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Hi everyone. It’s been four weeks since the last blog instalment and despite the Christmas and New Year break, quite a lot has happened. Apologies for a somewhat scattergun approach but I wanted to try to cover all the progress. Kitchen units and appliances Last time, just before Christmas, carpenter Chris was halfway through fitting our kitchen units. That work was completed during the first week of January in readiness for… Kitchen worktops Martin from Langford Stone came out to template the kitchen/pantry/utility units for our worktops. While he was at it, we also asked him to template for several granite surfaces for our master ensuite. A week later Langford’s team of four fitters arrived with some very large slabs of granite, which they duly fitted without issue and to a high standard. We’re very pleased with the results: Internal doors Chris and Alan fitted the four pocket doors to the sliding gear installed back in September, before plastering. They then fitted the oak door linings for the 8 conventional doors and hung those doors. The door linings required some thinking about because we originally opted for rebated linings but these have had to be reinforced with ply backing to give enough meat to confidently screw in hinges that can take the weight of the (44 kg!) doors. We hope still to get the rebated look by fixing full width door jams, which we’ve now ordered. The doors themselves are 33” Avon Oak fire doors from Todd doors. We opted to buy them unfinished because the factory finish doors felt a bit ‘plasticky’. Mrs P. has done a brilliant job with sealing them with Osmo Door oil and we are very pleased with the results - they have a lovely look and feel to them . The doors supplied were really good quality - no need for further sanding before oiling and no complaints from the carpenters (except about the weight!) Troy Pointer supervising operations: 2nd fix electrics After a pause at the beginning of January, Darren is now back with us and making good progress on the second fix electric. Skirtings Steve, our tiler came in to fix the porcelain skirting tiles and was able to make a start, but the rethink needed for the door linings meant we are not ready to fix all the architraves just yet. So he has promised to come in on a future Saturday to finish those off. The skirting tiles themselves are 900 mm long and have more of a bow in than we were expecting (well I was expecting them to be flat to be honest!). Steve was worried that they would not look great but in reality unless you look along the line of the wall you can’t really notice the bowing and we are happy to live with it (especially since we can’t think of any sensible alternative at this stage). Once grouted or caulked to the same colour as the walls we don’t think it will be an issue. Ensuite boxing-in I’ve been whiling away the odd hour here and there preparing the ensuite for final fix by my brother next week. There’s quite a lot of pipework which needs to be hidden - given the way the house design squeezes three bathrooms into a small space, the stud walls are just not wide enough to take it all. So my idea was to create some boxing-in using spare 4x2s to hide the pipes, provide some built-in cupboard space, and form a framework for timber cladding on the lower walls. Sure, I could have asked the chippies to do this and they’d have done a great job in no time... but where’s the fun in that? For the timber cladding itself we’re going be using some of the left over Brimstone heat treated ash we have used to clad the outside of the house. This time of course we'll seal it with Osmo oil. The quality of that Brimstone Ash is too good to waste solely on the outside. You will hopefully be able to see from future blogs whether this bathroom design idea has been successful or not but for now here's some 'boxing-in'. Moving in next month! I mentioned in the previous blog that we had brought forward our target moving in date to the end of February. We now have a removal date booked of 23rd February. - so only five weeks away! We should be fine, we could probably move in and camp now if needed. The main things we really need sorting are a fully working bathroom, electrics, and ideally smooth and solid access to the front of the property. Hopefully we can get all that done in the next five weeks. Council tax Mrs P. and I were wondering about bin collection and also how soon the council would want to start charging council tax, when lo and behold the man from the council turned up. He explained the process, gave us a form, and told us we could request bins (for which we have to pay a £81 one off charge - of course we do). Since we will be ceasing the council tax liability on our rented house, we are happy to start paying council tax on the new house. The council man said it could take three or four months to get a council tax valuation but they will backdate the charge to our move in date. Address After seven months(!) Royal Mail have finally got round to adding our address to their postcode checker database. They say on their website that they will only add it when you move in but as anyone who has self-built will know it’s really very difficult to arrange deliveries, service installs, etc. if your postcode is not on that Royal Mail database. My advice for anybody starting a self-build is get that address registered as early as possible. Fibre Another service that’s taken seven months from request to delivery is our full fibre to the house. Many of you will know this is a new build building control requirement for England, so we requested (and paid for it) back in June. It finally arrived last week. Unfortunately we didn’t get added to the Openreach fibre database straight away so no service providers could offer us a fibre service until that was resolved earlier this week. We’re hoping to get the broadband service up and running next week. Focus for the next two weeks: Electrics, still lots to do. We’re hoping to have two sparkies in for most of next week so they should make a lot of headway. Plumbing. My brother Chris is back for 4 days next week and will focus on getting our master ensuite up and running, the kitchen & utility sinks fully plumbed in, and then if there’s time progress on the family bathroom and guest ensuite. Landscaping. Ashley, our garden landscaper is making a start on the front landscaping from Monday. We’re really looking forward to seeing the crushed aggregate disappear under something more wheelchair-friendly. Dashboard: Contractor days on site this past four weeks: 47 Contractor days on site since build start: 495 Budget: No change - over budget but within contingency. Plan: Moving in booked for 23rd February. Issues and worries closed this fortnight: N/A Current top issues and worries: None.

