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Thanks all (and good to see another Archer fan in the crowd as well!) Adding an extension to a leasehold flat has added a whole world of complexity that we wouldn't have otherwise had...planning permission for one and also for example we are looking at having to appoint up to 3 party wall surveyors in the worst case - for our neighbours on each boundary (who have been really supportive to date) and our freeholder. That's partly why SIPS appeal to us - because it would be good to get the extension up quickly and minimise disruption. We are also exploring using either ground screws, quickbase or easy pad foundations for the same reason though its not clear whether this is really going to work for us yet. As you can see, my head is rolling with this stuff, so thank you in advance for your advice and patience! Mike, exactly, we need freeholder consent because we are leaseholders. Usually there will be a clause in the lease stating that this should not be "unreasonably withheld". Unfortunately ours doesn't have this so the freeholder can charge what they wish - in our case, a £5k premium for consent, with the alternative being to pursue the freehold purchase... One to watch out for anyone purchasing "doer upper" properties where you flippantly start re-arranging the plans off Rightmove in your head.

Would anyone be so kind as to post up a photo showing their MVHR installation? I'm trying to visualise how much space I'll need to allow for the unit, distribution boxes and ducting so that I know how much space I have left over for everything else. Thanks in advance

Connect one end of the ducts all up at the room end and leave the ducts 1m longer than you need. Have them all tied together to keeping them neat where ever you are connecting them up. Once you know they are all in and don't need moved it's a 2 min job cutting the duct and connecting it up.

Extract similar distance for me. Depending on your joist type (we had metal web) you may be restricted in how neatly the duct arrives at the plenum and you'll then have to position the plenum to best receive the duct and allow a snug connection (buy WD 40 silicone spray, a must for getting the duct with rubber washer snug into the plenum). It's easiest to have the duct arrive straight at the plenum (at least 1m) to give you the room to position and insert it home, avoid very tight bends immediately before the plenum as you'll find it tricky to get the duct in. I used 50mm batten offcuts to create two noggins across the underside of the top web of the joist and screwed the plenum into this. There was initially quite a bit of fiddling about to get them where I wanted and consistency spaced from walls, webs always seemed to get in the way but you get the hang of it after the first few. I then ran the duct from the manifold location (leaving plenty of slack) to the plenum and secured it (rubber washer and clips). Be prepared to reposition duct a few times, especially if you have a few coming together through a penetration in wall or floor - can take a few tries to get the flattest arrangement. Two people are better than one when running duct as it can sometimes need a pull and a push to get round bends - usually gets caught on metal webs (I used bits of cardboard to minimise this). Making a lasso from poly rope can help pull it along from ground level and avoids hopping on and off a ladder. Keep your duct loosely coiled - I used a batten across a door way as a cable spool, if it totally unwinds then it will knot. Last thing I did was connect duct to the manifolds, be cautious when trimming to get a neat fit, suggest you get them roughly connected first and then trim each to get rid of excess, if you over trim, you may struggle to get any additional length in the duct to get a tight fit to the manifold. I zip tied these when final as my manifold only had two spring clips per duct. If you have the ceiling mounted type of manifold that has ducts on either end and the main duct to the base, you need to ensure it's flat otherwise the duct down to the unit will be crooked. Can take a bit of trimming of duct either side to achieve. After I was done, Sparky moved a few plenums to line up more neatly with downlights and other roof furniture, provided you have a bit of slack in the duct, this is not an issue. I left my plenums untrimmed and had the tackers cut board to fit - they were pretty neat, only a few mm of gap. Left them untrimmed for plastering too, probably should have trimmed with a multitool to get a neater finish, however the cowl extends an inch or so past the plenum edge so ceiling looks fine.

One thing I found out recently is that EE have won the contract to provide the replacement for Airwave, the emergency services communications system. As such, EE are having to make significant improvements in rural areas, as they have had to give a performance guarantee as a part of this contract. At the moment, we can't get a mobile signal, but our nearest mast is an EE one, and using a booster, connected to a mast-mounted high gain directional antenna, I can just about get a GSM phone signal, but not really a usable data connection. We're hoping this will improve before long.

Hmmm, @JSHarris, I wish you'd been with me when we were talking to the kitchen rep. Passiv has a long way to go before it sinks into the consciousness of many in the building sector. In terms of recirculation, is there anything we should look for in terms of cooker hood design? What are the design differences which assure filtration as opposed to expulsion? Any particular spec of filter? Or grill size? Or flow rate? BTW, thanks @CC45 for tagging accurately. Ian

Positively light speed compared to some.....

Top top.....if you want to mask things like TRVs then don't faff around with tape and newspaper, just use kitchen foil and scrunch it around the object you don't want sprayed. Works a treat on under bonnet wiring too.

