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My upper floor, that is. Due to the vast number of MBC guys on site early last week, my upstairs was ready for the underfloor heating pipes and spreader plates to go in much earlier than my plumber had anticipated so the plates were duly put in. MBC were due back on site this morning to get the egger boards down on the first floor, so it was a case of then or never. The downstairs UFH pipes are embedded into the concrete slab and so a different method is needed for the upstairs, and this is it. What you are looking at are aluminium spreader plates with the UFH pipe bedded into them. The spreader plates are thin sheets of aluminium with two semi-circular recesses running the length of the plates. These are stapled to the joists along their length and their job is to hold the pipe in place and also to diffuse the heat over their area. The plates are very thin, barely a couple of mm thick, I would say, and very sharp, as I found out when poking the corner of them all stacked up in the shrink wrap packaging when they first arrived. Here's what they look like individually: There were a couple of delays in getting started on Friday and as a consequence work went on till well into the evening. UFH by sunset: After some hard graft on Saturday, it was all in place and the manifold had been attached, pressurised and tested and all looks good. Once all the egger boards are on, the centres of the spreader plates should be stapled along their lengths to the boards above to ensure good contact and heat transfer, although this was overlooked and not done but not picked up on in time to be rectified before the flooring went down on top. I did not sit idly by whilst all this effort was going on, oh no, not me. I had some very important decisions to make and these took a high level of innovation and imagination. Like, where's the best spot for the furniture in the to-be living room and where do I prefer the view? Really important. And, it turns out, that off-cuts of EPS upstand make for a really good improvised sofa. To be seen in all the best furniture showrooms soon: Having tried this, I came to a very meaningful conclusion. I need more furniture. Another thing for another day. Back to business, MBC were back on site today, a team of 4 to put the egger boards in place. You can see from the spreader plate pictures above that there is virtually no joist exposed, hence the need for screwing them down, particularly as the spreader plates will need to be attached from them underneath. The guys also used the egger adhesive along the tongue and groove runs of the board sides. Being a complete ingenue when it comes to all matters of construction, I was pondering last week what the purpose was of the hefty blocks of wood set into the recesses of the I shaped steels. Today, I found out. The posi-joists don't just rest in place, they are very firmly attached using steel thingies called roof hangers. These are they: And this is where they go: On other matters, I'm busily chasing down roofers at the moment, and they are proving difficult to get hold of. One has already declined to quote because they are so busy, but I'm working through a list of possibles, so it will get done. I've also booked in for my service alteration on the electricity - it's on a pole via an overhead line right now but will be buried eventually and the pole removed. Current date for this is 17th October, but electricity companies dance to the beat of their own drum so this could easily change. It's the big stuff back tomorrow with the final frame delivery and the upper floor being constructed. Sit tight for the next thrilling episode!

It works though doesn't it. The weakness, as you have said before, is that it relies a bit too much on you being there to sort it out. What we need is to throw out there an open source home automation protocol (hardware / software / whatever) that we can all develop to and that then forms a community of practice that others can latch (pardon the pun) onto so when those of us who have bespoke systems pass into the land of limitless energy (I assume) where the laws of physics don't apply can be confident that those left behind us won't have to rip it all out and start again as soon a it goes phutt.

Bitches

I'd be tempted to treat today as day 1 of your build, with an existing part-built structure in place. Get your builder to give you a price to complete what needs to be completed, taking into account the advice you've received above with regards to where you can perhaps reduce the spec initially. With the build at the level of completion you've stated, I'd hope your builder should be able to give a much more accurate estimate for the remaining work. I'd even consider asking them to complete for a fixed price, but you'd have to detail everything that is included in that. Then compare the figure you get with your financial position and determine a way forward. Oh, and keep asking here - there will be very little, if anything, that someone here has not been through before. Good luck

A few of us will know all these part numbers but for the rest: ESP8266 = a micro controller with loads of IO such as embodied on the 'WEMOS' D1 board. SSR = Solid State Relays. DS18B20 (not DD) = Semi intelligent Temperature sensor. SSD = Solid State Disk (give your RPi - Rasberry Pi, some local storage.) Have I got that about right @TerryE

I didn’t do too much practical work during my build apart from holding things like doors while they were fitted and helping lay the UFH pipes etc but I did the majority of the painting and varnishing. I had a ‘professional’ painter in to paint the extension but I wish I hadn’t as I don’t think it was done as carefully as mine as @AliG notes. If I can do it then anyone can and you’ll save some money and get some satisfaction from doing it I’m sure, especially if you view it as a couple of grand off the mortgage.

