Leaderboard

Thats a contract law scenario. In the event of a failure to meet a statutory legal requirement, the liability is immediately transferred to the installer. We contract subs to install to G3 BRegs requirements - if they fail to do so, and in the event of an installation failing as it was not installed to G3, liability passes to the subcontractor. We are not G3 certified so cannot be liable for the install. If we didn’t check they were correctly certified then it’s our responsibility.

... or the people having to buy new charging cables every 6 months as the ends fell off ...

Following on from the discussion about poor build quality? Can we discuss fire barriers in timber frame houses, what are they, where do they go and what are they made of?

I did wonder if that was an MBC frame, but slotted into a steel building frame, slightly different way of doing it. Self build relationships never cease to amaze me. Let's build a house together. Oh I will bugger off to Moscow for 3 years and leave you to build the house without me. The other thing that strikes me, is time and time again the people building these first 10 houses say what a lovely peaceful location with fantastic views. but hold on what will it be like when all 2000 houses are built there and you no longer look at empty fields but other houses.

Anyone spot one of my section drawings that I annotated up for building control in tonight's show? Blink and you'd have missed it! (yes, it was very briefly shown on a desk in the MBC factory in Gloucester, and yes, they did ask me if they could use it, ages ago)

+1 for Foamglass. Any structural solution with good at handling thermal bridging is going to be dear no matter which you pick

Concrete screws. 5.5mm in celcon/soft red 6mm in fibolite/ normal brick 6.5mm in concrete/ fletons Don't keep winding them in. Let it bite then stop!

Welcome - basements are not cheap but on a space constrained site can add a lot of valuable space. I built mine for around £1000/sqm. They can also act as the foundations of your house, especially if you are in clay and need to go 2-3m deep with trenches etc. Planners can to look upon them favourably vs above ground footprint - our basement is 30% of our internal footprint and was added after initial planning was achieved (new planning app) - no issues. The main challenge with basements is understanding what you're building into, some some spend is required on surveys (known as ground investigation) to understand the underlying strata, water table etc. Only then can the basement be properly designed (by a Structural engineer) and then costed. Avoid 'basement experts' as they charge a massive premium for what is a standard construction job for a decent groundwork firm. You can built a basement from poured concrete in formwork/shuttering and put a timber frame building on top (as I did) . Others do them in ICF and carry that up for the whole house structure.

Don't ask me, I've gone right off concrete screws recently! Well, as of last night! Got quite a few of these 7mm Easy Drive ones left over from studding the walls out. Even back then I had the odd one not take. Thought I'd give them another go battening out the bathroom cupboard. Drilled the requisite 6mm hole. Not a chance were they going in! Makita impact gun just said no! Couldn't be ar5ed going to 6.5mm. Brown plugs and 6x90 Forge Fast screws for this lot:

Just tried concrete screws into block work for fixing battens but didn't get on with them (kept stripping the pilot hole out), so went back to screws and plugs. Maybe what you need are 'concrete ceiling anchors': https://www.screwfix.com/p/fruilsider-suspended-ceiling-anchor-one-size-60-x-6-x-6mm-100-pack/8349t

Ok Zone Valve or 2 port valve has a microswitch in it. When the valve is fully open, the micro switch closes, which would either give 230v to the boiler to fire, or close a set of no volt contacts on the boiler. Currently, your boiler fires when the time clock is set to on, and the thermostat on the TS calls for heat. New setup, you put the 2 port (closed) valve in the flow from the boiler, and the live feed to this is taken from the boiler switch wiring - ie what would normally make the boiler go live. Now when TS and time clock call for heat, the motor on the valve is energized, the valve opens and when it’s fully open, the micro switch triggers the boiler. This means the boiler pump isn’t pushing against a closed valve, and also stops a route for the UFH to try and circulate cold water through the boiler and into the manifold. Is there a gate valve near the boiler ..? If so, you could close this to simulate the zone valve being closed and then see if the UFH pulls hot water from the TS.

Hi, what sort of budget do you have and what part of London i cant see you getting a basement for under £75-100 grand party wall agreement, having to hold next doors house in position whilst you dig out for the basement, muck away costs. I think a basement in Shepherd’s Bush would be twice the cost of one out in Northamptonshire just trying to be a realist.

Sounds mighty complicated. Ct1 it up. Maybe a couple of screws to hold it in place. Personally I don't like perforating structural concrete things like lintols with screws. Afaic it's just asking for trouble

In one of the original designs Proton blocks were suggested. This web site shows a number of different designs of passive slabs and how to eliminate the cold bridge, http://www.viking-house.ie/passive-house-foundations.html edit to add “use the above web link with caution, just look at the pictures” - see Jeremy’s post below.