I was drawn to this thread as I was badly struggling for motivation in the couple of months before Christmas, especially trying to undertake tasks single handedly that really required someone with 8 arms, and a lot more height and strength than I have. I eventually got to the point where I was barely achieving anything, and getting more and more self-critical and fed up. Constantly tired, frustrated, and aching. I decided to speak to my GP and started taking anti-depressant medication, which has made a tremendous difference already. In addition, I decided to take up the offers of help that people have given me, and aimed to structure activities around that help in a way that makes it feel the most effective, eg. getting some large boards up on the wall with a few screws so that when I'm back to working alone I can do the simple task of filling in the remaining screws. It isn't even slightly surprising that the pressures of undertaking a self building project can have a negative impact on mental wellbeing. Even the most optimistic of us can get worn down by the feeling of it being relentless and interminable. Asking for help can be transformative.

Prior to starting our build and when deciding on what and how we would heat the house we were told more than once that separate heating upstairs was not required. Ours is not at Passiv level, it does have a .11 roof, .12 floor and .15 walls. We have UFH downstairs and a total of 6 radiators upstairs. All on a single unmixed heating zone. Radiators were sized for the expected heat loss and flow temperatures. The bedrooms are at about 18.5 - 19 degrees which feels a little chilly to me. Heat does not appear to reach upstairs very effectively. We have a centrally located 180 degree return staircase. There is a noticeable gradient in temperature as you get to the landing, which surprised me. Now, i fully accept that our single zone design with a flow temperature that has not so far ever got above 38 degrees even at minus 5 in December is not best suited to radiators upstairs. But that is not the point. If we had gone without radiators at all upstairs we would be in trouble . For those contemplating going without any heating upstairs i hope this little tale is helpful. keith

Ufh pipes will cost a grand to buy, if you don’t put them in you need a serious word with yourself. I don’t understand the figures like some on here, but I know I’m sitting in the most comfortable house I’ve been in for a long time, just a gentle warmth in the tiles emits to every point of the house. it’s just an absolute pleasure.

That's a good call on both counts. My recommendation is also to have a serious look at the tools out there available - as well as rigs you can knock up with spare timber - that can make your life easier to move and fit materials. One of the things I've noticed is that the trades and builders generally are really bad at thinking things through like this and will scoff at stuff that makes life easier - as a consequence we unconsciously follow those practices. Building on your own takes a very different mentality than a testosterone filled building site with lots of labour available or those who are willing to harm their bodies (I once got laughed at by a builder for putting on some chain saw trousers when I was about to chop down 3 trees). One very small example is atool I bought several years ago was this: https://grabo.com/ It turns lifting plywood, plasterboard, windows, paving slabs, you name it, into a one person job and means you can hold a sheet up to a wall single handedly with putting in a screw with the other. When I first started using it I got giggles from staff in the builders merchants about how I'd just got the vibrator out. Then that turned into how they wished the company would buy a few in for them. I had no idea how much I'd end up using it.

That's the trouble with this country - lowest standards possible. And a general public that are willing to accept that. So a cheap 30kW combi that only modulates down to 10kW, thermostat in every room, boiler that lasts about 5 years because it cycles so often. That'll do

As above. All the best for another year of staring at one tiny problem for waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long. And then realising it didn't REALLY matter that much after all. Adios 2025, here we go for 2026. Get your house built asap, or it'll be 2027 and I'll be telling you off again

So took delivery of the 4kW Haier ASHP today. So far first impressions are very good. Consists of an outdoor unit, complete with expansion vessel and pressure relief valve, inside the monobloc. Inside the packaging is also a controller and indoor wiring unit. So can return the one I thought I had to buy. So total cost is £2100 delivered to the door from Wolesely. Photos to follow with full install story

Photo showing rear of unit and piping, lagged with primary pro insulation. 2 x antifreeze valves (warranty requirement) and 2x isolation valves, then flex hoses and then 28mm pipe. Final wiring scheme Seasonal switching between heat and cool. Reused light switch, hardwired to UFH controller and ASHP wiring centre, located by UFH controller. Single zone with jumper across zone terminals, so always on. Secondary set point, wired from UFH controller via an EPH TR1-TR2 Two Way Wireless Switch. A call for heat or cool selects Smart Grid SG terminals, and give a demand for 2 degree uplift in heating or a reduced flow temp of 2 degrees in cooling. (Manual had wrong wiring diagram for this, wiring terminals and functions didn't match, so trial and error approach taken). This function uses the humidity sensors within the UFH controller to give a cooling safety shut off. It allows background cooling setting (19 degs flow temp) and then when house increases in temp it steps to 17 Deg flow temp. In heating mode, summer house stabilises at 18 degs with normal WC settings, so boost is used to increase to 21 when we use it. Communication cable to outdoor unit. Pretty simple wiring overall. If I didn't do cooling there would be no additional wires, just a Comms cable. DHW is still being done by immersion. Overall heat pump just seems to run, no on off cycling.

Up for an adventure? Homemade worktops, utility, kitchen and island. Biggest issues were moving from garage to kitchen. More compliments from visitors about the worktops than the rest of the house. Cost was 10% (excluding my time) of the quotes received. It was an enjoyable part of the build.

Would this be a good point to trot out this perennially relevant cartoon?