Plus by the time they've done the mist coat, they'll have loads of experience, and the top coat will look great! As others have said, virtually everyone who goes through this process has at least a couple of pain points where things feel like they're out of control and the problems insurmountable. It's rarely as serious as that with the benefit of hindsight, but it doesn't make the feeling any less real right now. I'd encourage you to speak with your other half ASAP. A large part of your stress seems to be to do with what his reaction might be. Get that reaction, whatever it might be, out of the way, so you can save your energy for addressing the real issue, which is where you've gotten to with the house. If you want help with identifying specific areas where you might save some funds, do post more details. There are plenty of bargain-hunters and serial self-builders who'll be able to point to cheaper ways of doing all sorts of things.

I'm sure you have everyone's sympathy Jude. It seems from a lot of the replies that in many cases a self build is very much one person in a couple's project. In my case it was mine and I know that my wife has fund it a lot more stressful than I have. You may as well get it over and done with telling your husband, painful as it might be. I don't think the contract makes much difference, I never actually signed off on a contract with the builder. I had an estimate like you but builders aren't quantity surveyors and often just don't have enough information to make accurate estimates. They are also notoriously optimistic. Then of course you only know about the rising cost once it is too late. It isn't really clear how much you are committed to in the build, it sounds like you are pretty far gone. In a way that might be good in that at least costs shouldn't be able to rise much more. I looked back at some of your earlier posts re oak stairs and PV, these wold clearly be places that money could be saved. However, if the issue is simply keeping the mortgage smaller, the return on PV is likely larger than the interest on the mortgage to pay for it. Two suggestions I would make for saving money - 1. Have you just specced things like he bamboo floor, door handles etc and left the builder to source them. Builders want fast access to things and credit to pay for things so generally just order it from their normal builders merchant. Often you could cut costs if you know what materials are needed and you source them yourself. So if any expensive materials still need to be ordered get quotes from the builder and see if you can beat them. BTW if that £18,000 includes an expensive electric sectional door, Costco are doing insulated sectional doors up to 5m width fitted with electric opener for £1995. 2. If money is really tight, you say that you don't have much capability at DIY, but anyone can paint. Indeed, looking at the job done by the first painters we had, anyone can paint better than many painters! Professionals often get things done a lot faster, but with less attention to detail. You also mentioned having teenage sons. Get them some rollers and get painting! If you paint before floors are down then it doesn't matter too much if they make a mess. One thing I would have a serious look at is landscaping costs. There wasn't much in our quote for these as they hadn't really been specified when we started. Driveways, retaining walls in the garden etc can be very expensive, but they can also be done cheaply and improved later. I think in one post you did mention keeping the mortgage to around £100k and that was 20% of the cost of the build. I don't know if this is still the case. I am in your husband's camp of keeping debt as low as possible, but increasing your mortgage for example from £100k to £125k increases the monthly payment from around £475 a month to £600. Maybe that puts it into perspective.

Not normally but it depends a bit on which PD right is involved. Some (e.g, in Scotland for a wind turbine) require you to get a Certificate of Lawful Permitted Development (CLPD). You can get a CLPD for any PD if you want to, e.g., if it's close to the edge of what's allowed or if you think a neighbour's likely to be snotty about it. Cost is about £70 (or, at least, it was in Highland and Orkney a couple of years ago).

Whatever the aesthetic issues, I would be installing Heras fencing as you need to make the site secure.

Indeed. So right up to the moment the completion certificate is signed the shed would be a temporary structure needed for the build. At the exact picosecond the completion certificate is signed it becomes a permanent structure under the PD for the dwellinghouse.

Normally, yes, as PD rights for permanent structures is tied to their being a completed building that, in effect "owns" those PD rights. Temporary structures are different in that their rights aren't "owned" by any structure. You can have PD rights, for example, to erect a polytunnel-type aircraft hangar in a field, something that a lot of small aeroplane owners take advantage of. They are subject to a different set of rules regarding change of use for the land, the "28 day rule", which isn't relevant to the temporary building erected under PD rights, but does mean they can only use the land as an airfield for 28 days in any 12 month period. The classic way around this is for a group to get together and buy a field and divide it into separately owned strips. They can then spread their use around amongst the several differently owned strips and so get a whole years worth of flying out it, as long a no single strip is used for more than 28 days in any 12 months.

Specifically check that they all say 'invoice' and show your name, supplier name, VAT number. All should be good hopefully if they meet that criteria. Good news that you are getting things together now, and yes it will be down to you to drive this now and ensure that the builder knows that you are in the driving seat. Sounds like you are ready to make this happen.

