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After a full on week of getting the following jobs done. We’ve finally moved in. Given we have to hand the keys back to the rental on Monday, it’s been cutting it fine. 1) caravan foul drainage connected to the sewage treatment plant 2) water supply to shed for washing machine 3) installing Starlink. This was very easy 4). Fitting a skirt to the static from salvaged 18mm shuttering ply 5). Making some steps. So glad I never burnt the pallets. They are perfect. I won’t miss the hours drive each way and my commute to London is now 45 mins instead of 90 mins, plus our daughter is moving into her first home shortly and she’ll be 7 minutes away. A new chapter has begun 😃 ps - site currently resembles the Somme

I built mine from ply myself. And routed the nosing. Filled and sanded out looks and feels like solid wood but is silent. Was quoted a silly price for it, so did it myself and I'm glad I did.

We hear sentiments like this a lot and unfortunately they are based on a misunderstanding of the respources we have. This line is promoted by certain sections of the media (who unfortunately no longer have the journalistic integrity to check their sources), and politicians on the make, and is 'encouraged' by the oil companies who source oil outside the UK but know that promoting 'British Oil' will actually lead to more sales of non-British oil in the UK! I'm by no means an expert, but I used to work for a solar company (way back, the first solar installer in the country) that was founded by a man who came from the oil industry and had first hand knowledge to impart. Without going into the weeds (which I'm in no way knowledgeable enough to do - I'm dragging this from the back of my mind from conversation 25 years ago...) you need to understand some basics of the oil industry as it has existed for the last 100 years. And a little Geology. Where to start? Oli is not what you think it is. Most oil in the world (and unfortunately the oil available off our coast) is not the black stuff you see shooting out of the ground in the Beverly Hillbillies. It is a multi coloured sludge made up of a vast array of chemicals that need careful and expensive processing to become useful - and that usefullness may not be as an energy source. Most crude oil - like that available in the UK - is only suitable for chemical productions (fertilisers, medecines, etc), not high grade energy use. Setting up oil refineries is increadibly expensive and to maximise economies of scale, a single type of process tends to be dominant in any region. Essentily, individual countries have specialised in different processes, using particular types of oil that is shipped around the world. I believe we ship 'our' sludge to South America for processing into a usable product, and vice versa). TLDR, The Geology of the North Sea does not produce the type of oil that UK refineries are specialised in, and the cost (and time frame) of converting our refineries to handle UK-sourced oil and the percieved benefits (and profits) are vastly outweighed by and dwindling resources of existing drill sites. In a heating world, WE MUST NOT drill any new fields and even if we did, the product would not power our country. Promoting th use of British Oil is a wheeze by foriegn oil producers (in bed with corrupt politicians and journalists happy to trouser a commission) which keeps the UK dependant upon their products. 'Gas lighting' in the literal sense... Another important lesson regarding 'Energy Security' has been learned from the war in Ukrain. A distributed power production that is not dependant upon a single source of energy is better able to withstand interferance from bad actors. It is very hard to cpmpletely destroy a wind or solar farm in a bombing raid, and even if you succeed, it will only be part small part of overall production. A distributed power generation will keep the lights on. But if you blow up a gas powered station - or the North Sea drilling rigs that supply your gas - it is much harder to get back up and running. To achieve a renewables based distributed grid is going to require huge investment of our aging infrastructure. But the long-term result will be lower bills, which should boost the economy as it will make manufacturing costs cheaper. Espescially if, as weve discussed before, industry is encouraged to move up North to be near the wind generation sources. We were perhaps disadvantaged compared to our European friends in the last 80 years, in that the last 'bad actor' was so very inefficiant at destroying our victorian infrastructure that we didn't have to rebuild earlier. Ironically, we probably gave Germany a boost by levelling the country and forcing a better grid to be built...

Update: I bought the Zehnder attenuated manifold a few weeks ago and fitted it, with great difficulty. An absolute pig. I was even less happy when I turned it on and it had made absolutely zero difference. A few hundred quid and half a day down the drain unfortunately. However, there is a happy ending eventually, as today I fitted 2 of the flexible silencers @Jolo suggested, near to the terminal in the main bedroom. I used 80mm as they fitted fairly well directly over the 75mm ducting I have. It appears @Jolo has 90mm ducting? Result, I can't hear any noise whatsoever from main bedroom terminal even with my ear to it! A dramatic improvement. Tested the airflow and it hasn't reduced whatsoever. Thank you @Jolo. The only baffling thing is why the semi rigid ducting itself has caused this effect on both our systems. Mine is fixed well every 600mm, no sharp bends. I have 75mm, Jolo has 90mm. I have Quiet Vent ducting, he has Ubbink. I'm surprised more people don't have this problem? Or maybe they just put up with it?

