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Oh, sorry to hear that! This is going to be interesting. If I were Sunamp i’d beloading the van right now with a replacement and calling in my senior technician to pack a suitcase and hit the road to Wiltshire ASAP.

Some assumptions that are unsafe and issues that can cost you a lot... The grass verge out front is part of the highway. The approved house will fit on the plot. The plot is the size implied by the site plan/title plan/planning drawings. There are services nearby so you must be able to connect to them easily. There are no services across the plot. It's a green field so no need to check for soil contamination. The access road is a bit narrow (but my van fits down it so should be ok). The seller says he will get planning permission for you. It's ok to start building your house the day after getting planning permission (At least two issues). Cutting down a nearby willow tree will stop you having to dig deep foundations. If you aren't allowed to put surface water into the main sewer you can always use soakaways. A self builder is always exempt from the CIL. A self builder can reclaim any VAT they are charged. Not using enough insulation. I'm sure there are plenty more.

I just got round to watching these. Someone should keep a copy of the second programme and play it to the VAT tribunal if HMRC refuse their VAT reclaim on the basis that when a house is occupied you are accepting that it is habitable. That was an extreme example but wasn't far off where we were when we moved into the house here. Kitchen / family room complete and the downstairs shower room sort of complete, and there was hot water but other than that nah. We stuck in a bed and a sofa and that made the house at that time. It was still more spacious and comfortable than the caravan. The floor wasn't even down upstairs. Had a few boards over some of the joists. There was an absolute ton of stuff still to do. That's the reality for many self builders especially when they have to sell their previous property to release funds to finish the new one. That programme brought that to life really well. I admire the guy whose partner left him but he still got on with the build, and he knows that he will need to complete the rest as and when time and money allows. It's a pretty lonely experience trying to finish a build on your own and he was on his own for most of it.

Before you cut a hole, is there any chance you can take the downlight out and have a look inside to see if the leak is where you think it is? Water has a habit of running along pipes and dripping down some distance away, so you could end up cutting a hole, only to find that the leak is some distance away. I've got a USB endoscope thing that works reasonably well if you want to borrow it for a look see.

How about; a row of piles 120mm 'out' - (allowed tolerance 130mm) meaning our front wall needing some creative thinking later this year [surveyor error] ICF blocks laid - over a few meters - more than 20mm out of line causing significant expense and aggro extending the first floor joists walls built and left without concrete in them for 5 weeks, blowing down in a turbulent easterly gale in July ( cost several thousand ) wall blocks hammered into line (rather than being relaid) thus causing fractures in the ICF and a huge blow-out - ( cost a few thousand ) steels manufactured 300 ish out of line at one end, correct at the other, meaning several weeks delay and about £1500 of remedial work concrete slab laid to 25mm below FFL - GOK how to sort that - posts to follow Getting out of bed in the morning feeling cheerful. BIG mistake. (PS, apologies Ferdinand ...)

For the record, that is not F

So the brief for the new controls engineer they appoint: Sort out the control system so it accepts charge properly. Undo the "value engineering" to replace failed parts with a different make, to make the product reliable. Spend a few pence per unit on bootlace ferrules. Add some basic status monitoring to the controller. Properly document all features like the location of an overheat resettable trip.

@JSHarris in £/m2 how much was your frame/founds? @lizzie other issues aside, I think that when she refers to "Not cheap" it is regarding the frame (how I read it) Time and again you use your build as evidence to suggest it is cheap - but as Lizzie rightly points out, there's been a lot of water under the bridge since you built your home and times are very different. What was cheap may no longer be so.

Common problem is forgetting to tell the builder you want a tiled floor in the bathroom. If they find out early enough they can add more joists and set them lower to allow for thicker layers of WBP and the tiles without raising the floor level.