Thanks @newhome I had a read of that at the weekend. All of the invoices have been zero rated from the main contractor and I have kept all of the other ones in a file ready for claiming back when completed. But I will check that they are all in order, don't want to miss out.

Thank you so much for all of your messages of support. I have discussed with OH and he has been very supportive. He knew that, in his words, we would be skint by the end of the build. I did speak to my builder today about concerns for costs but he was still a bit vague. So I am going to do as advised and write a list of all the jobs that I think are still left to do and get him to estimate how much each will cost, and get him to split between labour and goods. I am going to ask him to not buy anything else unless I have agreed to it. This week the only work that is being done is the joiner fixing skirting and doors so that can carry on as all of that is purchased and would need to be fitted anyway. Does that sound like a reasonable approach? When I have had the chance I have tried to source goods myself on the internet and have got some bargains. I bought the kitchen from DIYKitchens and sourced all of the sanitary ware from online merchants. I just wish that I had done more of this, but lots of stuff has already been bought. OH and I have agreed on some reductions but we do need to look at all costs going forward. Thanks again for all of your support, it is good to know that I am not alone. When I have the detailed costings I will share to see if there are any ideas on how to reduce costs.

Fitted wardrobes? Go to IKEA. You can build these yourself!

Permitted Development rights apply to a number of different things as set out in The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 This should be of use to you: PART 4 Temporary buildings and uses Class A – temporary buildings and structures Permitted development A. The provision on land of buildings, moveable structures, works, plant or machinery required temporarily in connection with and for the duration of operations being or to be carried out on, in, under or over that land or on land adjoining that land.

Thank Feck for that!!! Progress, and you haven't peed your pants

Those figures were a 25 year repayment at 3%, I just plugged those numbers in to get a rough idea.

Via their online service, my local library provide access to several home styling magazines, including lots of back issues, for free as long as you are a member. I find them very helpful to flick through and get ideas for colour schemes, finishes, and so on.

I fully sympathise. I barely trust my own taste to pick out a single item sensibly let alone a number that form a harmonious whole (whatever that means). I can look at something and think it looks nice but I have no conception as to why.

The idea of an interior design course sounds more useful than going to the Grand Designs show, or some of the other shows, come to that. We were both fairly disappointed with most of the shows we went to, the one exception being the self build and renovation centre in Swindon ( https://www.nsbrc.co.uk/ ). We've been there probably four or five times now, and found it far and away the best of them.

Hopefully the interior designer isn't laurence llewelyn-bowen. My fear is that we choose flooring that we don't like after a short period and would then be expensive to replace.

@ultramods it is unlikely that this is relevant for you but for interior design I am planning to attend an interior-design course. Its £150 for 6x short classes with a private interior-design company close to my plot. In a similar vein, I know of one other person on BH who is going on a (different) course. I have no knowledge of, skill in, or aptitude for interior design whatsoever. The idea is to hopefully pick-up some basic principles but perhaps even better to spend time in the company of others from whom I can beg-borrow-and-steal ideas and without spending too much money doing so.

Nope - you will mostly only see components EG flooring / furniture / lighting, not finished stuff the ideal home exhibition is better for interior design inspiration I suspect (my Brother and his OH go every year) we are not at that stage yet but might take a trip this year for that exact purpose.

IMO 1 day is more than enough - accept if you do go away after a few hours, bury yourself in your build issues and make a plan to go back the next day and ask all the questions you forgot to ask, then maybe 2 is useful but still a luxury. The OH and I just got there early last year did a morning of looking around separately, had lunch together to compare notes and then went around together looking at each others top picks and asking the questions we had not asked in the morning. Don't forget all the sideshow talks which can consume a lot of time if you are not careful.

I visited Grand Designs Live in London this year, my second ever visit. In my case one day was plenty, even a long half day was enough. Of course, it depends slightly on what you're after but generally I found it to be focused on window companies, under-floor heating companies, and then the usual range of water-softener salesmen, novelty picture and candle sellers, and kitchen gadgets. Overall I found it rather disappointing. For me at my stage of my build, it paled besides a visit to the NSBRC in Swindon on one of their periodic exhibition days. Just my tuppence worth.

