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Hi, last September we found a plot we liked in South Cambridgeshire and started to look into doing our own self build. This is something we had considered doing when we retire, but plots that align with our requirements are not super abundant, so we decided to do it now instead. We are looking to build a Passivhaus two storey dwelling and have it certified. Energy efficiency is important to us and so is having a home at the end that is really comfortable to live in. A few months later and we have exchanged contracts and are a couple of months into a planning application, awaiting the final outcome any week now. We started the journey with an architect, but two months into the relationship we realized our timeline would be heavily affected by the fact that we were not totally aligned and not fully listened to (despite very lengthy email threads back and forth) and decided to learn how to do the architecting ourselves, and hire any experts we needed to help with things along the way. But having a third party handling it all for us was... too low touch for our liking. We'll be managing the build ourselves, as we've decided against having a main contractor. Maybe we'll need a project manager at some point. We've been reading the forum and learning from you all, hopefully we contribute something back soon!

Well, it's been nearly 9 months since we moved in, and I didn't leave a list last time, so here are the parts of the last list that still needed work. As you will see there still remains a lot of stuff to do. You'll soon learn why they're still here 😞 more stone work - still on the list but much reduced rainwater soakaways - still on the list rainwater collection system - decided after deliberating a lot to leave this out for now as it's not a condition backfilling - partly done, still on the list concrete lego brick retaining wall - delivered, to be fitted Flooring - en-suite and "attic" room left to do Wood cladding - still on the list Fit internal doors - one last door to do Fit en suite - basin and bog outstanding Build MY garage - still on the list A green roof system, because its on the planning application, and may be required for certificate of completion (unless someone can enlighten me as to how to avoid this, and be able to delay the installation) - still on the list, but good news on the completion element for this below. Back in August 2025 we moved into a building site, and worked hard to get the remaining bedrooms completed before our first Christmas for which SWMBO had invited MY family. Not sure whether to label this action as bullying, blackmail, fraud, spousal abuse or whether another specific crime was committed. But, we got there, and a fantastic Christmas was had. Also during this time, we managed to secure a buyer for our old house. We had decided to stop calling it home to start the process of removing 29 years of emotional attachment to the place in which we brought up our two children, and in December we removed pretty much all the remaining furniture in readiness for Christmas and what we thought would be a completion on the sale in January/February of 2026. You may recall me asking questions about a retaining wall which was holding up the new buyers getting a mortgage. Now, this wall was not a part of the house but on our boundary about 2 feet or so away from the side wall of the house. It has a crack in it and the lender wanted it repaired. We had requested an SE to come give us a report, hopefully to tell the lender to stop being a d1ck, and we had arranged to meet them on the 6th January. We arrived the day before to find it difficult to open the front door because there was some plasterboard behind it which had come from the landing ceiling at the top of the stairs. This had been caused by a leaking water pipe in the loft. Subsequent water bills showed that 28m3 of water had come through the ceiling - we now had a major water leak insurance claim repair to deal with. And the upshot of the SE visit the following day was they said it did need fixing. B0110cks!! So, now instead of a completion in Jan/Feb, we were looking at a completion in 3-6 months. We then found out that the retaining wall was our liability, and not the people who owned the land behind it. This put a huge dent in our plans. Everything we had planned to do in the first half of 2026 (work on the house and a ski trip) went on hold as we got someone in to repair the wall (in March, once the rain had stopped) and to deal with the insurance company who thought it was a great idea to appoint two separate companies to complete the drying out/repair work - WHAT COULD GO WRONG? We sat down, and reworked our plans for work on the house. This has been limited to work that we could carry out with little spend because either it was something outside in the "garden" (read mud bath), we already had the materials on site, or the materials required were not hugely expensive. What have we been up to in between complaining to the insurance company about the lack of co-ordination and progress (WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?) We bought parts to start finishing off the rainwater drainage pipework, which also allowed us to do our first bit of hard landscaping, some steps down to one side of the house, and starting off the path as well. We still had a lot of stone cladding to complete, so once the weather improved, I set to completing most of this. There are still a few odd bits and pieces to do once the balcony and connecting bridge have been completed (one of the large ticket items that is on hold). The other main area of work has been the en-suite bathroom, where we spent a little bit of savings and created a service wall on two sides, got it plastered and painted, and also installed the walk-in shower. After a bit of back and forth, SWMBO agreed to a wall hung toilet pan (thank you to those who responded to my cry for help). So, the en-suite requires said bog, a basin and vanity, tiling behind the basin, flooring and a door to be completed. All materials on site or on order, and the plan is to get on with that over the next few weeks. So, where does all this leave us? Well, the bits of good news we've had:- - our BCO visited just before Christmas and gave us a list of things he'd like to see before he issued a completion certificate, and on that list found that the green roof was not required to be fitted, but just some documentation about what we proposed to put up there. I know what many will think, but we will probably still install one at some point, but it does mean we can delay installing it until after completion. - I mentioned we secured a buyer for the old house. Well, they have stuck around through all our tribulations and we will be completing on June 5th. Come mid June we should have the following major items to complete, and the funds to do them: Balcony including balustrade Connecting bridge to balcony Balustrade by internal stairwell Exterior porch floor rainwater soakaways - still on the list concrete lego brick retaining wall and backfilling Flooring - "attic" room left to do Wood cladding Finish the en suite - as outlined above Build MY garage - still on the list A green roof system Once all that is done we might also be ready to clear the site of the touring caravan we used for the first four years of weekends and holiday time we spent building the house and a lot of left over building materials. I'm glad to say there is very little of that as I resisted the "order 10% more than you need" rule, and am pleased to say it only bit me twice in extra delivery charges. This has meant we have incurred zero cost for skips/clearaway etc. and, no, we have not buried it all in a very big hole in the 3 acre field we bought. There's still a lot to do, but as we approach June 5th with lightened hearts, we have a much clearer view of some form of end game, with may hours to be spent creating a new garden around our NEW HOME!!

