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have a large glass of whisky ready for when you receive your quote!!

So in the interests of sharing what I have been provided by a very helpful IVT support engineer : The A-inputs acts like a “binary staircase”. So each signal is either on or off, 24V (not PWM). Step A1 A2 A3 Power 0 0 0 0 0% 1 0 0 1 30% 2 0 1 0 42% 3 0 1 1 53% 4 1 0 0 65% 5 1 0 1 77% 6 1 1 0 88% 7 1 1 1 100% For the B-outputs : B3 B2 Operating mode 1 1 Normal 1 0 Restricted 0 1 Defrost 0 0 Failure/Power off Looking at the wiring, A5 and B1 are bridged to a common point (need to confirm 24v or GND) which leaves the A4 terminal all lonely .... Anyone hazard a guess as to what it actually does ..? I think cooling ..! Just to add to this, these are the DIP switch settings : I will share the service manual for the Mitsubishi unit if anyone wants it but it’s avaialble online

In the end, I've managed to get an MCS install but it is expensive. The break even point for me, taking into account self-consumption is just under the 10 year mark. I'm okay with this as the system has a 25 year life span and I can afford to take the longer view. I'm planning to do a blog post over the weekend on the systems I'm putting into my build so I will put more detail in that.

Hi all. Currently we are about to apply for Outline Planning at our site so I am (and have been for the last 9 months) doing a lot of research on Planning Policies and house design etc. In the 1960's my father and his brother built around 10 brick bungalows that he said he bought the bungalow plans out of a magazine in a newsagent.. Literally off the shelf!! He then took the building plans to a local architect who positioned them on to the site plan ready for submitting to LPA. This saved a significant amount of money on custom house design as they were happy with the off the shelf design albeit they did tweak them. My question is have many of you had success in buying off the shelf plans? Such as what www.houseplansdirect.co.uk provide? Best Regards Oliver

We’ve now sold the old house and have far too much money sat in a bank account, it’s not earning its keep and it’s over the Government guarantee if the bank went bust. So the question is what to do with it? We need some short term and longer term investments. Any low to medium risk suggestions?

We had a small problem at the old house, wasps had started to build a nest in a corner of the roof, flying in and out via a small gap in the facia board. This is right next to the drive and I spotted them yesterday when laying the gravel, and as it's right next to the entrance to the house there was a high risk of getting stung later in the year, when they tend to get more aggressive. Last time we had a similar problem, on the other side of the house, above our bedroom window, I didn't spot it until late in the summer, by which time the nest was the size of a football up in the loft and we could hear the noise in the bedroom underneath. I had to pay a bloke from the council around £50 to come out and deal with it, after my own attempt to puff insecticide powder in the hole resulted in my getting multiple stings (no fun when your up a ladder). This time I did a bit of digging around on the web and came across this gadget: http://waspnestkiller.co.uk/acatalog/Dustick-High-Reach-Dust-Powder-Applicator-dustick.html for close on £200. Looking at it in use (there are Youtube videos of people using it) it seemed ideal, as you can stay on the ground and just poke the nozzle in the hole and pump in insecticide powder. I wasn't going to pay £200, so last night I went and had a look to see what I had lying around. I found a length of 1 1/4" solvent waste pipe, an 1 1/4" solvent straight joiner and a screw on solvent end cap. I also had some 50mm diameter grey PVC bar, some 6mm brass pipe, a length of 25mm PVC pressure pipe (20mm bore), a very low blow off pressure fuel-type non-return valve and a Schrader valve with a 1/8" BSP thread on it. All the parts were glued together with ordinary pipe solvent cement, which works just as well on the bits of PVC that I turned up. So, this is roughly what I made up. First the drawing of the two ends: The way this works is that you unscrew the top with the brass pipe, and fill the bit of waste pipe with insecticide powder. This doesn't need to me marketed as wasp killer (I found it hard to buy wasp killer powder in the local garden centre) it just needs to be a powder containing around 1% or so permethrin. Ant powder is usually the cheapest way to buy the stuff, and it works very well against any form of insect (including beneficial ones, like bees, so use it with caution). With the top part full of powder you can screw the lid with the brass tube on, as shown in the photos before (taken after use): When assembled, the whole thing looks like this: It could be made a lot longer, but our house is a bungalow so I cut the 25mm pipe down to make it easier to handle. The non-return valve in the base of the upper section just stops powder going down the 25mm pipe - not sure whether this was needed, I think I could probably have got away without the bit of 1 1/4" waste pipe, but it is easier to pour powder into the larger opening. Finally this is a close up of the Schrader valve at the lower end: To use this I connected a tyre inflater to the Schrader valve, that was connected to my compressor (at around 90 psi). The brass nozzle was poked into the hole where the wasps were coming in and out and the air trigger quickly pulled to blow almost the entire contents of the powder container neatly into where their next was. I then beat a hasty retreat, as permethrin tends to get wasps a bit mad for a few minutes, before they snuff it. I went out half an hour later and there was no sign of wasps at all, other than some dead ones on the ground. Best of all, there was very little sign of white powder when I'd sprayed the stuff in, as unlike the puffer bottles, this gadget squirts a high velocity narrow stream of dust directly into any hole. The only thing I had to buy was a bottle of ant killer powder for around £2.50, and I only used around half of it. The rest was made from "may come in handy bits", plus the use of my small bench lathe. It took me less than an hour to make - the longest bit was waiting a couple of hours to make sure the solvent cement had gone off, before I could have a go at using it. If anyone wants to borrow it they are welcome. I think it would work every bit as well with something like a bicycle track pump as a compressor, as it doesn't need a lot of air (a 1 second burst was about all it took to empty the container).