For clarification, trim heating with the MVHR would be fine. We don't use it as we don't seem to need it. Cooling is where the MVHR falls over, as we still seem to be able to get more than 1.5 kW of incidental heating plus solar gain in hot weather, and so the MVHR just can't draw heat out of the house fast enough on its own. Bearing in mind that we probably have around 300 W of background incidental heat gain (occupants, things that are running in the house etc) plus one or two kW of short period heat gain from cooking, it doesn't take much solar gain to start to cause the house to warm up. This Summer the MVHR would have been turned off at times, if it wasn't for the fact that it has an air-to-air heat pump that can cool down the fresh air delivered to the rooms, as with that heat pump off there were times when the MVHR would have been delivering air at over 30 deg C into the house, which would not have been welcome. I'm currently (well, not right now as I'm busy shifting junk around...) making a combined pre-filter and ASHP run pre-cooler for the MVHR intake, just to cool the incoling air when the MVHR is on 100% bypass in warm weather, and to save running the MVHR heat pump as well as the main ASHP. There should be an energy saving in doing this, as the additional demand on the ASHP should push it up into a slightly better operating region, so the incremental increase in energy that it will use should be less than the energy used by running the MVHR heat pump.

Not wanting to add to the list of things you need to go through just now but it is something that you need to look in detail at soon if you haven’t already. You need to double check the VAT position to ensure that you haven’t been overcharged for VAT anywhere although it appears that you are doing most of it on a supply and fit basis that should all be zero rated as long as they are eligible items so that will be a positive and should be a straightforward check. For things you have bought yourself and need to reclaim the VAT, double check the invoices are all in order so that you can go back and address any anomalies now rather than when you are about to send your claim. Full details in this post.

I can second @MikeSharp01s comments above. When planning our build I focussed very much on getting out of the ground, for two reasons; all the TV shows make the point repeatedly that that's where the greatest risk is in terms of unforeseen costs, and because we had a challenging plot that we already knew needed a heck of a lot of ground works (around £50k worth - and it's only a small plot). Fortunately all our ground works (with the exception of a long saga with our water borehole, which cost us a close to year in delays, but didn't end up costing us too much more money) went well. which lulled me into a bit of a false sense of security. Our frame went up quickly, with no snags, but it was around then that I realised that my large and, so I thought, comprehensive costing spreadsheet had missed out some items completely and seriously underestimated others (I underestimated the roofing cost, missed out things like skip and general site rubbish clearance cost, underestimated a lot of the internal fitting out costs and seriously underestimated the costs for landscaping and installing a SuDS compliant surface water drainage scheme). We ended up having to borrow another £50k over our planned budget, and even managed to blow that, hence the major slow down as I saved from my pension each month to buy materials to get work done on a piecemeal basis. Thankfully we will end up mortgage-free now our old house is almost sold, plus we'll be able to top our savings back up to pretty much the level they were at before we started the build. We've also just about ended up with a house that is worth a bit more than it cost us, but not by a lot. This latter point is one reason that I'm a bit sceptical of some of the TV shows that seem to show very cheap self-builds, without the owners having done a lot of the work themselves. I did a lot of work on our build, all the plumbing, kitchen fitting, most of the flooring, all the internal joinery (except hanging the doors), installing the ventilation system and heating and cooling systems, both bathrooms, the utility room and downstairs WC, and it still cost more than we'd budgeted for.

Even when you are doing the bulk of it yourselves cost control is very hard / almost impossible. So far we have been hit with (to list the main ones): Asbestos removal. Additional site insurance as we ran out of time. Muck away costs we had not planned for, we had to dig deeper than we expected. Additional type 1 for the sub base going to 150mm from 100mm. Additional Concrete in the slab as we have 150mm thickness not the normal 100mm (Will be good for energy storage but costs a lot) Failed polish on the concrete - so we have to grind it. The £ going south. Some additional labour to help me when I could not do it alone. All of which has eaten well into our contingency, and we are only just out of the ground, so we are now looking at a whole re-budget exercise. It is only us so no 3rd party to blame either. Keep on keeping on, not a lot of choice, and it will be worth it in the end is the way I see it - pragmatism can suppress panic sometimes.

Interest only / over how long?

Why not do it via your MVHR, as is our plan, and put the heating / cooling fan coil unit next to the MVHR unit - I agree this cools everywhere but by working with the MVHR systems distribution boxes you might even be able to control that, by restricting flows to downstairs at night time.

Splashback.....wasn't that a track by Imagination?

Yes. Would add though: The key thing these have over, say, an Arduino is the built-in ability to do Wi-Fi. In fact, they're more like Wi-Fi chips that happen to have some spare processing capacity to do other things. The more modern replacement is the ESP32 which has a few nice but not completely compelling advantages. But if you're starting from scratch you might as well use the ESP32.