Zombie thread, but in case it's of interest to anyone- this was the building fix. The neighbourliness part was almost the hardest part. Our neighbours weren't aware of this issue. After raising it several times as a non-urgent but upcoming issue, we then raised it when we were going through formal party wall notice for other things like chimney removal and our loft conversion. We have a deed saying we owe them enclosure costs for the wall built on the boundary if we build on it- they suggested they would waive that. We pointed out that when we built the extension we had planning permission for, or even if we built a direct copy of theirs, there would be a pooling issue from the water directed backwards. So there needed to be a fix. We calculated the enclosure costs based on 1/2 of what it would cost us to build that same wall now (using our builder's quote). They had a quote from their own trusted builder (who built their extension) to infill the gap in the wall and redirect the gutter- seemed somewhat high but it's a small firm doing quality jobs. We offered the use of a skip bag already on our property to save on skip hire and gave them bricks from my collection as pragmatic. We then insisted on paying the enclosure costs but insisted that the fix was done. Conveniently the enclosure costs were just above half the remaining builders quote. Our neighbour (retired solicitor) drafted a memorandum of understanding, enshrining that we were explicitly paying owed enclosure costs and they were funding the remedial works to their extension, with the accompanying contract, warranty, responsibility etc being completely theirs (although the wall remains a party structure). So a blend of goodwill and pragmatism plus sticking to the agreements, but all dressed up as down-the-line obligations. All done with tea and cake in their garden. Very grateful for all advice- needed a robust understanding of where we stood (which this forum enabled) as a foundation for that amicable outcome.

Hello all, Whilst I've been on the site a while, I thought I would introduce myself and the new exciting (to me) project that we are at the very early stages of. After the fun and games of the purchase process, we are now the proud owners of a barn in Cornwall and today, we have also received our class Q notice. The barn now has permission to convert, a secondary class Q and we are in the midst of a redesign to go back for full planning permission under betterment. As you can see from the photos, a fair bit of work is needed.. But we feel very lucky to be in this position. Current status is that the previous tenants (Rams) have been evicted and we are moving on to getting utilities to the site! I will probably start a blog if I find the time! May the fun begin!

Been a while and I was just randomly passing through when I noticed a few recent posts on this thread. Current update is we gained our Completion Cert in July (almost exactly 10 years to the day since buying the land), and the interior is nearing completion with just the kitchen to finish. Fully offgrid, we haven't paid a utility bill in 9 years. Living our dream and still pinching myself, tbh.

Phoned round merchants this morning and - after blank-sounding noises from the first 3 - found one who had what I needed, exactly as @Nickfromwales described. The insert is part of the adaptor rather than being a separate thing as I'd first imagined. Thanks very much for the advice @Nickfromwales - I might have given up after the first couple of calls if I'd not known for sure the part existed. Bought enough to replace the T if I had to (not crawling down here twice) but there was enough length on the stub to just swap the elbow. Went together very easily, now just lying in the wet dirt waiting for the system to refill enough to do an initial leak check but it feels very secure. Now found a new go-to plumbers merchants! Couple of photos to give others confidence if ever in this position. Here's the adaptor with insert, split olive & oversized backnut (obviously the insert pushes fully into the pipe, just showing what it looks like): And then the finished joint:

Final update... It was sorted within a week.. the team were great they came round took the old unit and installed a new one in about an hour. Shame the unit failed but can't complain about sunamp resolving it so quickly.

It’s now six months since we broke ground and it's fair to say we’re very pleased with the progress since we began. We have of course been very lucky with the contractors we’ve had working on the project, right from the start with the great groundworks team and that’s continued pretty much throughout. And we’ve largely avoided unexpected surprises and delays. That was until a couple of weeks ago when we found that our screed was not dry enough to start laying the floor tiles https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/blogs/entry/1122-week-24-juggling-with-the-plan/ Never mind, our decorator Steve Brady rescheduled some other work and came in a a week early. Decorating It took Steve and his son Tom just three days to mask and spray throughout - and what a transformation! If you are willing to have one colour throughout this has to be the quickest way to go. Our thinking is that we will no doubt repaint rooms or individual wall in a range of colours in time but to allow us to move in as soon as possible we were happy to stick to one colour. Steve and Tom sprayed a mist coat of diluted Armstead trade white straight on to the plaster followed by another coat of Armstead, then two coats of Dulux Diamond Matt, mixed to ‘Dimity’. He then rollered over the walls which should help if we need to touch any paint up in the future (touching up spray finished paint by roller or brush doesn’t really work apparently). The results look great and we feel that it gives us a really solid paint job. Spraying does use a lot of paint though, especially with our vaulted ceilings and high walls: 80 litres of the Armstead and then 80 litres of the Dulux. Steve and Tom our decorators: The final rollering: Tiling Finally, by Thursday this week the screed reached a level where our floor tiler Steve Hillyard felt it was safe to start laying. The relatively drier weather we had last week has no doubt helped, and with the MVHR system running and the UFH on low the air humidity in the house dropped below 40% (the day the plasterers finished it was 98%). Our delays have no doubt disrupted Steve’s schedule and he’s worked through this weekend to catch-up, which we really appreciate. The first tiles are looking great. They are 900mm x 600mm Italian porcelain tiles from Pietra Wood and Stone near Bath. Focus for the next two weeks Floor tiling Bathrooms - my brother is with us for two weeks to make a start on out bathrooms. Cladding - the scaffolding we need the high cladding is now in place. Deliveries - bathroom, kitchen, appliances, door casings… all planned for delivery in the next couple of weeks. 2nd fix electrics - should start in the next two weeks. Dashboard: Contractor days on site this fortnight: 14 Contractor days on site since build start: 396 Budget: No change - still a bit over budget but within contingency. Plan: Still on track to move in by Easter 2026. Issues and worries closed this fortnight: The screed is dry! Current top issues and worries: Nothing too concerning, which nice.

