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You missed your chance Ian. You dangling in between the joists checking your crown jewels where still attached while Kevin stood by commenting on your eco durisol blocks would have made gd TV.

UFH every time. Like many others we have an MBC twin-wall with a blown cellulosic insulation filler. We also have an exterior stone stone to fit in with the local context. UFH on the ground floor heated by an inline 3kW (Willis) heater. No heating on the 1st or 2nd floor apart from an electrical rad in the master bedroom en-suite. No rads anywhere. Cheap, simple effective. I have to offer a dissenting opinion to @jonM's designer. I feel that he really misses the main point here: if you have a reasonable specification passive design (our slab, TF + insulation and air-tightness cost less than our stone skin so it was hardly an expensive option), then you just keep the whole house at the same temperature all day and year round. It's just not worth trying to save the odd £100 p.a. by trying to have different zones or shaping the heat across the day. A couple of times we've dropped our heating for a day or two. We didn't notice because the house only loses about 1°C / day in temperature with no heating; and it then takes a couple of days to regain this, and if you try to force it you end up in an over-compensating roller coaster. Our 1st floor might be a degree or so cooler than the ground floor in winter, but we prefer that. I don't know how we could get it much cooler if we tried. As with Jeremy and others, the supplier's site team tied the UFH pipework to the rebar grid in the slab before the pour: a ½ day's work instead of all those rads and internal plumbing. No comparison, IMO. The difference is that there is no maintenance needed for the pipework in the slab for the life of slab, but rads and TRVs etc. will need maintenance. Also not having those bloody rads under the windows everywhere just makes decorating and dressing all the rooms so much more straightforward.

We’ve just done our final concrete pour, in fact two pours in one week. From ground floor to gables in two weeks with Easter in the middle is quick, a little too quick to enjoy. We can now get a real sense of how the house will look. Next week we are ready to start work on the roof. Before building the first floor, a temporary floor was laid around the room perimeters using 12mm OSB. This was done to provide a working area to build the blocks from and allow bracing to be put in place without damaging the final floor. 12mm board seemed awfully thin to walk on! . With our builders now familiar with the wall plans the blocks went up very quickly indeed. In practice it takes longer to do the bracing and shuttering than to do the building. Not having to cut blocks on site is a major advantage, not just from an accuracy point of view but it also makes the site much cleaner. Some ICF sites look as though it’s been snowing with polystyrene. As mentioned in out last blog entry we had the option to do a single pour combining the first floor and gables. We’re really glad it was done in two stages, attempting it in one pour would almost certainly caused major bracing issues and risked the block work due to the higher pressures resulting from the depth of concrete. Never thought I would be happy to shell out £1000 on a pump. Having no experience of other build methods it’s not easy to evaluate the pro’s and con’s of each system. For us, the need to use concrete pumps has to be the worst aspect of ICF. It just seems like you’re never quite ready and there’s another dozen details to attend to before it starts. With multiple companies involved for boom pumps and concrete delivery, it’s both expensive and difficult to get people to turn up when you asked for them. Our last pour was scheduled for 11am and the concrete lory finally arrived a 3:30pm...To add to the entertainment the pump has to be vented after use. This involves a set of guys you probably won’t see again and want to be elsewhere dumping large volumes of concrete on your site. After three pours we have somewhere in the region of three tons of set concrete to break up and pay to dispose of. Some of the last lot got dumped on next doors newly block paved drive. Lots and lots of cleaning up. It’s not too much of a surprise that the builders don’t include this in there list of responsibilities. Definitely the Achilles heel of the ICF build method. Enough moaning, it’s been a long couple of weeks with many disturbed nights worrying irrationally about being a lego brick short at the end of the build. We now have a house, no roof, but hey we have to do something next week.

Gary Peacey - gary@jub.org.uk is the UK ICF man

Yeah used them and done training with them aswell. Decent company.

.. you know, I figured I'd just note down my famous last words from the onset, and it'll be smooth sailing from here on out, right? Anyway, hi, my name is Marten! We've been searching for houses for 3 years, and have now gone the self-build route since finding a high-ceiling (>2m60) modern house seems near impossible in our area. Strange. I've read a lot in books, but will certainly be looking for a advice, tips, words of support (or warning) etc. It's certainly going to be an interesting 2(?...) years.. Thanks!

Most companies tbh don’t even respond - guess they don’t want my money . Or start at a dumb price - so I then ignore them ...

Fair point Ed. But we operate our three loops as a single zone so we don't have TRVs on the manifold. The other advantage is that all this stuff in is a single services cupboard with a concrete floor, so no risk to carpets.

Ahh I see I feel your pain, don't worry. I was pretty chuffed that the last time I did one I managed to not blow the render outside the house.

I would love to use the knowledge gained from these experiences and build another one but, to quote what I believe Ringo Star said on his 65th birthday, "It's only my body that's this old , in my mind I'm still 21" Unfortunately my body just won't cope with the work, hence I fear this will be the last one.

Thanks! Yes they're on our list - their Sieger & Mondrian lines look promising. However they may be a tad more contemporary than we want as our facade is quite traditional. Secco is the ideal look - very nice but I'm sure very expensive!

Congratulations you've done it! So how long did it take to do one? Just out of curiosity....why do you need to do another 18 holes? you making a weird crazy golf setup of something?

I have Bora hob - know some of you do too. I love my Bora hob and wouldn't swap it but the shiny chrome look centre grill started to jar a bit. Bora have now brought out some centre grills in different finishes so clearly I am not alone in feeling that. Just got one in black today. Looks a bit shiny in photo but isn't in real life. Love the lower profile look.