Trump may keel over tomorrow. But that is to miss the point. The fact that he has been allowed to drive a coach and horses through the old world order, threatening economic and military force to take over Iceland/Greenland with no pushback from the much vaunted "checks and balances" of the US constitution is the problem. He has shown that the institutions that were supposed to keep any madman in check are toothless. The US can no longer be considered a reliable partner. We are just one suoreme court appointment, one special election away from everything being thrown up in the air. I can't remember the source of the quote but "we cannot base our security and prosperity on some voters in Florida every 4 years"

Thank you for proving my point It is a common misconception amongst people such as yourselves that the UK could achive energy independence if only the "greens" would let us drill for more oil and gas. In case you misread my OP the oil and gas industry itself is predicting production will fall even with no restrictions on drilling. Let's take the "Rosebank" field, described as the Uk's largest undeveloped oil and gas field. At it's peak, it's owners predict it will produce in excess of 21 MMSCF of natural gas every day, which sounds impressive until you realise that is about as much as Aberdeen uses per day. That won't make a dent in our imports. There is no way the UK can pull enough oil and gas out of it's territory to satisfy it's current demand for oil and gas That is the considered opinion of all the experts including oil and gas industry. So the only option is to reduce our consumption of oil and gas via things like efficency, reducing journeys by car, electrification of heat and transport. All the "Net zero" things but not for environmental reasons, for purely pragmatic reasons. As for coal, let us assume, for a moment that there are near unlimited coal reserves available to the UK. How do you propose we heat our homes and drive out cars on coal? Go back to coal cellars, and a fire in every room? Rip out out combi boilers for solid fuel boilers? And as for cars.... If you think EV's have too short a range and take too long to charge, wait until you try steam cars! 😁 If you genuinely think the future of UK energy is coal you should be cheering for EVs and pushing for the adoption of Heatpumps alongside the blue haired vegan tree huggers. It's not your fault. The oil and gas companies have a well funded disinformation and lobbying campaign for keeping the UK hooked on oil and gas. After all, drug dealers aren't going to help you kick the habit - not when there are vast profits to be made.

Some of that kit will last 20 years. in 2022, the UK used 1,200,000 barrels of oil a day. So we have to get a new barrel every 14 seconds. A barrel of oil is currently a similar price to 400W PV module, that would produce about 500 kWh/year down where I am (I am quite happy to cover Cornwall in PV). A barrel of oil has about 1700 kWh of energy in it, but we cannot extract much more than about 70% of that. So in just over 2 years, a PV module would produce about the same raw energy as a barrel of oil. Then about 18 years for nothing.

We’re self builders. Faffing is what we do. Why do the obvious when one can avoid doing anything for weeks while researching? 😕

This time of the year gets to me - sometimes. And in the context of self-building, its dark for longer, wet for longer, cold for longer, windy for longer than I'd like. Optimists say that some of that can be sorted by proper clothing, and decent site lighting. But wetness can make a site misery quicker than anything, cold can stop concrete and mortar dead. Wind is a bastard on a scaffold. Self building's a character test. The push to complete never lets up despite all of the above. I suspect that a few of us are having to 'dig-deeper-than-normal' these days. Got any ways of picking yourself up when things are more than merely gloomy?

Posted this in the off topic forum but am also posting here.... To cut along story short I've not included links but can provide if anyone is interested. The UK urgently needs to reduce of consumption of fossil fuels - and it has absolutely nothing to do with the climate. The UK is highly dependant of fossil fuels for 2 areas: - Transport (petrol & diesel) - Domestic heating (mainly gas) For the above uses we currently import 50% of what we use. This leaves us vulnerable to price shifts in the global market and outright coersion should someone sanction/embargo/blockade our supplies and the majority of the suppliers of those vital resources are not friendly states and have to travel via long sea routes. By 2035 - just 10 years away - we are predicted to need to import 75% of oil and gas (if demand stays the same). At this point someone usually says "ah! That is why we must drop this net zero nonsense and drill for oil and gas to become self sufficient!" The problem with this argument is that figure of 75% imports is from the oil and gas industry's most optimistic projections. It assumes that: - we are able to extract the maximum predicted amount out of our existing fields - we are able to extract the maximum predicted amount out of all the fields awaiting licences - we are able to extract the maximum predicted amount out of all the fields we know about - we are able to extract the maximum predicted amount out of some fields we haven't yet discovered In short this is like predicting our future income assuming we get promoted, get a bonus, a distant uncle leaves us his fortune and we win the lottery. If we use the more sober assessment then in 10 years time we will need to import 90% of our consumption (assuming it stays the same). In short UK oil and gas production will fall every year even in the most optimistic predictions. In order to avoid this major vulnerability to our economy and sovereignty we need to reduce our demand for fossil fuels. 1) Reducing our demand for gas heating in houses by insulation and moving away from gas boilers would reduce our gas demand - yes, even if we generate the extra elecreicty needed by burning gas. 2) Reducing our demand for oil by (amongst other things) reducing the number of fossil fuel vehicles To support the above we need to increace our electrical generation and distribution capability by building new wind farms, solar farms, rooftop solar, transmission lines etc In short all of the "Net zero" things that usually sit in the "green" forum and regularly get trashed by people saying "ah all this green nomsense! Just woke crap a making us poorer! Bloody Greta etc etc" But really it should sit in the national security and economic forum.

Thanks all for the supportive replies. This forum is one of the best sources of support a self-builder could have. I want to give special thanks to @BotusBuild and @Fallingditch for their generosity with both practical and moral support, and to @Gus Potter, @Nickfromwales, @ProDave, @SteamyTea, @ToughButterCup and others who have responded to threads and direct messages with advice and wisdom that I could not have managed without. Knowing that you guys are here, and willing to show such kindness and generosity with your time and knowledge, is invaluable.

That's the loneliest place in the world . You (we, I) have been told / made to understand that self-building is a privilege. Given to few. And we should be grateful - stop moaning and "JustBloodyDoIt." Self-building is as big a character test as doing a PhD, or handling a long-term relationship break down, or surviving a major operation. A full-on build's knackering. You're among friends here. Don't ever forget that

To close this off thought I'd share the frankensteins monster that is my new shower for the next couple of months. Just hoping my custom non standard waste has enough silicone rammed in to stop it leaking.

