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This is one of the few places where you can have a thread titled 'flashing' and no one thinks it's dodgy

Getting remarkably housey. I've got to say, I'm astounded by the quality of the timber used throughout, it's all so much smoother and cleaner than I'm used to seeing. Awesome first week. really getting a feel for how the rooms are shaped now. Looking at the master bedroom last night Sandy couldn't help feeling that it was small. It's way bigger than what we're used to *but* felt short front to back. A bit of measuring later and we reckoned we could lose 200mm off the walk-in robe without worry, A quick word with the gaffer this morning and...Move a wall? no problem. done. just like that. I'm liking the hallway. There are a couple of large windows to insert here for a view out from the landing but for now the expanse of the sloped area looks great. I'd originally wanted Velux Integra Solars but as the TF co is just down the road from Keylite and they've now a Solar electric variant of their Polar UPVC windows we made a change.

Just be careful that any thermostats / controllers you connect really are volt free dry contacts.

Just sticking the compressor on a pad of firm neoprene foam makes a big difference to the noise. Making any enclosure from something like block or brick also makes a big difference. The lid of mine is made from two layers of 18mm ply, glued either side of a layer of 6mm neoprene foam, with the underside lined with acoustic foam. The lid is hinged at the rear and has a strip of 6mm neoprene foam all around the edge as a seal. The only slight source of noise I had initially from the box was from the air inlet hole, which I had made from a bit of 40mm waste pipe sealed into the enclosure with sealant and fitted with a rod end type screw cap, with the lid bored out and a mesh fly filter fitted. Noise from that was fixed by fitting an elbow inside the box and short length of 40mm pipe running inside, perpendicular to the pump.

Well mines in all and running. The box is temprarily mounted on a paving slab as ive got to lay a patio etc round it. However, it is quite noisey. Having had the dubious privelege of looking inside it this morning (and more than halving the noise with a towel) i think its fair to say that minimal engineering thought has been applied to this. The compressor sits on rubber feet, but has 2 plasctic upstands each side of it, with a hole in the top of each and a tie wrap strapping it into position, thus bypassing any benefits the rubber feet might have! Standing next to it, you can feel the vibration through the ground!. Plus the lid rattles when its closed. Addtionaly, the rubber output pipe is in hard contact to box, as are the pipes to the tank where they pass through the box.. Upshot is, this lot is destined for the skip.New design required. Im thinking something similar to Jeremys, but buried, and built into an insulated "well" to cut down virbration transmission. And suspensd the compressor on "strings". And rubber mount the pipework.And, and and,................................ In fact i might put 2 compressors in there, so when one fails, i can switch to the other one.

Anybody on here doing the mbc build near Cirencester, just driven past so stopped to talk to the lads doing the foundations. Its only 500m from me. Who are you? Come on own up I won’t bite.

And in a 'roundabout' way, therein lies the problem

Why be concerned about services, any build method will have services under the floor in one way or another put ducts in so you can pull pipes or cables in. If you have underfloor heating you will bury it all in the floor its something that happens when you build a house, the only way to avoid it is to build a house on stilts and crawl under to get to services. With your small footprint you can build a very nice insulated slab for not a lot of money, minimal ground disturbance, you could lay temporary road mats over the rest of the site to save disturbing it. Do you have to provide a method statement to satisfy anybody.

Try this: https://www.abbeypynford.co.uk/our-services/housedeck/ They use this in the root protection zone of TPO'd trees.

Great no more black screw heads! 2nd pic: as you can see not the smoothest surface to put the tape on.. but I do have 2mm taper-edge dip still to 'fill' ( & 2mm filled after this 1st layer more or less). The bartoline plaster is a total bargain btw.. perfectly decent quality, so far as I can tell, maybe even very good. £4.49 for 6kg tub.

Oh no please not 18months!

Like this

My guess is that you don't need one at all, as your system always has either the buffer tank or the DHW tank connected, so there's never a restriction. I needed one as our buffer tank is shut off when the system is in cooling mode, and the UFH valve takes a few seconds to open, during which the ASHP senses the flow restriction and shuts down with an alarm, then restart again around 20 seconds later.

