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So after a month or so in the house, the time has provided us with an opportunity to reflect on what we have achieved and what if anything, we would change or could have done differently. In truth there is very little if anything that we would change. The rooms flow, the doors open in the right direction and the lights can be switched on and off in the appropriate places. Even the WBS has proven to be a worry that wasn't worth worrying about, as it's position within the hearth is no longer an issue due to it being vented through the back as opposed to the top. Some jobs have been completed such as the down pipes and a few jobs remain outstanding but nothing that has an impact upon our daily lives. One such job is the porch that needs to be slated. Thankfully I still have some financial leverage over those various trades so I know they will return. Our satisfaction I suppose, has to be routed in the preparation work, the research and being a member of this superb forum. None of these elements should be underestimated. Therefore I would like to sign off this blog with a heartfelt thanks to all those who have contributed, not only to my issues over the past couple of years, but to all the other threads, as they too are just as relevant / enlightening. I have also attached some images which complete the project, namely the WBS chimney installation and the erection of the much mentioned porch. For a final time, thanks for reading, and given the date, seasons greetings to you all. Paul.

Hello everyone!!!!! MERRY DECEMBER to you all. We have 5 weeks to move in to the house! Yikes.... no more money to pay rent on this house so it's a mad panic to get at least the boys' rooms done, bathroom and kitchen... I have a problem with the new loo downstairs so will find the place to post about it.

MiL coming down for Christmas day. I might make my excuses and start the grout!

Had to leave our site to visit family. Feeling guilty that we aren’t working on the build with our few precious days off work. But need some time to rest and recharge ready to hit the job list next week. Managed to put a 6 foot tree in the caravan though! Happy Christmas everyone ?

Is the point of ufh that you set up the times to suit how you live and then just forget about it. That's how I work mine. You already have a system that I presume works so why do you need another costly unit to learn how long your floor takes to heat up. I have a similar unit at home called my wife. She knows how long it takes for heat to come through and feel it on her feet so my times are set by that and the morning alarm to waken the kids. To be fair one of the heat learning type units would have been much much cheaper than her.

Frankly after two and a half years of building I am tired of 7 days a week plodding on with the same thing day after day (but overall I am very pleased). Went to a neighbours party tonight and was introduced as “the chap that built that wonderful brick house “ which was really nice to hear. I am looking forward to doing work in my workshop on my classic car and tractor, mechanics rather than building. Spring will see me landscaping and gardening which I look forward too.

Illbruck ?

Let's say you can get energy at 2p/kwh in China. Let's say that this is the only cost involved in a panel. So the people all work for free, in a factory that was built for free. The copper, silicon, aluminium, and glass are all free. The units are shipped around the world for free. Nobody at any stage extracts any profit or takes any overheads. This same panel is sold at cost for 60p/w which is not far from the current wholesale rate. The panel would have to operate at rated output for 30,000 hours to claw back its production cost. At an average of 8 hours a day, this is just over ten years. Most panels are capable of lasting longer than that. So can we put this whole thing to bed, please? Even with the scales stacked completely against them, PV panels are still quite clearly energy positive over their lifespan.

