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Thanks @Dreadnaught of course I don't mind. Some of the guys from the ones I used have set up on their own now...can't put my hand on contact details at mo....having done my own lighting scheme with electrician in last build a professional lighting designer was something I definitely wanted on this build and the extra it brings to the house is not something I could have done myself I would have just gone for the usual scatter of downlights and a bit of led here and there etc. I love my lighting worth every penny to me. BTW hello all been away from here for a while and out of the loop on everyones build. Hope all are doing well.

If you can get away without having one internally then it is worth doing, as they are always a thermal bridge, wasting a bit of heat. The key thing is to recognise that SVPs have two functions. One is to vent any gasses that may build up in the foul drain, the other is to allow air to enter above any slug of waste that goes down the pipe after a toilet is flushed. These two functions can be separated out, and doing this removes the thermal bridge. An external vent can be fitted to the foul drain, outside the house. This doesn't need to go to roof level, it's OK to have it above any flood level, in a location where any slight odour won't be noticed. Putting a vent near, or in, a hedge or some bushes will avoid any odour, as plants seem to be pretty good at neutralising smells. To resolve the requirement to allow air into the soil pipe after a toilet flush, you can fit a short internal pipe up above the highest drain point, and cap it with an air admittance valve. We've done this, and have no visible vent pipes at all. The AAV sits in the eaves space, where it can be accessed if needed.

6kw Panasonic compressor with inverter start for £1195...? https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F302964624843

Isn't it a building regs requirement to have a certain, minimum amount of insulation in the floor build on a new extension?

We ended up having getting some UV anti strike stickers from Amazon and that sorted out the problem in our last house. We were getting one or two a month before that,

You can buy these: https://shopping.rspb.org.uk/bird-silhouettes-window-stickers.html?utm_source=https://ww2.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/read-and-learn/bird-watching/bird-behaviour/stop-birds-flying-into-windows&utm_medium=page-promo

you mean a mtere that you will then charge the new owenr for the water i would not buy a house with that agreement --you might change your mind and cut me off who knows how friendly you will be with the people in the farm by then . I am sorry but i am stopping replying to this thread you seem determined to make problems for your self in the future ,by being so penny pinching now the plot needs to be a separate title and defined boundaries to the farm ,with its own access and services --anything else is just asking for problems time passes and peole especially relatives can do funny things you have no RIGHT in law to a wayleave for services,its an agreement --so get it sorted out now

I've found that our Genvex is silent when running normally, but there is some flow noise when it boosts. The main noise issue with it was from the compressor motor. Whenever that runs it is audible in our utility room, which is directly underneath where the unit is mounted, and audible in the services room. Silencers probably won't have much impact on that noise, I think, as it mainly seems to be transmitted through the mountings. I did install the thing on anti vibration mounts, but these aren't, perhaps, as effective as they could be. This compressor noise doesn't bother us, as the compressor rarely runs at night, and we can't hear it in our bedroom, anyway.

Literally can't hear ours running, even on boost. That said, ours runs in Lindab spiral ducting with silencers adjacent to each vent and exhaust fitting. We also 'isolated' the ducting and silencers by mounting on soft rubber blocks to mitigate any vibration/sound transferring to the timber frame/structure. It's so quiet I occasionally hold a tissue against the vents to make sure it's still blowing/sucking!

Somewhere I've read that you only need one open vented stack for every four or five houses these days. Cant find that in the Approved Docs but google found a reference here.. "Building Construction Handbook" https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7eAhNzZW1goC&pg=PA846&lpg=PA846&dq=one+open+vented+stack+ever+four+dwellings&source=bl&ots=tK13FKNupg&sig=ACfU3U1pU0TMwSQa0xcSaUFx9tnojD06AA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjUto7_0qDlAhXSbsAKHfjgD10Q6AEwDnoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=one open vented stack ever four dwellings&f=false

+1 I have seen many many 13A FCU's that have got hot, scorched and ultimately cracked by running with a long term high current load. Just dont do it.