Weeks 56 to 74 The UFH is laid and the screed is providing a lovely wobble free surface for the ladders and makes brushing up so much nicer. Our neighbour kindly lent us his scaffold tower so that we could insulate the vaulted ceiling in the open plan area which is approx 5m high. This has enabled me to finish insulating between the rafters with 140mm of Rockwool and I have PIR sheets to put up under the rafters. For cutting both the Rockwool and the PIR I created a few templates of different angles and had them ready for when my husband came to help pass them up to me. Once the Rockwool was finished we both took it in turns on the scaffold tower fitting the PIR. Having a vaulted ceiling in the openplan area and partially vaulted elsewhere will give us plenty of light and nice high ceilings but for now they are awkward to cut around to insulate and ensure the VCL is tight around the junctions. The time spent doing this will no doubt be forgotten once we move in and it is starting to feel closer. We marked out the kitchen island location and dining room table location to get first fix electic lighting located and measured for the kitchen units. For my birthday treat our daughter came to stay and dog sit our elderly Greyhound so that we could go shopping looking at kitchens. We spent almost 4 hours in Wren Exeter with Harvinder but we think we have ordered a lovely kitchen and pantry. Unfortunately our neighbour needed the scaffold tower back but said we could borrow it again as soon as he had finished with it. We then decided we should book in the plasterer as things were starting to come together, rather luckily for us our plasterer had just had a job cancel on him and when we spoke to him on a Thursday he said he could start next week either Tuesday or Wednesday. As we hadn’t finished insulating one side of the vaulted ceiling we said we couldn’t be ready that quick unless he wanted to quote for fitting the PIR and the VCL, which I had already purchased most of. We then spent the weekend and Monday getting first fix electrics in the kitchen and mocking up where the TV was going to get the electrics and room wall lighting ready. Things have therefore started to move on quicker than we expected, so we are hopeful of moving in by winter this year with a working kitchen, one bathroom and one bedroom finished at least. Kitchen design render. Testing TV and speaker location. Even with the plasterboard lifter its hard with 3 on the scaff and one on the lifter, so glad I'm not doing it. Taking time off the insulation has meant I can tidy the UFH expansion foam up in all the rooms and the trip hazards we kept ignoring at door room openings, whilst being on hand for the plasterers if they need more tape etc or have any questions. Once they have finished with the VCL membrane I might finish the VCL I started before we borrowed the scaffold tower or I could take a rest from the build and catch up on so many other things, even paint schemes maybe. I have caught up on the build paperwork this weekend. The total spend to date including the provisional kitchen figure of £15,000 which includes VAT, units, worktop, tiles and some appliances so not the reclaim amount. Total to date £238917 over 135m2 is £1770 m2 for a 3 bed, 2 bath, bungalow This is broken down as follows. General £4200 Carpentry £500 Kitchen £15100 Roof insulation, inc membrane and tapes etc £4500 First Fix Electrical £1230 First fix plumbing and partial bathroom costs (ongoing) £1430 UFH £900 Drainage and gutering £8540 Floor insulation inc tape and membranes £2670 Screed £2740 Cladding (over ordered but ideas are developing) £5690 Render £3090 Solar 7.5 KWp £8570 Roof £23300 Windows £20870 no front door yet. ICF Construction £119600 Pre build costs and fees etc £15830 The back of envelope guesstimate of future spend is £35k to finish apx £2k per m2

This is the bit that's the toughest for me especially when trying to balance everything else that's important in life. With the build, it's not like going home from the office and switching off. One of the things here is that my boys have grown through their teenage years on a building site, but I've spent a lot of time with them away from the build, which at the moment seems to have been the best thing for them. They're living in a warm, dry house, and have their own bedrooms, a bathroom and a functional kitchen, it's just so many other areas of the house still need a lot of work. Deepest winter does seem to be the worst. I approached it with the mentality of - just do one thing, however small it might be. Rather than looking around and seeing how much needs to be done, it's about seeing what little things can I do here or there, even when the weather or light is against me. It's not the solution, but it can very much help. Sometimes I'm surprised by how much gets done as a result and how even just getting some plasterboard put up, can feel so satisfying. But then, sometimes, it is just a pure grind and I see that as just a temporary phase that'll change in a few short days or weeks.

About 25 away from getting some power. Now imagine if half the money had been spent on grid reinforcement/renewal, a third on new RE generation and the remaining amount on storage (which does NOT have to be batteries). We would have increased installed capacity by about 15GW, and dispatchable power by probably 10GW. Or, in eady to understand terms, about 20% of our needs. But hey, getting to Birmingham, from somewhere near North London is a vote winner.

We are battling the rain as much as possible, but it is difficult. We have a sloping site and dammed the foundations on the main house further up the garden so that I could build a small wall the last week or so round the Pod at the rear of the garden. That's finished now and today we will release the water from the house foundations! We are fortunate that there is a drainage ditch at the back of the garden that clears quickly. After having such a dry summer it is becoming very frustrating the amount of rain that we are having.

If you are still weighing up what floor system to use, then it’s a good job it’s raining as you are not ready yet. you need all of this completely ironed out first. Just as a few examples, before you start you need the numbers of all the local muck away Lorries in your phone, not one bloke you spoke to but 3-4 of them, if the stuff is piling up and the lad you spoke to can’t do today then you just phone the next. the same with a concrete pump, have two lined up, talk to both talk about access and anything else. go to the local concrete company and open up an account. Dumper hire, if a dumper breaks down do you know a company who will drop one off the next morning. all this stuff can turn a simple job into a disaster get very good at disaster management, have a plan for every eventuality.

