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So update time. I had to wait for some more conduit to be delivered hence the delay but so far we have done 3 zones covering 2 rooms. It got a bit complicated around the shower waste but I’m happy with how it turned out.

It's starting to feel like the finish line is in sight now. Since my last entry, I've largely finished the interior including all the flooring, the doors, most of the kitchen, the windowsills, and the huge and daunting task of the bathroom (big thanks to @Nickfromwales for answering my hundreds of questions on that one!). I got a plumber in to install my UVC (sorry Nick, forgot to get a photo of that). I've also done a bit more of the cladding, but the exterior work has been on the back burner. I've also gone back to work full time since my last blog post, which is why everything has slowed down so much. Still managing to get a bit done in the evenings and at weekends. You'll notice some furniture has appeared, some of this was given to me by a neighour and was very handy for storing all my tools etc; the bed and sofa were in storage with family and eventually I exhausted their goodwill and had to take delivery of them! The shower has had a couple of test runs, and SWMBO reports that it is very nice indeed. The plan is to be open for business in April, which should be tight but doable. I expect that at that stage I'll still have some outside jobs left to finish but the inside is only a few days away from completion now. Sorry for the crappy image quality- will have to do a bit better when the time comes to do the proper marketing shots

I have been reading the thread on MBC with great interest. I have now been in our newbuild for almost five years. I knew very little about building an energy efficient house beforehand. Fortunately, I found a project manager reasonably locally, who helped design our systems, alter the spec of the timber frame, and supply most of the labour. Without him, I could not have succeeded. We did a lot of the work together, from laying drains, to remedying electrical issues, with me as the labourer. He did cost a fair bit, but I reckon I saved most of his fees through clever purchasing decisions, and innovative thinking. He researched purchases and sourced them, and I spent my evenings purchasing them on the internet. We did not employ an architect, but used Scotframe for our timber frame. Our two joiners, who were the main contractors, were told at the outset, that there would be an airtest at the end of the build. Get it right, and that's your next reference. They did, and very little supervision was required in terms of airtightness. In short, if you have little experience in housebuilding, I would strongly recommend getting a good project manager. I am certainly pleased I did, and have got the house I wanted. Colin

I think judging by the fact theres a bare board over studs and no insulation, that its just so he can mock the ufh up and drop the screed in

Regarding the tiles If you have an exspansion gap to all other edges there is no problem tiling up tight to Patios Same goes for the timber As JS has already stated Beither will move that much

We have traditional foundations with a Hanson jetfloor slab. The below ground blockwork is topped with Foamglass Perinsul to mitigate cold bridginging. We used a local builder to carry out the groundwork and emphasised the need for the perimeter to be mm accurate (both dimensionally and level). UFH pipes were laid direct over the Jetfloor and a 70mm fibre reinforced structural slab poured before the TF came to site. We chose Scandia Hus to supply and erect the timber frame. From our very first contact with them we were allocated a project manager and he remained our main contact throughout. Ours is not one of their 'standards' designs, but a completely bespoke one-off to my design. They took my drawings and turned them into working ones, handling structural calcs, as design SAP, even the submission of the detailed planning application. We felt completely comfortable and involved in the process and greatly appreciated the benefit of the experience that SH and our PM brought to the project, suggesting minor tweaks that would ensure the final design/layout was the best we could achieve for our purpose. Scandia Hus effectively offer a menu of options which can be added to the basic frame, including (if desired) windows, doors, UFH, MVHR, staircases, joinery items, etc. I understand they can even offer a full turnkey package for those who can afford to go that route. We chose a relatively basic package of the frame (including erection) to sarked and breather membraned roof, plus supply of all the insulation (thermal and acoustic), all timber for the internal studwork (structural internal walls were erected by SH), timber for wall and ceiling battening, t&g chipboard flooring for 1st floor and all 224 sheets of plasterboard (all 15mm). Our builder delivered a near perfect perimeter for the timber frame to sit on, such that no shimming of the soleplate was required (according to the SH erection crew that was pretty unusual). On the appointed day said team turned up - both of them. Yes, the SH timber frame erection teams consist of two guys (aided for 2 days by a crane and driver to lift the larger cassettes for the first floor walls). They were on site for just 14 days and the work ethic of the guys we had was exemplary. So, all fine and dandy - well not quite. One of the wall panels was made the wrong size and one had an incorrectly sized window opening, but replacements were ordered (the factory is in Sussex) and delivered to site within 48 hours so any delay was minimal. We also had a problem with floor joists not being level in one area when we came to lay the flooring boards upstairs. Turned out that they'd craned a very heavy load onto this section and some of the joist hangers had buckled under the weight but this was not visible at the time due to the temporary 'deck' of 22mm OSB that had been loose laid before the heavy load had been deposited. As soon as the issue was identified SH sent a crew to rectify. Finally, we discovered much later when battening the vaulted ceiling in the lounge that the rafters (cut to fit on site) had been set at a slightly different angle than they should have been. This would have led to a tapered line between the ceiling and the top of the (angled) windows. A call to SH and (again within a couple of days) they supplied a set of battens planed to size to add as shims to the ceiling battens so as to bring the ceiling line parallel to the window frames. We're delighted with our now (nearly) finished home and are loving living in it. Are Scandia Hus perfect? No, but as others have said, it's not so much whether problems occur but how they're dealt with. Do they build the most energy efficient homes available? No, but we have no complaints and with our EPC of 96 it's hardly going to be an expensive home to run. Would we use Scandia Hus again? Absolutely. Sure there are probably cheaper TF suppliers out there, there may well even be better ones, but you pay your money and you make your choice - and we're very happy with the choices we made (which is all that matters really).

