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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.

Should I even call you darling? Probably not, but as you (not you specifically, sitting there in your ‘should have been put in the wash weeks ago’ dressing gown, I mean the buildhub fraternity) have been so great a moral support I can’t help feeling some degree of affection. Anyway, there’s no chance of me drawing breath this week, or any week till we move out of the ice box (AKA rental - and thats the polite version, I now have a different name for it), so if I’m going to mark the year in point it has to be now, as a year ago on Tuesday I clambered up onto the roof of da Bungalow and started sliding tiles at my mate Steve. I miss him. He’s not dead or anything - though his dress sense would tell you otherwise - but he’s off the project and that isn’t comfortable. He buggered his shoulder blocking up to damp and hasn't been back working on site since. He still visits to let me know that it’s not up to standard and we should be further on, so basically all the things I know already, but it’s not the same as working together. That was rather fun. In a twisted way. So, how far has a year got us? Insides are plastered out and oven ready for our mist coats, which hopefully start Monday. I’m hoping we’ve no buried leaks or missing cables, time will tell. Outside a small groundwork’s team are half way through connecting the house to the drains. When I dug down to find the capped sewer pipe it looked closer to the surface than I remembered - which featured in the playlist of yet another sleepless night. I’ve quite a wide repertoire of tumble dryer worries, yet another talent courtesy of the build. Thankfully it turns out my water level did me proud and the poo pipes protruding from the house are at the predicted level with respect to the sewer so happy days. It’s really odd building a plastic bag to live in. OK, it’s a well insulated plastic bag, but it’s still a really big plastic bag. It’s beautifully illustrated by our breathing ceilings. We continued the hideously gaudy coloured VCL up the side walls and over the ceilings, putting in as few staples as we could to reduce the number of penetrations. Eventually the house itself was sealed up bar the missing front door and loft hatch. We took the precaution of putting the first layer of loft insulation up to avoid condensation on the ceiling VCL, using “Industrial polypropylene strapping” stapled to underside of the joists before the VCL was put up, so the strapping took the weight rather than the VCL. It worked a treat and even allowed insulation to be laid even where the VCL hadn’t been done. Standing upstairs a weird thing constantly happened. The VCL above us very slowly rose and fell - it was as if the house was breathing. Oddly mesmerising. I should have recorded a video. But there was no time to stand and look. The plasterer had lots in his books so couldn’t get to us till the end of January, so we took that as our target. We had no way of knowing if that was doable (it wasn’t) but the concept was that by setting a target we’d go faster so we charged up the cattle prods. I thought I knew it would be stressful being driven by such a deadline. As in so many build things I had underestimated badly, however. Some things went better than I’d expected. I’d planned to pull in the wires myself but instead Steve the Sparks (the confusingly named son of Steve of the buggered shoulder who did the demo and the founds with me) did it all in a couple of days. The speed of the man, but oh, the radio! He was the first of several with the ubiquitous Makita site radio playing ‘80s stuff. We’d been a no radios site till then. But we had by then lots of fluffy insulation, so I relented as long as it was on indoors only and relatively quiet. And having said yes to one it’s a lot harder to say no to others so the tackers (plasterboarders) and the plasterers all followed suit. Did I really need Bananarama on a loop in my head with everything else whizzing round? Another thing that went well and a quicker than feared was pulling in the water pipes. On the odd moment I was alone on site it took very little time to actually pull the HEP2O pipes through. OK it left a mess of tails above the cylinder but that could be left till after the tackers started. A lot of things got categorised as ‘after the tackers get started’, which was sensible but not always satisfying. The theory of radial plumbing, no joints buried, I found seductive. However the theory floundered when it met the Aqualisa buried shower and bath controls. That continues to cause me angst and will do until I’ve finally accepted that I’ve dealt with the last wet patch (yes, technically it’s called a recurring nightmare). One thing that didn’t go so well was the vent ducts. It wasn’t helped by the fact that I’d decided to go for 90mm rather than the smaller version and we’d ended up with 253mm metal web joists (pozis) rather than the 304mm I’d planned. It also wasn’t helped by a glulam blocking the ideal route from the main house into the loft above the downstairs bedroom. So it was a fiddle, (polite version) and the pressure was on as the duct itself only arrived on the 28th of January, mostly due to a supply issue. I’d thought long and hard about duct routing, but things are never as one imagines. The MVHR unit will sit in the garage next to (but not touching for fear of noise) the wall of the downstairs bedroom. All duct pass through the loft above said bedroom and then enter the house itself. That loft is a disturbing piece of modern art. I’m glad that I will never see it again (fingers crossed). Fifteen 90mm corrugated white tubes bound together wrapped in fluffy brown insulation snaking through the trusses. Where they pass into the house there is a Quatermass of airtight foam, as if the house was punctured by the hydra and it bleed green goo. Getting the insulation up there was surreal. It’s a v restricted space and the only way to do it was to poke my upper body through a gap in the ceiling VCL and distribute the insulation. It pretty much fills the loft now. When I start sleeping properly again I’ll have nightmares about all that. It wasn’t all bad news though. One bit that worked