So..... We have lived her for 3 years now and got the feel of the place. It's now time to get my arse into gear and start work on building the new house before getting a mortgage becomes completely unaffordable. We have 1.5 acres in Dorset, flat and quiet and not overlooked. We have planning permission for a replacement dwelling as what we currently live in is classed as a temporary structure and therefore un-mortgagable. I can hardly believe we are going to build again. To do it once by accident is careless, twice is downright lunacy! We just wanted to live somewhere with a bit of land for the dogs to run wild and the only thing we could afford was this place. Our neighbours each side are horses - council owned on one side and the other side have tried to get permission for a dwelling that they can live in but have been refused. The rest of the lane has similar problems and the council have refused planning on most plots. We are green belt and within 400m of a SSSI (St Catherines Hill) - apparently there are a lot of Adders up there which I'm glad I didn't know about when we moved here or I may have thought twice. Luckily we have never seen one when walking the dogs up there. When I designed the last house I thought it was hard because we were constrained to 45ft wide and no more - the neighbours would have complained if we had built on their bit . I always wanted just a little bit more to make the rooms a better size, contraints I now realise actually help focus the mind a little. It took to plan 32 before I got pretty much everything I wanted last time so being on plan 11 means I have a long way to go yet. The picture shows our plot, we have built a kitchen garden since arriving and a large koi pond (you can see it right next to the kitchen garden - it's a rounded triangle shape). The house that we currently live in can stay in place until we are ready to move in to our new house. The planning conditions state that it must be removed from site within 28 days of completion. The house is the light blue circle. The lime green circle is where the utility room / car port / shed / dog shower is currently. We are hoping that we may get the planners to allow us to replace this structure and incorpotate it into our build - currently they are restricting the size of the dwelling to 197m2. We will be building the new house where the red circle is and the yellow circle is the gate that we will use to drive through to get down the plot or park round the back. We have seen pictures of when our current house was tractored onto site from 5 plots up - the concrete underneath is thick and reinforced. We are therefore planning to have this as our patio / decking area so the new house needs to be a close as possible to the current place and in a similar position else we will be spending a lot of money on replacing soil and removing concrete. Wish me luck - Christmas is going to be attached to my laptop, drinking pink gin and muttering about the stupidity of building at our age! Oh and visiting @D Walter on the IOW to look at Velox.

Ha, yes, once you have finished your bathroom!! So which August ? ?

Put me down for 2 weeks in August please!

Very very nice indeed. Sit back and enjoy it now.

So on Saturday I finally managed to get the plumbers back in. This is my 3rd lot of plumbers - being fair I genuinely believed this lot would come back but I've been waiting 6 weeks. The first 2 weeks I was just waiting as they said they would be back. For the last 4 weeks they have been breaking promises due to ' unexpected extensive workload'. They kept telling me it was just a few bits. I knew it was worse than that. So they finally turned up at 4pm on Saturday. They were originally coming at 10 am and by the time they let me know when they would actually be here I wasn't turning them down. I was in the middle of cooking a meal for the 5 friends who had moved all my big stuff down, trying to give them information which they didn't believe and answer questions which they were not interested in the answer to. As far as I was concerned there were 2 main issues 1 The UFH - * the boiler was not being controlled by the thermostat - it was either on or off; as being switched by me. * at least 2 of the underfloor connections were leaking * loop 1 of 3 on the lower ground - the kitchen area - is not warming up * loop 2 of 3 on the entry level, the hallway not heating up 2 My ensuite. * The toilet flush was leaking, * the hand held shower head was leaking, * the sink hadn't been installed AND the big one that * my shower was leaking badly and dripping (pouring) into the kitchen. Also, there is water under the entry level floor and I don't know where it is coming from, unless it's the leaking UFH pipes. After their visit 1 The UFH - * the boiler was not being controlled by the thermostat - it was either on or off; as being switched by me. THIS IS NOW SORTED AND WORKING. They sorted out an issue previous plumbers left * at least 2 of the underfloor connections were leaking = sorted - tightened * loop 1 of 3 on the lower ground - the kitchen area - is not warming up - still the same * loop 2 of 3 on the entry level, the hallway not heating up - still the same They tell me it is pumped so 'can't be true' 2 My ensuite. * The toilet flush was leaking, - lowered the 'ballcock' (or modern equivalent on) sorted, (maybe) * the hand held shower head was leaking, - it still is * the sink hadn't been installed - it still hasn't AND the big one that * my shower was leaking badly and dripping (pouring) into the kitchen. - it still is. However - we now now that everything from my ensuite is discharging (almost) straight into the underfloor area of the entry level. SO - They have said they will come back tomorrow (Christmas Eve) - 'because they can't leave me like this over Christmas!!!!! FFS I've been telling them for weeks it wasn't a few minor tweaks. They kept trying to tell me that the water under the entry level was down to water getting in. Me telling them that it couldn't be because it was all tanked was ridiculed - because that HAD to be the answer. Except they have now found otherwise. They mean well - and I know they will sort it - as far as the plumbing is concerned. I am going to have to get someone else in to sort the UFH as they don't have a clue. BUT they have been the most patronising t***ts that I have dealt with, in terms of not taking on board what I have told them or even following simple request/demands. (As in don't fix the basin/unit to the wall I want the vinyl to go underneath ... Only used a full tube of CT1 all over the back of the basin. CT1 that I had bought for a different purpose at that. AAAaaaaarrrrrgggghhhhhhhhhhhh I bloody well hope they do come tomorrow.