Sorry, but it's not safe to run the Sunamp heating element from a 13 A FCU. That fuse is going to run damned hot, as it's always likely to be overloaded. Personally I'd never, ever, wire either a Sunamp heater supply or an immersion with a 13 A FCU. Mine is wired to a 20 A DP isolator, with an illuminated switch, and that is wired to a radial in the CU with a 20 A RCBO. The same radial has an FCU fitted with a 3 A fuse for the controller supply. The calculations that matter here are the average and worst case estimate of the supply current. 3 kW at a nominal 230 VAC gives a current of 13.04 A. The heater resistance will be approximately 17.64 ohms. If the voltage were to rise to 240 VAC, the current would rise to ~ 13.6 A, and if the supply voltage was to rise to the maximum allowable, of 253 VAC, then the current would increase to ~ 14.34 A. This may not be enough to blow the fuse, but it will make the fuse run very hot, and it is an inherently unsafe installation.

One (expensive!) option to maintain a low roof line yet be able to tolerate flooding, might be to do as that riverside Grand Designs build did a few years ago, and make the whole house able to float upwards if the area floods. Bit extreme, but I wonder how cheaply such an arrangement could be designed? It must be possible to design a floating raft "foundation", held in place by piles that extend above ground level, for less than the giant floating concrete structure they used on the GD build. Maybe just using off-the-shelf floating dock stuff? Probably too wild an idea...

When I lived in Oxfordshire, we lived in a low lying village on the River Thame. I didn't give much thought to it when we bought it and at no point in the buying (or indeed when we sold it) was there any mention ever made of flood risk. It was soon apparent (first winter) that one of the two roads into the village flooded regularly. Okay that was an inconvenience and sometimes meant a longer journey to go the other way. It also became apparent that sometimes, not as often, the other road flooded. It was always passable but I remember having to drive through flood water every day for weeks one winter. At least 2 cottages in the village flooded regularly, and had been adapted so it was just a matter of put the furniture up on blocks, and mop it all out when the river went down. Several others regularly could not get their cars to their houses and had to don a pair of waders to get home. As it happened our house was on about the highest part of the village, but even then, the flood water one year was almost to our drive, but the house was a metre higher up a bank so still not really at risk.

There's been a concerted effort to try and move away from return period expressions of event probability as it tends to cause the EA some problems. However, exceedance probability type statements aren't often easily understood either so there's no easy answer and the return period is still commonly expressed. FWIW, I think fz3 is 1% or greater chance of flooding, and therefore it could be a lot more frequent than that. I suppose it might also depend on the nature of the risk - culvert and bridges backing up and causing flooding often have more to do with debris accumulation than the probability of the storm event itself. To the OP - the above is a bit academic, but my main point would be not to take any assessment of risk at face value! FZ 3 is split into 2 categories by the local authorities, 3a and 3b and this is not (I think) shown on EA maps, but does determine acceptability.

Any chance the sink can be routed inside the other room to come out further down the wall..?? Is that wall one skin or two skins of brick ..?? I wouldn’t try and rotate that clay elbow as you could either shatter it or shear off the pipe further down. The joint will also weep as it will be a concrete sealed joint. I would find the joint and dig out the elbow, convert to UPVC and then do what you’ve said with 110mm. An offset adapter will get you close to the wall too, but if you can get to the back of the other wall and then either core or cut the bricks and come in at 45 degrees below ground level. Not ideal having joints like that below ground but I would also convert to solvent weld.

Interesting point. First using it the wife & kids especially said they felt very exposed for want of a better word standing there showering even though door locked, blinds down so totally private. I'd wanted a wet room and rainfall head since having done long haul travelling for business years ago.

You are beginning to answer your own concerns - If you think he won't turn up for 4 weeks due to you raising an issue with him or just asking him what his plan is, then get rid of him and get a new builder in - What is there to lose? You never know, the new builder might be able to start within a week /10 days? Who knows? As for regulating their work, there are systems in place - YOU the client and YOUR wallet!! It has been mentioned many times on here that YOU are in control and you should take control - I know what I would be doing and I think deep down you do too. You deserve to be treated better by your builder so take a stand - get your Tarp in place, sack your builder and get a new one in place. If it takes 3-4 weeks what have you lost - Nothing according to your calculations!!