Yes, John Clauser, paid by the American Petroleum Institute. And you think scientist are corrupt. I studied the very field that he says is the cause. I abandoned it as a long term study as the science, experiments and events, all pointed to it not being the main cause. In the last decade and a half, the subject has been studied intensively and no studies have really shown that it is anything more than a short term weather phenomenon. But all that is a digression. If you are serious about debate on anthropogenic climate change, go get a higher degree in the subject and then rubbish all the research, that will level the playing field for you.

The UK holds around 90 days of oil and gas reserves. If we stopped receiving supplies tomorrow, we would run out in 3 to 6 months, maybe 9 if we rationed and had a mild winter. That's not enough time to do anything significant. If China stopped shipping solar panels, wind turbines, batteries etc tomorrow - our existing solar panels and inverters would keep producing happily for a decade or two before we needed to replace them. Plenty of time for the issue to be resolved or alternative suppliers be spun up. There is an issue about online networked systems being dependent on remote severs etc (IIRC a major battery brand ceases to function of disconnected from the Internet for more than 90 days) but that is merely an issue about regulation ie allowing products to be sold with that "feature".

Will fully update later but have a guy here now from same company whose first question was "who did the service?" Embarassing when I said same company you work for but different guy! This guy seems to know what he is doing been doing it 27 years. Expansion tanks just needed pumping up which he has done and DO NOT need replacing.... paid 50% deposit on the basis they said they needed replacing and guy is going to sort with office. Is sorting that leak (pic I uploaded with the leak from the bottom of Gledhill tank) which he noticed right away. Will explain other stuff later on....

Get some EPS200 and wedge/hammer it down until it hits something solid. Make sure you don't block any ventilation for the floor. Foam it in place with illbruck FM330. Trim the top of the EPS flush with the top of the joists. Stick the plywood to the top of the EPS with stixall or CT1. Apply masking tape to the door and floor before you do this as the foam and sealant will be hard to clean off.

After living in Australia this is a common thing over there. a large plot of land is divided into a few dozen house plots, the local companies come in and buy and build their design house on that plot, punters then visit at the weekend and walk around all the show houses. you pick a builder you like and commission them to build on a plot you have or they will have other plots on other sites. I really hate the English way of a divided up estate all built by the same contractor in the same boring design to the same poor standard.

Hi all. I've been on here a while on and off and posted about 3½ years ago for advice on potential plots. We ended up getting a lovely plot in a nice village in Norfolk not long after that but was held up for 3 years because of neutrient neutrality and natural England stopping all new planning permissions being granted. We got full planning 4 months ago and have made a start, in the winter🫣. Foundation blocks are nearly laid to ground level. Me and my husband with a little help from others are running and building ourselves. My husband's a carpenter and was a site/contracts manager for a building company. We are building a single storey timber frame home with a brick skin up to window height then black cladding. A slightly unusual roof will top it off. We're both really excited and frightened especially regarding budget. We will have to stop the build throughout to earn more money to finish it but will be determined to get there in the end. If anyone has any words of wisdom or suggestions regarding internal layout we'd welcome your input. Also we're stuck with our heating and hot water system in terms of best and most efficient way to do it. It will just be 2 adults+a dog living in the house. We have no gas here and don't want oil so will be all electric. We'd love to have solar and batteries one day but it'll have to wait a while. The back of the house is south facing so will need to organise some shading but again budget may determine what we have. Thank you all in advance and I look forward to being part of your amazing community

