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Here are some pics of the clip.

Happy to. One day (when/if I finish it!) I'll do a proper write-up as I think some aspects of my system could be of interest to other retro-fitters that don't the have the luxury of open ceilings, webbed joists etc of a new build (okay, we don't the stresses either! ) As brief background, my system was born out of the desire not to spend loads of money and effort on insulting our new open-plan extension only to have (at extra cost) trickle vents added to the already-expensive lift-and-slide doors. As with many of my ideas and musings next thing I'm doing is looking to ventilate the whole house with MVHR... I could see strengths and weaknesses with different components from different manufacturers/suppliers and so, taking advantage of the cross-compatibility of the 75/63mm radial duct systems hand-picked different parts for different reasons: - MVHR Unit - Titon HRV 1.25 Q Plus Eco - Had all the features I desired (e.g. right size, summer bypass, generic filter baskets etc) but most importantly was available cheap (£350 I think?) from a seller on eBay who was involved in ripping out hundreds(?) of them from a development to replace them with the next size up as per the contracted spec. They'd only been commissioned and the properties yet to be handed over to residents. I visited the guy at his house to collect it and am convinced by this back story. Came fully boxed with all the extras (from the new units), and seem good quality with ebm-papst EC fans and Recair heat exchangers. Happy to pass on the contact details to him if others are interested as I think he's still got some left. - Control System - My brother keeps reminding me that he never touches his MVHR unit (other than filter changes) however the engineer in me still wants to monitor/control it. Rather than spend hundreds on the proprietary Titon control units I will eventually be building a Pi-based controller to monitor/graph performance and operating states, as well as to provide more configurable automatic controls (holiday mode, humidity-based switching, summer bypass/purging, PWM motor control etc). In the meantime I will leave the unit to do its stuff but I am fitting momentary boost switches in place of the existing extractor fan isolators just to give some manual control should it be required (and also in case we ever move on - I don't think the new owners will appreciate being left a hand-written user guide and downlink link to my bespoke Android app!). - Ducting - Airflow Airflex Pro - Whilst all 75/63mm ducting is seemingly interchangeable that is not to say they are all made the same. I've handled some that has been far less flexible than the Airflex Pro stuff and so went for this as I knew it was really good quality. - Distribution Manifolds - Blauberg 8-Port - I was going to make my own out of ply but at only £35 each I couldn't resist. They were easy to line with acoustic foam and I will be combining them with their own ducting adapters and (expensive - might DIY) restrictors to adjust the flow at this end rather then the ceiling terminals (reduces room noise and avoids unauthorised fiddling!). - Silencer - Blauberg 600mm - Again, another cheap offering from Blauberg at less than £30. Opted just to fit one on the supply side, but have designed the extract pipework to allow an easy swap-in if need be. - Ceiling Terminals - HB+ Conus Airvalve - Chosen after I saw @JSHarris's setup and liked them both for their aesthetics (slightly less 'office toilet' than some as my wife put it!) but also that they are designed to work with manifold-mounted restrictors (i.e. they can't be screwed in/out). I bought them from a supplier in the Netherlands as even with shipping there was still quite a saving over UK suppliers. - Terminal Adapters - Domus - I went for these for those locations that I could easily access (kitchen, lounge, dining room due to ceilings being down; top bedroom, en suite and dressing room due to loft access) as they were a bit cheaper than some others, are nice and compact etc. Not much to choose between really, although some seem very expensive for what they are. For other locations where I only had through-the-ceiling access I've gone for a bit of a Heath Robinson lash up that I could install through a 125mm hole from below consisting of a 125mm 90 degree elbow combined with a 125mm to 75mm reducer. I think that's pretty much it, aside from all the ancillaries, fixed piping etc. In total I think I've spent £1200 in total which I don't think is too bad for a 100m 11-port (12 duct) system. Yes, more than the trickle vents in the doors that kicked this adventure off but hopefully of more functional value. Edit: Apologies to @j_s; I wansn't intending to deviate the thread with all this!

I'm happy to have a go for a donation to BH. Currently I've only got Orange and Black PLA but have an idea... Does it need to be 150mm long? If it could be say 100mm long I think I could make one from a 10m sample of white PETG which would be stronger and possibly longer life. As drawn corners/edges would be quite sharp. I can easily add small bevel? Likewise could add fixing hole if you wanted to screw it to the ceiling. Just off to pick up my kids.

I did fit a bit of ply and the wiring in above the ceiling so that we could retrofit a recirculating hood, but we've decided we just don't need one. The kitchen stays steam-free and cooking smells don't seem to either linger or escape from the kitchen, so I think we'll just stick with the MVHR extract. Cleaning the terminals is really easy, as they just pop out and and can be put in the dishwasher.

This is what I did in case I needed to fix anything to the floor, luckily I have not had to.

Probably best not to call your BC Officer fat.

Nothing stopping you doing ground work on land you own today, and widening of ditches for flood prevention is widely seen as good practice given the recent weather we have had ... So I’d be the good land owner and get on with that drainage ditch work, and errr any minor tree work that may be required to enable the proper drainage to be installed ....

Second one in looks unstable anyway .....

Take them out now ... If the tree officer has used an old aerial satellite map as they can’t be bothered to leave the office to do the survey ...... how do they know they are still there .???! ?