Well that’s good news after all that effort! You will need the completion certificate to put the vat claim in and you have 3 months in which to send it.

Sorry didn’t make myself clear it’s my current home that we are selling

Just leave the PB - you’ll never see it !

I wish there was an open source heat pump available where you could customise the control algorithms. There are cetainly some daft things on mine that I would alter if I had the ability. In the absence of that, to make a heat pump fully customisable, you would have to build your own controller, that means understanding how the refrigeration plant is supposed to work and operate all the valves correctly in the right manner. I don't see that as feasible. So we are left with the more sensible option of use the controller built in, and do our best to find the hidden or undocumented features to ger the most from it, and where it lacks a particular function, think out of the box for a way to work with what you have, to make it do what you want.

I specify plenty on commercial projects that are linked to access control systems. Not that make but im sure if you do the usual checks and look into what the security is around coding of swipes it should be ok.

No wiring required ...

That of course would be far too logical, so you can guarantee nobody will implement that.

My panels are pretty bad shadowed by tress...... I bought a chainsaw?

There is always an "event" just round the corner. I personally would not hold off, just invest it in a balanced way. Example: Brexit doom has been on the cards for about 2 years. Over that period markets (albeit higher risk side) have returned me over 20%. I believe there is never a right or wrong time, just do it early, spread the risk and also buy frequently and often rather than one one big lump payment.

Most councils say 3 years for the exemption

Most inverters (i think 3kw and up) have two strings so easily to split into east west. 15m is no problem but maybe go up to 6mm (from 4mm) cable this helps with voltage drop on longer runs(So my installer said).

Bring her over again. I promise she won't suffocate

Fuss was on the grounds of safety as the road is on the exit from the village and there was no speed limit (there is now a 40 mph speed limit). The village council made the fuss and as next door’s drive is on a slight bend it was decided that it wasn’t a safe place to have a drive. Then the PP was altered to have the access across the front of my plot and onto their driveway but then it was decided that would confuse drivers at night so the vehicular entrance was forced round the back. It meant that the position of my house had to be shifted too. This was all before I bought the plot. After the houses were built the community council continued their vendetta against the houses being here (they’re not even in the village!) and complained to the main council continually. One of their complaints was that a vehicle could enter the drive of the house from the front (they never used the drive) so next door were forced to put a fence up.

I am imagining them lulling themselves to sleep with a dream of counting farmers jumping through bureaucratic hoops.