Things that didn't go to plan on my build: One of the builders 'fell off' (no one saw him) the scaffolding 10 minutes after arriving on site for the first time. He sued us as we had insurance whilst his employer (who apparently had no insurance) denied all knowledge of having employed the guy and said that we had employed him direct. The case was still ongoing literally years later. buying cheap wall hung cisterns to save money - a false economy Buying a heating system that no one could install up here leading to lots of things being bought that weren't needed, and the system not working properly, then throwing good money after bad to try to get it fixed to no avail, until @Nickfromwales and @PeterW trawled all the way up here to fix it a few years later. Putting the MVHR in the loft in an inaccessible place so I can't get up there to check it or change the filters Echo the issue with @Ferdinand's floor tiles. The main bathroom here has started to show that issue. They were installed by a tradesman so just not done correctly. Not putting enough insulation in the floor. Walls and roof were well above building standards but the floor has the building standard minimum and with UFH it's not enough. And not things I did but are costly beasts if they go wrong ... not sending the VAT reclaim to HMRC within 3 months of completion leading to a refusal by HMRC not completing the CIL paperwork in the right order or not sending completion evidence in time leading to the exemption being cancelled

You will need a L shaped bracket that will act as a tie. We would have used a hilti gun and shot a nail in. You will have to use a drill with a self tapping screw. Is it only the bottom or is it at the sides as well???

I don't know why you are having the issues you are. I know mine is a different make and design of house, but it shares many of the well insulated, air tight, low energy credentials. I have been very satisfied with the performance. I particularly like how it maintains such a constant temperature. Nothing happens quickly, it won't cool down quickly and it won't heat up quickly. Maintain the correct low level heat input and it maintains a comfortable temperature 24/7 regardless of what it is doing outside. And the controls for that are nothing more than 3 room thermostats controlling the 3 UFH zones downstairs and a conventional central heating time clock (mainly so I can have the heating off at night for a totally silent house). My house has also proved that in a well insulated house, even in the Highlands, you don't need heating upstairs. A "control system" that is over shooting and under shooting (too hot or too cold) probably has too much "gain" which in this case means too much heat input. Or at best it is not tuned correctly. A lot of my professional life was control systems and I have seen plenty that are unstable. The trouble is the average "heating engineer" probably know sod all about real control system theory. Lots of things will interact so you need to sort them one at a time. Get the MVHR balanced first. If it is still under and over shooting, the problem is the UFH. You want that to be producing gentle heat at just the right rate, not bursts of too much heat (which will overshoot) then by the time it eventually cools down, it will take time to heat the slab again from cold, and while it waits for that it will undershoot.

Yes, we’ve had the council tax people sniffing around, told them we weren’t finished and she said she had driven past and it looked occupied, of course all our furniture is here to save on storage costs and curtains up to deter break ins, we finally got the digger back in today to cover up remaining drains and level out the site so I’m going to buy the decking and slabs etc(for paths and steps) then let them come out and once that’s done make our reclaim

If I can buy the last velux windows, the stuff for the en-suite bathroom and last of the stuff to fit out the house we will be about there. Then it is just that sun room, and loads of outside stuff like decking, steps, ramps, landscaping etc. In the mean time the ethos seems to be a reasonably constant run of stuff purchased so nobody can claim we stopped buying stuff so "must have finished"

Sand & cement mortar is the only way I know of laying concrete blocks, Tell is more about this plinth and if the steel was designed to carry this load as well as the function it already performs? Ps my fave tv show ‘Brexit’ has been commissioned for another series :))

There is a lot to be said for shutters.

Our last slab was laid badly and dipped towards one corner. Our builders sorted out the walls and the grounds contractors paid for the additional work and materials. A year later we were ready to finish the real floor on the ground floor. We laid the insulation and the UFH pipes. The screed co arrived and told us that they couldn’t put the screed down because of the slope - the screed would be so think in one corner of the house the UFH wouldn’t work and also the cost would be much more. Fixing the problem entailed Peter crawling UNDER the UFH pipes and insulation, pushing additional insulation in appropriate places. It was an absolute nightmare but we did it! We just hadn’t twigged that the initial error, which had been spotted and corrected had additional consequences we had not thought about

So far I can only offer a small error with significant consequences for my muscles. I wish I had paid the JCB man for an extra hour on foundation dig day to create separate mud piles to segregate my silt sub soil from the high quality top soil. Six months later I have to mine mud mountain on site to expose seams of top soil layered between sub soil and dried out turf.