No apologies needed. As self builders sometimes the pressure of managing everything just gets too much and when things go wrong it's usually our closest that bear the brunt. I recall a renovation where we had sunk everything we had into it and needed it finished desperately in order to sell it before we ran out of money just for day to day living. Our 10 year old had got used to coming to site with us most weekends as we scrabbled to get done. I gave her the job of painting a short length of cast iron downpipe with some black gloss. She did ok with that but didn't put the lid back on the tin. I picked up the dust sheet without noticing and poured black gloss all over the indian sandstone patio that had been freshly laid only a couple of weeks before. I do admit to ranting excessively, not directly at her but just how unfair life, god, the world and everything was. It was the straw that broke the camels back so to speak. Later that day, having dropped her back home and returned to site, her elder brother rang to say he couldn't find her in the house. A frantic search all over the village ensued to no avail. As we widened the search with the help of neighbours and decided to alert the police, a call came in from a nice lady in Cambridge who had found her wandering the streets. It seems she had packed a bag (including an OS map for reference!), boarded a train (unmanned village station) and traveled a few stops into Cambridge with the intention of going to her aunt's house. She had got upset and thought all the problems were her fault. Boy did that bring home the important things in life and certainly gave me a new perspective. We never let ourselves get into that situation again and despite many a frustration over the years you just have to press on through it - worse things happen at sea!

UPDATE……. so after emailing and posting the letters by hand, the builders truck arrived at the neighbours yesterday. This morning I was doing some work outside and the neighbour called by and said the builders aren’t starting Tuesday now. They (neighbours) put a halt to it to clear up what’s going on. Said builder said he would deal with communications, they didn’t know what was involved with access or PWA. Didn’t want any bother so it’s paused until further notice. It was the first amicable conversation about it. So the builder is available for work now if anyone is interested 😁 In the meantime I’ve painted the fence, walls have a had a coat of brilliant white, jet washed and pointed slabs and oiled furniture. looks lovely for any future photos 👍🏻 Thank you

Well, I bit the bullet : 1 tonne moved a hundred meters or so . Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Age Appropriate Wheelbarrow (Branding deliberately removed by AI )

Finished

Thank you all for your contributions. We have sent 2 separate letters. First one for the PWA and second one for access, trespass, legal action etc. We will see what happens on Tuesday when they arrive. Got so much going on at moment with work, Scotland plot, holidays, it just really wasn’t needed now. Myself and partner discussed it a few months ago saying that when we get notification, despite not wanting it built, we will be amicable and let them have access with conditions but the way it’s all been gone about. One working days notice on work comencing and been spoken to way I was is not how I expected it. I’ll go and enjoy a 3 day weekend now before battle 👍🏻

Time to drop anchor and grind them to a halt. Sounds like they need a bit of bringing down to earth, along with the boisterous builder. If this is how they begin, christ knows how difficult / arrogant they'll be as they get comfortable.