really well was taking all the ducts for upstairs straight up the front gable wall, with the ducts insulated but never passing through the VCL. The bit that didn’t work was the downstairs ducts getting over the glulam. It meant they started their journey into the house with a tight s bend. The corrugated outer skin helped prevent the pipes pulling through the holes in the wall and floor that enabled them to dive down into the posi layer. We also discovered a downside to our very heavily engineered joist plan above our main room. We are very keen to have nice, stiff floors upstairs with little movement. So we ended up with pairs of 147mm posis with only about 240mm gap between each pair. Looking at it there was literally more joist than gap. Felt good to walk on. Getting ducting through however… On top of that we had a flue to avoid, and a barrier formed by two well insulated pipes that run from the UFH manifold to the cylinder via a diversion due to steelwork - another obvious bit that I failed to anticipate. Thank goodness the bookends (the guys doing the solar pv/inverter/battery/UFH/heat pump/UVC/etc.) suggested getting the cylinder in when they did. We call them bookends as either appear to be unable to work without the other. Odd world, innit. So, with those pipes too in place it’s v congested in various areas. Much swearing and jumping up and down onto stepladders and skinned knuckles later and the vent pipes were done, with all 15 vent ducts poking out into the garage like some 1950s comedy alien being. An alien that sits and waits, and when I walk past it it spits distilled water onto me. Seriously. Yet another ‘I’d never have imagined that’ moment. I'm guessing that the warm, wet air from the house is being sucked through all the vent pipes by the passing breezes. The garage is unheated. When that air hits the bit of the ducts in the garage some of the water vapour condenses onto the inner walls of the ducts. As I walk past I cause a disturbance which makes the condensation coalesce into droplets that then fall on me. What a fabulous illustration of how much an MVHR unit needs a drain. Anyway, eventually, meaning two weeks later than hoped, we were ready for the tackers. I’d amassed a long list of ‘I’ll do that when the tackers are here’ tasks, oh my, will I never learn! To start with there was a constant stream of questions from the three guys. All of them reasonable, but they tended to be neatly timed so I’d just start picking up tools to do something myself when I distant “Geoff” would be heard so I’d put everything back down and toddle off to find which bit that particular tacker was staring at. Originally we’d planned to put an OSB layer on all walls and the upstairs ceilings. I'd gone for raised tie trusses to reclaim some of the ceiling heights lost early in the design process. The idea was that the little sloped bit at the top of each wall would be hidden by the extra layer of studs and insulation. It was designed to the millimetre. Mistake. The tackers assured me they would be careful of the ceiling VCL, and indeed they were. The few times they caught the VCL or when it needed easing they called me in to bring my repair tape. (Note to others - put spare VCL at corners, it’s so easy to make it too tight for the tackers). So they convinced us to ditch the ceiling OSB idea. Only if course, I’d factored in the thickness of the OSB into my calcs for the raised tie trusses. So when the walls were boarded in a couple of places the roof bracing was just a tiny bit too low. I should have allowed a contingency but hey ho, double boarding the walls sorted it where needed. Fortunate to say the least. Plasterboard changes the place. We’d spent weeks amongst soft, spongy walls, with insulation sitting behind and in front of the VCL. Very quiet. Lovely in fact. But plasterboard puts all the echo back and then some. Plus it finally shows the rooms for the shape and size they are. Sounds daft given how long we've spent in those rooms but seeing them plasterboarded was a bit of a shock in places. The best example of that is the hallway. Drawing layouts and trying to imagine spaces only gets you so far. We designed in a double height space just inside the front door, nice straight stairs on one side. Bit of a sort of gallery on the other. But it’s huge. I knew all the dimensions by heart but I still didn’t know how big it was going to turn out. We are going to have to get creative to get it feeling right. Fortunately for me our principle aesthetics consultant (i.e. J) is brilliant, so I just know it’ll turn out well. The plasterers were a dream. Tidy, polite, quiet (if you ignore Bananrama and Simply Red constantly playing in the background) and they also did a super job. A pleasure to work with. The only wrinkle was the ergovents. I installed them in their plenums precisely as per the instructions. What a shame I didn’t check with the plasterers first. The instructions said the vents should be either flush or max 1mm below the plasterboard, which I super carefully did. The plasterers started when the upstairs was boarded, and they took one look at the vents and said “no”. They need 3mm to 4mm proud. Turns out the instructions are really targeted on the continent, where, apparently, they rarely skim. We skim. We need more depth. Thank heavens downstairs hadn’t been boarded by then. All but one upstairs I could get to from the loft, slitting the VCL (I really must remember to go back and repair those slits) adjusting the brackets so they could be skimmed properly. The downstairs ones were easy to adjust, ahead of boarding. The plaster has reduced the echo a bit, and as it’s drying and its colour gets lighter it’s given an even better impression of the rooms. The plasterers were much less high maintenance giving Rolly and me time to put the wood cladding on the rear gable (massively more time consuming than expected) which meant that the three skylights could be fitted. Fantastic. I borrowed a leaf blower from Rolly. The intention was to do a half arsed leak test using a temporary loft hatch. Never did get used, we never put the time aside, there was always a short term deadline hogging the priority. We'll find out in time whether it was needed. Another one for the ‘hope’ list.

