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Some of you will know that we've recently completed our build and moved in. What you may not know is why we built the house we have, and why it is quite literally proving to be a breath of fresh air. Mrs NSS has had various health issues all her life, not least chronic asthma, but a little over 4 years ago things got a whole lot worse. Cumulative damage from the asthma had left the lower third of both lungs in shit shape, and this had led to a 6-weekly cycle of chest infections and antibiotic courses. This vicious circle eventually resulted in hospital admissions for pneumonia and pleurisy, and a diagnosis of Bronchiectasis, a degenerative lung disease for which we were told there was no treatment/cure. My first and only question to the clinician was, "Okay, so what can we do to slow the progression?" The answer, "in an ideal world, live in a hermetically sealed bubble". Essentially, eliminate as many of the irritants (airborne particles and allergens) to her condition as possible, and that's what I set out to achieve from our new home - not so much building the dream as building the bubble. Four years on, plot found, research conducted, house designed and built, and the news is so far so good. We've been in for about two months now and the difference has been remarkable with her reliance on inhalers significantly reduced, and sleeping much better due to reduced congestion. This week she had her regular respiratory check up and her breathing was found to be the best it has been for several years. Yes, it's early days, but if this house enables me and Mrs NSS to enjoy quality time together for longer than may otherwise have been the case, then it will have been worth every sleepless night, every bead of sweat, and every single penny. Whatever your motivation to self build, take a deep breath and go for it - you won't regret it.

Forget electric showers unless you like showering under a dribble. If mains gas is available then it's a no brainer. Decent size combi or system boiler and unvented hot water tank. I would go UFH Wet UFH downstairs, radiators everywhere else with individual trv's so can be turned up / down / off as required or even UFH throughout on all floors. Remember a key feature of UFH is an individual thermostat for every room so unused rooms turned right down and your bedroom set to your cool temperature.

You mean you don't do handstands in the shower?!

Hi all, Just starting planning our second (last) build of a place for our retirement. Have been reading the excellent Harris blog and am intrigued by a) the lack of a 'traditional ' heat store and the use of a buffer and Sunamp. Has anyone else tried this ? and how helpful with the design might Sunamp be? We have good electrical but would appreciate recommendations for plumbing/ME, both design and install. The house will be a rooms in roof bungalow approx 290 M2 of which 180 will be on the GF. Underfloor only of the GF tiny electric radiators upstair. Passiv from MBC looks likely , yet to choose windows so any views appreciated. MVHR and solar PV will be fitted. Thanks Sloco

Sorry. What I meant was that your Building Regs submission will have a document which I think says how much it is estimated to cost for energy. And you know what your current bills are. If you take the difference (which may be £1000 or more per year), add up that saving over say 25 years, it is perhaps more than the 20k you have just sunk into your foundation, and it may be a source of encouragement when the self-build blues strike. So you still are up on where you would have been, even in addition to the benefit of having a nice new comfortable house. It is a bit of a motivational trick.

I don't know .. I will ask you in 2045 should BH still be running . Being a bit more serious, since so many people asking questions on BH are building low maintenance and low cost forever or retirement houses it is probably a good question to keep asking, along with 'where could the lift go should you need one in the future'. Especially given demographics and that as a country we will be working to get social care right for decades. From my own family one relation just about to turn 80 reckons that the good fortune of a house with a shallow staircase and half landings able to take a dining chair for a rest gave them years extra of being able to get upstairs reasonably comfortably. Thinking too about all those people stuck downstairs in terraced houses who are there for a decade or more stuck downstairs after they are unable to get upstairs due to injury or low mobility. Fit people, accident-free mountain walkers / cyclists, yoga / Zumba types / physical workers who keep within limits and dancers etc may be better off. Personally when I get round to self-building from scratch it will have potential full living facilities downstairs and lift-provision as I have a chronic condition that may eventually cause serious physical problems. Had a salutary reminder this week when a tradesman currently working for me has been off for 5 days because he did his back picking up an empty cardboard box at new year. Ironically it was exasperating an old "Good Samaritan" injury from when he lifted a heavy bike off someone being crushed after a motorbike accident 2 decades ago - so no more heavy work and a career redesign will be necessary for him according to the doctors. I guess there is similar stuff about landscape plans designed to need less maintenance over the years. I still remember a garden programme from the 1980s where 2 vigorous 6x or 7x year old golfing-type ladies described the garden of their shared bungalow as a Geriatric Unit designed to be adaptable to zero maintenance plus an occasional gardener as the aged. I love people like that. F