Forget the 'it's never flooded in living memory'. Flood risk is usually defined using probabilistic estimates of flood rarity which are well beyond living memory. For example flood zone 3 is a 1% exceedance likelihood, or, to put it another way, an event that is likely to occur on average, once in every 100 years. There are a couple of things you could consider. The flood maps vary in quality depending on where you are, as the underlying models also vary depending on whether there has been a need to recently update them. This is difficult to determine from the online mapping, but it might be that you're not really in flood zone 3! Only a review of the models would tell. Secondly, as others have mentioned, there are potentially creative ways around it. If you are only just within the flood zone, it may be that levels and velocities are low, so you can get away with a minimal amount of engineering. Unless you have detailed knowledge, it may prove tricky getting permission, but worth seeing how far you can get and understanding as much as you can before engaging anyone else.

Sounds to me as we are getting somewhere. It seems to me that you don't know what your builder is planning on doing. Which is fine, as you say he is a top bloke and therefore will deliver whatever you have asked for. Therefore, why are you worrying so much about the increased depth at this stage? Surely to allow yourself some re-assurance etc or peace of mind, call it what ever you will, the best thing to do is to actually ask him?? You never know he might surprise you and all this worry will be misplaced.

Photos as it is, with a socking great 600mm wide trench I'd never anticipated around it too.. due to having gone down the extra 350mm is my reasoning for it, but maybe this trench would have been done anyway? He told me he needed to do this for 'access' & reluctantly I agreed thinking only that it was for brickie's access (IE temporary/ & earth piled > blocks done > earth put back I assumed).. so I do some work, come back & see no pile of earth. So builder2 can say I gave him permission, when it wasn't clear (purposefully I believe) that it was a permanent extraction, & that a "retaining wall/ this a path area now" he says.. all bits Id NEVER known about, anticipated, planned or really understanding why the need for this fkn trench, even now. You can see here how low we've gone relative to the (already small) parking area. Id spent months of meticulous thought on this corner point & the parking area squashed in front. A precise cnr point, to give me -just- room for 2 cars. Meticulous pin-point design, ruined by 600mm damn trench. And talk of retaining walls & paths around it (urgh).

Ok appreciate yesterday's replies above after my strop. A day of respite, & sun to get away from the build was needed. Forums do have the tendency for a need to impress, either opinion or other members, remains my opinion.. but I'll put this aside for now. I understand the comments about the builders not being up to par. They are valid comments. But I'm caught between a rock & a hard place here.. The 2nd builder has definitely gone down too low.. by exactly 350mm too. I've measured 4850mm from the top room ceiling > down. This ceiling line across, conveniently intersects the existing eaves, so I did as I saw 2nd builder do (very 1st thing he did) & measure down from this point. There's a line he put up on wall under eaves. So just above the 1100mm window.. ceiling line > across = X. If you look on my plan, its quite clear to work down with 3 figures to be added up 2300mm + 200mm + 2000mm. I have put very clearly where the 350mm step is, & the 2000mm line clearly does not stop before it, but includes this 350mm. What builder 2 has done is he's ADDED the 350mm TO the 2000mm, wrongly. Would you agree with me, if only this, that this is almost 100% definite what has happened? Again my plan..

I reckon something like 1.8m x 1.8m minimum for a wall less wet room corner. Live and learn! @Nickfromwales might have a take on that size? Saying that, well pleased with mine. It's manageable. Everyone loves it. Still need to do the non slip tile etching stuff some time.

The times I've been many metres up in a glass atrium, out of sight and sound harnessed up and quietly nodding off with my head against the glass waiting for my mate on the tea run, when a bird has smacked into the window, torn its throat out and smeared the window with claret. Certainly wakes you up. It's a big problem on commercial buildings. Ornilux glass has a built in film like cobwebs, visible to birds only. You can also add films like CollidEscape that do the same thing.

One option considered was to retain the original doorway where the wc is and take up some of the adjacent corridor with a fully tiled shower enclosure. The old doorway was where the dado rail is missing on the right. This corridor is in fact hived off of the room on the left.