Joe 90 He's actually a Archtectural technician, with my own plans (this query is for my daughters) I aslo drew them up myself on homebyme and then passed these onto a Cad operator who did them professionally to submit to the council, it cost me £3000.00 I was quote 30 thousand, 15 just to ask the council and then another 15 for the finished product to submit to the planning! The costs never stop, I now have to submit plans for a soakaway and 100 year flood thingy even though I have had a house on this site for the past 50 years.....ludicrous! Our structural engineer gave me access to the Cad darwings and I've been altering them ever since, if you never meet up with the Cad op you really are floundering around in the dark with e mails backwards and forwards and getting nowhere, no one but yourself knows exactly where the sun comes up and in what windows how you live in a property etc., they seem to have all their own ideas and really don't want to know anymoe else's thoughts do they!

@pocster I think he is asking if you are going to suspend people?

Soo, this gets a bit complicated. The worktop guy is not at all involved in the MDF/steel elements. The steel is my husbands idea because we’d read some stories of difficult-to-repair chips above dishwashers whilst taking stuff out, people were banging the edge, so he thought the steel would protect it pretty well. The edge of the steel will show but we have other steel elements in the house (a staircase) so we don’t mind that. It’s basically like one giant tile, so we went with the “full tiling bed” approach that you use when laying fragile natural stone tiles. The MDF is part of the bespoke detail to the island that makes the worktop look like it’s floating - we bring the MDF above the level of the units, but set back a little and the edge painted black, so it creates a shadow gap. I don’t think I have a photo of it at the minute but hopefully the worktop is being installed tomorrow or Monday so I can get pics then. It should look really cool with the ultra thin slab.

OK so googled it.. As suspected, "Sieger" is just a made-up / marketing brand comprised of a lot of cheaper products in the market from various companies, rebadged to make them look premium. The "Sieger Slim Casement" is a Cortizo Casement Window. The "Sieger HD Casement" is an Aluk 58BW Casement Window Both are basically low-cost replacement windows so yes, those u-values are probably accurate. Not saying there's anything wrong with either product, but you won't get eco new-build u-values out of either of them.

And I thought Dekton was indestructible (ok ok I know, most materials have sensitive angles, areas etc.. ) OK so - Dekton - Corian - Sapienstone All seem nice candidates for "indestructible yet pretty"?

@ultramods I’ve got 8mm Dekton - a sintered porcelain surface like Neolith. Love it - never get tired of attacking it with any old screw that’s lying around and just wearing the screw down with no scratching to the surface! We needed something indestructible.

It is really nice. I found it at Grand Designs last November at NEC. I was surprised but it was cheaper than granite, quartz, corian etc. The liked the 12mm one, nice & sleek & contemporary.

That's a bit of an increase, more than I'd have expected, although it is about 6 years since they did our report, and it was very comprehensive. You can get an idea as to whether or not a borehole may be viable by looking at the BGS website and looking for borehole records near to where you are. I found about a dozen boreholes around our village, so knew that we had a pretty good chance of being able to use one.

Yes. See the example with Abba here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war The first LP I bought with my pocket money was by Abba - now what an admission in a public forum! Digital audio did not exist then. I still use FM for improved audio quality. e.g. my car can tune both DAB and FM, FM sounds much more natural to me, even in that noisy environment.

Live in, I have no other residence in the UK, it will be my home but not the home I hope to have after a few years. But I feel with me not been resident in the UK currently I will need to be very carful with VAT reclaim, I need to get some advice on where I will stand with this as I'm not sure if it applies to non residents.

I bought a manifold kit from Wunda fir an ASHP and it did not have a pump and the wrong connections, when I called them they assumed the pump in the ASHP would be sufficient. Our ASHP does not have a pump and because we are using a buffer tank two pumps are required, one for the UFH ccts on the manifold and one for the buffer tank and DHW and ASHP cct.