TBH the only thing so far (after 16 months of occupancy) was that the TF construction crew put in cross bracing 50×75s (IIRC, but the might have been 50×100s) threaded through the ecoJoists during erection and these were nailed to the ecoJoists at the intersections. On one cross-over in each of the main and guest bedrooms there is maybe a couple of mm flex which causes noticeable creak as you walk over them -- trivial to fix before boarding out, but we would need to lift carpets and do keyhole surgery to fix these now. Even so, given that two floor creaks are my only annoyance, I think that I must have been lucky / all that anal attention to detail has paid off.

Not back buttering our kitchen and cloakroom tiles has led to a “hollow” sounding floor which will need to come up some time, but as the skirting and kitchen is now fitted it’s not a job I am looking forward to. Also not double boarding the downstairs ceilings has led to voices being heard between floors.

Good illustrations of a point that @Nickfromwales has emphasised a few times, that tiles laid on a boarded floor need a layer of glued and very well screwed marine ply fixed to the floor, to reduce the risk of movement. I glued and screwed 9mm marine ply to both our upstairs bathroom floors, making sure that the ply joints were well staggered away from the underlying flooring joints. This seems to make for a very solid floor, but I did use lots of PU adhesive and hundreds of screws, just to be sure as I could that it wouldn't flex, as our flooring up there is 600 x 400 travertine, which needs good support.

If you do go down that path, could you take a series of pics that non-engineers like me could follow? Would indeed be useful to know what the thing is doing rather than just turning on the hot tap and seeing whether the thing's been charging or not. Be good to be able to self-diagnose the unit without having to call Sunamp each time. The last thing I want to do is un-plumb and manhandle 400kg to get access or even send the units back. Shame there's no app or even a USB port you can check the status with.

Well done Jeremy for the quick fix. It's really reassuring to know that when I get my Sunamp(s) that 'Sunamp Repairman' lives not too far away ?

I have always regarded Finder as very much budget stuff, nowhere in the league of ABB, Telemech etc. Glad you have sorted it without pulling your plant room to bits. Next time (if there is a next time) do an ohms check on the outgoing pair with the contactor open.

I am in the minority here using a 30mm thick dry sand / cement "biscuit mix" for the heat dispersal medium in my suspended timber UFH. I am very pleased with the way it works, FAR better imho than spreader plates. We don't get overheating issues but as mentioned that is probably due to our location in the north, rather than any particular design genius.

Just pulled the contactor out. It's a Finder 22.22.8.230.4000 and it's definitely buggered (this is the thing: https://uk.farnell.com/finder/22-22-8-230-4000/relay-dpst-no-250vac-20a/dp/1169295). Looks like it's been overheating slightly on the line in terminal, although all the screws were tight. The closest I've got to this is a spare 20 A, DP, ABB contactor, rather than the 32 A ones I use in the car charge point. ABB stuff tends to be a bit better than Finder stuff, IMHO, so having checked that the spec looks similar I'm off to fit the new one and see if that fixes things. (Note to self: Don't assume that zero amps on a clamp meter in the supply to the heater, with power on and a contactor apparently closed, means that the heating element is open circuit in future...) PS: There are NO ferrules on any of the wiring that Sunamp have done. I think that this may be a contributory factor, as they've used fine stranded equipment wire poked straight in to terminal, pretty crappy workmanship in my view (I always use insulated ferrules when terminating stranded wire, have done for years, as I've seen too many failed connections at screw terminals in the past)

When they're finished: You just knock up some shuttering: Drop in a trench and level up: Some "conduit": Cover it all up with concrete: Add some 20mm rail: A bit of 20mm conduit and some wheelbarrow wheels to move the galvanised frame around 'cos it's bloody heavy! Erect, red special metals primer then Hammerite. Flag brand paint I think I used. Some reject scaffold boards turned into T&G with 6mm ply strips for the tongues: Slave labour: Lay the boards out on the lawn and cut the curve. More slave labour to transport the off cuts: Lots of drilling, stainless bolts: Simples!