Google "brick fence holes" - few ideas there. Examples: http://taradillard.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/orchard-wall-gate.html https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-image-brick-wall-pattern-red-bricks-newly-constructed-building-image31530001 http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1112795

I've not been in town to see how the build is going for weeks. So I had to sneak into my own site today. There has been a nice amount of progress. I am loving the double height spaces and the glass front to the upstairs landing. Master bedroom looking back towards the dressing room. Chimney breast and glazed gable in the master bedroom. View from upstairs landing. Double height upstairs study, when I was in here I wondered about putting in a roof window. Eaves space that I asked about using for storage in another thread. View along bathrooms/en suites/dressing rooms. Velux windows go in soon. Guest room dressing room. Not sure about the airtightness membrane. First stud walls going in. Another view from the upstairs landing. Games room, really sunny with the Velux windows. View from the top. View down into study from games room. Chimney and balcony at the end of the house. Eaves space in my daughter's bedroom. She wants a secret area in here.

No they sell your house to pay for the care fees

For cost reasons, we ended up installing Ikea wardrobes in the kids' bedrooms in the new house (despite promising ourselves we'd never have Ikea wardrobes). Installation proceeded well - everything done in one room, and all bar the doors in another. Oddly, we ended up with three clearly different types of drawer runners, and two types of hinge, despite all wardrobes apparently being identical. A few days later we went to finish the second room, only to find that the door hinges wouldn't click into the hinge mount on the carcasses. All of them were the same. I took some photos - the little pins were simply too big for their complementary slots. With our recent experience of all the different types of hardware, I assumed someone had put the wrong halves of different hinge models into the bags. Eventually we dragged ourselves down to Ikea an hour away, with photos and a couple of examples (we didn't remove all the installed hardware, as it isn't really meant for easy removal). After waiting nearly 40 mins to see someone at customer service, I explained what the problem was to the very nice but slightly dim young chap serving. He took us through the installation process, even though we'd told him that we'd successfully installed the ones in the other room. I kept showing him that the slot and pins just weren't the right size for each other, getting more and more frustrated by his seeming inability to understand basic mechanics. Eventually, he went and got his manager. The manager asked me in a patronising way what the problem was, so I explained again. I was starting to get pretty frustrated by this stage and started my explanation by saying that we'd been here nearly an hour and just wanted replacement hinges. I then went to put the pieces together to demonstrate, and they snapped together perfectly! Turns out I'd accidentally put them together the "wrong" way, which was, of course, the right way! I immediately realised that my lovely wife, who'd wanted a go on the tools the first night we were assembling the carcasses, had installed all of the carcass mounts upside down in the second room, and I was too thick to realise this when trying to fit the doors!

I did as suggested above, and built a gentle ramp up from the drive, around the side of the house to the back door. As there was then a 90 degree turn to get into the back door, I also had to add a flat wheelchair turning space right outside the door. The door also had to be Part M compliant, and the internal access route from it to the entrance level WC also had to comply with Part M. Doing this allowed me to have stone steps up to the front door from the drive, which look a lot better than a ramp. An alternative (not one I'd do, as I have a friend who's a wheelchair user) is to do as a friend in Yorkshire did with his self-build. He had York stone steps up to the main entrance, that were not Part M compliant. To get around this he covered them with polythene and then made a weak concrete mix ramp over the top. It looked pretty grim, but complied with building regs. As soon as the house had a completion certificate he just broke up the concrete ramp, revealing his unmarked stone steps...................

Make your level access to a sisde or back door? Build the ramp ot the front door from type1 and slabs laid on sand, get it approved by BC then rip it out and build your preferred steps?

Welcome aboard! Don't get worried about being overwhelmed. Just break the project into manageable chunks, package off things that can be delegated, and take it one step at a time. And don't be afraid to ask questions along the way- you're unlikely to face a totally unique problem. Probably best to start a few different threads in the relevant forum sections about the concerns you've mentioned, otherwise this thread could get a bit rambling. What are your plans for accomodation between the knock down and the build?

That is at the top of our linen cupboard which is 1270 x 870. We have a vaulted ceiling so it's taking up the top 1000 or so The other manifold is hidden behind the stuff I have packed round them and is on the side wall. If you need tonyou can squeeze them in quite a small space...

That's ours. Extract on floor, supply on wall.

The above photos show the fresh air feed (top) and extract (bottom) for our system. The installations were modified a bit later, when I added the silencers.

Got a good aerial shot of the place though.

@MikeSharp01, I agree with all your points, but would add that we really have no need to keep re-inventing new low, or zero, energy housing standards. The Passivhaus Institut have a well-proven model and performance standard that has been widely used around the world for well over 30 years now. I'd never heard of nZEB at all until this thread, yet I subscribe to Passive House magazine and tend to read (and occasionally contribute to) web sites that focus on low energy design. To me this indicates that it's yet another standard dreamt up by someone who's out of touch with reality. All we need to do is follow the example of countries like Ireland, who have tightened their building regs to reduce energy use and, more recently, started to introduce the PassivHaus standard for all new houses built in Dublin. It isn't rocket science, but there does need to be a great deal of work done to get house building firms to accept modern methods of construction, with intrinsically good thermal and airtightness properties, rather than persist in trying to bodge older build methods to "just" scrape through Part L1, or very often fail to comply with it, as we all know is the case.