Oh wow...sorry I didn't know that. My supplier gave it to me as a present - very generous of him!

I'll tell you what's a nice sensation: coming into the house in the middle of summer after walking the dog on a baking hot day, taking your shoes off and walking on a concrete floor at around 19-20 degrees C. It's the sort of cool you get when you walk into a cave or a cathedral.

Thanks for sharing this. Think I will order one as I really done like chrome and our worktop is a dark grey.

Vapour pressure will generally be from inside toward the outside so best practice guidance is that the materials on the warm side should have a total vapour resistance of at least twice the sum of the vapour resistances on the cold side (BS 5250:2011). IE in practice if you are using membranes, then the outside one would be a breather membrane and the inner one should be impermeable.

The snag is that "smart" meters have been proven to not make any significant changes to patterns of usage, for the simple reason that the major energy consumption devices in the home have to run when they have to run (typically heating and hot water). Consumers can nibble around the edges and make tiny changes, but overall these don't appear to make any significant difference. "Smart" meters aren't being introduced to reduce CO2, anyway, the reason for rolling them out is everything to do with grid peak demand management. The idea is that once there are enough of them installed, then variable rate tariffs can be rolled out, to increase and decrease the price on the fly. The hope is that using dynamic pricing will drive consumers (more likely drive appliance manufacturers in reality) to change their pattern of use so that they consume less energy at peak times and more energy at off-peak times. There isn't expected to be a net reduction in energy consumption, if anything the chances are that energy consumption may rise slightly, as a consequence of the use of storage systems to allow time-of-use offsetting.

English BRegs means you can either work on the basis of plans approval or using a Building Notice, which means you can start with 24 hours notice, and the inspector approves by stage. It is no cheaper, but it allows more rapid progress. The downside is that if the inspector spots something as you go, you could end up with costly rework - OK on an extension but wouldn't want to do that for a full new house build !

I'm with you on this one. Trying to get 4 threaded bars out of the concrete in our ICF, I thought a core drill would be best. It wasn't. An 8mm, then a 12mm, followed by 16mm SDS drill did the job quickly. Maybe you need a perfectly circular hole, but 'stitch-drilling' is quicker and easier. And less annoying. Why less annoying? The EPC cut-out operated so frequently, and while on EPC, the drill only operates at 70% of full revs.

I would say that bit isn't helping. There isn't much of the diamond stuff on it. https://www.redbanduk.co.uk/102-to-152mm-o-d-wet-diamond-core-bit-1-1-4-unc-female You would have been better hiring a complete unit like this pro drill and bit n this page. https://www.hss.com/hire/c/breaking-and-drilling/diamond-drills

Lets not fuss about a small thing like that.

You submit a CIL commencement note, not a BR note. Basically, you submit your Self Build exemption form, wait for a response from the council in writing, and then crack on. You don't need to tell them you have started.

All the time, although the designer wasn't an architect in this case. I think it was the guy who build his own home on the Isle of Wight a few seasons earlier. Either way, I don't think any architect in the UK would suggest you could build a huge 6 bedroom (all with ensuite) home with pool, gym, music room, massive games room (etc, etc, etc) with loads of expensive and experimental finishes, acres of Swiss (I think?) triple glazing, all built into a hill, with no prior building experience and doing literally no work yourself, and managing all of this for what looks like well under £1000/m2. That's just bonkers. Of course.

Yes, but how often do you see the architect of a 'client' with a budget of 'x' design a home with a likely cost of 'y'.

And was exactly why GD got its fangs into the project. Nowt to do with building..... Our cat nearly killed me (a play-bite gave me sepsis). It changed my mind about the need to take non-verbal cat behaviour very seriously indeed. And then we started a self-build project which we couldn't afford - hold on a minute ?

Welcome back old boy @SteamyTea Missed your dodgy innuendo and bad taste jokes?

@Ed Daviesand @TerryE Do a statistical model, some things just cannot be sorted out with a relatively simple equation.

Dragging this back from aliens, there is I think an issue with the way the arguments about climate change are presented, that makes people wary - how many times have we heard we are at tipping point / point of no return / only have x years to save the planet? The media (at least in part) do bear responsibility for this as they tend to sensationalise doomsday scenarios in their never ending hunt for audience share. On the other hand are the warnings being made intentionally so terrible / dire as there is an understanding or even acceptance that governments and individuals are not going to put in place extreme measures, but may be willing (and able) to make small changes which gradually make a difference ? - think the large run into speed limits at roadworks - the spped limit is there to protect the workforce but really isn't needed (for that purpose) half a mile back from where the work is being carried out - lengthening the run in makes it more likely drivers will have lifted off the gas and their speed reduced by the time they reach the critical point.

Heres my finished set of gates with decking infill... really happy with the result

Does the product, or does the product not have a current patent ? NOTE : There have been some requests to have this thread moderated. Until there is a breach of BH T&C's the content can stand. It's a healthy debate at the moment and will be of value to anyone else considering buying this product. If it is decided that a certain number of magic beans have been discussed, and nothing of factual content brought to the exchange to the contrary, then this thread will be edited back to whenst it came. Mods. In the meantime, let's keep it above the belt and factual. ?

We have put IdealCombi in our latest project. We used a combination of inward and outward opening.

Highly recommend Gaulhofer. We went with their In-Line 91mm which is triple glazed, so may be more dear than you're willing to consider.

Or you plan a space and ask the pump guy to use it, he says yes, then the moment your back is turned he just dumps it where the truck was parked while pumping.