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Terry, there's nothing recent about it, it started on ebuild. For me though, it's not so much the continuous plugging of MBC and passive slabs at every opportunity, it's the scorn poured on anyone who dares to use anything 'inferior'. As I've said before, this forum can be a beacon for better, more energy efficient builds, but that requires that it be a broad church. You and others have obviously had a good experience with MBC, and that's great, but when a member posts such a carefully worded review as @ryder72 has done, he deserved better than to be accused of being to blame (at least in part) for poor project management. If someone came on here and posted a similarly 'warts and all' (and yet remarkably balanced under the circumstances) review about A N Other supplier, would anyone have been so quick to defend the supplier and point the finger of blame at the client? I think not, so it's not healthy that one supplier, no matter how good, is 'protected' in such a way, never mind that a poster is made to feel uncomfortable about posting anything negative about that supplier when they've clearly had a bad experience. Rant over.

Thanks for the replies guys and the PM from one administrator. All read and taken on board but I stand by my comments. Please refer back to the third sentence of my post. As a great friend of mine once said “opinions are like arseholes, everyone has one” (yes that’s an attempt at injecting some humour) This is a great open, uncommercial forum, long may it continue.

My boys were at home whilst I was in Asda Yup, just when you think its safe to give the last of your hard earned to the supermarket thieves.........Godzilla decides to stamp his feet in my back garden. Phone call from the house....."Dad, the whole house just shook, im scared!"....Me..."Dont talk daft boy, we dont get earthquakes" Turns out they were right and I was wrong!!!!!

Don't think I'd admit to the wife not having felt the earth move...

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

#oldguys

PErmitted development is 3m max eaves height within 2m of a boundary, and then you need to watch for gutter overhang etc. See this link. So yes they would need planning. I think they will also have the right to insert reinforced foundations under your garden. You need to understand that PP does not give them the general right to encroach on your property without your permission eg you can charge them rent for placing scaffolding in your garden. And as it is so far down your garden I think they will get planning permission. One area you need to work out is who owns the hedge and where the boundary is and make sure it is clear, though it looks like their hedge on their land. NOt sure about Party Wall Agreements. But no Council will enforce anything until they have actually DONE something unlawful, and they may just give retrospective permission, and most of the enforcement will be down to you protecting your civil rights if it comes to that. Things to do. 1 Talk to your Council Planners and work out exactly where you stand, or consult the Planning Advice service from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, RICS. See their website ... they will only give general law and policy advice not specific cases. 2 - Talk to your neighbours and explain the limitations with evidence. Always the practical place to start. Don't make any rash black and white statements. 3 - I would consider building something on your side up to the boundary if you want to discourage them from building to the boundary, such as a garage, workshop or shed. Or a 4ft deep carp pond all along that side up to the boundary would make their attempted insertion of foundations more interesting. 4 - In your position I would be looking at outline pp for a small house or bungalow on your land at the bottom if feasible and then selling off the plot. Ferdinand

We settled for top hung openings that swing outwards, and you can swing them right out and back to present the outside face of the glass to the room for easy cleaning. Ones that tilt, or turn, always strike me as a mechanical nightmare and seal compromise, plus as already noted they open inwards, not good if you have left a window open and it rains.....

'Twas fetish night in Radwinter....

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).

Tray is stone resin with something on top. Ordered now. Will prob have a question or two when it arrives - easier to answer than @Onoff questions!

Yes, this is an obsession. The ten years might seem a bit misleading. I was 22 when we put in out line planning and was earning a pittance after finishing university, the credit crunch hit and nobody was lending especially to first buyer, let alone first time buyer and self builders, but now I have saved enough money and earn a salary which allows me to get a self build mortgage. Yes I think when it properly starts I will keep a blog. Here is a picture of the site roughly where the digger is.

I'm hoping the girl in video 2 steps under it and at the touch of a button the one in video 1 steps out!

Does it tan whilst drying?

It certainly is: And it has a remote:

I doubt anyone with a passive slab would have felt it

It looks good but how effective will it be? Hot head and wet feet? Mounting it in the floor Marilyn Monroe style might work better, now there's a thought in more ways than one.

How much airtightness tape do you need? I have part of a roll left over, the expensive Siga stuff, that you could have for free if it might help.

@mvincentd, you are far from alone, I think there are many of us here that have found ourselves in the same position. My view is the same as yours, that I felt that my personal interest in things being done as they should be, and as we wanted them to be, made me more diligent than a professional may have been. My problem was solely a lack of understanding of the way that the various building trades normally work, and particularly how they interact. If I ever did this again I'd definitely be a lot better at it, but for many, perhaps most, self-builders it's a once in a lifetime project.