My faulty Brink Flair unit has now been returned, and I bought and installed a DucoBox Energy Comfort 325. All of the problems I attributed to the Flair have now gone away. This is as good a like-for-like test as you're going to get, everything is the same - same house, same ducting, same vents, only the main unit has changed. Just for completeness, I want to mention two additional (objective, measurable) tests I did on the Brink Flair in the last days we had it, using a CO2 and humidity monitor. Why didn't I think of this earlier!! I placed the monitor inside one of the supply vents, luckily we have two through-wall vents which are perfect for this (https://www.ventilationland.co.uk/en_GB/p/uniflexplus-wall-manifold-rear-connection-1x-o90-mm/9744/) so the whole monitor can sit in the incoming airflow. We then left it for a few minutes so the values could settle down and we could get a general background reading: the RH was about 55% and the CO2 was about 450ppm. First test was a humidity test: I boiled a kettle in the kitchen and let the steam be sucked into the extract valve. The RH jumped to 70%, then went back down again. I also showered, and again the RH shot up to 70% (see attached graph). Second test was a CO2 test: I disconnected the flexible noise dampener which is connected to the Flair's extract port, and breathed into it several times. The CO2 reading at the supply vent briefly increased, from about 450 to 485, then went down again. I tried this again with my partner, and the CO2 reading went up to about 540 PPM. (This one is difficult to show on the graph though, as the unit only logs every five minutes, so the brief peak isn't logged. It's difficult to keep breathing into the extract!) This can only be because there was a leak inside the unit. This does echo the results of my smell test, but is more objective and can't be written off as me having some sort of super-nose! I consider that to be proof that the Flair was faulty, despite Brink's inistence that it wasn't. The new Duco works as expected. I've done the same tests, and showering makes no difference at all to the moisture levels of the incoming air. It's been in for over a week now, and the RH in the house hovers around 44 to 54%. Even while boiling a big pan of potatoes there's no moisture on the kitchen window, whereas with the Flair it would be dripping wet. With the Brink Flair the humidity in the house was always high. The 55% mentioned above was only acheived because we had left the above-window vents open, and aired the house out every day by opening the windows for several minutes. Until we started doing that it was always above 60% and would jump to over 70% when cooking/showering. I must say I'm really disappointed with Brink. They showed little interest in the problem, I had to nag them constantly, and were almost totally unresponsive, and it seems they closed my 'case' several times. If I hadn't kept the pressure up they would never have responded. Which is a shame, as I really liked their products otherwise.