Hi Ted. Welcome to the site. I wish you luck and a future MRiCS, but to be honest this won't go anywhere. My attitude to the 2020 EU nearly Zero Energy Buildings Directive as a context for UK self-build homes, is that it is not a context for UK self-build homes because we are leaving the EU in 2019. No one - whether self-builders or construction companies - will spend any time on it. And having gone through the last Zero Energy Buildings Initiative as wished on us by Mr Blair and Mr Brown, which imo was a bit of a dogs' breakfast requiring a scattergun of ideas wished on us by an out of touch Government relying far too heavily on technical gimmicks rather than quality building, I am glad that it is not coming here. The only possible bit of context I can see left is for people importing their kit homes from the EU. Is it possible for you to refocus your project on something that is actually going to happen? For your interest in energy saving there is potential in: 1 - comparing self-build standrds with corporate build. What difference and why? 2 - perhaps perceptions of why individuals feel a need to import "low energy" kit homes rather than build them here. 3 - related to 2, my suspicion is that far too much money is being spent on expensive solutions that happen to have particular country labels on them ,which is a success for Brands over knowledge. There may also be something about a related lack of clear information concerning the UK industry and what is available. 4 - Jeremy's point above about the proliferation of planning and compliance costs is an area that needs work. Could you reframe your project around barriers to achieving high energy efficiency for self-builders and corporates? One angle would be the massive increase in people and bodies who have a right to be consulted in a Planning Application over the last 2-3 decades (this is one of my hobbyhorses). 5 - Exploring the enforcement of building regs standards and declared designs in what is actually built. This is a Jeremy area of interest, but your target audience would probably need to be Building Standards Officers in Planning Authorities as the enforcer, and corporate builders, and self-builders. I think you need a rather sharper focus, and perhaps a project redefinition if it was set up before June 23rd 2016. I am sure that people here would be willing to spend a little time on advising you publicly or privately. There are also people here who could introduce you to the right industry people to interview. Hope that helps a little. Ferdinand

I agree - and our new home is better than zero energy, BTW, but wasn't designed to meet a load of Eurobollocks. It's just a well-insulated and airtight box, with effective heat recovery ventilation and a bit of zero carbon energy generation. I will happily bet that few self-builders are interested in spending loads of money to get some sort of additional certification, or comply with a particular, non-mandatory standard, but far more will want to build energy efficient homes for the least cost. Sadly, every single "standard" that's better than Part L1A costs money to prove compliance, money that I'd rather spend on making a more energy efficient home.

Yup, I wondered about this. IMO, the local Highways Department would never do (or approve) allocating parking on a public footpath. I strongly suspect that the originator of the reserved parking area was your neighbour himself. It's about as valid as you painting "NO PARKING" over it.

I only just realised that the parking space had been drawn on the pavement !! Ask the highways to come and go over it with black tar / paint and end this madness. Edit to add : As @JSHarris has said, I'd report it as graffiti and ask that the offending paint be removed as part of their own maintenance. "If you don't ask" eh?

It's definitely a "rogue" parking bay, no question about it, and arguably defacing the road and pavement is the same, legally, as graffiti. Parking on the pavement so as to cause an obstruction (as that van does when parked in that bay) is also an offence, I believe. I'm going to hazard a guess here, from looking at the photos, that the drive alongside number 14 is a bit narrow, and not that easy to get the van in and out of, which is why he's decided to park on the road. The parking bay looks suspiciously like it's been marked to the size of the van! The only long term answer here is for the owner of number 14 to accept that his parking bay has no legal standing, that the council have said it should be removed and for him to sort out how he's going to park his van in future. Bear in mind that the fire service will need to be able to get their vehicles within a given distance of the furthest part of your new build, too, and they may well insist that the area in front of your entrance be kept clear so a fire engine can get to it. If I lived in number 14 I think I'd have a look at whether the drive could be widened so as to allow better access. It looks easy enough to do to me. I'd not offer to do any work for the owner of number 14, as they knew when they bought the house that there was planning permission for the plot that was once their garden, and that the obvious access to that would be used at some future date and so would need to be kept clear. If you don't want to get confrontational with the owner of number 14, then you could ask the fire service if they would advise you as to the access they require, and use that as a lever to get the owner of number 14 to understand the problem he'd cause if he carries of restricting the access to your plot.

I once had the responsibility of getting an electronics company through BS 5750 and the best piece of advice I had from the inspectors was to provide the minimum info necessary to meet the requirements. Anything more detailed just boxes you into a corner you may struggle to get out of.

Join the club. My screen name hints at my past, but I'm now retired Ha! Every day I get up and go about jobs related to our house build. And one of those jobs is networking - because I don't know the answer to most of the problems I face. Just like you. So there's a natural push to lurk and ferret information out - reassurance that you're not the only eejit who has put a window in upside down, or had to post 7 meter steels through a living room window (my son's place last night..... don't ask) That's the power of a community like this, everyone's keen to do a sensible job at a fair price, almost within their budget. Ever found anyone coming in under budget? No, neither have I. I have heard of people who did that, but never met them. But, for me it's the massive reassurance of coming up against some form of knotty problem and suddenly thinking.... I'll ask about that on buildhub, and almost guarantee an answer.