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.

Well I'm chuffed to bits with the performance of our new self-build house. With another 6 weeks to go before mid-year our 2026 electric bill has balanced out. By mid-year we should be in credit by about £150, so maybe £300 for the whole year. That is for DHW, heating and domestic load. 2 people in permanent residence, with guests, 200m^2, thermostat set at 21.5c throughout. We run a sauna but not an EV. Contributing factors in approximate order of importance: High levels of insulation in floor, walls, and roof (MBC high performance timber frame) Very good air tightness (0.8) Large solar array 3kw facing SE and 6kw facing SW with no overshading from trees / chimneys etc Octopus Flux tariff Tesla Powerwall 3 battery 5kW ASHP UFH Triple glazing Each item has value in itself, but they also complement each other e.g. the UFH reduces heating temps which increases the efficiency of the ASHP which reduces demand which . . . I just need to tell Octopus that they need to set up a Direct Debit to pay me : )

Vanity was an Italian import, but imo the hung pans look very exclusive. Plenty of shapes and sizes to choose from.

I know CVC are crazy busy atm. Just swap from 92mm round to ‘oval’ (rectangular) duct to pass the steel and then covert back to round. Done it plenty of times. Some examples of my MVHR installs… Hope these examples help. 👍

I had to hack out around our UFH pipes after a change of stair plan. It was easy enough to chisel out the screed and I had a steel bracket fabricated that straddled the pipe and attached to the concrete below with injection resin studs.

Update. I have found no evidence that a decoupling mat provides benefit on a well constructed concrete or screeded floor. Our screed has one tiny visible crack and of course it will stop moving. That on an area of over 300m2. All rooms were already formed in stud, and had foam perimeters so the screed is not stuck ro walls. Had a tiler in to look. He has agreed to quote without a decoupling mat, and will include a flexible adhesive. He has never seen a case of a cracked tiled floor due to absence of mat. Moral I think is: Decoupling mats are for poor quality newbuilds, or a rushed programme or 'peace of mind'. It makes money for the seller and tiler. Btw the tiler also says the dips and ridges that look rough to me are just normal, and part of his job to lose by double buttering. Ie no latex levelling. A good day so far.... now let's see his quote.

It's been a while.... So.... I noticed an interesting post on the open energy monitor site from a guy who lives in a stone house in rural Scotland built in 1874. The answer from the professionals when he asked for quotes to replace his boiler was that there was no way he could have a heat pump -> https://community.openenergymonitor.org/t/the-house-that-couldn-t-have-a-heat-pump/29921 He persevered, learnt a lot and now has a warm house heated by a heat pump. So it can be done but it requires first understanding the facts, then making sure that the heat pump is set up and controlled to meet the way the house behaves. @JohnMo @Nickfromwales @SimonD - the post is well worth a read.

I've refrained from posting on here for fear of asking stupid questions, but I have concluded that on this occasion, I really could do with some guidance. As you know, we let our first brickie go as his work was substandard. We waited nearly 8 weeks for the new one to start and he started Monday. He is making good progress and aside from not listening to me or reading drawings where service lintels are supposed to go, it's ok. However, when he started, I was really surprised that he did not build up the corners of the house using a laser level, to ensure that the height of the first course would be correct. Instead, he started at one end and made his way down the 24m length. He is now at dpc level on the internal leaf and he is 22mm out from one end of the house (excluding garage) 17m to the other end. Alarm bells are ringing in my head again and I don't know whether I should raise the issue. It's driving me mad that I have to deal with such incompetent individuals. I also had to explain to him that he had missed out the lintel for a back inlet gulley. His response "you don't run a soil pipe into the back of a bottle gulley. You put the sink waste through the wall and into it." Clearly, he is wrong, but I am just the dumb IT Programmer who knows feck all. Just after some help here, as I really don't want to sack another builder and start again.

Anyone thinking this will happen in a few weeks appears likely to be disappointed. The latest NICEIC trade rag just came through and had this to say. It also doesn’t mention the problem of uni or bi directional switchgear. Anyone who has had an RCBO consumer unit fitted in the last decade is very very likely to have it full of uni directional devices. These are not permitted to be used where current potentially flows in both directions. Bi directional rcbos have only been readily available for a couple of years, if that. They are still not standard fit for most people. Usually only fitted to solar pv or EV charging. Europe has very different switchgear to us.

1200mm gives me this dream scenario, much like Dave.