There are two things in Passivehaus like that but neither are that: 1) 10 W/m² as the peak heating load in the design-worst case conditions. So you're 49.6% over that if -10 is your design worst case. 2) 15 kWh/m²/year as the total energy use for space heating. Both are, I'm fairly sure but not certain, final energy use. You get to choose, you can meet either of these criteria, you don't have to meet both. I really hope there's a spurious “/m²” in there!

Update: SSE is our DNO and British Gas our supplier (who I've just spoken to). They assure me that there will be no problem fitting the meter to the cutout without the TBS CU being in the box. I hope they don't change their minds by Friday.

Not having a written contract is also a positive given your current position... you can negotiate changes to the scope/quality of the work and you could even stop works at any time and settle up with your contractor nearly immediately. Though I suggest you negotiate an exit strategy for both of you so you don't part on bad terms. Don't forget a verbal contract is still considered legal, just very hard to prove.

2 years ago...

In terms of the total specific heat of the internal environment, the slab is the biggest element, but don't discount the SH of the plasterboard and effectively ½ of the cellulosic filler. The other big element in our case is the ringbeam and two transverse structural beams at 300×300mm cross-section adds another big chunk. I haven't even got around to buying my ASHP yet and we survived happily last winter on my 3kW Willis heater heating the slab overnight on E7 low tariff. Our daily top is pretty much a simple calc based on average outside temp, and we can stay within the cheap rate 21kWh overnight down to about +3°C below that and we need a daytime boost. (Of the top of my head, our internal slab area is 70m² and we have 3 floors so the total floor space is around 200m²). The slab responds almost exactly as my simple 3D heatflow model predicted. Our DHW is Sunamp again heated overnight by E7. My house performs within 10% of my initial JSH-style spreadsheet that I did in the early planning stages. But as Jeremy has said, the MBC warm slab and cellulosic filled Larson strut construction pretty much eliminates all thermal bridging. Our one design cockup was that our slab has an outer ringbeam bearing our Cotswold-type stone outer skin that is mechanically coupled to the main slab with 200 odd 20mm rebar sections which is a fine mechanical solution but one hell of a thermal bridge. Luckily I picked this up during the slab construction and was able to mitigate perhaps 80-90% of this flaw (see my blog post on this for more details); I suspect that the unmitigated residue is why our actuals are maybe 5-10% worse than our initial estimates. I've never bothered working it out in terms of annualised kWh/m²/yr, but based on our actuals over last winter through spring and summer (which was a cold one) our total annual heating requirement is around 4,500 kWh/m²/yr . We were required to conform to a traditional cottage style (= small windows) on an SW principle access so we have little solar gain and weren't allowed PV. But this is around 3W/m² averaged over the year so I am not sure where the discrepancy is with your 10-20 figure. DHW is on top of course as is normal energy use for electrics, lighting, cooking, but these combined less than double this, so our total energy use is well under 6W/m² averaged year-round. As well as the overall heat balance, you also have to consider internal heat flows and heat gradients. At our design point we only have the groundfloor UFH. We have a slate floor throughout and usually bare footed indoors -- cheap and low maintenance; the floor also feels nice and cool underfoot in the summer and warm in the winter. We don't have any upper floor heating, so no radiators or the like and associated pipework. Tell a lie: we do have an oil-filled electric towel rail in our master bedroom ensuite, but the only time that we have turned it on so far was during commissioning tests. Even so our upper floors are maybe 1½°C cooler than the ground floor in winter. This suits us for the bedrooms, but I do find that my office is a little too cool for my liking, so I have a small Dyson fan that I use as an occasional top-up when I am working in the office and it is very cold outside. I think if you were to double or quadruple the overall systematic losses, then the main design consequence would be that you'd need some form of upstairs central heating with all of the complexities that that brings. Stick to 400mm cellulosic filler or better, IMO.

Hi @lizzie, I've not done any measurements here but totally agree re changing exhaust filter to G4 and, as @JSHarris says, it takes a while for a new home to 'settle'. We've been in ours for 10 months now and the benefit to Mrs NSS has been remarkable. For 18 months before we moved in she nebulised twice daily. In the last 8 months she's used it twice, in total!

Urban-backcountry-chic tap. Or get another one. Its in my face as I fanny about in me sink doing stuff, being too cool&BIG. godam tap. Tip top tap tipped for tip in top tourist trap.

Don't worry 5G will be along shortly.

Nail on the head right there! I can look at videos etc until I'm blue in the face but try to actually do it and I have 10 thumbs and no brain cells connecting them!

Time to worry? ........... When it's on the inside.