If you’re not driving the digger then your opinion doesn’t matter. if you have an experienced operator and a good groundworker then they will know exactly what to do. don’t interfere too much, sit on the dumper or work the laser, but trying to over manage lads that do this every day won’t go down very well. You won’t know how the corners will hold up until you start, you might come across a big patch of loose backfill,have the shuttering to hand you will dig all that in two days, you need a site visit the second you get 4-5 m of trench to full depth. you do not under any circumstances want to have to go back over it, so you need depth sign off the same day you start. what do you mean by shutter and pour multiple times. that all needs digging in one go and pouring in one hit the following day.

Norrsken admitted they had some website errors and the door is incorrectly showing as 33db instead of the correct 22 or 21db. They are going to replace the door itself at their cost to the acoustic version but just waiting on info from them. Will update as I get more info.

I still think that we are still a nation of people who want to own property. So much of the rental market is expensive, and shite quality. I was on a newbuild site for about 1 hour last weekend. Two people selling, and i saw 4 appointments in that time. All 4 paid to reserve a property. These were not flats. They were small houses, and were not in London. However, in NW9 on the site of what used to be the Met Police training centre, Hendon. They have built a shed load of Tall Blocks of flats. I think the total is going to be about 5000 new homes. No sign of them not selling. The next door underground station. Colindale, has had a multi million pound refurb. I just think that the shine has gone from London. I grew up in London in the 1960's, and it was a shitehole. There was no Notting Hill, or Islington. Well there was, but not in the same way that we think of those areas today. Islington property all had outside toilets, and was poor as. Notting Hill was a bit of a no go area if you were White. London came up in the 80's. Areas where you could easily have previously got stabbed, or shot, became trendy. London had 30 BOOM years. During the last 10 people have just come to realise that, if you are single, London can be fun. If you want to start a family, and you are not rich. Time to get the Fudge out. The arse has fallen out of London. The young trendies who would have historically owned those flats, just don't have the money that used to slosh around London. So the younger trendies are not there to buy off the previous generation of young trendies. £7.20 for a coffee in Canary Wharf !

Just to give those who have contributed to the thread an update - we have proposed to the council we would make good potholes in the unmaid road and provide a electric cart & charger and this was their reply: "I think that would probably be acceptable on balance. As we’ve said previously, the question is whether the refuse collection arrangements would amount to significant harm to residential amenity – if there is evidence that the issue has been considered and addressed in some manner, then a case could be made for approval despite be contrary to guidance. The provision of a pull-cart and improved surfacing would likely meet the tests for the imposition of conditions. In short, I think we would have a difficult time refusing the application on these grounds if a pull-cart and improved surfacing were proposed and conditioned."

There is a bit of terminology to learn. Energy is measured in MJ (megajoule). A joule is the standard unit for energy and when converted to base units of kilograms, metres and seconds is very small. Why the M for 1,000,000 is added at the front. Now no one, apart from us nerdy scientists, use MJs, and domestic energy is metered and purchased in kWh. MJs can be multiplied by 0.0007778, or divided by 3600 to end up with kWh. The k just means 1000, W is watt and h is an hour, which is 3600 seconds. Power (W) is the rate that energy is used. You can think of this as your miles per gallon in your car, with energy being how many gallons are in the tank. If your car does 40 MPG at 60 MPH, and your tank has 8 gallons in it, you can drive 320 miles over 5 hours and 20 minutes. A unit of power is called a watt, which is actually a J/second. Again a small unit, so a k is added. A k is 1000. This gives the more normal kW for a power rating. Boilers, heat pumps and even wood burners all have a maximum kW rating i.e. 6 kW. Radiators, UFH and fan heaters also have a power rating. (This can get confused by some people talking old imperial units of BTU and BTU/h, but we went metric in ,'73, so tell them off) Where it starts to get confusing is a house will need a varying amount of thermal power to keep it at a steady internal temperature. This is caused by external temperatures rising and falling during the seasons and even during the day. This can be overcome in a number of ways. The easy way, and the way old heating systems were set up, was to fire up a boiler at full power, heat some water, pump it around the house to all the radiators, which then heated the air. When the house was up to temperature, the thermostat turned the boiler off. When the temperature dropped a few degrees, it turned the boiler back on. These days we are a bit more sophisticated and try to deliver enough energy to match the losses. This keeps the house at a steadier temperature, and used less energy overall. You will almost certainly read on hear about weather compensation (WC). This is just a basic feedback system that knows what the outside temperature is, how much power is being delivered to the house and for how long it may be needed. All that can be boiled down to a few numbers. The main numbers you need to know are the thermal losses for each room. Once those are added together, you get a number for the whole house. It is usual to size for a worse case i.e. -10°C outside. This gives you a maximum power requirement (heat source kW). Most of the time, you will be heating the house when it is way warmer outside, so the second number you need is about how much the heat source can be turned down internally. This is called modulation. Gas boilers have quite a high ratio, sometimes 10 to 1 i.e. 12 kW down to 1.2 kW. Heat pumps are not, generally, so good and are often in the range of 3 to 4 to 1. There are ways around this, but that is for later. The other thing that is important is domestic hot water (DHW). There are two ways to do this. Heat water only when it is needed (instantaneous), this requires a lot of power, often over 25 kW. Or Heat and store in a cylinder. This method takes longer for the same amount of delivered hot water, but used less power, often in the region of 3 to 6 kW. If the heat source is delivering both central heating and DHW, then this needs to be taken into account. With modern combination gas boilers, they are sized to deliver enough hot water, and rely on boiler modulation to deliver lower power for the space heating. Heat pumps, generally, rely on being only slightly oversized (which improves efficiency most if the time) and run a space heating time slot and a DHW timeslot at different temperatures and different times during the day. There is a lot of detail in heating design. So questions to ask are. Maximum house losses. Room by room heat losses. DHW reheat times.