@Christine Walker cry away, howl and scream as much as you need. I didn't know I had so many tears, this wretched build absolutely broke me into pieces and not recovered yet. There is nothing practical we can do to help you but shoulders are here for you. I was in a similar situation with water this time last year (18 months from application to water on). These faceless companies have no idea of the stress they cause. Chin up you will get therexx

Underneath or at the side, depends where the handle is, of the window there will be an adjustment screw. It's on a concentric circle so as you turn it you can see if moving in and then out. Can't remember the size Allen key you need think it's a 4mm.

i would agree and wall stone looks dated already! though on the plus side you will soon have a visit a tin man, lion,and scarecrow! Sorry no solution i can think of

Seriously, take a look a Carbonlite Design and Build in Invergordon.They build low energy houses as modular units and ship them to site. They were featured on one of the recent "impossible build" programmes. As long as the modules will fit an artic trailer, it will get on the ferry they are well versed in remote builds. They did the design for ours but because it was not a build that easily converted to a modular build, the kit was built and erected by a local small building firm. When I was looking a few years ago none of the big name kit builders impressed me, and one of them, I think it was Scotframe, refused to continue a dialogue with me when I talked about taking a standard kit frame and adding extra insulation to it.

MBC Timberframe, but I'm fairly sure they don't operate that far North. Our build is in my blog at the link in my signature, and has lots of photos of the build.

Our house was a kit, but a bespoke design, built in a factory and assembled on site on 4 1/2 days. It meets or exceeds the PassivHaus standard, too, although it is not a certified PassivHaus. Even the biggest kit house builder, Potton, is sort of trying to up their game a bit, although when we looked at them we were very underwhelmed by the design detail, performance and the quality for the prices they were charging. When we were looking around at builders there was less choice than there is now, I think, as there seem to be a fair few companies around offering a range of supply and build options, everything from just putting in the foundations and building the shell up to offering a complete turn key option (at a price). One limiting factor may be location, as there are some companies that won't offer a supply and build service in some areas (for example the company we used didn't used to offer a service North of the border). Getting a kit-type supplier to provide a service to the outer islands may be a challenge, but I seem to remember that there's a firm on Skye, or used to be.

Ah yes the Ferry to Jura can be interesting on a big spring tide. The midges there when I was there (25 years ago) were savage, the worst I have ever known. There has long been talk of a direct ferry from the mainland but I don't think it ever got beyond talk did it? An air source heat pump will save you having to get a drilling rig over to the island. I am guessing even simple things we take for granted, like getting timber and plasterboard delivered from a builders merchant are not trivial? I suspect a decent size trailer you can take over yourself will be very handy?

Not sure - I think you can take the head off and rotate it 180 and also spin the spindle round too so it engages.

Every self build seems to go through a low, not just those on Grand Designs. For us it was 18 months in, with a part built shell when the realisation hit us that the old house was not about to sell any time soon, and we were faced with a build we could not afford to finish. Once you get past the low point, accept things are not as you would want them, but they are where they are, you have to re group and re plan. We are now on course to finish the new house without the sale of the old one. It has taken longer than planned and I have done more of the work myself than originally planned, but one has to find a way to adapt and move forwards. Just talking to others and venting your problems helps a great deal.

Great, the good news is I am actually getting warm water from the ASHP. The bad news is the programmer I bought for DHW (for when and if we get E7) is faulty so that’s why the stat was not calling for DHW (easily fixed). I am going to let it run for a few hours then I will try to get heating working. THANKS GUYS ?

The developer has approved the extension, so all good on that front!

Looks like it's once again taken time to transfer data to the GMS board. I think the GMC board may be effectively unprogrammed when new, and that perhaps the Command Unit only actually sends data to change setting when a parameter is selected and changed. That would make sense, as there would be no point is storing data to non-volatile memory on the GMC board every time the Command Unit interrogated a setting. It looks as if using the Command Unit as the thermostat and programme may conflict with wanting to use dry contacts to switch to DHW mode, from the sound of it. This isn't something I've ever played with on mine, as I just use dry contact control (similar to the way Kingspan control this unit) and I don't use the DHW function. Best bet might be to get a dry-contact programmable room stat and use that to control the heating, then use a dry contact tank stat to control the DHW. You want DHW to over-ride heating, so the dry contact tank stat can connect directly to the ASHP terminals 13 and 15, which will heat the DHW whenever it needs it, including moving the position of the 3 port valve.

Yep, I'm a HA user - not really using it to full potential but it's a useful hub for bringing everything together. For me it's connected to - - ZWave via Aeotec usb stick - all lights in the house are zwave controlled - Weather (met office) - Climate - Honeywell Evohome - CCTV - pulling in images from a Hikvision system - Roku media players on all the TVs - Owntracks for device (people) location via MQTT client on phone - Ring doorbells - power level and last ding time - Generic REST endpoints - pulling in data from another RPi with CT clamps, solar stats being pushed in to a sensor In terms of automations I'm not really doing anything.. I just haven't had the time to sit down and fiddle. It's getting easier in the more recent versions but previously it was very yaml config heavy. At the moment its doing two main functions - 1 - remote control of the house when I'm away, make it look like someone is in etc 2 - data aggregation - it pulls from all the random sources and presents everything in a nice REST API that I can consume from other systems Check out Dr ZZZs on youtube for simple how tos on HA+Sonoff

@lizzie it’s main home will be a draughty corner pier between 2 large windows in our extension. Air tightness and mvhr is not a thing for us to worry about anyway.