Manifold one and two are fine - don’t need the rest. M-One could be not recirc as it’s close to the UVC. Instead of putting a cap in the end of M-Two then just put a 22/15 reducer and run the pump for 2 mins an hour and it will keep the manifold hot. Use 10mm down to the kitchen taps and it will be quick. UVC in a garage is a bit of a heat loss - can you box it in ..??

When my dad was building houses back in the 1980s building waste was buried on site. On one site this included an old Transit van which failed its MOT.

Just for the record, my LG ASHP has the strainer built into the heat pump itself. It was one of the first things I checked when getting flow issues.

Mine had 4 setting, low to high. If it’s in the lowest click it up a setting and try the system out. If it trips, click it up a setting, and so on.

After quite a bit of testing I think I like this one the best. At least I haven't found it goes brittle at all. It has a very good and flexible skin to it, sticks well and has very small bubbles.

I think the first question is where is the HW cylinder going? I would be putting it in that double door cupboard on the landing. That puts it pretty central to all points of use, so a manifold in the bottom of thet cupboard and direct to each room should be fine. Far far simpler than multiple distributed manifolds. EDIT just seen the plan for the UVC in the garage. Sory but that is the very last place I would put it, the run to e.g the kitchen would be far too long.

Yes I would say blocked stink pipe. Which would be unusual as in most cases the stink pipe also serves the upstairs bathroom(s) The fact you have not mentioned those suggests this is just a stink pipe. If you are going to replace it anyway, cut it off a metre or so above ground and rod down the pipe with drain rods to try and clear the blockage, but if it has collapsed underground then it will be start digging.

Can't find the pics at the mo but I built my stud wall for the pocket out of 2"x2" with bog standard 1/2" pb on the outside. Infilled the stud with Rockwool batts. No worse sound wise than any others tbh. The face the door shuts against I routed out and fitted self adhesive intumescent foam strip. Works a treat. Tbh there's nothing to go wrong inside with the aluminium track. Think it's just the cheap rollers are noisy. Door comes off in a couple of minutes if they're ever an issue. This is my one: https://www.toolstation.com/sliding-door-gear/p34159?

Following.......likely to be nearly as good as the tiling thread??

This is going to be a good thread. So a set of bookshelves, and when you remove the "special" book, the shelf opens to reveal a door. @Onoff will design the actuators for you. P.S This must be the most inventive idea to get the council tax band down, hide half the house from view so he values it as a small house......

Most folk just quickly learn how long it takes to heat up, and use a simple conventional programmer to turn it on for instance 2 hours before you want it to be warm. At the other end of the day you can turn it off before you have finished as it takes a similar length of time to cool down. Why make things complicated? The few times I have seen a complicated controller, it is not being used because nobody can understand it.

Reminds me of an old friend. His wife threw a pan at him, he ducked, and it went through the glass of the back door. Of course the broken window was his fault for ducking,

I was thinking the same for my build. My concern about pocket doors is that I think the pocket compromises sound insulation for that section of the wall. I would therefore only put them in locations where compromised sound insulation isn't going to cause a problem.

I dare ya! The sobs, the wailing and gnashing of teeth, the retribution, the sound of pots and pans bouncing off walls - why it will keep us all entertained for a good few weeks

I'm with him! I spent more time doing -exactly- this hand-cutting 3 tiles into 'L' shapes, for the plug sockets. I made card templates, marked the back (for some reason) 1,2,3. Meticulous prep. so much care. Had a cuppa/ snooze. About 2 hours in cutting the 3rd, I thought a good idea just to check/ offered 1st up.. I mean as if I needed to after my huAge prep. Then my roof almost came off. I had to go outside to stomp & wail in misery- which set the dogs off 4 doors up. You're allowed to put TerryFkwit up here (so long as he's got a crimbo hat on!). I'll consider trying the lino then if its a feasable diy job- I know the lino chap who might have some old cr*p I could do a trial run with.