Taking your list and breaking it down to items that anyone building on that plot of land would have to face, and those items that are optional, or could be resolved in more than one way: 1. Any form of demanded environmental study/report/mitigation measure is going to be mandated by law and/or the planning authorities. Nothing anyone can do except comply with the requirements or walk away from considering developing that land. It's nothing at all to do with self building. 2. Archaeological surveys, reports, watching briefs etc, exactly as above, the developer of the land only has a choice as to whether to comply with the law/planning requirements or walk away, and it wouldn't make a jot of difference if the developer was a self builder or any other builder, the same would apply. 3. The use of a planning consultant depends on many factors. Self-builders are no different from any other builder when it comes to making this choice - if it looks like obtaining PP may be challenging then anyone should carefully consider if there is merit in using a planning consultant who will be far more familiar with local planning policy and the particular quirks of the local planning department. 4. Ground condition determination, not necessarily drilling, there are a host of ways of obtaining the data needed and anyone developing any land anywhere is going to need this information, whether they are a self builder or any other person wanting to build on the land, 5 All foundations need to be either designed using approved details (effectively SE designed systems that are known to work for those conditions) or have to have an individual SE's input. It matters not whether the builder is a self-builder or not, Part A applies equally to all. 6. The vast majority of houses built in the UK are not designed by an architect. Last time I looked at the data that was available, the figure was something like 10% are architect designed. Whether a self builder chooses to use an architect to design a house is no different a decision as to whether any other builder chooses to use an architect. 7. An architects project management service is probably something a larger developer may choose to use, probably on a non-domestic development, than it is something a self-builder would opt for. Some architects offer it as a service, usually along with some form of certificate to satisfy a lender, some don't. 8. No such thing as a "Technical Architect" as far as I'm aware. There are architects, who have their own professional body, and their are architectural technicians, who are not architects but often do many of the smaller jobs for which an architect's fees may represent too high a proportion of the total value. 9. A building warranty is not usually optional for self-builders using a lender to fund the build, or who need to sell the house within ten years of completion. There is an alternative, to have an architect manage the build and provide a certificate, and some lenders will accept that in place of a warranty, some won't. The decision as to whether to have some form of warranty is not at all unique to self builders, it applies to anyone building a house that wishes to either use a lender to fund the build or wishes to sell it within ten years to someone who needs a lender to fund the purchase. 10. Site insurance applies equally to anyone building on land. It's not mandatory, but you need deep pockets if you wish to self-insure for public liability risk. Everyone from big developers to self-builders face exactly the same decision on site insurance. 11. CDM doesn't normally apply to self-builders - read the useful summary on it here: https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/2514-cdm-2015-and-the-domestic-client/?tab=comments#comment-38515 12. There is no legal requirement for any "site cabin", for self builders; there will be for a developer or big builder employing people though. All a self-builder has to provide is a toilet and hand washing facilities, which can be met with a portaloo. 13. Not sure where you get the idea that there is any requirement for a "fancy mineral water dispenser". There needs to be clean water on site, but there isn't a requirement on a self-builder to provide potable water (although most would, as tea/coffee definitely lubricates site workers and keeps them happy). 14. There is a legal requirement to put fencing around a site that meets the requirements of the insurers, primarily, and the general test as to whether site fencing is adequate, in terms of protecting the general public, is the normal legal test for reasonableness, "would the man on the Clapham omnibus consider this fencing to be a reasonable way of keeping people out?" 15. Site safety notices are a mandatory requirement, to warn the general public that it is a potentially dangerous building site, to tell them to keep out (this backs up the statement that the fencing makes) and to advise anyone entering the site on the minimum level of PPE that they should both equip themselves with and use when working on site. There is no requirement on a self-builder to enforce the wearing of PPE, although many of us try to, just out of common sense. So, in summary, quite what amongst this lengthy list is specific to a self builder, and doesn't apply to anyone else building on a given plot of land?

I have only been interested in self build for 6 months and have already spotted the divergent approaches to delivering a property between self builders and pro developers. First time self builders seem to want to distance themselves from risk by spending money on non structure outgoings. Consider: Newt enviro investigation. Archaeological dig and report. Planning consultant. Ground sample drilling. Special SE designed foundations. Architect. Architect's project management service. Technical architect. Building Warranty. Then tick all the optional boxes on the self builder site insurance application. Contract out CDM 2015 to an external consultant. Hire a deluxe site facility cabin. Install a fancy mineral water dispenser. Ring the whole site with shiny new metal fencing. Buy a pack of site health & safety notices. It is easy to blow £40k to £50k before getting to dpc.

