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Cementitious products, especially when laid wet and allowed to cure, will corrode the copper prematurely. Gently chip away around the pipe and clear it away, just a few mm, and then buy some pipe collars to cover up cosmetically.

I'd rephrase this and say "a very large proportion of trades won't communicate / take such initiative". There are a rare few out there who it would be unfair to tar with such a brush.

Basics over size MVHR unit. So fan speed is low for your flow rate. Minimise pressure drops through duct work, via large ducts and or multiple duct runs. So low velocity through ducts equal to low noise and again less fan work being done. But if you're not better than 3m³/m² @ 50 Pa airtightness don't bother with MVHR. Better options available

The impact we can have on our own lives, especially as self builders is pretty big. Some of the first things that come to mind are 1. Designing in good passive means to heat protection. Lots of insulation with good decrement delay. Limiting glazing, espically in bedroom's. Appropriate shading. 2. Active colding, even a fused spur and a short 70mm duct will allow an A2A unit to be installed at a later date. 3. If opting for batteries get a change over switch to cope with power outages. 4. A store of water, even a rainwater butt will allow toilet flushing if the mains is cut off. 5. Raising the floor level well above current food level. 6. Shuttering for windows is something t.o would like to have e done. Maybe PVC rollers but even a stack of appropriately sized OSB sheets stacked in the garage would offer a a lot more protection than glass windows from extreme weather.

if you're not going for high performance (as in insulation and air tightness to passivhaus stds or close) and this is more about healthy environment / ventilation rather than heat recovery have a look at passive and also positive input ventilation. A LOT less money! Assuming you are going for MVHR strongly suggest whatever you decide making sure of a summer bypass setting. Our first summer and when it's been hot had fan speeds on full blast of a night - cool air without the 6 legged beasts!

Agree, you might open a can of worms.

Yes there are some parameters that you breach at your peril. Daylight and over shadowing of neighbours are one, traffic visibility splays another for example. Folk often bend the permissions a bit.. but it's a risky business! If you do deviate from the plans then you should ask yourself, how confident am I that if I get pulled up I can get an amendment to planning? If I come to sell and a surveyor spots this are they going to write your house value down? If the house goes on fire for example could the insurers use a non compliance to angle towards refusing a claim? It's best to check these things so you can make an informed judgement.

I have never had a system like this. Think I will have to try the diy route though as £10k + hard to justify.

Lovely looking house and a great job, well done!

Good observations, none of which I disagree with generally. Your house is often the most valuable asset so take time to read the fine print when the detailed insurance terms and conditions come through. I had one Claim where there was a bit of initial push back, gathering of information and a bit of SE by me reporting on a house on the south coast of England. The gable end of the house was next to the public pavement, lots of prams being pushed and pedestrians walking by, major HSE risk that they clocked once pointed out to them. The thing was so badly built and so expensive and difficult to fix that the warranty provider settled, from memory in about four months after I got involved. The warranty provider bought the house back, paid all costs; professional fees, legal fees, a bit extra for finding another house, removers cost and some ancillary stuff. Some claims can be pretty straight forward and get dealt with relatively quickly. It's not always that bad in terms of reaching a resolution. Some providers are using Claims handling companies.. the clue is in the name.. just how do they make their money? Obviously by making the Claims process as easy as possible and being helpful by not indulging in; gate keeping for example, offer up suggestions to the house holder at what is a stressful time for them .. or some may suggest not?

How high will these new trees grow? You won't be seeing that sunset for ever. Are they fruit trees or other? May I say it all looks great, but when I first saw your pic of the kerbs going in on 1/2m of concrete base, it made me think of a bobsleigh run. all rather splendid now.

Not a blog, but a few words would be interesting. Then in a year you can reflect on those notes and realise everything is fine really.

Hamilton Leonard Insurance Brokers, just changed their name to Roxburgh. Ask for Allan Burns, always helpful. 53 Moss St, Paisley PA1 1DR Phone: 0141 226 5161 Website: https://roxburghinsurance.co.uk/

The house building itself is ancillary and a bit of a nuisance. Buy land, get houses built, sell houses. The money will be made by getting the land at the best price, then squeezing more houses onto it, combined with rising demand when there was some. Would the developers take turns at getting the land so as to keep the price down? I wouldn't be surprised, but the chances of proving anything would be very small. It will have been doe by some 'understandings' and nothing in writing. Only very big developers can do it because there are a lot of funds tied up for a long time. Thus it will really be the lenders who are doing well. At present there are developments around here that are on hold because they aren't selling. 3 year old houses on the same estates are selling at 10% less than they cost. There are too many units available and also some doubts among potential buyers about the future. The land and building cost the developers too much during a boom period. Then the subsidiary of an arm of a contractor can be allowed to go out of business while the ownership and profits are already elsewhere. But if the price rises then they do not spend more on better quality, but keep the money. But still there are big sites getting planning permission.

or will the leveller etch the copper and cause an early failure?

Trim back enough to get at least 40-50mm overlap of scrim tape. It's that which will prevent cracking.

You'll spend this, and possibly more, if you opt for a supply and fit package. DIY will save you a lot, as it will with everything else in life. I've done some big houses with multiples of units, and the bill has gone above £20k, but these have all been very high spec installs, and have operated in total silence; I had to stick a bit of A4 paper to an extract, and watch it being held there, to prove it was running on one previous project. Their neighbour's (also just moved into a brand new home) couldn't believe how inaudible it was, and were resorting to turning theirs off at night as it was a lemonade job. As with anything, buy cheap, buy twice, or accept the compromises and keep quiet.

I've back-filled the timber / masonary join as it was not great, that is now rock solid as you say. Would you trim back the plaster layer a bit and SBR the sand/cement underneath before scrim tape or just go straight on old plaster? Trying to keep skim to minimum.

Not to the detriment of the functionality A lot of "cheap" designs have fresh supply vents almost immediately above doorways of bedrooms etc, and near zero air flows across the room. If you need to have a long run, and want quiet operation, you simply double up on the ducts. This is something sewn into the heart of the build fabric, with near zero chance of 'putting it right' retrospectively. It will also be on 24/7/365 for the rest of your life there, so maybe not somewhere to cut all of the meat off the bone Buy a good quality Brink unit from Air-Haus.co.uk, oversize it(!), and make sure to install proper attenuators on the supply and extract ports for super-quiet operational sound in the rooms.

The timber structure already exists, just needs re-skinning as the attempt the person made at plasterboard fitting was poor to begin with and has now got damage to it as well. My concern is the join to the existing plastered wall. I can skim the whole wall with a thin skim but not board the entire wall due to coving that I'd rather not remove (I'll never get a match). I want to avoid the plaster cracking down the join after skimming if possible.

We perhaps need to find some common ground here so we can identify the aspects we can agree on and then discuss the things we don't - this is usually (still) a good basis for discourse and otherwise we are contributing to the death of nuance and increasing polarisation which gets us nowhere. All it does is improve our ability to throw language laden bricks into the opposing camp. So to kick this off perhaps: Can we agree that the planet is warming up whatever the cause? If we are able to agree at least that we can perhaps then discuss consequences, mitigation strategies and opportunities it brings. Only after that we can discuss evidence for causal factors, natural cycles, human activity, adjustments by the operators of the simulation we are all living in - the science, or otherwise, of what is happening.

Or a flat.

Our first quote was £10k - it was dismissed very quickly

"Viva la revolución"

I made one a few years back. Just used it on the bathroom, it worked. The efficiency was not to good, about 70% if I remember right. Most of that was down to using a couple of Manrose bathroom fans. They are terrible. Big fans are needed, area is everything when it comes to shifting air.