So, we decided to go with MBC for frame, insulated raft and Rationel windows. They have been so helpful after Scotframe pulled out and I now feel it was meant to be. We completed on our plot purchase yesterday after 3 years of solicitors buggering about so celebrating tonight! Hopefully breaking ground in February.

This all sounds like a storm in a teacup, it's not ideal.. But pissing your builder off in the final stretch is even worse Let him do more work, wait for next payment to be requested... Then link payment to site tidy up. Going to council or the police is a one way street to a loooot more stress.

The FMB is a trade association, by subscription. Make of that what you like. This is good you have seen other work, but check that was not for a relative. Check Face book and other social media for suspicious connections. Don't assume all builders are there to rip you off, many are good honest hard working folk. Just browse and if there is a rat you'll likely smell it. A fatal mistake here is to fall under the builders "charm".. you like them but don't want to uncover bad news. Be brave and grasp the nettle. You don't have to tell them you have checked them out! If you struggle on social media then get say your kids , nieces and nephews etc to check this stuff for you, they will do it in a fraction of the time! Do more due dilligence. Check companies house if they are limited. See what other links the directors have. If not limited then this can be an advantage. If something goes horribly wrong then sometimes you can chase the builders own personal assets. Check to see where they live, go to the land registry and see if they own the home (in Scotland this cost me £3.00) and how big their mortgage is. Check to see if they hold it in joint names. You can't chase easily (and nor would you probalby I hope) if the house is in joint names and you end up putting a family out their home. If vat registered then you can check their registration. If not vat registered then you need to ask them why. If their turnover is that low then how do they build houses? Once you have done this kind of due dilligence then you need to sort out a contract that is fair to all parties. To finish on a light note. I have posted this kind of stuff before. Last year a Client engaged me and told me they had followed my advice and done the full due dilligence on myself! I thought... well at least I passed and if you want to dish it out then expect the same in return!

Thick carpet and underlay are your friends here. Job will be done and dusted this time next week and your house will be warmer for it.

I work with someone that has a house similar to mine, it is also on E7. She decided that the old storage heaters were faulty, so had them replaced with new ones. Guess what, she paid the same to heat the house. Someone at work has lent her a small (500W) fan heater, as it 'only costs a penny to run'. A penny on her tariff is about 2 minutes use. When I questioned as to why the heater was so good and cheap to run, I was told 'because it is ceramic'. Now theses twats know my educational background, have asked me in the past about the best things to do to reduce the monthly bills, and then ignored it. I shall start taking in my bills and complain about my expenditure, which is about a third of theirs. As a general rule, if 'science' is mentioned in some advertising, the product is crap. No one mentions the polymer science of car tyres, or the electro-magnetic spectrum for a DAB radio, I really wish people would stop wishing things were magic and when they have bought them, convince themselves that they have made a good purchase.

Coming back to this with an "update post" in case it's useful for anyone else reading who experienced the same issue. First off - just to say that I agree with all the comments from posters pointing out that my methodology for installing the IWI was wrong; if anyone is considering this I would strongly advise removal of the plasterboard prior to installing new insulated plasterboard to avoid the risk of trapping moisture. I also followed the advice above and took one electrical socket off the (newly insulated) wall and checked behind with a flashlight to see and smell what was going on... It looked fine. Used a dehumidifier intensively and then over the summer the odour naturally faded away to nothing. The game-changer (hopefully) was a chat with a local roofer who had experienced this on a neighbouring house. He suggested that our house doesn't have eaves ventilation or breathable roof membrane and is prone to condensation forming at roof level and then dripping back down the inside walls from the loft... Have rectified this with eaves vents and also fixed some external gutter leaks noticed in heavy rain, one right outside the affected room. I don't want to jinx anything but so far the issue hasn't come back so seems to be largely sorted. It was 0 degrees outside for a couple of nights so will need to see if any colder weather affects it but feeling optimistic