Odd comment, frankly very odd! Bit of a chip? It seems you have an issue with professionals in the construction industry, the professionals who design aspects of of the built environment. I was approached a couple of weeks ago by a women who wishes to build a large extension, she is unsure how to go about it and the way to get best value for money. I suggested that I would have her planning permission drawings produced and I would have various details drawn up by our structural engineer and the building warrant drawings I would produce using the material produced from various sources including the "standard text" which is part of our library (roof makeup, renders, fire stops, drainage etc. which as you know is not detailed as a drawing but often just provided as text which specs the makeup). We would then obtain her permission/warrant. This will give her a full design and PP and building warrant when complete and will cost her little more than £1500.00 for our fee. She is not buying a comfort blanket, she is buying security and she is buying detail that we will insist her extension is built to. This gives her a high quality well designed build without "professional builders" erecting some cheap tat with poorly or non-designed aspects. If anything goes wrong due to the detail provided then it is our practises liability, for which we have insurances which will protect her and she is aware of this. We as a firm would protect her and would even step in to cover costs if we made a mistake that cost her or her appointed builder due to our negligence - we will also plan to PM the build for her and provide a site PM who will keep an eye on details as the build commences and allow for variations to be produced if anything must change due to our error or factors beyond our control which we may or may not change for. What you possibly don't understand is the RIBA/CIBSE stages and how a building design evolves. Clients will have ideas and this allows a design brief to be produced, the client will then agree or disagree with this and it is revised until the client is happy - this then may end our involvement and gives them something to go and tender the design stages to several firms. Then the original or new firm will undertake a concept design which as the name suggests is just the concept then the process goes through similar stages as the DB and if all is approved will go onto detailed design - at this stage it is entirely possible things will be designed and detailed that will never make it to the final building but that is due to many many factors, almost always the client seeing something new they want during the design stages. What may end up on construction drawings may not resemble the concept design at all but that is how buildings evolve, if everyone knew what they wanted from stage one then we would go directly to construction drawings but the chances of us designing exactly what the client wants would be slim, therefore we have stages. We do not aim to rip people off and often trades resent professionals because they don't like being told how to do their trade - I can see this from both sides of the fence, but a consultant engineer sitting with for example with a DuPont technical representative and discussing precise use of a product and specifying all the sundry products to go with it will often ruffle the feathers of your roofer who wants to go and use Fakro Eurotop because that is what he uses and he can get a deal on it at his favourite merchants. The client then may end up with a mongrel of a roof. The roofer may be a brilliant tradesman with excellent skills but they might not actually know how all the materials precisely go together for that guaranteed 30 year roof. Pro's might not be able to fit it, but the chances are we know damn well how it should go together. The roofer can go about this the correct way and ask if they can apply for a variation but they often don't and if they are met with resistance by the engineer due to DuPont being used for a particular reason they go in a huff. It's an age old issue. Designed detailed building built to spec should and in almost all cases will work properly, most issues we read about on this forum and see in shows like Grand Designs you will often note are due to lack of design and planning. Pro's and trades will never see eye to eye, simple as that. I argue with very skilled electricians weekly - usually because they didn't read a spec properly and or made a colossal mistake. Look at Grenfell, penetrations in service riser fire stopping... 1 of two things happened here: 1. Someone didn't read the spec or neglected the spec, written by an engineer. 2. A "pro builder" decided to undertake it himself with no design and decided not to carry out remedial work on the penetrations or simply didn't understand what it was for.

Hmmm - not sure where to start with this one - so lets just say I am not sure this view is wholly accurate and may mislead people dangerously. I feel it very much depends on what and where you are building but primarily why you are building and your background. Coupled to this the concept of 'expense' is just a world view thing and has little interplay with the cost / value equation you will need to deploy across the whole build. If building for oneself then getting it right for you probably moves the cost / value equation about quite a bit in terms of professional support as would building in a sensitive location / conservation area / green belt etc. There are some aspects of professional support it is very hard to avoid. Structural engineer (I am not one so have no axe to grind here) for a start although a set of plans may contain all the calculations the building control people will need to be convinced that they are relevant today and that any alterations as might be required to meet current building regs have been reworked by a competent person and at the very least the roof structure will need a set of stability calcs. The architect question is also tied up here, and they are a costly aspect but the value balance in the equation is critical. I can only speak from personal experience as in the three build cases I have been involved with we have always used one to ensure that in getting what we wanted, not what we thought of, and we swept out all the corners of the possibilities by relying on their professional experience and challenging them to match our expectations. In the first two cases we did and we are happy with the result. In the third case we won't know until we get the building finished but I suspect that its going to be good - I can build it well I think but designing it is a whole other ball game - speak to @caliwag he will have a view I am sure. There are of course some lucky clever people who can design and build a house without any professional support at the design end (SE accepted) but you can never know just what a difference that professional front end work would have made - engineering optimisation is after all not aesthetic optimisation and a home / house is a machine for living in but there are a lot of aspects to living.