The shower trays seem much of muchness With some giving a free waste I got a free waste with all three of mine and replaced the with mc alpine wastes I’m not a plumber but I could see that the free ones looked flimsy

Then I shall stop posting them.

Ours is very quiet in heating mode, noisier for DHW when running full tilt, but in both cases no more than the noise from a gas boiler flue.

Yeah i've got a spare one something like that laying around somewhere, it did remove the smells, but it choked the hood so much, that it barely moved any air, so I took it off, think our hood is just massively underpowered.

Don't forget this thread:

Thomas at Ecowin has done a couple of builds here, including mine. I had a good experience with them but Gaulhofer are not a budget brand WRT weight, whats the concern? I can move my 500kg slider with a single finger...

I have just been on the catnic training course for the standing seam roofing sheets, I liked the product very much and it is nice and easy to work with. Just depends on the look you are after.

The EPC recommendations are hilarious, especially the pay back periods. Here's a screenshot from ours: It doesn't mention any band change presumably because we're already well above Band A. If solar thermal cost £5k, then at £195 over three years it would take over 76 years just to recover the investment, not accounting for repairs, maintenance and replacement of out-of-life parts.....................

I once designed a large new-build curry factory located right next to a lot of housing. All extracts from the food production areas were filtered through an externally located shipping container that was fitted with racks of carbon.

It seems that a fair few of these odour-reducing filter manufacturers have sprung up from the need to ventilate indoor cannabis farms without letting the distinctive, and rather strong, odour escape.............. Making a home brew carbon filter with fish-tank granules should be really easy. The cross sectional area needs to be large, as the granules will restrict flow, so I would suggest trying to find a carbon granule based recirculating cooker hood cartridge, as large as you can find, and then make a case to house it inline with the fresh air feed to the rooms (not on the intake side of the MVHR, on the fresh air outlet side, so it has the benefit of being warmed up and pre-filtered). If you include an ozone generator before the carbon filter you may well be able to extend the life of the granules before they need changing/regenerating. All told not a hard thing to DIY, and it would have the added advantage of acting as a silencer on the fresh air feed side, too. Fish tank granules are cheap when bought in bulk, I still have around 5 or 6 kg of them from the 10kg I bought years ago to replenish our cooker hood filter.

Apologies, as im only seeing this now....this place is moving in the fast lane at the moment The pump looks fine, brass body / brass impellers, ticks all the boxes afaic. Have you considered a slimline UVC? No need for pumps then maybe, and you can do away with the huge CWS you'll need if going to a 2 or 3 bar twin pump. 50 gallon minimum for that. Question for 2 or 3 bar is dependant on whether you want to run two showers simultaneously. Then you need to look how much hot water that will use as two showers will suck a regular hot tank dry in no time at all. Last one I did all pumped was a nightmare, and we ended up fitting a much bigger hot cylinder and adding a 50 gal CWS tank to the existing 25 gal tank so they could fill their large bath without a drought.

I think they were ones I looked at but Residence 9 came out a lot cheaper