I have a friend who did just that. Unfortunately he then put the template on the vinyl back, not the top. A beautifully cut piece of vinyl that fitted wonderfully, if you wanted to see the back not the pattern.

No one Tweeted them so I've done it . Restricted on characters so had to be content with the below. Any plans to remove the restriction whereby UniQs do not accept charge until they are more than 50% depleted? Those with a UniQ are seeing excess PV lost to the grid that they were expecting to top up their UniQ, resulting in hot water unexpectedly running out on occasion. Wait and see if they reply I guess.

Anyone with a social media phobia should get over it as far as Twitter is concerned. You can just follow specific companies and / or organisations you have an interest in. No ‘friends’ to interact with, and no interaction needed on your part. Companies like Sunamp are quite active on Twitter and often you’ll read something there way before the webmaster gets round to putting it on the website. You don’t even have to register in your own name, you can just be anonymous if you want to be. They are far more likely to answer a question on Twitter given the public nature of it than via a private email or whatever.

It is very easy, when living i n a part built house, to just grind to a halt, accept it as it is and not make much progress towards getting it finished. That is a constant issue for us as the next thing we really really need to do is doors, but I am not sure we can actually afford them yet, let alone a joiner to fit them. So I carry on doing stuff that needs doing that is cheap instead.

A quick photo update, I will do proper blog posts over the next few days...... The ground works were started back in August, however there was a long delay with the timber frame being manufactured (partly due the the first floor layout changes), which meant that the TF kit wasn't delivered until November the 18th. Last week the house was made wind and watertight. This week the ground floor UFH was laid and the screed poured. We are hoping that the steel for the cantilevered stair will be fabricated and installed over the next 2 weeks.

I have lots of low level lighting on PIR. Outdoor along my pathways and indoor along my hallways and in the bathrooms and also in niches in bathrooms. No fumbling for lights in the middle of the night. Guest w.c. is also on PIR...gets them every time LOL ...looking for the light switch.

We went from 60m to 206m so I wouldn’t worry about size, there are far more parameters at play. I wouldnt worry about interviewing surveyors, pick the most local company as you will be able to call them out at short notice and they can pop in for a quick hour. This is what ours does, had them out three times now to plot various points on site that would be very hard to do with a tape. Full topo survey of a 1 acre site, 1100 points logged £800. Each site visit £70 an hour roughly

Well that tops off a really crap week! Just had the fitters come and fit the last doors ....INCLUDING the specially made aluminium bifold Of course like everything else outside the house ...it is in "chartwell green" ...UPVC doors, Windows, Rafter Feet, Fascia Board ....EVERYTHING Off i went to make them tea and butties and when i came back BOOM...WTF ...I hope thats plastic film i asked! >No my friend ....its the colour I said ...it is NOTHING like chartwell green >I agree my friend So why have i got it > We dont make these doors is aluminium you need to talk boss...is special made to order Yes i remember >and we gave your wife a colour swatch and a form to fill in why, just make them the same as the PVC ones you supplied >because they only do the RAL colour ..so you have to choose close match well she never picked this >ok , you call office, i am only fitter so after an hour.... i got a scan of the order and sure enough she wrote down swatch RAL 6021 which according to the internet is the closest RAL colour to chartwell bloody green but she SWEARS the swatch was nowhere near as dark as this So ...i am sure she cant live with it ....see picture .. They will not refund our £2k as we chose the colour So i guess we have to change the colour ourselves.... Anyone have any ideas? ...only the outside PS ANYONE ELSE WANTING TO FALL INTO THE CHARTWELL GREEN CLUB. REMEMBER THIS ....I HAS SPOKE TO A LOT OF PEOPLE AND CHARTWELL GREEN IS N-O-T A RECOGNISED COLOUR IT DOES N-O-T HAVE AN RGB OR CMYK VALUE ... WHAT THIS MEANS IS THAT ANY COMPANY DOING A SIMILAR GREENY SHADE CAN CALL IT "CHARTWELL GREEN" SO BE AWARE ...IF YOU DONT GET A FINISHED PAINTED/COATED SAMPLE OF WHAT YOU WANT ...DO N-O-T BUY IT