I find myself holding a contrarian view as is typical. Selfbuilding is scary for many and as a result folks try to wrap themselves up in a comfort blanket comprised of expensive middle class professionals, this equates to spending serious money early on in the building process on things that do not get materially incorporated into the property structure. In contrast the pro builders I know loath spending money on peripheral activities or things that do not enhance value during a 30 minute sales viewing. For the OP it depends on the plot and the optimum value that can be realized through building something right for the plot. If the OP's plot is on a hillside overlooking a sea loch with dolphins jumping for joy and in the opposite direction is the Serengeti with herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically to the horizon, then the plot deserves some top notch architectural creativity. Having looked at a book of plans I felt it was stuffed with dated designs from the 1970's that had been discarded as having no further commercial value. I suggest if money is tight the OP looks at designs from outfits selling modern kit home designs and then with an outline sketch hand it over to an Architectural Technician to knock into something ready to build.

My LG unit only heats the hot water for half an hour at a time (you can set that duration) with a pause before the next round of hot water heating (another parameter you can set) It doesn't explain why it does this. One theory of mine is they don't want to stop space heating for too long (not that my house would even notice the heating has been off for half an hour). But another possibility might just be a way to try and minimise icing by only doing the "hard work" in short bursts.

Christ, what do you want, a Blue Peter badge?

There are a multitude of reasons why people self build and a multitude of ways of managing it. The only certainty is that you need to be on the ball and aware whatever route you take. For many it’s the satisfaction of saying I built that and having created a unique house that they wanted rather than having a house designed for the mass market. Plus many will want to oversee the operation and do as much as they can themselves. Just like self build houses we are all unique individuals bonded by a common goal and formed into a community via this forum. Self building can be a lonely place but it’s forums like this that help overcome the feeling of isolation. Whether it’s empathy, advice, hard messages or however you want to badge it, it’s the sense of community that makes this a great place to be.

"Kneejerk empathy"? Good lord, what a hideous phrase! What's wrong with starting with empathy, then moving on to the best practical advice we can come up with collectively for the current situation, tempered with advice for those who follow so they don't make the same mistake? I'm sure you've learned plenty from the site - it isn't all just hugs and drum circles. And yet Jeremy candidly admits that several things went wrong, despite the fact he's clearly a highly capable human and spent a lot of time researching and planning. Bully for you. Sounds like you have it all worked out and everything will be perfect until the day you move in. Nevertheless, in the unlikely event you do hit an unforeseen roadbump, you can be sure there'll be kneejerk empathy and practical advice here if you want it.

Additional to this I have found the design and install guide that has much more detail on it on how to select what systems and how to mix and match: http://www.bublshop.co.uk/files/pdf/pdf2040.pdf I found my system in there though mine pre-dates the UniQ and the packaging is different!

So we started roofing a couple of weeks ago. I shout up to the roofer on the scaffolding, yeah I've got all the window flashings kits. For some reason I wander into the storage container. Check the flashing kits and spot that one of the kits that arrived is for M06 which is a window size we didn't even order. Run inside get on the phone and ask why they sent this one, sorry that a cock up on our end. Told you need to go through your building merchant as they placed the order. I then go back to the storage container to double check the rest and then I spot another two are wrong. Unfortunately this was my error, I looked at the picture on this link to get the code and didn't read the description or look at the second picture, yes I know what a plonker, but we all make mistakes. https://www.sterlingbuild.co.uk/product/velux-efl-pk10-0012-single-vertical-combination-slate-flashing-94x160cm Phone the building merchant get the correct kits ordered and one arrives on Tuesday but the other group of two are yet to arrive so I chase them up yesterday and they tell me they have sent them to the building merchant but are for a tile roof. V admit that they were wrong and say that it's going to be next Tuesday before it arrives. Next problem... Building merchant says that we have got your metal roof delivered, great I think. Wander down the access and see from the distance that angle that I gave in a drawing (and some may remember I asked for some help on here) has been ignored. What a waste of four weeks of waiting. So on Thursday night I just stare at the roof, one side can;'t do because of lack of window flashings and the other side can't do because of the metal lean to roof flashing being incorrect. This morning, I wander down the access and see my roofing looking at the metal flashing and it all obvious that it's wrong, show him the goods received note which shows that it should have been 150 degrees. Now decided to scrap the metal flashing and will just use lead which I now have. What a terrible Thursday, Sorry rant over, just letting off steam.

Yes I am! They are talking about having to do some check on meter in case its faulty. I only have usual kitchen appliances, pc, Tv on standby, and mvhr not a lot else bar lighting which is all led. Energy efficient house a lot more expensive to run than my old house LOL