Hi all, Aspring self-builder in the Borders. Fan of the Barcelona Pavilion and Brutalism (sorry if that offends anyone!), hoping to build something along those lines. My background is in science, so I'm thinking in terms of energy, water efficiency, passive thermal management... Also interested in using as many commodity items as possible to keep costs down and simplify maintainance. I like vindaloos and minimalism, hence the name. Thanks admin for approving my account!

Having been involved with leisure club and centres, as soon as a swimming pool is involved, the job becomes a lot harder. Whoever designs for you, will need to know their materials as they need to be corrosion resistant and able to handle relatively high temperatures and humidity at 100% all year around. Air handling (HVAC) has to be considered at the start, not when it becomes a problem. Do you really want, what I assume, is an expensive car next to a pond of chlorine?

If the heat loss / system sizing calcs are in it, then ASHP spec in their quote should hold sufficient info for them to be silenced. Tell BCO they’ll give you the G3 certification etc too. Re MVHR etc, just tell them it’s too early to decide on a system or supplier, but that whatever arrangement you end up going for will be certified and accompanied by any other (relevant) compliances and a full ventilation certificate. Again, tell them you’re currently undecided but that they can assume trickle vents and basic mechanical fans for the get go. The gaps in your understanding of how these systems can benefit you is your concern not theirs, also you really should make yourself forearmed with things like the correlation between airtightness and a great end result with MVHR, vs you not beating natural infiltration rates and are then just pumping cold air into the house all winter. M&E is a whole, so best to join the dots before doing much more, just for yourself. Don’t just pay this lip service, it’s about making a high performance / low cost (& maintenance) and comfortable future-proofed home for yourselves too!

I can’t believe anyone wouldn’t! Early design / planning before the foundation goes in is essential, as otherwise it’s just best guesswork; the birthplace of compromise or unnecessary costs to rectify later when you then see how it fecks up 1st fix etc. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

OK, Again on the energy security argument. The fossil fuel areas that the UK has access to are mature, that is to say they have past peak production. It costs about 3x to get a barrel of oil equiv (boe) out of the ground in the north Sea as it does in the Middle East. This ratio has been getting worse as the oil and gas fields produce less per well than they used to. Our refineries don't accept our oil, so we have to ship our crude abroad to be refined and import other countries crude for us to refine. Nitw how almost all our crude is exported and almost all our Refinery input is imported For gas the production situation is similar but there isn't the refinery issue. So for energy security we have a choice. A) we could increace our extraction which will result in much costlier oil and gas. This means we need to accept that burden on our economy or we need to subsidise the extraction. We then need to refit all our refineries to take this much more expensive feedstock and turn it into petrol, diesel etc. All of this woikd result in much higher prices for us in the UK and a huge drag on our economy. B) we could do the "green" thing - reduce demand for the things (oil and gas) we struggle to produce ourselves. So electrifying transport as much as possible, electrifying heating and industrial processes as much as possible. Also reducing demand by things like insulation, public transport etc. And replace the imported energy with energy produced in the UK like wind and solar (and nuclear etc). The only people who would benefit from A) are - foreign countries rich in oil and gas who would like to make money off us and have control over us ("do what we say or lights out") - oil and gas companies who would be able to make huge profits from the subsidies required to produce enough UK oil and gas. As it happens Reform have significant links to both those groups. It's rather convenient that their energy policy would be beneficial to a certain country who have been paying a close colleague/person he barely knew of the reform leader Right now, today the levelised cost per mwh of a new CCGT plant is higher than on and offshore wind and PV. If we ignore the carbon costs (dark blue) the CCGT is somewhere around £55, whilst the others are all below £44. Note the CCGT fuel costs assume world market prices and not the higher prices if we were to use only domestic gas. Crucially, the forward projections have the CCGT going up for projects built 2030,2035 etc, whilst the other ones are falling. To conclude : From a energy security perspective attempting to boost domestic extraction and refining would result in much higher energy costs for UK homes and businesses and/or huge taxpayer subsidies for the energy firms. Reducing our reliance on fossil fuels would reduce both our dependance on foreign supplies and our energy costs.

That must have been a difficult post to write @DTL.... Well done for stepping away from a difficult problem - difficult because so much emotion is invested in buying a house and not just money. All may not be lost. You stepping away from purchase might just result in the vendors rethinking their sales strategy.

