airtight score below passive standard, I’m sitting in a house that is so comfortable, the wife put a chicken in the oven this afternoon and I went and opened the patio door for 15mins.

Im in the Cotswolds so they are recessed about 80mm back inside the Nudura block

I wouldn’t bother swapping materials, you will need two different contractors, trying to find one is hard enough. stick to slate.

Yes and yes

I did this, personal taste really, I would have like a big stone to look like a lintel, but was running out of enthusiasm and it just needed finishing.