Once upon a time a deluded wrinkly, his much less wrinkly wife and their noisy little dog left their almost fairy tale rural retreat to live in a freezing rented bungalow while they buggered about trying to build a new semi-urban retreat nearby. (How clever am I avoiding the word suburban!). Everything would have gone swimmingly but for the fact that the head of the wrinkly was just too full. It sort of still is I think. In the four months since the last post (stop thinking of a bugler at sunset even though some days that feels appropriate) much has been done: We’ve built a garage and the front of site is much less of a moonscape. All our blockwork is in, much of it rendered. We’ve now got one flat roof and two slated rooves, one with loads of solar panels. All our windows and some of our doors are in. We’ve got 240mm of underfloor insulation and a circa 100mm sand and cement screed with lots of buried pipes, of both the heating and soil varieties. The screed alone changed things to more house than warehouse - fabulous. Almost all the internal wall skeletons are back up - so now we get a much better feel for the layout which is a very good thing. (We built some downstairs walls earlier but took them down to make the DPM and insulation easier.) Most of the frame insulation is in. There’s even loft insulation in the loft - ok it’s still in its rolls ready to be fitted but it’s still there, patiently waiting. And there’s some VCL in place and we’ve made a start on the inner skin - some battens and yet more mineral wool to form what is really an insulated service void to give us a half decent wall U value. The man cave has its insulated metal panel roof and is usefully storing tons of stuff. All the service pipes and wires are buried in a trench ready for connection to said man cave which meant yet more depressing hours on a digger, and now the back garden is a moonscape. A humongous insulated twin pipe monster conger eel of a thing is buried, surfacing at the concrete plinth for the heat pump at one end and in the under stairs cupboard at the other. We have surface water drainage pipes installed at the back. Phew. No wonder we are worn out. And I’ve probably left lots of things out too - when you are on site every day it’s so easy to forget what has been done and focus instead on the rather elongated to do list that keeps me awake at night. Not every night mind, some nights are a lot better than others and I am getting a vaguely sensible amount of sleep more nights than not now, thanks to constantly talking stuff through with J. But there is an essential difference in the build. Before we sold Bramble we knew we were running out of money so we weren’t going at full hurtle. I had a twenty minute drive to and fro and a soak in the bath, all of which helped me keep my head in the game. It felt like there was time to think. Now I have a twenty second walk (if I dawdle) to and from site. Despite the ice box (aka rented bungalow) having a really powerful gas combi boiler it has a low power electric shower that dribbles just enough water to get clean but not get warm. And we’ve the money we need to complete, so it’s warp factor 8 Mr Sulu. Now if I was doing this on my own I’d have no choice but to slow right down, and try and get my head together, and feel in control again. Thankfully we are totally in this together, so we aren’t slowing down. Not that it’s without tensions. J and I talk everything through and she keeps track of tons of things that I can’t (hopefully everything that I can’t, which is an unfair burden but that’s how it is). We identify short term priorities and I focus on them, with me tacitly accepting that I am not personally in control of everything as for me to be so would mean a lot slower progress: neither of us want to stay in the ice box a day longer than strictly necessary. So the tightrope act is to balance keeping the pedal down as hard as possible without us actually losing control or allowing any major cock ups to occur. Simples. It gets harder when there is anyone else on site but ourselves and Rolly, our chippy. Peeps are incredibly (and I believe unconsciously) attention hungry especially when their needs are coupled with my need to monitor all work and limit disturbance to the neighbourhood. It’s so frustrating that when a contractor is on site my own productivity declines enormously. And then there’s the gargantuan mess, especially in one particular case - the thoughtless dumping of spare stuff; the treading of material up and down the road without a care for the frozen moron still sweeping and hosing down the road in the dark hours after they’ve finished their second pint; the drifting flocks of discarded paper bags mixed in with fast food packaging. Sigh. At least everyone we’ve had on site so far has done excellent work, so that does compensate. The feeling of a lack of control is not helped by the fact that I’m completely useless at estimating the time needed for tasks - though as J frequently mentions we’ve not done lots of this stuff before so we should accept that we can’t know. The DPM and underfloor insulation took me many, many times what I imagined and I’ve a black belt in beating myself up. I enjoyed doing the lower polystyrene layer, so nice to work with, but hated the PIR layer. The polystyrene has spring in it and one can cut pieces a little oversize, lever them in and get a really nice, tight fit. It’s messy in that little baubles of white stuff get everywhere but they don’t get down your throat. PIR however is sooooo different. The dust it creates is truly horrible, it lingers in the throat many hours later even if a mask is worn, which it mostly was. It almost appears to shrink away from it’s neighbours - when cut to precise size and shape, wrestled into place shooting showers of nasty dust up as the air trapped underneath is expelled through the tiny gaps at the side - it still sits there showing a small but definite gap between the sheets. Not at all satisfying. Thank heavens we ignored the architect and chose not to put PIR in the walls. So it turns out that there is a job worse than moving tons and tons of crush. But thats now done, thank heavens. As an aside I’d planned just polystyrene, but the reinforced slab came up a bit more than planned so I switched to part PIR to get the insulation level I’d targetted. Note to self: get quotes for different thicknesses of stuff before deciding. Buying stuff that local suppliers have on hand saves tons, which accidentally benefitted us on the underfloor insulation - had things gone to plan it would have cost us rather more for the same insulation performance due to me designing in theoretically available sizes. Odd world, innit. The need to book contractors is a real source of pressure. An example: We have been recommended a plasterer who everyone says is brill and so is v busy and we don’t want to lose him, but that means guessing a timescale and thence sticking to it. I’m an ex-project manager. I know that to manage the project requires knowledge of the timescales for each task in the train, and as above - I really don’t have a scooby. Well, I do, but Skooby the Skoda probably doesn’t count in that regard. So, in summary we’ve got tons done, but tons still to do. Xmas has annoyingly punctuated the project but that’s probably a mental godsend - at least I’ve a popped ballon to enjoy putting in my empty honey jar. We’re working really well and closely together as a couple and I will get used to the feeling of panic just below the surface that not feeling personally in control causes; the foreboding that I cannot be confident that I haven’t missed something important; the relying on J that will deliver much faster progress. You never know, my next post might even be a bit about the build…

Impossible to calculate payback on MVHR, it’s about health and comfort which are priceless IMO! I I self installed a simple system for less than £2k, one of the best things about the house. Fresh clean air, without drafts and low heat loss. Trickle vents are uncontrolled ventilation, too much in high winds and also admit a surprising level of noise.

There is no discussion to be had. Not least because of that 'droop' - never mind what's hidden behind the once-wet plasterboard - they seem to be proposing to hand it back to you looking worse than it did when you bought it. Say no and stand your ground.

We had a delivery of sopping wet timber and sent it back. From asking around it seems that all suppliers round here keep tanalised (and other treatments) timber in the yard, uncovered. They think that is ok because it won't rot, and they regard it as 'outdoors' timber. Few have enough shelter, and seem to me to have far too much stock, perhaps as an investment. Their own trade specifies that all wood should be protected and ventilated. But they don't much care as long as it is selling. They don't invest in tarpaulins. The brochures may say kiln dried, but then forget to mention ' and then left outdoors in the rain until somebody accepts it.' The thing is, that we are using treated timber for the shell and are investing in the long term with no worries about dampness , woodworm etc. I know from experience that wasps can find their way into tiny gaps and like to chew wood for their nests, Treated wood won't be chewed twice. Plus as we are building in the open, it was bound to get a bit wet for a while. An earlier delivery was also wet, and it bent by up to 50mm over a 6m length, making it unsuitable for structure. Half of these were also sent back, without argument. So the moral is to tell your supplier that the timber must be dry in accordance with their industry guidelines. They might decline, but they can also set some aside under cover, or buy it in new from the docks. This probably does not apply to CLS which presumably is regarded as internal timber. We are ordering some so will see. Structural timber must be dry so that it keeps shape, especially in the vertical. And I dread to think what happens to a floor when the joists twist. Do the floor screws reach? Plus you don't want it twisting after construction. The timber industry body agrees, except that the merchants dont seem to know that.