OK Thanks WRT the SEPA tank registration; given that it is a self declaratory process I guess some people might just declare they have a soakaway from their tank rather than a discharge to a stream. And as you have previously discussed SEPA currently make no checks, and are only interested in investigating very large pollution events. Last week I made an online CAR application using a grid reference next to a random burn, and as part of the application you are asked to check a box according to your response to one of four questions; 1. Discharge via soakaway 2. Discharge to watercourse 3. Discharge to ditch 4. Other I could not fully complete the application as it was not real, so I am not sure what happens in the licensing process if you declare you have an untreated discharge to a stream. I have pulled out of the purchase because I have too many uncertainties on the septic tank discharge and I feel the vendors are not willing to be helpful. Many Thanks to everyone for the feedback in this thread.

Not sure what you need a plumber for . But! Assuming it’s not gas I.e boiler install etc you can do it . I know you can . Because I did it . As mentioned hep2O is Lego for “ plumbers “ . I’d explain your exact issue / what you want done up here .You’ll get tons of help . Save you a fortune ! . Then when it leaks you can blame yourself but also fix it 😊

But that isn't fully correct, because it doesn't take into account the gas standing charge, which goes when you remove the gas meter. So if your house consumed 6000kWh of gas per year your pay £377 for the gas plus £125 standing charge. So your 6000kWh cost you 8.35p per kWh, based on standard prices. Electric is 26.35p per kWh. So real spark gap is 3.2, not 4.2. And the above doesn't account for the approximate 80-85% efficiency of nearly all gas boiler installs. So piss poor reporting by Nesta

The plan for the two weeks just gone was to complete the plastering and start the floor tiling. No issues with the first part, our team of plasterers have done a great job, see below. The floor tiles arrived more or less on schedule, and the tilers Steve and Kev turned up as planned. However, when they checked the floor humidity to confirm it was ready to tile, the meter showed it was slightly over the required level. I am a little unclear of the actual moisture numbers but their meter was showing an amber bar when they really need it to be green to be sure it is safe to tile. The screed has been down for 63 days in an airtight house but that screed was 65mm thick on average so it was perhaps unsurprising it was borderline with the 1 day per mm drying time not quite being met. (I have also seen a suggestion it should be 1 day per mm up to 50mm and 2 days per mm over, which would be 80 days!) Also, of course it has been pretty humid outside throughout that period and the plastering has necessarily added more water inside the house. No doubt that vapour control layer has been doing its job too preventing internal moisture getting into the structure. To mitigate this we have had the UFH heating running very low but the plaster was drying too fast when we tried increasing the UFH temperature. We have also had the windows open a lot of the time and for the past week we’ve been running the MVHR system to ventilate the house. But despite that, the floor is not quite dry enough. Of course, the plan is all very tight and was meant to be: floor tiling last week and next, spray paint w/c 17 November, then 2nd fix electric and plumbing is booked from w/c 24 November. So what to do? Disruptive as it must be for the floor tilers, they were very good about it and suggested seeing if we could get the decorator in a week early and then they’d work long days to try to get the tiling done by the 24th or thereabouts. I called the decorator (another Steve) and after he had made a few calls he confirmed that he could indeed come in next week, Monday to Thursday. So that’s the revised plan. Hopefully by Thursday the floor will be dry enough to start tiling. If not well… that’s a bridge to be crossed later. Plastering Despite the frustration of the (admittedly tight) plan being disrupted, we are taking comfort from the fact that the boarding out and skimming is all complete. Dan, Sam and Brandon, our team of local plasterers have done a brilliant job for us and we’d be really happy to recommend them to anyone needing a plastering team in the Dorset, Wilts, Somerset border area (PM me if you want their details). Brandon, Sam and Dan: Cladding The end of last week also saw the return of our chippies Alan and Chris who made a start on the timber cladding. We’re using Brimstone Ash from Vastern and Alan and Chris made a start with the soffits first. Focus for the next two weeks Spray painting throughout. Floor tiling Cladding (we are going to need some more a scaffolding for the high cladding, so that is hopefully coming next week). Dashboard: Contractor days on site this fortnight: 29 Contractor days on site since build start: 382 Budget: No change - still a bit over budget but within contingency. Plan: Still on track to move in by Easter 2026. Issues and worries closed this fortnight: None Current top issues and worries: Unsurprisingly: Will the floor be dry enough to tile?!

I'd always go for metal boxes on noggin rather than dry lining boxes. I think they are too flimsy personally. If you want a good finish, I'd highly recommend socket and switch beads before skimming. They make a fantastic finish.