What a PITA! I bet you do wish you'd kept the Sunamp PV. I'm just down the road Jeremy let me know if you want a hand with moving the Sunamp.

When we did fil bathroom into a wetroom we went for a flat floor no tray (no step to trip over) and we had a curtain not a screen. That was on the advice of his carers as it is more flexlible and gives more room for carers when assisting showering. We also kept to a purpose made moveable chair ....got it from mobility dept.... again on advice of carers they said fold down too restrictive and not as safe. He was over 90 and needed help......Occ health assisted with positioning of handrails...we had a few!

So @Big Jimbo is your road going to be adopted or is it your own ..? Planings or scalpings cannot be used as hardcore for an adoptable highway due to the potential for inclusion of contaminants hence why the contractor may say this. Putting a scalpings base down is pretty easy though but you need a decent roller. Double drum Bomag is ideal, it seriously compacts the lumps and if done on a warm day you will also get some tar binding. The downside is it’s not that permeable so you need to lay it with a fall as otherwise you will get puddles and it will start to break up when it gets cold.

I didn't need planning permission for mine but did need building regulations approval.

Whilst at the design stage shouldn’t the OP be considering specifying coatings on the glass to reduce the effects of the sun?

@Ferdinand each self build is in charge of their own security, but there is a police patrol car that drives through every once in a while. Else the roads are all publicly accessible and we get a lot of touring eyes driving through. More so now with the GD show having been aired. Have had several break-ins on plots, so installation of CCTV has occured on a lot of sites. We are hoping that as neighbours move in that these incidents will reduce. Going to be discussing the issue today at our liaison group and raising it with Graven Hill. Train tracks and sewage plant are certainly near by, but neither is much of a concern. I rarely hear let alone notice the train, and never smelt the sewage plant. Then again the pioneers are much closer, can't speak for them.

I'm a bit of a chancer, and so much cheaper than MOT

= 10K ohm (10,000 ohms) If it has burnt out, it almost certainly means something else has gone. but worth a try. I would not be at all surprise if FET1 was dead.

Gaulhofer do external blinds. I have specced them on our south facing windows, mostly for managing the solar gain, but the optional extra privacy will be good too. We are considering shutters for the 3 veluxes & will probably put the infrastructure in so that they can be added later if required.

brown back orange?

If you are still in time to get external blinds then go for them you can get supply and fit zero rated but even if you had to pay the vat it will still be worth it. I was too late for blinds - by the time everyone acknowledged the problem it would have meant major works to retrofit and no one on site wanted to go there...the carpenter quailed at the idea of removing his beautiful cladding to get cable runs behind. Blinds inside the glazing are not as effective nor are internal blinds. I have an overheating problem with a house built to passive standards of insulation and airtightness with mvhr as per but solar gain not properly taken into account (thats another story). I always said I would have issues due to amount of glazing on south and west but was told it would be fine.....it was not. I have had solar film fitted to see if this will help but it was only done last October so this summer will give it a test. A bris soleil would help but design of house and roof and exposed location make this tricky. Internorm windows... I have them.....the windows are beautiful. The installers are the problem. Be aware of that if you do choose Internorm, the bad press on here is well deserved.

I have a pair of ugly galvanised gates at the back of my plot that the railway put in (and own). I had them clad in timber and they look a whole lot nicer now. Blend in with the wooden fence.

Easily get his 60/40 split with a pair of differrent size ones and "instant gates". Zoot has the skills we know and could clad after at his leisure.

cheap as chips, and you can clad'em if you want- http://moyfab.com/project/galvanised-after-manufacture-d4/

Thank you all for your opinions.