It's nom 1.5m from the angled corner tile to the centre of the wc. Yes the wc lid does get a few spots on. Tbh splashes, if you're not careful go a full tile beyond the to-falls area. I did half anticipate this as said in the big thread a few times. There's double thickness studs as strong points behind the vertical mosaic strips to add double folding, glass doors each side maybe. I've proposed this but SWMBO and the kids love it as it is. As it stands it's a case of squeegee the floor after a shower then kick your towel around the floor to dry it off. (Easy now but when we're older?) The UFH once done should help.

I like the tray, and same for the glass arrangement. ?. The drain is nothing to worry about as it’s still technically a “self-cleaning” trap ( which means it’s user-serviceable ). Buy it with a credit card seems the safest bet here as the feedback isn’t great.

I have a 1200 x 800 shower tray with 1200 glass panel and a 300 “flipper” panel (hinged on the first glass panel. We also have a rain head (er indoors wanted it but never used!! )and normal shower head on rail all from external mixer (don’t like plumbing buried in the wall and mine is easily replaceable and cheap?. We find very little water gets past the tray, the flipper panel stops water tracking along the glass screen and on the floor.

Bloke at Soak suggested this https://soak.com/en-gb/shower-enclosures/shower-screens/1200x250mm---8mm---designer-easyclean-wetroom-panel-and-return-panel/2000994.html#q=1200x250&lang=default&start=1 With a glass return Then this https://soak.com/en-gb/shower-enclosures/shower-screens/900x800mm---8mm---designer-easyclean-wetroom-panel-return-and-side-panel/2001085.html?q=epw But I need what; a 300->400 gap so then we're at 1300/1400 full length..... So this to save 100? https://soak.com/en-gb/shower-enclosures/shower-screens/800x800mm---8mm---designer-easyclean-wetroom-panel-return-and-side-panel/2001087.html?q=epw WelshWizard going to shoot this down in flames for sure!!

What do we think of this? I'm worried if there's a drain issue you are pretty much stuffed!; or not?? https://soak.com/en-gb/shower-enclosures/shower-trays/designer-trays/1000x800mm-luxe-ultra-slim-stone-shower-tray-and-hidden-waste---black/101466.html#start=8

Now that's what Wendy wanted, but I think I prefer a tenner.

Mine was supposed to have had more silencing things added to it, but they weren't done. There are a few things that need remedial work, so I will add this to the list.

I bought an Ebay heatpump, 4Kw, rebadged Carrier unit (kingspan), still shrink wrapped on a pallet, no warranty and only £850 delivered. Bit of a punt but it paid off big time.

Thats on houses with mains drains or sharing a treatment plant.

Ours run vertically into the roof space and then at a variety of angles. We even have a short section that runs horizontally.

Doesn't help in the OP's case, but this is another reason why we went for a warm roof as it avoided the need for the MVHR ducting to be insulated (except where the inlet and exhaust enter/leave the building).

They are all internal now - usually a boxed in pipe runs through the kitchen. They have a vent at roof level.

Our stink pipes run up into the roof space and then exhausts via a tile vent. Seems to be standard practice these days.

where is the meter..?? Some of the field supplies installed have a restricter fitted at the meter end to stop huge amounts of water leaking if the pipe is damaged. You would be much better getting a new connection at that point and running it in a single new supply pipe - you will have control then as nothing worse than a shower slowing to a dribble just because Bessie the cow decided to step into the trough and bust open the ball valve ....

The chamber on the outside of both filters gets a bit grubby, especially the intake side. The room extract side gets a bit of fine dust in the chamber, but far less than the intake side. I also find loads of dead flies, spiders etc in the intake side chamber, before the filter, and the filter always looks pretty grim. Here's a photo comparing a new intake filter with one that's been used for 6 months: I took the heat exchanger out this summer, to check it and wash it if needed, but found that it seemed very clean, so just put it back. I suspect that the filters in the Genvex do a good job of keeping stuff out of the heat exchanger, especially the one on the intake side (the intake has an F7 pollen filter, the extract has a G4 dust filter).