Midway through my bathroom build I had to temporarily divert the single pipe 3/4" nominal bore copper system that feeds my downstairs CH. The diversion is in 22mm plastic The room it runs across where the stairs are has no heating but this creates a lovely warm line across the floor!

UFH everywhere! It’s glorious

No - but something I read on here has got me thinking that way. I've lived in a bungalow for 18 years and I know I don't 'do' stairs as well as I used to. However, in the month the builders have been on site I am using the external steps much better than I was. SO stairs are good to keep me active and supple but I live alone and often go a couple of weeks without family contact. So 'relaxed' stairs seem like a positive - along with smart technology to ensure my ongong independence.

I went for 38 degrees rather than the building regs max 42 degrees. How many more years will that give me?

I was pottering about tonight waiting on Ikea to not turn up (THANKS ikea) and enjoying walking on the carpet without shoes . Most areas will be carpeted and we chose a pretty thick pile and good underlay to make it feel as cosy and soft as possible. It struck me that we couldn't have had that if we went for UFH. A friend has UFH and carpet and the carpet feels very hard and not the feel we wanted. I have no issue with UFH - I just felt it was one complexity I wasn't confident handling on our first build and with the carpets, was the right decision for us. Worth bearing in mind. J

Master ensuite not yet really fixed and won't be finalised until I can get in there and really visualise it. The washer/dryer is going in there somewhere - most washing is clothes. Almost happy to have it as one big room as modern ventilation should ensure no damp problems. A good size shower is a priority, may need disabled access at (hopefully not) at sometime. Bathroom is moving across to be a mini en-suite off bed 2 (next to the mid wall) as with a downstairs loo and an upstairs ensuite, it will only be used a couple of times a year, although this is the one that is on the entry level so will have to meet building regs for access. The then big utility will be a hobby come storage room - I refinish furniture as a profitable hobby so need space for diy and painting in there

One thing to consider is the physical size of any heating/DHW system. Gas Combi is probably the smallest. As soon as you get into storing energy i.e. DHW, then you need more space. Now if it is just you, and the occasional guest, it need not take up much room (your house has about double the footprint of mine). I live alone, but have had a lodger in the past, and a 200 lt cylinder was fine. If I was starting from scratch, I would fit a Sunamp, with PV and an ASHP (no gas and I know how they work). As odd as this sound, I would also consider what I have at the moment, Economy 7. The capital outlay is very low and I am a low user (sub 4 MWh/year). There are limitations, but being single, they are easy to work around. I find it is always worth doing an estimate on an E7 heating and DHW system as a reality check when looking at quotes for other systems. You may need to fit a water softener as well, they take up a bit of room. I don't have the problem. Partly why my DHW cylinder has lasted 30 years, but I do need to change the lower element now, but scared to as the cylinder may buckle and spring a leak.

@Hecateh you may have posted your plans originally and I didn't see them. Just looking at them, the master en suite looks uncomfortably small. I would make it wider and the dressing room a little smaller. I would also put a nice big shower right across the end of the room. When you say the bathroom will be an ensuite, how will that works as it is across the hall?