The glazing units seal has failed, allowing moisture into the gaps. Only fix for triple glazing is to replace the glazed units with new. As they are so new, you should be covered by the warranty, and these should be replaced FoC

Not in your imagination - you are living in a nearly unheated space, it isn't a healthy place to be. Heat the place never let it drop below 16 degs (yes even at night). Bet your chest issues go away.

Sorry, I can't help with this, but I must congratulate you on moving in, having completed your build so quickly. You're an inspiration to us all. & thanks for documenting your progress on here too - it's a real help to those of us who are not there yet.

We've just had our As Built air-tightness test performed by Richard Harris of Peninsular Energy Compliance (good guy - recommended). The result is 1.16m m3/m2 at 50hPa on the envelope basis. Virtually the same figure for ACH as our envelope area is 583m2 and our volume is coincidentally 580m3. So c. 1.2 ACH which we are happy with. Reason for mentioning it on this thread is that we had Aerobarrier apply their treatment back in September when they reported an 81% leakage improvement to give a final result of 0.97 ACH, so lower than the as built test (but their test had masked off the doors and windows to protect them from the sealant). The implication is that without Aerobarrier our result would have been 5.4 ACH, which I can believe because the standard of membraning and taping up was not the best and I had to part company with the team engaged to do it. So +ve feedback from me for Aerobarrier.

For anyone browsing this in the future these BG electric ones are fantastic. Really thick and nice, not many holes. Highly recommended. At £2 ish each also not much more over the plastic junk. I should have never really been put in this position let alone having to cut all these out, but at least these are a nice solution

Just a wee update Nick, I followed through with your suggestion about the dummy cill and all windows look sooo much better now. The installer was quick to sort it out to my complete satisfaction. It's just a pity I had to go through the pain to get this done when this should have been included in the install, rather than having to get the installer back to complete the work properly.

Yesterday we moved into our place, started in 2018 still not 100% finished in 2026, I estimated it would take me 2 years, 🤣🤣 thanks for all the advice from fellow buildhubbers. What we bought, what we have now.

I've stopped feeding the birds. A lot of the food is lost to the ground and rodents clear it. Also i read that we are fattening up our resident garden birds in winter, which then dominate the birds we see less.. esp the migrating ones arriving after an exhausting journey.

I get apprehensive, still, after 30 years on the tools. Concrete pours are quite full on, even for the initiated. Maybe it’s time to reach out to a local groundworker to support? Would be money very well spent, because if this goes tits up it’s a 4-figure ‘catastrophe’.

In my view that drawing is not intending to show a stepped footing, it shows footings at different depths. Where the section 'sections' the building there are no footings other than those show. To see the details of the step it needs to be a simple diagram side on of the trench / footings, or a section in the same plane through the side wall perpendicular to the walls shown. Not sure I'm explaining myself very clearly, but that section is through the (say) middle of the building, the step in the footings will be in the walls that join the two walls shown, I think!