I checked our filters after about four months.. . Intake on the left. Loads of tiny tiny flies, and I fear the brown tint is caused by the amount of slurry dispensed locally. Loads of horses nearby too. The exhaust side is all concrete dist off the (unsealed) subfloor.

I cleaned mine after a year. I was surprised how clean everything is. The filters just had a light grey coating of what looks just like "household dust" . Since it was all so dry I just hoovered the filters to clean them and put it all back together. Probably the hardest bit to clean was the outside air inlet grill. the fixed stainless steel louvres made it very hard to get a paint bush in to clean the gauze. It struck me when cleaning that inlet grill, how very useful it would be if you could temporarily reverse the fan direction so the inlet grill was blowing out.

I have same unit and it looked similarly grimey, especially the summer bypass unit. I just went at everything internal with the soft brush on a hoover, then a damp cloth and then a dry cloth.

Yes, a fair bit of the cost was to do with moleing up under the lane etc.

Respectfully, this contradicts everything you've said to date. The main guy is apparently a fantastic, highly regarded local builder, but you expect him to walk off the job if you point out that an error has been made by his guy? I find those positions difficult to reconcile. I just can't comprehend why you won't have a conversation with the builder. It doesn't need to be nasty or provocative. You just need to say that you want to be sure that what's being built is what's on the plans, and that you can't understand how what's currently there will give you that result. Tell him that you know you don't know what you're talking about and just need a bit of help from him to understand. If he's half the builder you say he is, he should be happy to explain. If he won't, then that's a screaming red flag in my opinion, whatever other stories you may have heard about him. Again, why are you compromising if they've made an error? Keeping the builder happy isn't your job as a client. Your responsibility is paying them for doing the agreed work - that's it. More generally, errors happen ALL THE TIME in building. I doubt there's a self-builder on here who didn't have to deal with an error at some point along the way. We had loads in our build. In my case, all but one of the contractors who made errors put them right at their expense. The other was unwilling to admit his team's error (poor workmanship, really), so they were asked to leave the site. It was very stressful firing them, but not as stressful as it would have been watching them continuing to do crap work. In short, if errors are being made about things as basic as finished floor level and they won't talk to you about it, you really want to ask yourself whether these are the right people to be doing the work. Put it this way: you keep saying how stressed all of this is making you. If you actually DO something about what's causing you stress, the problem will be resolved one way or the other. Plus a large part of the pain in stressful situations is the feeling of helplessness. Taking some control of stressful situations is a guaranteed way of reducing the total amount of stress you'll suffer. Finally, the reason people are posting things that are upsetting you is that you keep asking for advice, but you don't seem willing to listen to any of it. Ignoring competent people who freely share their experience and time to give advice is a sure fire way to rub people up the wrong way - and that includes people who are just reading the thread without contributing. I haven't given advice in this thread because I don't have any knowledge or experience in this area. But reading it makes me very frustrated about the way you're behaving - partly because you're sabotaging yourself and partly because you aren't listening to people, but also because it's frustrating watching someone allow others to walk all over them. As someone else suggested recently, why don't you go back and read this thread from the start, and see whether what people said would happen has actually happened. Perhaps that might give you some confidence to trust some of the advice you're getting.

Lighting. 2 way or more switching of HALL light as well as landing. My preferred make of switches and sockets is Scholmore Click Mode Run socket cables horizontally around the room from socket to socket, with a bit of slack, then if you decide you need an extra socket later it is easy to add.

I find this useful. Pipe Sizes and Dimensions Chart.doc

50mm here on the original advice of @Nickfromwales. Bath, shower empty quicker and quieter. Basin is 32mm solvent weld into a reducer in a 50mm tee. Don't forget an anti siphon trap on the basin if you do this. Stops all that gurgling. Have to say my wastes flow like a dream so far. (Must check the hair trap in the wall drain... ? )

Excuse the naive question: doesn't that just treat the symptom?

Flip side to that Joe, in my experience, the flow/speed is reduced in the bigger pipe so crud may not be washed down the pipe as good. I would not hesitate to use the bigger size though having replaced many 32mm runs which have become 3/4 blocked with solidified soap fats ect