Welcome. It s not clear whether this is self build may for what you want to live in, or potentially to sell. I think that you probably need to cost up your basic core structure (not poor quality, but perhaps to second fit without the gold plating finishes and gadgets you would like in an ideal world), and expect to build to that then consider the rest depending what happens. Ferdinand

When fighting our planning application our neighbour (tosser) told us he owned the grass verge between his wall and highway about 1m, on talking to a very helpful chap at highways he was wrong (not that he would admit it!!). The verge is counted as highway in fact it being the predecessor to a pavement, somewhere for people and horses to walk if they choose. The boundary is the wall, hedge or ditch. if you leave the bottom couple of brick courses (repointed) and erect the fence on top no one can argue, especially if you photograph the leaning wall of pitza as evidence, I imagine if you remove the ivy it will look even worse so you have good cause to make it safe. Simples ?

I am putting an island in our kitchen (it should be arriving in the next 2 weeks). I don't have experience living with it yet, however I have stayed in holiday houses with similar layout and I liked it. Our island is slightly bigger than the floor plan, it's 3100 x 1200 mm, we would have liked to go slightly longer, however 3100 mm is the longest we could get the preferred worktop in. Also the sink isn't as large as displayed on the floor plan. if you are having an island, watch that the circulation space around the island is not to cramped, especially between the island and the bank of units, as it makes it difficult for more than 1 person to be working in the kitchen at the same time, we have gone for 120 0mm between the tall bank and the island. Out island will be the only worktop in the kitchen, we went for this and the house is to be very minimal and I find having lots of worktop space means lots of appliances and knife holders etc are on display. Where as with the island this will not be possible. The island will house: pan drawer, drawer for cutlery (also utensils and knives), hob, sink, boiling water tap, dishwasher and bins (normal waste and recycling). There is no seating at the island because we don't like sitting on bar stools, also the dining table which is very close, provides seating. There will be double sockets on the sides of each end of the island, we haven't gone for a popup socket for aesthetic reasons and to make it slightly easier to clean the worktop. Also ignore some of the width dimensions shown on the island drawings, it's not 4224 or 5 * 600, it's 3100 mm.

Welcome. I would guess that most self-builders rarely make a saving in cost over buying a house ready built, TBH. Build costs vary a lot, depending on how much work you do yourself, but a typical self build, with no frills, is likely to cost around £1500/m² total floor area. The really big advantage of self-build is that you get exactly the house you want, where you want it. The old "rule of thirds", 1/3rd for the land, 1/3rd for the build, 1/3rd profit is long gone. Even the big developers, who can build at much lower costs than self-builders, rarely get more than about 15% profit, and some work down at around 10% to 12%. It's really tough for a self-builder to come in at less build cost than a developer, unless doing a great deal of work yourself, and not costing your labour. Some here have built for less than £1000/m², but they are all people that have done a large part of the work themselves, in at least one case including all the brick and blockwork. We used a ground works contractor to level the site, etc, then a timber frame company that laid the foundation and erected the house, including fitting the insulation and doing the airtightness stuff. I purchased doors and windows from another company, on a supply and fit basis, used a roofing contractor for the slates and used a plasterer to board out and plaster the interior. I bought the cladding and employed two guys on a day rate to fit it, and also employed an electrician to do the wiring. I installed all the plumbing, some of the wiring, the heating system, most of the internal joinery, the kitchen, utility room, bathrooms, WC etc myself. With all that work we managed to get our build cost down to £1380/m², but it was a lot of hard work, spread out over a long time. Being retired I was able to put in the hours, though, so my time was effectively free.

I prefer solving things through market forces rather than employing more people in the public sector. One very simple change in the law would tip things towards better quality and prevent 105% mortgages or overvaluation. In other countries homeowners have the right to return the keys and walk away free of mortgage debt. If the banks had to face the prospect of owning shanty new builds they would ensure better quality homes. The current state of affairs is a David v. Goliath situation, if the banks had a vested interest in quality it creates a more equitable King-Kong v. Goliath contest.

Very true, @joe90, we were originally going to install a GSHP (it's on our planning consent) but switched to an ASHP when I looked at the whole life cost, which was astronomical when compared with an ASHP. The cost difference was massive, around £2k for the ASHP versus around £8k for the GSHP (both installed cost). The tiny difference in theoretical efficiency (which almost certainly wouldn't have been real in practice, due to collector loop pump running cost over the year) would never have come close to making up for the massive difference in initial cost, let alone the ongoing servicing cost that a GSHP invariably incurs. We could easily fit three replacement ASHPs over the next 30 years or so and still come out on top, although I don't envisage having to do this, as the ASHP just does it's stuff and works, needing no attention other than cleaning cobwebs out of the grill every year or so..

Yes, I would agree with that. Things like kitchens too.