Up and working. The mount I linked above is good as was the bracket. I had to notch and taper the top of the aluminum 50mm bracket to fit into the tapered cast alloy mount for the antenna. So far the service is proving rock solid. I opted for the €35/month 100mbps. It's dropped to €29 since. Sitting in my kitchen that's what I'm getting now.

To date my experience of Starlink has been excellent. The product and everything in the box is top quality and well presented. It works very well and is dead easy to set up.

Me, @Onoff and @Pocster. Trouble is everyone else is too nice to us, so we carry on.

I design stuff like this. There are many options. Best advice I can give you is to get an SE on board now, even if to provide a watching brief. If you don't then you introduce significant cost risk and uncertainty. You know there is a potential issue so the sooner you get that under control the better.

Stock piling is seldom a good idea. It ends up being in the way, at risk of damage from operations and the weather, and needing double handling. Nearer to the time of need, ask the BM if any increases are forecast, and maybe avoid 10% cost and store for a few weeks. But I did this recently with insulation. And we had to shift it to suit a change in plan. The handling cost prob equalled the 10% saving. Then there is cashflow. The VAT cost is sitting there needlessly. Spend your time in saving material altogether, through design reviews and planning.

indeed. and it is the contractor who would be in very big trouble for not declaring the income. The IR know when annual returns look imbalanced and the VAT computer spots anomalies too. Plus taxes do have a purpose. That customer is probably going through life complaining about government services, and the brown envelope brigade because that is what they would do. 'How much for cash in hand?' Oh just allow a 5% handling charge.

Have you considered splitting the house so kitchen dining runs front to back instead of along the back?

Hi, Was going down the route of Sips build with vaulted truss roof, contacted a few companies and picked a company for the kit that assured me they would build me a nearly passive house and build it in an efficient manor with no hidden extras, they told me in second week in January drawing for BC would take about one week, to cut a long story short nearly eight weeks later no drawings, very poor communication, I found another company and now going down total TF design with same U-values as SIP’s, price is 12k dearer but includes all windows and doors, all walls inside, fully plaster boarded inside, I phoned the first company to speak to the director who I could never get a hold of and spoke to the receptionist to say I had lost confidence in them, surprisingly he phoned me back in five minutes and totally understood my decision and apologised for lack of communication and said he was sorry for the delays and could not find an engineer that could do calculations for the steel work, I told him that I was sorry but if things are going wrong at this stage then I cannot let you continue with my build, I am now really glad I have swapped TF supplier…

Best of luck @-rick-.You have a good heart, and a good heart these days is hard to find. (quote F S) I just can't see you winning this One. However, well done for trying. Most of the above has been tried before, by other well meaning people.

So many people have been drawn into this rabbit hole. No one listened to, no opinions changed. If you don't have the kind of understanding of science needed, then just accept what you are told and act accordingly.

Sounds like a really successful build if this is the main worry after moving in! Not an expert but the little plant room that I have (boiler, cylinder, consumer unit with a few electrical bits) is similar, gets a lot hotter in summer. 27C isn't really going to worry electronics etc. I'd monitor over summer and if you find the room getting about 35C or causing other problems then may be worth doing something but 27C doesn't warrant much concern in my book.

Building Regs do tend to be open to interpretation, but what you can lean on and discuss with your BCO if it's a problem is that in accordance with industry practice and guidance (CIBSE Domestic Heating Design Guide) for any new build, a design temperature of 21C should be used throughout the building - because of higher insulation levels and we hope, better airtightness. In this sense, adjacent rooms can be considered as a single zone: 5.21.b

I used Oak veneered arcs and skirtings from Howdens, finished with Osmo oil. Matches nicely to the real Oak door frames. Annoyingly because we had chosen 2040mm tall doors, one length of Howdens Oak veneered arc was just too short to do two door uprights, so to avoid huge wastage, I used corner blocks to join arc to skirting. Floors do get mopped from time to time, no sign of issues with the veneered MDF skirting. Just be sensible and take a little care.

Strangely satisfying though to see a pile of materials almost disappear as they are incorporated into the build. and yeah the odds and ends that need getting rid of when finished that particular task is a task in itself. PIR offcuts I bagged them, photo'd and listed on market place. £20 - take what you want sort of listing. Inundated by people wanting it for sheds and the like, they aren't fussy, foaming and taping it together...