I found it by using a tip that someone gave me on another forum, that doesn't always seem to find things with the "search" facility. Most search engines will have a site-specific search facility, so if you go into whichever search engine you use, type in the search term (I used "Sikabond" in this case) then a space, then the following with no spaces: site:https://forum.buildhub.org.uk you should find that all the search results come from Buildhub.

I stoped short at saying Chinese and Turkish tiles are Crap But they are not fired for as long and quite brittle Very prone to chipping Which wouldn’t be an issue in bathrooms But I wouldn’t put them on a downstairs floor By far the best are Italian Spanish Portuguese In that order Nearly always Italian or Spanish on The commercial jobs I do I wouldn’t put tiles onto a heated screed without matting But three years back we were converting a barn for the M.D. of a large company that we do a lot of for He needed to be in by Christmas Couldnt get his bio boiler commissioned Said go ahead and tile the 153 mtr floor No time to bother with decoupling matting Three years on it looks just like the day it was done He’s time poor and cash rich and can easily afford to have the lot roped up and done again So there’s no telling If I took a chance and didn’t mat mine Which would save me about a thousand I guarantee mine would crack or lift

Good point, but your suggestion to me a while ago to use the motor driven Salus head was brilliant, as it has completely removed the need for a blending/thermostatic mixer valve. When fitted to either the main flow or return valve on the manifold (both of ours use the same pin-operated valve body) the Salus valve, with it's two sensors, automatically maintains the flow temperature at exactly the right level. It's a magic bit of kit in my opinion, and I now have our TMV turned fully open (I may well just remove the head and capillary tube and replace it with a cap with a push down pin). Might be an option here, as long as the system isn't being zone controlled. Even if it is, fitting the sensor clips to an always on zone would work, I'm sure. I'm not sure Salus intended this head to be used like this, but, based on my experience I can say it seems to work very well.

Sorry, I’ve just got to reply to this: The problem is that’s not what happened. The initial respondents to @ryder72 excellent review sought to question his experience, management and interpretation of events . I accept that might have not been what was intended but it is certainly how it read. It is further unfortunate that all those people are I believe founders or administrators of this forum. You are are quite right that what should have happened was a posting of their own experiences positive or negative.

Members who have used a given company can talk in detail about that company. What I would like to see is more members who have used other companies explain the values and advantages of the alternatives. Someone has to generate that content. That's what this thread is about.

I may have it wrong but AFAIK T&T only open inwards and casement only open outwards. We now have T&T which is new to us and the advantage of tilt is useful for ventilation but having the windows pivot inwards can be awkward eg window blinds. Then again cleaning T&T couldn't be easier. MVHR doesn't need to be used in the summer when the windows can provide ventilation.

If you want to deter people from coming round, then get security cameras. I haven't quite got round to fitting ours yet and this happened last month... A couple of videos from the ring.com video doorbell 11:43pm - https://ring.com/share/6508829689333376523 11:46pm - https://ring.com/share/6508830466722457099

[ Edited in line with other edit above to remove dead quote. ] There is a view recently implied or expressed by some members that the forum is pro-MBC, to the exclusion of other TF alternatives. Yes, some of the active contributors including myself have been open about having MBC timber frames in their builds and have blogged and posted about our experiences. I just wish that members with other TFs would put their experiences and recommendations into print so that these can be mined by new members. I started this thread to encourage other members to present such a balanced set of alternatives to new members, but I can't create this content.

Night terrors for weeks now, cheers

Yup. Just leave a 4-5mm gap for a coloured silicone and job done.

Tidy, just thought I'd mention it. Keep up the good work.

View from hiuse looking down garden toward toward the ‘point’. Low fence to neighbour and low chain link fence to the right (stream).

Our stairs also came from Stairbox. They did get 2 of the newel posts wrong so they re made them. Of the replacements only one was correct, so they re made one of them a second time before it was finally all correct. But they never quibbled and sent the replacements promptly.

I second StairBox, ours was delivered in 5 days after accepting the design/quote and it fitted together very well, we have a problem with the handrail but their tech support is very helpful. Also very reasonable.

Stairbox also worth a look

This is a close up of one of my Oak Veneered doors. It is a Todd Doors Cottage Oak style done with Osmo Satin Polyx Oil. I will have to crop and rotate when on the right computer.

There can be advantages in placing a fresh air feed adjacent to a doorway into a room with an extract. For example, I have one in our hall that is above the door to the kitchen and the kitchen is connected to the utility room and then the downstairs WC, so effectively there are three extracts pulling air through that single doorway. By putting a fresh air feed above it, in the hall, I've effectively created an "air curtain" to contain any cooking smells to the kitchen area. You could do the same with an additional fresh air feed above the door to the ensuite.

T'Pol from Enterprise does it for me. Just got to pluck up the courage to ask SWMBO to wear those pointy ears I got her....