Diplomacy isn't working. You can't repeat the action and expect a different result, so stop him from doing any more work and ask him if he's interested in the rest of the job (or not). His response will be what decides your new direction / next decision. Tell him straight, no quivery top lip, that you have slept on it and cannot accept the discrepancy. End of feckin chat. If he shrugs his shoulders and packs up and fecks off, good riddance. If he decides to offer up a solution to rectify, then tell him it has to be removed on his time and not yours as it should have been right first time. Stop tolerating useless assholes. I wouldn't get away with this, how can he????

There was a recent article in the IStructE magazine just about this and promoting the use of C16 timber. It's pretty well available in Scotland (in EU metric sizes, CLS Canadian lumber standards are slightly diferent in dimensions for example) and for years I've used it where I can. The U value regs in Scotalnd quite often drive the timber external wall stud thickness on a basic timber frame house, call that a major developer type house. You can use C16 at a deeper depth so you can fit a decent thickness of insulation between the studs. The deeper stud in C16 still delivers the strength and deflection limits you need. The problem can be that C16 significantly reduces timber connection performance one you get into transfer beams and anything (say goal posts around openings) that needs to resist sideways wind loading. There is a practical side to this. What you don't want to happen is that the builder mixes up the timber grades on site. When I'm designing I try and make sure that the deep timbers are C24 if I have to use that grade, the shallower ones C16. You never mix grades of timber of the same size. The same applies to steel buildings in terms of bolt grades., you make sure it's not possible to fit the wrong grade of bolt into same sized holes. You can't make it totally idiot proof as a designer but you can try your best.

But it is not. It is a very big water tank, and if the ground moves a tiny bit, the slab and or walls could break and it gets very messy and expensive. And you will be indoors now, not outside., so damage and repairs are x3. There are a lot of failures of swimming pools and contractors have gone bust and Engineers had very expensive claims. And some of these are for proper designs: the ground we live on is very mobile. If the results of the boreholes are encouraging then you will save cost on the amount of concrete and of reinforcememnt. If they show poor ground then it really is essential to know that and design to suit. Is it still 27m long as previous posts? that is big and not to be dabbled with. How much do you want it?

They are, though I don't think this is really an argument that can be used against wind turbines or similar. The amount of concrete used in them (even if massively expanded) pales into insignificance compared to other big projects. Concrete + steel are pertty good in the end. Steel can be endlessly recycled pretty much. Using ground concrete as filler for other things is relatively good compared to many of the other things we do in terms of materials recycling. I believe ground concrete can be used in place of virgin sand/aggregate when making new concrete at least in a decent percentage of use cases. Concrete over its life absorbs a lot of the CO2 put out during manufacture and if we can switch from gas firing to renewable heat we lower the carbon footprint a decent chunk. A lot of more renewable building methods have overinflated/misreported environmental credentials once the full lifecycle is considered and once those things are considered concrete really doesn't seem that bad, especially given it's about the cheapest construction method. At a societal level spending more for a more environmental construction method may mean less money for more beneficial environmental spending.

Thanks for all the advice. In defiance of @dpmiller I bought the Bosch pair for £110 which I think is a pretty good price. I might get some bigger batteries but I quite like the light weight 2ah ones given that I am no spring chicken these days.

You are going to gasp in horror, but this is my absolute favourite tool storage box (now bear in mind they're being used almost on a daily basis). It's something that does just work. https://hultafors.com/en-gb/products/tool-bucket It's been so popular, they now sell a tool organiser to go in the bucket. I have 6 of these buckets 😲 I've even had customer say what a good idea as their other trades are coming in and out with loads of boxes. For example, one of mine just has the drill/driver/screwdrivers with bit sets and a drill roll, the other with have the sds & multi-tool etc. While I'm working away I'll have an empty one where I throw bits of rubbish as I go, including pipe off cuts, old screws etc. and then it's brilliant for the odd emergency when I'm removing old pipework where I can grab the bucket to collect the always expected run out of water from said pipework.