Building control are going to love that staircase! ?

Is it one of those jobs that is a pain in the arse, but relatively easy, or one that is a PITA and difficult. I would think the second as you have to make sure that you do not damage anymore pipe and then the cleanup of said pipe has to be done well. Would it be possible to mark up the floor with a felt tip pen where the pipes are. If you use a good one, nice and fat and inky, it should still be visible after after any tiling has been removed. No good if it is a polished concrete floor.

In our last build we designed the en-suite for a 900mm square shower tray and left the space underneath free of UFH. Of course we fitted a 1200 by 900 shower instead, and when cutting the hole in the floor for the trap, it took a few seconds to understand what was causing the pretty little fountain that started coming out of the floor.

My comment was a bit hurried... I was meaning UFH in communal spaces and wet rooms downstairs. Interesting to read that it may not convect... I'm used to radiators that get very hot, heat the air and chuck it upwards. Our upstairs is always warmer than downstairs. May have to rethink my strategy (UFH in basement, and just hall and bathroom downstairs)

dig it up cut it and install a straight coupling, ask me how i know this

This isn't my experience. We have UFH downstairs and no at all heating upstairs. The upstairs is very noticeably cooler in winter, despite us having a very large stair opening and several square metres of double height area above the kitchen. My theory is that, in a well insulated house, the floor temp required to maintain a comfortable temperature downstairs isn't enough to cause convection currents that would bring the heat upstairs (naturally some makes it up, or upstairs would be freezing).

I made sure I felled the horse chestnuts that were going to be in the way before I submitted our planning application. They weren't protected by TPOs and although it caused a bit of minor annoyance with a couple of people at the time I remain convinced that taking pre-emptive action like this is the easiest way around what could end up being an expensive problem. In our case the planners did ask for a tree survey (there had been previous applications on the site and the trees were marked on the topographic survey) but withdrew that when I told them we'd felled the trees.

I used Kerr's as well. They have a few branches with your closet being in ballynahinch.

That's what I did, for the same reason. I also went for a single, double ducted, extract terminal in the kitchen, placed right in the corner opposite the door (the door is where replacement fresh air comes in from other rooms). The principle is to have as long an air path from the extract point to the fresh air supply point as possible, to allow for the maximum diffusion of fresh air across the room. The same principle applies to all MVHR room terminal locations, make the flow path as long as possible across each room.

try Kerrs in Kilrea if you haven't already.

Got a quote online yesterday.... £1500 for 18months. They did ask me a load of extra questions as I've demolition, deep excavation, retaining wall and basement. They won't cover the demolition unfortunately.

I paid near £1k per year site insurance with Protek and have extended it twice pretty much pro rata.

Just read a post on another forum where a "smart" meter customer had their electricity supply remotely switched off for nine and a half hours by their supplier. The sequence of events was that the customer called the supplier to report that the meter in-house display was showing the wrong tariff, a different tariff to the one he had signed up to. The supplier said they would correct the display over the air. All seemed OK, until a few hours later when the power went off. The supplier called out the DNO, when the power outage was reported, and the DNO reported back that the supply to the meter was OK and that the meter had turned off the supply to the house. It turned out that someone at the supplier had sent the meter the wrong programming data when trying to reset the in-house display to show the correct tariff. What they did was change the meter so that it was programmed as a Pay As You Go credit meter, without telling the customer this is what they had done. When the period of grace allowed without credit ran out the meter disconnected the supply. Getting the supply back on took many 'phone calls and a long delay. No compensation was offered. Everything I've read about remote disconnection has stressed that the suppliers would not use this feature (it's built in to all "smart" meters). This case seems to prove that a supplier can disconnect a supply remotely without any checks, just by someone with a bit of finger trouble. That doesn't fill me with confidence.

Just read this in the news: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48610977 Pretty damning. It looks like nearly two thirds of those using the Help to Buy scheme didn't need to in order to buy their first home and that 4% of those using the scheme had an income of over £100,000/ p.a. Doesn't really surprise me, as I've long suspected that Help to Buy was lobbied for by developers and the mass building industry, and was a thinly disguised subsidy to support house building companies. Meanwhile, in other news, the construction industry is way behind every other manufacturing industry: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/business-48340929/why-is-building-so-slow-and-expensive Could there be a link? Seems plausible. We know that the construction industry is pretty resistant to change, and not very efficient. Perhaps the lobby pushing for a subsidy in the form of Help to Buy were just trying to get government to pay for their own inefficiency.

Will do. The fibre arrived in the post this morning, so I'm going to try and see if I can rig something up later today or tomorrow.

Thanks all. I plan to avoid all forms of combustion. It doesn't seem a good idea in a wooden house! (and there are other reasons too) I am going down the sewage treatment plant route no matter what - there's no mains drainage for miles. I have 45m^2 of useful south facing roof. You'll never guess what's going on it. Shame Tesla aren't going to be ready in time really. The plant in the attic is the thermal store. The MVHR will be in the plant room near the centre of the ground floor - good route for ducts throughout the whole house. JS Harris - I would really love to see what is achievable. There is always something new to learn. I took a couple of site photos while I was clearing up today - there's always grass to mow and nettles to strim! My back garden - over 100m of woodland - and my "site office" in the corner of the plot.

Get a good door?

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.