Hi Everyone, What a wealth of knowledge on this site, and all very helpful. We have recently inherited a property which is an amazing gift, and it is an amazing plot, but...... the property is a late 80's barn conversion, and not a good conversion at that, so drastic change is required to make it habitable again. The property is a long lease (74 years remaining) with National Trust the landlord, however the property is eligible for a 999 year long lease (or virtual freehold) under the leasehold reform act due next year but we are not holding our breath that the proposed 2026 target for this reform will be achieved. Our thinking at present is partial demolition and build a new effectively self contained block with a link to the existing and then refurb that post new build. National Trust have been to visit and are open to discussion which is great because the lease terms are quite onerous as they stand now. We would like to get a new element built to enable us to move in and halve our bills and then refurb the existing element of the house. Then we have a small matter of planning within the AONB status and a (rightly) rigorous Local Plan, but a lovely challenge from a sadly departed very good friend. Good fun ahead, apart from the 200% Council Tax bill we have recently received!

I go into panic if I’m spending more than £4 a day 😬 but then I think that’s more part of being a Yorkshire man!

Hi all. The party is over indeed. I'm going to lay this on thick as it's time. I've picked UFH first but will turn to PV in another post. But to wet your aptetite! I've argued on this forum for a long time that underfloor heating is the bees knees. I've done this and worn the tee shirt. Long before most of you were in short pants. So if any of you can tell me how you installed and designed an UFH 22 years ago on a self build then I'm all ears! I would love to hear from you how we all flew by the seat of our pants at that time. I do hope that there may be one person. Many think they have invented the UFH wheel.. well you have not! The Scandinavians were at long time before the Brits.. I've made the case for simplicity and the need for UFH (the pipes in the slabs) to last the lifetime of the building, the cost of maintenance, reacting to how technology will evolve in terms of boilers etc. BUT what is in the concrete floor is a FIXED ASSET! Just like the walls and the roof! I also happen to be an SE who has actually been designing these slabs, insulated rafts to work with UFH for decades. So If there are any on BH that want to have a serious structural discussion with me then I would welcome that. You can ponce about with your weather compensation as much as you like, the flow rates.. your controls and buffering.. but see.. your heating has to work for 50 years so until you can make that arguement fdor life time performance, then I'll write down the value of your house if the pipes in the floor are not designed to adapt. SO GET A GRIP! I can and estate agents will also take a dim viw on a house value! Now some may just want to have a house that is a hobby, that is fine and I'm ok with that. But actually that may also make your house unsellable! Seriously.. you need to WAKE UP and smell the coffee, surveyors et al are clocking this so your hobby might come at an unexpected expense! Don't trust me. maybe ask a valuer? What I'm not OK with- if your house gets a loss of value as you have played with (and it is playing) home automation / complex UFH controls then that is a price you pay. But if you try and sell your house to some unexpecting young couple.. you can f... off., and I'm going to go hard on you! You are not going to sell your house to my kids! Advance Foundation technolgy have grasped some of it, Tanners in Ireland are competant SE's but no one has actually put all the bits together! The thing for me is that I want to design and build stuff that lasts, that delivers profit for self builders and that encourages young folk to enter the market, that benefits society. It's not a big ask? But as a designer with lots of real life experience I want to help young folk see the wood for the trees. I want them to get on the self build ladder on the self build ladder, I did it on a shoe string and that is why I keep pushing the simple stupid... as that means you can get a wider coice of Contractors.. which drives cost down. That is why I often push against the UFH complex thing and other stuff. It's also basically bonkers, but a lot of tecky folk on BH can'r see beyond 5 years.. So in summary I would like to see a lot of experienced folk on BH saying.. this works and if you are young folk embarking on a self build, on a limited budget this can work for you to. OK this is not going to go down well. But the life and future of BH is in the young folk, that are strapped for cash.. This for me and is why I'm still here.. I want to help and this is my hobby. To enthuse young folk, we need to solve problems, use our experience to say this can be not as hard as you think, if you take our advice, but at the same time give a bit of tough love if need be. PV is following much the same cycle..

When you get it. You get it. It’s brilliant.

Hi everyone! My wife Helen and I are embarking on a self build off grid renovation project in Dumfries and Galloway. Any useful tips and advice always welcome! Nick and Helen

Zero cutting of anything! Whoa! I am referring to setting the tray on the deck, with the CT / OB 1 under it, and then you pull the tray away from each wall of multi board by about 5mm, and then pump the gap full of CT1. You then push the tray back to the wall, displacing the excess CT1 and wipe the excess away (baby wipes, lots of them, are your friend here). Check for level, and leave to cure for 48hrs.