I would agree with this and the need to evolve ever more effective prompts. Naturally AI supported prompt engineering is a thing as well although, so far, the Human in the loop remains - once they start prompting themselves who knows. However, I am not sure of the exponential growth in the model's capabilities themselves. Three other things seem to be emerging in the region of AI that also merit our attention: Firstly, it seems to me that the eco system is perhaps where the real explosion is. The number of other technologies, techniques and spinout applications is growing very fast EG in the areas like increasing use and application of vector DBs and all its variants (Hybrid Indexing etc), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and all its variants (Embedding free RAG, Chain of thought RAG), agent frameworks ( Swarm etc), structured knowledge stores, synthetic data engines and model side retrieval. Of those variants today not all will survive contact with reality and many more will emerge. Interestingly some of the early front runners in this sphere are reaching the end of their useful lifer already - Langchain is, for instance, being shunned because it is seen unstable and poorly documented as developers move over the likes of PydanticAI, Pocketflow & LlamaIndex. This tells you a second order story around the rush to get eco systems tools out quickly but skipping essential QA steps which leads to a broadly experimental feel rather than a sound production basis. Some argue that this because the LLMs, in the hands of developers, can create tools at an alarming rate but few are built well enough to live long! Secondly, although we still live in a gas guzzling age where the size and power of the global scale models makes huge demands on memory & energy the size of really powerful, sometimes task specialised, models is falling fast as mathematicians and engineers work out ways of squeezing them into ever smaller memory spaces. This will, admittedly somewhat hyperbolically, eventually bring the full power of the models onto our watches. Thirdly, as the HAL - "I can't do that Dave", example above illustrates some would argue that the control of this technology is getting further and further behind the bleeding edge. Perhaps we might conclude that while there are burgeoning combinatorial opportunities in the first two, eco system and small models, the third is somewhat being neglected, pushed into the too difficult box by politicians or being briefed against by the tech companies. It always was and always will be ..... until AGI!

I just expanded for a bit of fun. The building industry is not full of nice folk. I'm representing a Building Contractor and Client in Scotland at the moment that has been pretty much been ripped off by a small bunch of very well known designers and one " SE? Engineer". This bunch have been on my radar for a while with designs that I've checked and found them wanting as they are incompetent and downright dangerous. The Engineer is puporting to run a limited consultancy company..but there is no record on companies house? The "Architect" is moonlighting it appears.. I'l find out in due course if he and any of the others involved are insured or not. So yes my suspicion is at the moment that my poor Client is a victim of a bunch of chancers puporting to be Engineers and Designers. The Engineer in question is well known in Scotland, big player..in the business papers and so on.. hiding in plain sight, seems he may be a chancer and a fraudulant actor! I'll catch the fu.ker and have his house off him if I can to get some of my young Clients money back. This could be one of your kids, excuse my lack of mercy.

Not ever, just on this property. Quite please with our Stairway to .....

Ditto. 2016 Welcome! Fast Forward 10 years: 1 disaster, two new hips, endless (expletive deleted)ety(expletive deleted)ety(expletive deleted)Ups later (most detailed here) we have - Passivhaus adjacent plenty of south facing glass (cleverly covered by our intelligent, thoughtful architect) still some solar gain less hair than I started with more entertainment value from BH than I could ever have expected no money Deeply grateful for all the help I've been freely given here

Just to update you installer offered a full refund after the issue got escalated via the bank through Section 75 so looks like he now fully agrees to his installation failures after months of denials.

I have used "3CSharedServices" for the building control for my (solo) self build in Cambridge city. I am currently at first fix and the next inspection is for completion (still some distance ahead). I have been happy with them all the way through. Happy to provide more information if you like. Dreadnaught

Hi folks! Gema's other half here! Thanks for the warm welcome. RE PH certification - it's a relatively minor incremental cost given everything else (especially since we are doing all the design work - so it's really just the certifier cost), and we feel it's actually pretty good value for money, given the extremely detailed review and guidance that comes with it. As for the architecting, it's been a steep learning curve, but well worth it. We found trying to iterate over the design with an architect more tedious than helpful, but maybe that's because we are the ultimate control freaks. Let's just say the architect wasn't loving it when we rocked up with full daylight simulations (using Rhino + Ladybug Tools) and resizing & relocating all his windows, for example. Never mind asking for some up-front PHPP modelling and being told to wait, as that'll come during "detailed design". I'm sure there are plenty of good architects out there, but certainly not the one(s) we found. On the [visual] design side is probably where an architect would have been most useful as we aren't normally the creative types. However, we found our mojo and have concocted something we genuinely like (and is simple-ish to build).