Not wishing to be picky, but isn't that a little close to the wall?

the main thing you want to look at when comparing 'acoustic' plasterboard is the surface density (kg/m² ), the higher the number the more mass it has and better it performs and a mass barrier From what i can see 12.5mm GTEC dB is 10.2 to 10.7 kg/m² , and 15mm is 12.5 to 13.1 kg/m². other boards as below; Gyproc wallboard 12.5mm - 8.0 kg/m2, 15mm - 9.8 kg/m2 Gyproc fireline 12.5mm - 9.8 kg/m2, 15mm - 11.7 kg/m2 Gyproc SoundBloc 12.5mm - 10.6 kg/m2, 15mm - 12.6 kg/m2 Gyproc plank 19mm - 15 kg/m2 Gyproc SoundBloc F 15mm - 14.1 kg/m2 Knauf Soundshield 10mm - 8.4 kg/m2, 13mm – 12.3 kg/m2 Knauf Standard Wallboard 15mm - 10.2kg/m2 Knauf Vapour Panel 15mm - 10.2kg/m2 Knauf Moisture Panel 15mm - 10.2kg/m2 Knauf Sound Panel 12.5mm - 10kg/m2 Knauf Fire Panel 15mm - 12kg/m2 Knauf Impact Panel 15mm - 12.8kg/m2 Knauf Soundshield Plus 15mm - 12.8kg/m2 Knauf Performance Plus 15mm - 12.8kg/m2 Knauf Plank 19mm - 14kg/m2 Knauf Core Board 19mm - 16.3kg/m2 So between 15mm GTEC dB, Soundbloc, and Knauf Soundshield Plus, the GTEC dB is marginally more dense, but if you go for Gyproc SoundBloc F you get a bigger increase.

I am a very strong person, I don’t usually let things get me down, If I think it’s at all possible to do something myself I don’t ask for help, not even from hubby, some of the things I’ve done many a woman wouldn’t even know about never mind know how to do but these last few weeks have broken me. After the major problem with our electricity supply which I managed to sort out I didn’t think it could get any worse but things are all just getting on top of me now to the point where I have cried today. The electricity is now in which should be a good thing but since Scottish Water seem he’ll bent on making life difficult the electricity doesn’t actually help a lot since we need water to get the heating on and this has a knock on effect on painting and floor laying which will now need to wait, every little thing is now annoying me and if anyone asked me if I would recommend self build I’d say a definite NO.however an hour has passed since I started this post and the cry seems to have helped let off steam, we will continue on as there’s no other option!

I so know how you feel. I am so close now - if only those damn plumbers had done their job I could move in. However, a week has passed since they 'didn't come' and I still haven't got the mojo back to look for someone else. I am so low that the thought of contacting yet another plumber to take his turn at ripping me off and leaving me stranded just isn't an option. I know not everyone is like that, and I have had some good and helpful trades people in doing work but I am having a confidence crisis and don't trust my own judgement. A lot of the flooring has gone down today and that has helped as it is a visual reminder that I am almost there. BUT I made a big cock up in the measurements for that which means that the ensuite/dressing room is having to be treated as 2 rooms instead of the one that it is with a narrow piece about 4oo mm wide fitted between them. So another knock to the confidence. I am again wishing I had never started. At the moment I don't even want to move in/

You probably can't reverse the way the valve works so swap the plumbing over. Heat pumps do seem to demand a high rate of water flow. I had to fit a second external pump to mine to get enough flow rate, and I bought a flow meter so I could see what flow rate I was achieving. Another stupid thing, nowhere in the installation manual does it actually tell you what the minimum flow rate is.

Right, new day, start again. I started running through the installer configuration on the command unit and 104 is the output test (enables various functions to be tested), 1 was pump test, yes that worked ok. 6 is the three way valve test, nothing happened!. I have noticed that the three way valve is permenantly on (power applied to it) even when the DHW is switched off.? question. Is the three way valve normally sitting to provide Heating then “on” (powered up) when wanting DHW. (This is what I would have thought). If so mine is not working correctly. just draining the DHW tank and turning off the immersion to test.