Where we have tiled floors we used the same tile as the skirting. Looks good and hard as nails (obviously depends on the size of your tiles for this option to be considered).

Unless you've got a sizeable solar array and batteries, solar wont generate much electric in the winter when you need the electric the most to run the heat pump. You're probably better spending your money on sorting out the heating system you've already got to get the lowest running cost you can. Once you've done that you can choose how much or little you heat the place.

Yes, BB's clarification helped and definitely seems doable, but if that seems too much there are wireless options to explore. Not at all, take your time. I can't speak for others but my goal in participating here is to help you get to the point where you are not cold after summer. The time between now and then is for exploring, learning about the system and trying things. Good principle and I think it will click for you soon. But if after some more back and forth it's still not clicking then you might find just trying to do what we suggest might help clarify things. Learn through doing rather than studying.

New plan......pull whole lot out and start a fresh.😬

I've just sent Zoot a link to an article on the basics of how to setup the heating on the Vaillant controller (the black box) found on the FB Vaillant group. Also, I've given Zoot the spec of cable (blue) needed to link the black box (in red) to the white box. (In yellow). Its 0.75mm twinflex as stated earlier. FYI: I'm in the process of moving mine once my plumbing is sorted out. I suspect that Zoot's black and white box are also this close to each other. Go for it Zoot! 😀

@dustyb My partner and I were in exactly the same situation. We are the ones from the channel mentioned above. We’ve given ourselves a realistic time scale to help both budget and build quality. We are using Ecobrix which is a Woodcrete ICF. It works out at around £11 a block… I think. Which sounds pricey but I feel the block has many advantages to the self builder. Our structural steelwork thats made of rebar and concealed in the block can all be constructed ourselves and has the ability to create many aspects, one of which in our case is a 1 meter cantilever. All the rebar for our build only came to £700, and there’s some nice thick long stuff in there. It’s much cheaper than your typical I beam steel work. Your drives on why to build it yourself are similar to ours, we know there’s a lot we can have a crack at and do well ourselves to save paying someone else though…. We know our limitations and getting a company in to build and pour our slab was money well spent. I do not agree with the comment regarding an ICF pour requiring lots of labour (it may do for an EPS ICF) but our Woodcrete ones from Ecobrix performed brilliantly, though we did go full belts and braces on the shoring up but that’s easily done by screwing OSB directly to the blocks. We had more people than needed in the end (just incase it went Pete Tong). Our build is only small, the first pour was 9.5m3 and would have been done in a morning if the concrete wagons arrived when they said they would. The pour came to just shy of £3000. We have only done one pour so far, fingers crossed we weren’t just lucky!😅 We are also not planning on doing this again or moving… unless we are 90 and in a box.🤞🏼

@Oz07 All my Reolink cameras have a Timelapse feature in settings. You can set as unlimited or customise the duration (days) and intervals in minutes and seconds. Estimate file size for 1 minute intervals is 14.67GB for one year For 30 second intervals the file size is 8.24GB for 100 days. Quality set to balanced, if using clear files will be x 10ish. The files are saved in the time lapse gallery which you can download to your photo app. Cameras using wifi and some ethernet. Can access on phone using 4G. This is for a RLC-510A.

I think you can safely assume no physical air test was ever carried out. The wall build up questions above will determine the next sensible step.

@flanagajI'm already feeling very apprehensive. Being a catastrophiser, doesn't help matters I'm not trying to make matters worse here, or suggest that you and your wife aren't capable.....just giving my take on it.....I attended the first and last pours (we had a couple as narrow site and had to work forwards). I had never seen it done before, was there purely as an observer to "mark the moment". Geoff had two people with him who were uber experienced and were used to working with the guys supplying the concrete. All calm, having done the prep and then super frenetic activity to make sure everyone safe and mix right, in the right place, levelled etc etc. There is no way that I would have wanted to be involved. I know for us all control of costs is important, but this is an area where, even though Geoff is capable, we really felt the benefit of having the experienced guys taking the lead. We can after all if necessary, wait for "the" kitchen, tiles but.....

Yes it looks like pilling blinding as there is a pilling rig there today so good spot @Mr Punter. So they drill core drill through the blinding and then put the piles in all very neat and tidy - no mud other than what comes out of the hole!