Love a bit of PWA. My daughter had a right fukcnt of a neighbour. Very nasty piece of work. When the neighbours builder just turned up out of the blue, and started taking the fence down between the properties, (That i had paid for and put up), i had to pop over and have a word. I told him i would give him a hour to put the fence back up, or i would cut his fingers off, and post them through his letterbox, to his wife and kids. I made him empty his wallet. He had about £80. I took that off him, and told him that was my charge for me having to come over. Dont worry, i did it all while remaining super calm. I then made the neighbour appoint a party wall surveyor. I objected to the surveyor, and appointed One of my own. The neighbour had to pay. The surveyor i appointed was an old friend of my dads, so i told him to make sure that he did not agree about anything with the other surveyor. This ment that the neighbour had to pay for a Third surveyor for a final decision. Cost them over Six grand, and Six months by the time it got sorted. Then they had to pay for a more expensive builder, because the One i had chatted to refused to come back. Oh, the fun of being young, and a borderline nutter. Fun times. To me your neighbour sounds like a proper w.........anker. I would be hurting the tossers wallet, and hard.

It’s so much easier to knock a door, with a bottle of wine in hand, and ask how the best way forwards can be achieved. Builder needs a lesson in how to act professionally and courteously, so sounds like he’s used to being somewhat of a bully, sadly. I’d just go and knock their door, and have a normal, regular conversation with them, which will give you an opportunity to explain your prior objections, and the way the builder has spoken to you, I think you must accept the inevitable, and not lose any more sleep. Go talk to them

Screwfix, Toolstation CPC and TLC-Direct for me. Published pricing so you know what you are getting and can check stock on line if collecting or get it delivered. I gave up with "wholesalers" long ago due to random (not published) pricing, very often more expensive than the above, and often poor stock levels.

Reply to my own post... work in progress. Creosoted most of it before installing but couldn't do it all because each piece was numbered and didn't want to paint over number risking us not being able to locate the right bit! Installation has been a bit of a bu**er at times between the two of us but we are getting there slowly. Its cedar and quality is good, just instructions a bit confusing. It had a fan and digital thermostat but we don't have electricity at that end of the garden but we are going to buy a portable power station (Ecoflow do some good ones like the River 2 pro 768Wh capacity which would be more than enough and serves as a backup for us when we have power cuts). Will be putting gravel in front of it and growing some David Austin Roses onto the pergola.

Following these steps I added that piece of wood to the wall Drilled the four holes, two on the floor, two in the wood (my "wall"), then fitted the frame And made the adjustments to these parts to level make it vertical and tightened the nuts and inserted the little plastic lugs Finally, attached the waste to the Y junction. Ready for these steps next

That is what we did with ours to arrive at the 1200mm gap. Not on wheels but take all the drawers out and empty the cupboards, and 4 strong blokes could slide the whole thing as one unit.

We have 1200mm and would not want less. But that is because a dishwasher door opens into that gap.

Update: (or "Christ, the f*&K up gets worse") We ordered a wall hung toilet. Having cut a hole in the skimmed plasterboard I was reminded that there was another pipe (behind that insulation in the picture) in the way of mounting the Grohe frame. Feck it. So, tomorrow, I pick up another bunch of bends and create the latest water flume (not open to the public for rides!!) to re-route that downpipe, from the cloakroom above, towards the corner (to the left) so the frame will fit in to allow the wall hung toilet to empty into the visible socket on the right in the picture. Also, the brown pipe will be replaced by a Y junction, and so the white waste pipe and black boss will also have to be refitted. Time for a🍺

Have you considered swapping the toilet and sink positions? Shorter soil run, keeps toilet tucked away, better access to stuff on shelves when at the sink. Maybe run 32mm basin waste into the 50mm shower waste for one less connection at the stack. Personally I'd lean towards a rectangular shower following the room shape.

Two points: 1. The basis of this thread was that if you ignore emissions, it is still a national security priority to get off fossil fuels as we don't have enough and we can easily generate enough power using renewables if we just built them.* I tend to agree that the way that we have implemented the drive to renewables has done some damage which could have been avoided if the programs had been structured differently, but that's a different argument. 2. Emissions are cumulative, so even if our emissions are low now, we are one of the highest emissions countries in history because the industrial revolution came to us first and for a lot of that time we were responsible for a very large percent of the worlds emissions. You may say it's woke to consider history when considering energy. I think of it as taking responsibility for our actions and trying to lead by example. * The argument that China controls a lot of the supply chains for renewables has weight. But so long as we are installing solutions that work without a live connection to China then if anything happened with the supply chain the installed base keeps going for at least a decade. Compared to fossil fuels which if the imports stop of those we are utterly screwed within a matter of weeks renewables wins.