That is quite expensive. Basically means running in a second supply just for charging, and a larger local substation. More than just a socket on a wall somewhere. I have not seen any figures for the mass of suitable fuel cells and storage tanks. Mind you, current battery packs have ancillary heating/cooling fitted, so they are not as light as they seem. Yes it can, but why would you. It would still cause air pollution because most of the air we have is nitrogen. ICEs are very inefficient and mechanically complex. They also have gearboxes, which just shows the short comings of the engine. When you think about it, the modern car is really a very good compromise considering all the issues they have. I thought that it was the sampling rate that was more important than the compression. If things are sampled at a higher rate than we can hear, then in practicality, it is original sound. I am not talking about highly compressed mp3s here, just the difference between CD quality and grooved quality. But it is odd that DAB radio is a compressed format and it is considered better than traditional broadcasts. But then I only have 50 quid ears, so not really bothered. I just wish that my local DAB transmitter was reliable.

No, not instalments, you need 2 completely separate orders each under 30k in total to make Section 75 valid. So maybe order the front windows separately from the rear. And as I mentioned, to avoid questions being asked split the order into 2 time periods. It may not be necessary but at least you can say ‘I was still considering whether to order the rear windows’ or some such to justify having 2 claims if (God forbid) you need the Section 75 cover.

Also research the company. How long have they been trading, how many dissolved companies have the directors been involved in? It won’t protect you but some due diligence before handing over a large sum of money potentially without being protected is always good practice. https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/

Its the usual way of doing it - payment via installers - and the credit card thing is again the usual answer. Our window people would not take a credit card at all and so I had to pay them by ordinary bank transfer or find another installer. Large amount of money on Internorms. I must admit I was worried about it the whole time until we got the windows delivered some 5 months later.

Google Sieger XL doors and you get plenty of info. Like above - 3G at that U level must be perforated ? Clearly not so something is wrong . I'm getting closer to a big order also 3 lots if 6m x 2.5m 3 pane sliders + about 60m2 of windows so very interested in your pricing/suppliers. I was quite excited by prices from some until I used their sliding doors (hated the system). also need really good strength due to wind driven deflection so not so concerned about minimal sight lines - which, when you are over a certain size I don't think really matter too much. Bets of luck + thanks for sharing the details

Your trading relationship would be with the installers so I don't think the manufacturers would have any obligation to you directly, and I'd suggest that if things are going t!t$-up, there is nothing to say the installer will have made any payment to the manufacturer towards your order anyway. 'Section75' credit card protection might be the easiest way to get some security; break up the purchase in to chunks < £30k, and pay a deposit on a credit card for each? @newhome: snap!

The easiest way is to use a credit card to cover a small deposit, say £100, that for purchases will cover payments up to 30k under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. You will need to ensure that the total invoice is less than 30k (potentially by splitting it into 2 transactions). If you do that I would suggest that the invoice dates aren’t the same. There are a number of companies that still won’t provide the ability to pay by credit card unfortunately but it does provide you with the best protection at zero cost to you.

Similar experience to you with sourcing refurb Although it may not help directly - my experience was letting a refurbishment project moving from thinner profile softwood to Alu clad. Same requirement for cut back to get at straps to remove and then more generally clean up including interior sills out to create an appropriate detail to the new thicker window profile. When I set out I thought if all in one wasn't a thing - I would cut the job into "cut back" + "make good" contract (so cutting wisely for make good to be easy is incentivised) and "window source and install" (perhaps with supply separate according to system). Didn't work out so well. A lot of "if we must at a huge premium" pricing came back from window installers or they refused to get involved with make good. Finding a local joiner who wanted the work proved tricky too. One good thing I did pre contract was to get one potential installer (for cash for time) take one out speculatively and put it back - so I could get a look at "what is there" vs what is vaguely described on the drawings. That saved me a load of trouble with accidently buying windows that would not fit due to the brick line depth being constrained so the compriband would be too far back (that was velfac as it goes - nothing wrong with it just my particular brick/cavity/block in some arches) It was a hard journey to get a single supplier to do it at all but I got there in the end. Albeit for a premium due to not having 2 Most installer firms expect there to be clean ready to go apertures or a builder - Man with a van thought it was too big and wouldn't quote, most builders thought it was too small and fiddly and wouldn't quote and most installers didn't really want to get involved with this level of complexity. In my case the window installer's plasterer is unlikely to be my new best friend either. Will have to make him some nice cups of coffee. Midsize family firm with own crew seems to be the sweet spot where a few extra trades doesn't bother them Good luck. G

Or when it starts going slower and to get a new OS you need to buy a whole new car!