You don't mention the size, but is sounds substantial. Having watched my plank like neighbours building without construction drawings, I can only say you need a proper architect/designer/structural specifier. I don't say builders can never design, but well builders can almost never design. A camel is a horse designed by a builder etc. There is always far more to achieving a good building than might meet the eye. Having a rough idea or a planning drawing is not going to cut it. Aesthetics are important to achieve something that doesn't look like a wart on the landscape. There are many technical aspects from opening sizes, positions etc to provide good light, to insulation, to ventilation, to acoustics, to services like power, lighting, heating, drainage, water supply. Structural engineering. Also layout and ergonomics. And many choices to make. The end result comes from the planning and thought put into it. Thinking it out now means lines on paper and is easily changed, building without construction plans will see you missing things and blundering around, knocking things down again, or producing the most hideous object. In building, if it is worth doing - it is worth doing well. The building will last for decades or centuries. In a few years time you will wish you had spent the money getting it right when prices were low.

You need to cough up and pay for an SE / Designer who knows about this stuff. Try and find a designer that can hold your hand and walk you through the things that need to be considered, how you design the different bits so they fit together and work. They will also help you put together the different work packages so you pay a fair price. The design and execution is much harder than you are probaby aware of. I have this on my website from Ruskin but is is worth a revisit. “There is hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price alone are that person’s lawful prey. It’s unwise to pay too much, but it’s worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money — that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot — it can’t be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”

They sound about OK to me. Our costs were (IIRC): Re-route Electricity from old house overhead to utilities block by the pole (pole on our land) down the pole along a 400mm trench, which we dug, and up into the meter box: £1200+VAT (2018) Move gas from the old house, which we knocked down, to utilities block in trench we dug and then remove it completely when we decided not to have gas £840+VAT (2018 / 2021) Do you really need Gas, might be worth working out if a ASHP might be a better solution if you are building a well insulated / air tight property.

Hi All, Just a wee update, after equipping myself with enough confidence of eligibility and knowledge I contacted the company that completed the drilling and requested kindly that the works be zero rated, I provided them with a certificate (adapted from the HMRC one advised in VAT Notice 708), along with a copy of my outline planning approval. They kindly obliged and we have 0% VAT!!!!! For anyone who it may help, I have approved outline planning only, with full planning being submitted as reserved matters in the next few weeks. This is reasonable to meet the VAT notice 708 ‘in the course of construction’ requirement. What I’ve learned! A Water borehole commissioning is eligible for VAT adjustment as long as they are for an eligible VAT notice 708 buildings water supply and completed ‘in the course of construction’. Water boreholes completed before or after construction are not eligible. Survey boreholes are not eligible. Thanks again for your help everyone, 3k saving!!! I hope this helps somebody going forward!!!!

Anyone tried to re-calibrate a Huepar laser level? Mine had a bit of a fall resulting in it being out by a couple of mm per m. Couldn't find anything on t'internet other than only the manufacturer can calibrate, and looking inside it after disassembly there is nothing terribly obvious to make fine adjustments. So, feeling I'd nothing to loose I had a go with some hot glue to rebalance it, carefully applying blobs to the 'high' side. Manged to get it within 1mm at 7m, which will do well enough for what I need. Perhaps there is a proper way to do this, rather than my bodge...

Sadly it wont. You can't possibly allow facts and figures spoil an ideological argument, or an opportunity to bash the government whatever the colour, or declare civil servants incompetent. For the avoidance of doubt your argument in incontrovertible, but apparently that no longer matters.

If we are talking about basic plumbing (not derogatory term - just simple basic plumbing) then 30 years ago I was in the same boat....... I had two poor jobs done by local plumbers which disappointed me - a lot - despite paying what I thought at the time was a high cost for a half days work. I decided like many DIY aspects that if I couldn't get a decent job done by a professional I would buy the tools I needed to do the job myself as I needed them. With a little research from books originally and later from the internet with a little practice I trained myself to gas solder copper, later to bend pipes to reduce the number of joints (aka risk of failures) and most recently bought a pressfit tool which is a bloody game changer for my next job on the list. Unless of course you are time constrained in which case you have my sympathy for the lack of interest.

Original FIT scheme we signed up to cost £14k for just 3.7 kW but the rates on offer were so high the actual payback was under 7 years - which sounded good then and is still the gift that keeps on giving. I.e. it has paid for another 3.2 kW capacity plus the battery inverter system, and is now making a contribution to the cost of the HP. Well in a sense you can bc you can do all the laundry and run the dishwasher on cheap rates, which with e.g. Cosy is under 15p for 8 hours in every 24. It took some negotiating but the DNO finally agreed last year to an unlimited export capacity. So with a nameplate capacity of 6.9 kW we have exported about 5.3 MWh in the last 12 months and imported about 5.5 so we are more or less in that postition. That is the fly in our ointment, the Pylontecs stop discharging when the SoC gets down to 10% so effectively we only have 90% of the capacity we paid for. Then there is the little matter of the inverter/charger efficiency. When the battery current is at 70 amps everything gets quite warm and this accounts for losses which are possibly another 5% in each direction.