Is that leaking by any chance?

I suppose anybody who wants wind turbines to be built and for the electricity they produce to be affordable. CfDs reduce risk for the generators. Without them, generators would be asking higher prices for their electricity to reflect the risks they would be required to take on. Yes, it does stack up, hugely. The parameter you need to look at is the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions, measured in grammes of CO2e, per kWh of energy produced over the life of the asset. Results as follows (median values of the assets they studied): Coal: 1004 g Natural Gas: 458 g Solar PV: 53 g Offshore wind: 18 g Onshore wind: 12 g Nuclear: 6 g (Clearing the Air, Hannah Ritchie, data source UN Economic Commission for Europe, 2021) According to Drax Group who operate the Lanark and Galloway run-of-river hydro schemes, located in south-west Scotland, it generates 126 MW. Yes, that's nice but it's not going to get us far in the energy transition. The latest allocation round for offshore wind (AR7) procured 70 times that capacity, 8.4 GW. So what? The embedded CO2 in the blades is taken into account in the above life cycle numbers. It's just a waste disposal issue. Same or worse for end of life fossil assets, many of which contain far worse materials - asbestos, mercury and other heavy metals, spent catalysts, etc.

looks like a catnic to me? Id do what you suggest, PIR in there, foam it in and then cover with wool where you cant get to it. Probably not worth using thermalites if the lintel is supported which it surely is.

That's the thing - PH doesn't prescribe anything of what you've described. We don't really want to sound like a bunch of smartasses, but it does feel like there's misconceptions here about what Passivhaus certification actually entails. Everything you mentioned is just plain bad design, Passivhaus certification or not. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure many "accredited" Passivhaus designers/architects make exactly these nonsensical choices in the name of making it easier for themselves, but that in no way means it's a requirement, or even desirable. Passivhaus certification doesn't require specific products for absolutely anything. It's easier to get certification with certain certified products, but you can equally get there without. That's simply a bad design choice. As I had mentioned, we took the exact opposite approach, and optimized for daylight & views first. None of that has made meeting Passivhaus targets meaningfully more difficult. Well, 36 days a year above 25 degrees is the absolute maximum Passivhaus certification allows, and it strongly discourages you from getting anywhere near that limit. PHPP & official guidance in fact encourage you to consider how e.g. climate change, not opening windows, etc, affect overheating, and to stay well away from that limit even under various "stress tests". It's a limit, and not a target.

My thoughts have been to aim for PH, but if we fall short because of too much glass or whatever, then OK - I’m not religious - 95% PH sounds good - and a lot better than what we currently live in. As @Gema infers, it would be really useful to understand what PH things people think add no real value, can be done other ways, more cheaply, or whatever. I’m here to learn and would be really happy to save £££ if it doesn’t make any practical difference - what should I be thinking about?

This is prevalent…..”all the gear, no idea” The number of jobs where I’ve corrected the architects, even PH certified ones, is just astonishing. Flashy websites and zero clue…..last one I beat by 1% in PHPP and I’m not qualified lol. I find the higher ranking / higher qualified ones often deliver the most underwhelming results; I find the pretty picture and concept for the dwelling is the sole focus, and the clients are a second thought. Not just a blasé statement btw, factual feedback from my many, many interactions, and real world experience. Hi Gema (and other half). A really comfortable home will be difficult to achieve if you comply with the many constraints of a certified PH. I have helped folk create homes which exceed PH levels, without certification, complimented with total focus on the folks who will then reside within. Beware the info that is often left to be discovered, when the decisions have been made and the house then built and occupied. Many instances of happy home builders on here, most without PH certification (so the maths have already been done for you ).

They can point overhand for first 21 course behind the fence but after that they will need access onto my side. I think I’m going to request a scaffold license to be put in place, but on my terms. I don’t want scaffold up for 6 months, etc. If they don’t agree to the terms then no access will be granted. I am actually a reasonable person to people who show a bit back. Thanks. So over sailing could be trespass. Im not a T*#T but when i get spoken to like one, I dont mind making life awkward 👍🏻

Move to octopus they have better smart tariffs, are a better company to deal with, use the forums referral scheme and get £50 credit. Your tariffs will also have a peak rates, so you need to understand how you use energy and work out the best one for you

And if we carried this logic over to the EV charger point, a cable and connection point ready for a charger would appear to be enough. That is reasonable.