I would prefer hydrogen cell fuelling an IC engine to make electric -- but bottom line, too expensive at this time to make hydrogen I think they oil companies held its development back long enough to kill it in reality ,so they must be buying all the lithium deposits on the quiet -. once we get orbital manufacturing and endless free very strong solar --things might change for battery tech,PV panel production and hydrogen lots of things are easier to make in a vacum and zero gravity with endless free power. by that time you,ll be able to go sub-orbital to Australia in 4 hrs? but ,ll be dead by then

Wouldn’t surprise me if apple buy Tesla. Imagine the queues for a i-car.

Interesting that members here have variously blamed the site manager, bricklayer, building control inspector, bean counters and the MD of the building firm. If the responsibility to get this designed and fitted lay solely with the timber frame contractor the issue would probably not have arisen. I can't imagine how it would be if things like structural design, gas connection and boiler commissioning was just left to anyone on site, regardless of any subsequent inspection regime.

My in-laws built their own place from a Scandia supplied frame only. The fit out was done by my FIL. He was a very deep thinking and logical person and posed the question regarding the insulation of what was a fully pumped circulating hot water ring around the whole house. Hot water was there at the turn of the tap. Unfortunately it was also there at the turn of the cold tap and although cooler obviously you could never make a cold water based drink without having a filter type jug in the fridge. The in-laws sold the house after 20 years and that issue with the non insulated supply pipes for both hot and cold annoyed him until he passed away last year. It does go to prove that the planning detail for even such seemingly mundane situations will haunt/annoy forever.

.

We didn't and didn't have any problems. The MBC crew that we used said that they'd never had any problems with any of their slabs. We use an up-and-over pumping system for pour so we didn't have any material issues with heavy barrows over the pipe runs. So IMO, the risks are low and if at all they are during the pour itself. There are two other factors that you need to consider: We were getting our slab laid in early Nov, so there was a real risk of the slab going below 0°C with water in the pipework. Really not a good idea, so you should really blow out the water after the test. Doing the pressure test involves fitting the manifold (and possibly needing to reposition and refit it when you have the TF adjacent wall in place), as well as the test itself. This is going to man that the MBC crew is going to have to schedule a gap day between completing the UFH (typically the last thing that they do before the pour) and doing the pour itself. I did do a pressure test (IIRC, about 6 months later in the early spring) and cranked the loops up to 5 bar with no problems. We run the UFH at 1bar now.

If you are using a private BCO they should tell the council BCO about the work. Speak to the private BCO you plan to use and ask him for a list of what he needs from you to get started. I would recommend the going down the "Full plans" route which involves providing him with a set of construction drawings and other info and waiting for them to be approved before starting work. They will probably come back to you ask for additional information or questions on the drawings several times. If the approval process seems to be dragging out you can ask your private BCO if he will allow you to start work prior to him granting full approval. He may do that if he is only waiting for minor things to be resolved. Depending on the site and how keen the BCO is he may want you to get some test holes dug to check the ground conditions and/or a percolation test to see if soakaways will work and how big they need to be. Typically the next thing he will want to do after approving the drawings is inspect your foundation trenches before you pour concrete in them. Don't order concrete until he has done that inspection as he might see something he isn't happy with and tell you to dig deeper. The NHBC may also want to do an inspection at this stage. Every time you have a meeting or visit from the BCO/NHBC I recommend making a list of any issues raised and what, if anything, they tell you to do about them. Before they leave ask at what stage you should call him back for the next inspection and how much notice they want (some BCO only want 24 hours notice). After they have left write them a letter/email listing the issues that were raised and confirming what you have agreed to do about them and finish by stating you will call him back for the next visit when you have reached the point agreed. You should consider the BCO a friend, so try and keep on their good side and they might get you out of a hole. Our BCO spotted that a window wasn't wide enough. It would have been a nightmare to fix as we have external oak framing. He allowed it provided we upgraded the fire rating of the door on that room and that was a lot easier than fixing the window.

Toyota are dragging their heels. The "self charging hybrid" BS add campaign sums up their attitude.

My island which incorporates a seating area similar to @jack is 5.2m end to end. I have split the surfaces to delineate eating and working. I have honed granite on the working end (where the hob is) and river washed oak on the seating end. I have my sink back against the wall slightly offset of the hob so its not cramped if two are there. Usual ovens, fridges, dishwasher bins etc are on the sink wall. Very happy with my island and kitchen as a whole