Well, it's gone very well. On Wednesday the system was commissioned with no issues so the MCS cert and the G cert will be issued. When I get a bit of time I will write up the whole thing for a blog as its been a very interesting mission but we got there. It was great to see the heat coursing through the slab pipes. I have not calibrated the Camera for emissivity.

Nimbyism is a massive issue. Near me there is a proposal for a fairly large solar farm. People are losing their minds over "the damage to the view from the AONB". The park will barely visible as a sliver of dark blue/black from the AONB in question. The biggest impact will be the brief periods in the morning where there may be some chance of glare reflecting off the panels for anyone standing on higher ground. Of course you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between the glare from the solar panels and the glare from the big river and numerous lakes and ponds (not to mention flooded fields at various times if the year) that already make up the landscape. The local pressure group has made all sorts of noises about the "10ft high security fence" (in an area defined by 10 ft high hedgerows and tree lines even higher. They are also incensed by the "giant substation" needed. Turns out it's about the size of a shipping container.

In a few years time I think we'll have stopped worrying about EV range. It makes far more sense to transmit energy down power lines than to drive it around in a battery. Better charging infrastructure will allow smaller batteries, lighter cars, more miles per kWh.

Isn't the point of self building/renovation to create an environment that is a pleasure to live in, not just a place to survive? 😉

Exxon scientists reported on climate change effects in the 70s. There are press reports on the impact on carbon on the climate from the 1920s maybe even earlier. A frog in slowly warming water doesn't notice the difference and gets cooked. Plenty of bad things have been happening. Once in 100 year events now happen much more frequently. Insurance companies are taking hit after hit pushing up insurance costs massively and causing them to refuse to insure many properties without government backstops (more in other countries than here, it's a global phenomenon). Biodiversity is crashing and we've lost vast quantities of species to extinction (though admittedly only some of that is due to climate, but many are directly linked to it). Crop failures, droughts, more hurricanes, heat waves, floods, all have increased. All have been predicted in the 1990s as results of climate change. Some of the tabloid headlines of the past were overcooked, but equally many more recent headlines undersell the risks we face at this point. (potential AMOC collapse as an example) There are lobbyists around for every subject under the sun. The amount of money spend on lobbying by the 'climate skeptic' side outweighs lobbying from green groups by orders of magnitude. In any case, we shouldn't be paying attention to lobbyists, we should be looking at the last 50 years of scientific research, which has consistently backed CO2 emissions as the cause of the warming climate. I'd argue that widespread scientific consensus is more than mere opinion. Is it 100% fact? No, but it's not just an opinion. It's rigorous data backed analysis which has been picked apart by every interested party. It's the closest science can ever come to fact. Such as?

You are one of them. I don't know your educational background, it is not Physics. There is a scientific reason that seemingly small rises in atmospheric can have a disproportionate effect on global temperatures. There is also research that shows global temperatures going going back 1.2 million years. Is that long enough for you. Anthropogenic climate change is happening, whether you wish to believe it or not.

Why do you think The Orange Clown is so against climate change arguments. He wants everyone to be dependent on oil and gas, which he is trying to control as much as possible - i present Venezuela and Greenland as examples M'Lud. We need to get the nuclear and renewables online ASAP. Then use the time it gives us to make sure we retrain our own workforce to maintain, invent and manufacture this and the next technologies, to regain our independence. It's a long term plan that needs an autocratic regime, not a democratic parliament.

I use ½ blanks between my contactors, but a couple of W in a steel CU isn't really an issue. I had probs with my DIN mounted SSRs especially as my sparky had used an abs box. Luckily it was in a large closed cupboard so I could leave the cover off. I prefer my current setup. The RH unit was my sparky's work. The LH contains: 24VDC power, <gap>, contactor 1, <½gap>, contactor 2, <flyback diodes>, contactor 3, <½gap>, contactor 4 The 24V Tasmota 4×relay module is below. The red /black switch loom is all 24V.

Baan a little while, but finally got both planning permission and building warrant approval! 😎 So this will be the year of proper progress, you know, like making the building a bit colder and a lot less habitable… 🤣 https://www.smallmissionhall.com/

That's because the design, installation and commissioning is shite, not because heat pumps don't work. Unfortunately, you only really hear about the bad stuff, and the made up nonsense about how they don't work. I recently did the design and installation at an old house where half of it has 600mm uninsulated stone walls and the other half okay insulation badly detailed. They were having a load of renovation work being done and when the owner was telling the trades including plumbers I was coming to fit a heat pump, they were all negative saying it would never work bla bla. Did the install and the trades came back to do the finishing work and never stopped commenting on how warm the house was..... the owner is delighted saying the house has never been so comfortable. I know I'm blowing my own trumpet but there are plenty of genuine good installers out there that do a proper job and leave their customers very happy. However, I understand your worries. I'm here now as a designer and installer of heat pumps because I couldn't find anyone I could trust to do the design and install in our house. I first went down the route of installing a gas boiler myself and have just swapped this out for a heat pump. I have to say, the heat pump is just so much better by a mile. With your calcuated heat loss you can have something very simple, as @JohnMo says, and it can be very efficient. Now, I know that the BUS Grant is a prickly thing here on BH, but the idea that this just leads to price gouging by installer is IMHO, just nonsense. People need to properly run through the figures to understand why this is nonsense. For example, in the job above, the materials list for the whole job came in at more than £11k ex VAT without any uplift for me. If you're getting someone in to do the whole design and installation, the extra £7500 is something worth having as long as they're a good installer.