You have to idiot proof builds, and do what's done locally to great extent or be prepared to do it yourself. Would be my view. Around us it's timber frame kit and brickwork, which I didn't want, so went wood crete ICF and did myself. No walls collapsed or any blow outs encountered.

You've said stuff like this a few times and everytime I try to understand what you are getting at but I'm afriad I'm not really getting your point. In case it doesn't come across in the way I indend, the below is not having a go, just trying to understand your argument. The pipes buried in concrete (at least in low energy houses) are going to be able to cope with almost anything thrown at them and will last a very very long time.* A lot of what we discuss here is how to get the maximum efficiency out of a system and the theme here to achieve that is minimum controls, low water temperature, system on most of the time with weather compensation (a technology that has been standard in all heating systems in other countries for literally decades). Even if you add lots of fancy controls on top of the basic system, the fundamentals of the system are such that you should be able to remove those controls and still get a very functional system. Similarly, if the heat demand of the house increases then worst case you need to up the flow temperature in the pipes to compensate. Again, most of the designs talked about here for new builds are based on very low temperature heating. If you can output sufficient heat with the water in the pipes flowing at less than 30oC then if some cataclysimic climate change happened and suddenly we were all living in -20C then upping the temperature in the pipes to 40-45C should still be able to adequately heat the house. Obviously if people want to extend the house then any extension would need work, but thats no real difference to any other system. If you have a low and slow design the system shouldn't care too much where the walls are if they needed to be moved. I do think that any 'smart' stuff added to a house should always be removable while maintaining the basic function of the house. Maybe you lose convenience or a little efficiency, but things should still work. Again, in the vast majority of cases, the systems discussed here are of the type that could be removed without significantly reducing the basic function of the house. Therefore, it is easy to offer any future buyer of the property the option to have all smart systems removed before they complete any purchase. So these shouldn't have a negative impact on the price of the property. * Plastic pipes don't corrode and UFH systems should have much less metal in them overall reducing corrosion of other parts and build up of gunk. They can be flushed if there is a problem. Even in the unlikely event of the pipes developing a problem, retro fitting radiators or even electric heating to affected rooms would be unlikely to dramatically change the sale price of the house. I do see a concern about whether rafts can be relied on to last as long as traditional foundations, but this has nothing to do with UFH.

The whole grant situation, especially with the closed shop MCS, invites grant harvesting. I still maintain using the subsidy to subsidise the heating costs of the HP system to guarentee a HP is always cheaper than gas would be a better way forward

CONCRETE CAP BECAUSE IM A LUNATIC.

If 4000k works from dawn to dusk for you then yes that’s a cheaper alternative. I’m mostly a night owl too, but I think there is value in having a way to subtly wind down near bedtime and the older I get the more I realise how lighting impacts that. absolutely. Mismatched temperature lighting is awful. Bulbs is the difficult aspect. LED strips are cheap and easy to do as CCT but I’ve still not settled on the best way to do temp changing bulbs as I’d rather not have smart bulbs but smart controllers, dumb bulbs. After the last conversation we had on this topic here I’ve started considering buying non cct bulbs and gutting them to replace the LEDs with CCT ones and controlling them with a custom controller as mad as that sounds because I’ve not seen products that do what I want.

Thanks again for the reply. I downloaded the INI settings files from the Altherma that is not working and the one that is - there are 370 parameters and they are identical in the 2 systems so its not a setting issue. I downloaded a copy of the settings description list and put them all together in an Excel spreadsheet to highlight differences - there were none. Eventually I got a repairman to come and after wasting 2 hours repeating what I had done he telephoned the Daikin hotline. The Daikin hotline asked for the serial number and when he told them they said "oh yes there is a fault known in the compressor drive filter board that was part of a recall". Daikin are sending a new one for free since they accept it is their fault - unfortunately I will have to pay to have it fitted which I find a little annoying since it is Daikins fault. So anyone with an Altherma 3 model (probably other models may be affected also) older than 2022 they should make sure your service agent is aware of this and any other recall. So Problem Solved and thanks again to those who tried to help.

As above possibly intending to collect it all in one go. If so out of order not asking you although they likely assumed you’d say no. Do you owe them any money? A roofer swept the back of his van out onto my parking area. He hadn’t spotted the camera. He was due back a few months later to finish off so I collected it in a bag and kept it and emptied into his passenger footwell after he had finished. He was about to explode but recognised some of the rubbish as his so said nothing. The thing is had he asked for a site bag I’d have given him one and even took it to the dump since I went once a week anyway.

Yes. But getting a plume kit added may be simpler

Yup. There’s a blanking grommet on the end of the trailing tail, after the last light. Chop that off and make it off into a trailing socket