That the joy of owning a listed building - don't want to play by the rules, don't buy listed. Don't confuse planning consent, with listed building consent. You need both. Planning consent is easy, list building consent will turn you grey especially if you don't want to play by their rules. There are ways do things and do them well and still comply with listed rules. But you need to keep the listed folk on side. And have deep pockets.

Spread of what exactly? Flames which are in the immediate vicinity, or the enormous amount of toxic fumes given off? The occupants will be killed by smoke / fumes probably at least 30-60 mins before being 'burned' to death. The extra layer of PB / other FR or intumescent material will just save the fabric of the build, and have zero whatsoever to add to the preservation of life. HMO or multi-level dwellings consider the preservation of the fabric, so fire-fighters can have safe access to rescue those on 2nd floors and above, but in a typical domestic residence you just "get out, and stay out"; this is preserved by the standard required by b regs for the obligatory 30 mins. After 30 mins in house fire, the last thing on your mind will be pondering about if the surrounding material can cope with another 90 minutes of utter hell. It boggles my mind that folk have such low comprehension of what this type of fire would do to the survivable interior of a family home. You'll have 5-10 mins max to evacuate, and at 120 mins your family members will be looking into your will to see what goodies you've bestowed.

I'm not a user, but https://www.sunsave.energy/solar-panels-advice/exporting-to-the-grid/best-heat-pump-tariffs

Ok that sounds like a good move. Here is what I would do if I was you. Find the best and well repute self employed 3CX digger driver with their own machine that works local. Pay the extra. Get them round and ask them how to do it! Ask them how they want the found marked; inside, outside, centreline or all of the preceeding. Assume the weather is going to be pish and some marks get lost by accident. Set some pegs well outwith the dig so if the marks get lost you can run a string line to get you back on track. Work out what you are going to do if you hit soft spots. An experienced digger driver is going to be your best friend here. They may also say they will pitch up during the pour and can use the back actor to get the concrete in place. Make sure you take plenty photographs. Be careful not to over dig. There are some horrible examples on BH where over dig happens and it just makes things ten times worse, they fill with water, hit even softer ground deeper down. Go and have a look again at what your SE is expecting in terms of ground conditions. If in doubt ask. Ask your SE if they can be on the end of the phone or just come to site if you get stuck. Yes, I know you probably don't want to pay for an SE visit but at the end of the day it can save you a pile of worry and cash. You only get one real chance of making a good job of this so don't take daft risks. Take time placing any reinforcement mesh.. many ground workers just fling it in.. and you pay for it.. but it is worse than useless if not properly placed.

I warned you all back in August 2023 with the below statement.

I marked my perimeter at the required spacings, then ran a chalk line from mark to mark to create a web pattern. Next I took a permanent marker and followed the web around each room marking the turns of each loop. Once I was happy I had the correct layout according to the designs I took some line marker paint and drew each loop out over the challk line, turning ay each marker pen mark. Once everything was drawn out and I was happy, as I was fixing onto concrete I marked and fixed down the pipe clips and started laying the pipe out from the manifold starting with the furthest loop from the manifold 1st and working loop by loop back toward the manifold in each direction until all loops were fixed down.

I'd be looking to seek forgiveness, not ask for permission here! Opening that can of worms of permissions and approvals l will take months and months and months and months.....

Most of these boilers are thrown on the wall with configurations never touched by the installer and in default I believe the 8000 DP proportional pressure 250mb. In most scenarios, it provides sufficient head to supply most houses where they're installed. I'd be very surprised, given the pipe oversizing indicated earlier, that the index circuit is anywhere even close to needing 4m residual head. This approach to me is tantamount to the plumbers who set the pump on 3 and run out the door. But I agree that the system behaviour isn't right - you've got constant flow rate of 21.5lpm. and modulating burner output and reducing DT until it seems to find equilibrium at burner output of 49% during the test. If the pump is on Delta P proportional, the flow rate shouldn't be the same at 49% burner output because it doesn't need it and it's therefore creating unnecessary pressure drop through the system - e.g. the system fighting itself. The tech info is a bit ambiguous here because it says the pump can be set to proportional Delta P and if this were indeed correct, there needs to be a change in flow rates somewhere sometime - on any decent modulating system there should be variations in both DP and DT as heat load and output change. Why not test in fully proportional linked to burner, which is what most sensible boiler manufacturers do out of the box? You can probably see now why I don't have anything to do with these things from this brand.