You might want to have a read of this case. This relates to a self builder putting a claim in for a VAT refund rather than a zero rated developer built house but it’s worth a read. http://financeandtax.decisions.tribunals.gov.uk/judgmentfiles/j9302/TC05323.pdf Your builder may need to evidence that the property is a new build and he will need more than photo evidence. You run the risk that without the proper planning permission in place HMRC will reject the zero rating and the builder will want to recover it from you. VAT registered traders have to do quarterly returns so it won’t be long before your house will be on HMRC’s radar. When you say that your builder will be doing everything you mean buying and fitting the whole lot? You can claim the vat back yourself on eligible items you purchase even if the majority of the work is zero rated by the builder.

The street are the first 10 plots at Graven Hill, hence why we call them the Pioneer plots. Or more formally, Phase 0. Phase 1A is being undertaken now, with #35-45 in the north east all nearing completion or done, as are most of the houses from #71-95 and #118-135 (wood crescent) in the south east #148 to 177 in the south centre are currently starting, as you can see below from out plot foundations at #156. Neighbour behind (two plots in between, see plinths) with the crescent to the right, and affordable housing done and going up to the left. Yup, far more. These plots were quite discounted I believe to help kick-start the Graven Hill programme so they could start marketing and pointing to active projects. Ours was £255k for just shy of 500m2, which was £20 more than we'd been told when we'd originally approached Graven Hill, and £75k more than estimated back in 2015. Equivalent plots in phase 1B (to the west) have been on sale for a bit now and are about £315-320k, such as #276 for example. They're increasing the number of floor levels from 2 to 3 to increase GIA to bump the price up for the same land. Starting to get a bit too greedy now methinks as the uptake and start of new plots has slowed down quite a bit. Suspect they're having cash flow issues due to everything being much prolonged with them as bureaucratic middle men/women. Have a browse at their plots here: https://www.gravenhill.co.uk/map/ yes, I recall that too. They dropped it in favour of the code for sustainable homes which the government was pushing between 2010-15. Had to have 5 our of 6 stars through some points based system. That died when the government dropped it. They settled on plot passports instead, which have a chapter on the performance and sustainability requirements. See the full thing here: https://www.gravenhill.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/1982-p-p-c-plot-0156-33.pdf No, defiantly not. I was very surprised that Graven Hill allowed some of that to be aired at all. Guess they don't get any editorial say? It has taken us two years between reserving and starting to dig foundations jumping through all the hoops. Not just with Planning, Engineering and Structural control, but also via Graven Hill themselves. Planning was the only easy bit, everything else has an additional layer of bureaucracy one really doesn't need in a stressful self build... We have to file forms for every little bit and pay fees for stuff one would just be able to do normally. We legally own the land, but are treated as if we don't have a right to. Also had to bear significant risk due to Graven Hill, having to spend £50k up front and signed up to a further £100k+ worth of materials and contractors before we even got to sign for the contract on the plot. Stupidly risky. Next self build would be traditional for certain. As for the health and safety, was very taken aback at the living on site. That's a strict no-no for us. Not even a caravan or mobile home. Graven Hill to their credit are very responsible here, enforcing all the CDM rules to the letter, with a full time H&S officer on site every day. It is nice knowing that everyone is taking that seriously and not acting like idiots! Shame. You're invited to come down and join ourselves and our neighbours to hopefully change your mind about us young-uns. Most of us are far from the stereotypical millennial that the tabloids love to hate.

I wish they would go into a bit of detail about the structure. e.g one built with block on the flat (to give lots of t****** m***) So what insulates the building? It appeared to be bare block inside so presumably some insulation between the block and the cladding? It would have been nice to know.

"when the service is free you are probably the product" So what is BH wanting from me?

Now spending 3 hrs + a day on the house

And that fella worked so hard his diabetes went into remission!

First structural failure of a cantilevered roof.

4 births, 1 divorce, 3 with not enough money to finish,4 architect changes and at least 4 with bits you know have no chance of passing building regs.