As I’ve previously stated I’m trying to get on with the oak canopy No chance of fitting in this rain and high winds ive had to go back to planners as the Architect had drawn this supported by gallow brackets The full section pictured Just needs two diagnals then glueing Two Of is can Just about lift it off the workbench It will take four of us to lift this one section into place Ive built two small pillars with square top caps To sit the 6x6 oak pillars on Months ago and asked the Architect to speak to planners Hes says that he has done simalar designs and never had any issues I spoken to the engineer today He was a great help He said if I build it out of bolder wood I should be ok He did a quick calc and said the Gallow brackets would have to extend virtually down to the floor to have any chance of supporting it and to push on and get it fitted

You can certainly see from the section that no steel is envisioned. It shows a lintel. I have steels in my roof exactly that truncated A shape. Cold bridging shouldn't be an issue as only at the right hand side would it be bridging to the interior, everywhere else it is the exterior of the balcony behind it. More difficult will be hiding the steel with a brick finish. It would go inline with the inside wall with a plate holding up the outside wall. When you look up at the underside of the wall though you are going to see a 300mm wide metal plate. Really SE should advise and if they have already been paid they have clearly made a mistake not to include it.

I've tried that tack. But I don't understand their response(s) I'm a Domestic Client. And so is @Hecateh So, let's help her. @PeterW, or @JSHarris or @TerryE or any secret SEs we have on here, or secret BCOs, or an architect, or architectural technician will do fine, or @nod'll know or steels fabricator What EXACTLY should @Hecateh ask?

Isn’t your architect married to the SE...?? If so, ask her to mention over the Rice Krispies (other cereals are available) that they have missed the skyhooks off the SE spec.... Short of running a steel from wall plate to gable both sides and then creating a long bar “A” frame for the gable to stand on, you are going to struggle. I’d ask a pointed question about how they envisage it working and then wait for the answer - and I wouldn’t be paying for it either ..!!

Some steel work should sort it, but that then creates another problem - how do you mitigate the potential thermal bridging where the steel goes? The steel would also have to be specially fabricated as a sort of truncated A shape, to rest on the walls either side and support the brickwork across the set back opening. In terms of reducing the thermal bridge problem, and potentially the need to fire protect the steel, I wonder if the steel could be designed as an architectural feature on the open side, with a plate to support the brickwork above?

Yup. 'Twas a narrow room so the idea was a completely fold away shower so they could cut a straight line to the peepee machine and have a bit of room when using the sink. I desgned it from scratch and it worked out great, other than when Novellini gave me the wrong sized shower glasses and tried to blame me. I nearly knocked the Rep out when he came to site 3 weeks later with an unusable shower. What a condescending prick he was. I actually said that I'd like him to get out of the bathroom so when he hit something on the way down it wouldn't be expensive. Tossa. ?

PM sent.

Just remember NOT to put ballifix valves before this. Instead you need to use 1/4 full bore valves so as not to restrict the flow .

Internally the 15mm OSB wouldn't be as airtight as the 12mm VapourBlock OSB. I wouldn't go changing that considering this is your airtight layer.

It's changing the geometry that helps. At the centre of a wall there is only one 2D heat loss path - outwards. At the point of a corner there are two heat loss paths, one out through either wall. The result is that corners can have a greater heat loss because of their geometry, hence the term geometric thermal bridge. It's one reason, along with decreased local airflow, why black mould more often grows in internal corners, as they are often colder and hence tend to attract more condensation.

Touché!...or do I mean Douche?

I used to do site investigations. How many areas where contaminated??? How much of the lead/ asbestos was found??? Are they looking a gas monitoring standpipe put in to see if any other nasty things have leeched into the water table?? Are you are to find out what the site was used for in the past, was it a factory, garage repair place, shops etc?? What depth of made ground is there on the site and did they probe any where to see what the water table is??

if you're digging a basement then this is an important consideration (it was for us). From where did they detect the contaminants? How much made ground do you have under your feet? Worst case you may need to dispose of the made ground and the as yet undisturbed ground separately which will add to your costs but some further clarity on the scope of the contamination will help quantify this (and minimise cost).

Echoes of our soil survey. And I must admit to panicking a bit about the cost implications. Until I realised the significance of our site being on a gentle slope. That meant we would be bringing 400 tonnes of MoT1 in (and take no soil out) to level the site. So any contaminant (in our case lead , Pb) would be even more hidden than it is now. We have built on 'Made Ground' - spoil from an old clay quarry.

SHE'S said: "I thought we were mitreing the wet room corner?" My own fault for showing her THAT photo I suppose! Fire up the Pritt Stick!