Please don’t do this. As much as I hate conveyancers, a good one is with their fee several times over. You don’t want to make DIY mistakes on what’s likely to be one of the highest value transactions you havre ever entered into.

Not me, but G, and not finished, but have a look at our blog......demolished bungalow and timber frame build

Passive class house here, not certified, no UFH. An actual measured heat usage of 3200kWh or 17kWh/m2/annum. Supplied by an electric plug in heater. It worked fine so long as you plugged it in anywhere downstairs and allowed it to gently input heat for 18hrs/day. Expecting it to batch heat on TOU tariff overnight wasn't as successful as i had hoped. it needed to be turned on at about 17:00 in winter to keep the living rooms warm enough(21deg). I added some electric heaters in the bathrooms for comfort as 21deg isn't quite toasty enough. Fan heaters are better than 2 Bar quartz heaters. The house is very comfortable. I replaced the electric radiator with an A2A HP for 2025. It's dropped our heating consumption to very close to 1000kWh or 5.5kWh/m2/annum. It works fine so long as you give it long enough run times for the heat to disperse around the house. It won't be quite as cheap as an A2W HP as you can't batch heat a slab on TOU tarriffs and a COP of 3 to 3.5 won't match a top end A2WHP. However it only cost €1500 installed so there isn't much in it. Add DHW demand or solar and the sums would change again. (FWIW an A2W + UFH was quoted at €14k in 2020) TLDR: 1. Anything will heat a passive house comfortably if you're prepared to give it a fair chance. Short run times and quick runups won't work with localised heat sources. 2. A2W HP's are best for comfort and running costs. However they only have the best long term costs if you can get a well priced install.

Stop faffing, get PIR, spend once, save for ever more. Once in you cannot upgrade. I shopped around, bought online saved a small fortune, it came on lorry direct from factory - I had a full lorry load of 100mm thick, so 2 layers.

We are now in that phase where we can see the finish line not far away but, bizarrely, the closer we get the more there seems to be to do. The list the jobs that yet need to be done is a bit depressing; reflecting on all we have achieved so far is much more uplifting. We are certainly in a significantly better position as we approach the end of the year than we expected to be when we started the project. Work has continued in the run up to Christmas and several trades have asked if they can work some days during the holiday period (er… yes please!). We have sadly suffered a family bereavement this week which has naturally led to reduced focus on the house, so apologies if this week’s blog is a bit rambling. We do find creating the blog helpful and therapeutic, so we’re inflicting it on you regardless! Cladding Alan and Chris have now completed the ash cladding at the front of the house and the scaffold is down - yay! The cladding looks quite dark at the moment but it should fade to silver over the next year where exposed to daylight. It will be interesting to see how the silvering graduates under the soffits which will presumably remain darker for many years. Kitchen Our carpenter Chris has started to install the kitchen, utility and pantry units. In the past we’ve installed kitchens ourselves but various circumstances have meant we’ve not been in a position to do this and Chris is undoubtedly doing a better job than we could do. The main kitchen is bespoke from Husk Kitchens in Bristol and uses ply drawer fronts faced with Fenix. Mrs P. is, as you would expect, Artistic Director and I defer to her on all colour choices (or else we would probably end up with beige/grey everywhere). We both really like the effect now that we see the kitchen beginning to take shape. Of course Mrs P. does have extraordinary good taste - she chose me after all! Our signature 'Wall of Ovens': Here's the utility room. Mrs P. may have allowed me free rein with the colours on this one - I know my place 😉 Electric second fix Darren has been progressing fixing of sockets switches and lights. First lights fitted! Our batteries and inverters have finally arrived and been connected, so the solar panels we had fitted in July(!) are now actually generating for us. Annoyingly, OpenReach still haven’t installed the fibre, so we can’t monitor our generation in real-time just yet - the geek in me will have to wait a bit longer for that. For those interested, we have 14.88kW of solar panels and 27.12 kWh batteries. Focus for the next two weeks: Obviously a quieter period than usual but we expect there will still be progress in a number of areas: Floor tiling - Steve should be back over the holiday period to fix the porcelain skirting tiles. Second fix electrics - More progress expected on lights and switches. That depressing list of things to do: Kitchen worktops Porcelain skirtings Finish bathrooms (x3) 2nd fix Commission STP Electric 2nd fix including lights, switches, heating wiring centre, CCTV, PIRs… Install fibre to house Internal door linings, architraves Internal doors Hatches to loft storage areas (x3) Fitted wardrobes Rear timber cladding Cladding front and rear canopy soffits Front landscaping, including level access, highway apron, parking and turning Rear landscaping, including level access and garden lighting Final airtightness test ‘As built’ SAP report Building Control sign-off VAT reclaim! + probably others we haven’t thought of. Dashboard: Contractor days on site this fortnight: 16.5 Contractor days on site since build start: 458 Budget: No change - over budget but within contingency. Plan: Breaking news! We are now aiming to move in at the end of February. So, a month earlier than previously planned. Issues and worries closed this fortnight: Kitchen units are substantially in so will be ready for worktop templating. Current top issues and worries: None.