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Hi Everyone! I am Ness and we are self building what was a CSH level 6 in Norfolk. When the government scrapped the code, we changed it but we are still pretty much building to the same spec. I have joined here here as I was an e-build member and loved it. I am having LABC and structural engineer issues at the moment and wanted to post for help (which I will do in a separate thread) but we have foundations poured and we are just waiting for the sale of our house to go through so we can free up our equity and carry on.... yay! Great to meet you all and look look forward to using this forum! Hope you all had a great Christmas

Multimeter is the first bit of kit you need. At the moment your just fumbling around in the dark . Get a reading off the battery and come back to us. Can you connect all the 12v stuff up directly to the battery and see if the charger actually did charge it? If not, can you check the fuse on the output side of the charger?

+1. Fit the pipes, let swmbo have the rug of her dreams ( "operation peace 'n' quiet' ) and fit a substantial floor board without worry. One previous job I did had posi joists with UFH pipes in Alu spreader plates. 22mm weyroc over the joists, then 6mm ply, then tile adhesive and then porcelain tiles. The only complaint was it was too warm in there. Heat will find its way through, trust me, and the rug is a very small area .

Woooo-you I would suspect that quite a few of the self-builders here could give 90% of architects a run for their money when it comes to understanding cold bridging issues

Is it necessary for the drawings to be perfect? Yes for things like foundations. but certainly on my build, a lot of the finer details are being worked out / improved upon as we actually build it.

Too sensitive. Two years after we accepted our design we are still nudging this or deleting that. We minute every meeting and review the architect's fees two or three times a year. It's his job to tell us that this or that won't work because.... Sam made an exact 1 meter error in the levels the other day. He was grateful that I picked it up. It's a partnership.

Yes - 5 zones just for control. And you're pretty much bang on - we have 800m of pipe! It will be the only heat source we have and I'm not anticipating turning it on much (the PHPP calcs showed a pretty minimal heat load demand), but having it and not using it is better than not having it and needing it! I'm still struggling to get my head around not needing much heating though, even though I've been in a few well insulated houses. I do need to sort out the cooling soon too!!!!

JG would be my last choice. Sorry. Hepworth push fit is the best I've come across to date, and even with its higher price tag I'd still think twice about going for JG SpeedFit. The inserts for JG are very thick walled, especially their 'super seal' ones, whereas Hep ones are slim stainless sleeves which don't infringe on the internal bore diameter anywhere near as much. Quite important when you're designing for 10mm runs to basins / other outlets and you don't want a trade off between delivery losses and flow rates. The diamond tray I fitted was a one piece jobbie that had the waste outlet offset with a simple / clever design that meant to miss a joist you just rotated the tray by 180 degrees. It's currently and happily nestling away under those mosaics as we speak. . Been in for 6 - 8 months or more now and zero complaints. I'm in regular contact with my customers so I get real life feedback which is helpful. That pic shows the 300/500mm offset, and the joists ran parallel with the length of the tray, so an 800mm wide tray with a centre outlet would have landed 3/4 onto the second joist. Impey are the innovators though as they do a rotatable 'double off-settable' outlet which is second to none. This pic shows ( look carefully ) the MBC pozi joists ( with the metal webs ) and then the ~15 lengths of graded CLS timber ( 3x2 ) that I retrospectively added to provide support for the Impey former shown. Impey say that they're happy with less, my OCD says otherwise ( and CLS is pennies in the grand scheme so I choose belt and Bracey-McBrace ). The mosaics got grouted with an anthracite grout and looked great alongside the Amtico. Word of warning, the bars in the Amtico ( where the joins are ) want to suck the grout wash-up residue in with capillary action. Mask the edges well as it's a right pita to be cleaning that until 3am, ask me how I know . Solvent weld waste of any decent make will be fine. Most important discipline is cleaning the swarf / burr from inside the pipe after each cut. Failure to observe that will leave a rough 'crown' inside each joint where hair will snag and cause issues later down the line. From an ongoing self-maintenance POV I always run 50mm waste to any shower / tray / former etc and always make sure the pipework can be got to for rodding later down the line. Always try to avoid 90o bends, and use 2 x 45o bends instead, slightly separated, which will make rodding / clearing much easier and make the run 'further penetrable' during such action.