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We have moved into the big white cheese wedge. The ASHP is in the bottom L/H corner and is working a treat. Temp inside at the mo 18 @Gav_P. Many, many thanks to all the people who have helped me over the last three years. Merry xmas to everybody on Buildhub. Pete

I recently had an issue with a boundary wall with our neighbour. Technically, and according to the house deeds, the wall is their responsibility, but it's also a retaining wall to stop his garden falling into our house. I'd promised him ages ago that due to our building work, I'd replace the fence that sits on top of the wall. The fence has been falling down for ever and he got so stressed about it he starting blaming me for the cracked retaining wall, which was visibly worsening. He went to town insulting me about everything under the sun, including claiming that I'd caused all the damage through our building work. After throwing my own wobbly in response to his tyrade, and despite it all being nothing to do with me, I managed to swallow my pride and told him I would fix it. It took me a couple of weeks in the end to dig it out, laying 600mm new concrete foundations and rebuild the wall (fully tied into another retaining wall) and fencing, but I have to say it ended up being the best thing I could have done. I showed him each stage, what I was doing and why and he ended up paying me some decent money towards fixing it and we're now on good terms. There's no stress there any more and I'd rather that than have a running feud with someone that helps nobody.

Having seen some of the deal detail, it does broadly meet the UK's stated 'Canada +' deal parameters and the EU has held their red lines also both sides will paint it as a win. I doubt the Brexit ERG purists will be happy but they never seem to be anyway. Economically it can't ever be as good as full membership as it mostly covers traded goods (a smaller % of our exports by value, majority % of EU imports by value) but not services, of which financial services makes up the majority. Plus added cost of leaving customs union which is expected to add a few percent 'drag' on the process. Financial services will be subject to a separate agreement but looks to be equivalence only (and not the hoped for passporting) which the EU can turn on and off at will. Right now it suits them to still permit UK financial institutions but over time that may change as Frankfurt / Dublin / Paris / Amsterdam build up equivalent capability. I also dislike the concept of a United States of Europe, however that's not what we left (even if it was portrayed as such) and in any respect we had a veto on further integration. But that's all history now so we need the dust to settle and judge whether we're net better off or not in 10 years or so. Question is how and from where the gap in GDP can be filled. It may never be and those who advocated Brexit may consider that a price worth paying which is fair enough. My guess is that will be the timeframe when a closer relationship will start to become politically palatable again. I expect there will still be disruption from Jan 1st until the new customs systems bed in and traders get familiar with them plus more visible differeces like increased travel insurance premiums (especially for older travellers) due to no more EHIC or increased mobile roaming charges- that may drag on public sentiment as the expectation will be 'we have a deal'.

Hello my name is Ross, I work as an architectural technician carry out planning and building reg drawings. I cover the suffolk area. Any questions I am pleased to answer. Thanks Ross

I don’t think so, we stood by our guns and didn’t let the EU bully us, let them think we didn’t mind having no deal (even if we did really) good negotiating skills IMO.

Thanks Gents, Just found this http://www.passivhaustrust.org.uk/UserFiles/File/Technical Papers/ROT/How to build a Passivhaus_Chapters 1 to 4.pdf a little light reading before santa comes I think.

I am not shouting "victory". Lets not forget, we were sold Brexit on the promise that we would have a free trade deal, easiest deal in history, can be settled in an afternoon over a cup of teat, Oven ready etc etc. Well that turned out to be a lie, it was hard fought over a whole year. So it is a victory for common sense and a big relief that at the last minute we pulled back from the brink and avoided no deal. All we have got is what we were promised, so lets not over do the celebrations.

Possibly one of the best g n ts you will ever have! Cheers! ?

Gin and tonic much needed with a view of the down draught extractor. Getting used to the ASHP and then all the tech to understand as I am a bit of a luddite and not sure it will stick first time eh @joe90

I did exactly that on a previous home It was a modern build with the slab being reinforced so would have been expensive the hack up BC did insist that I Kingspan the rafters Then fix 18 layer multi foil Then counter baton Then 100 mil insulated PB to the ceiling Most of which I’d of done anyway

@bradders3109 at the risk of upsetting someone, I am not a fan of architects and the only reason I employed one was to convert my pencil drawings to CAD and add annotations in “building speak”. He managed to cock that up and he had to do it 3 times. I designed my house and I did it within budget!!,. You might be better off with an architectural technician, they do all the drawings as you want them (and may be cheaper).

Wow, that's amazing. Congrats in being in by Christmas ? It must feel awesome.

Single skin 100mm is good to 9m height ( @Gus Potter..??) from memory with pilasters so 140mm would be fine. Keep the runs below 7m without a return wall or support and you’ll be golden.

Congratulations. It's great to move in, even if not finished.

Wow that is a whopper! No wonder it took a while to warm up! Congrats on moving in... Happy Christmas! p.s. thanks for the temp update ?

Looking good Joth ??

yes that i can see might cause a problem

You should really have a decoupling Mat under them. It’s really about differential movement solid screed expanding and contracting as it warms and cools with yours you probably have enough different layers to accommodate a bit of movement in the wooden layers. In the scheme of things £5-6-7 hundred quid an the mat is probably good insurance.

We usually put a ratchet strap round the unit and kombi sucker and take it off at the last minute. The theory being if the vacuum starts to fail and the glass slips, the sucker pads might stop on the frame. Biggest unit I've lifted is 540kg.

Shop around. Yet depending upon where you are in the country - the choice of reseller installers who can travel to the site my not be that wide. Obviously it depends upon what you are doing - a slow 6 week renovation or a rapid install new build i.e. whether a local installer/incremental project matters. We were doing renovation with 27 different shape windows including some big multi-section ones - rip/install/make good was 6 weeks for us. Rip/fit 3/day and slower make good We did not find we could get much discount on the materials side for the Rationel job from a mobile SE outfit or from our two local regional resellers. They were very disinclined to race to the bottom against each other. So on materials it was significantly more £ than velfac etc. Regional reselller territory model. We had aperture technical issues which eliminated other some other cheaper profiles so ended up with Rationel. And in the end it was a good experience. And they look better in our traditional property. We used Rationel FORMA+ Alu 3G and the installer we picked did a good job on the renovation project - proved very adaptable to what was discovered. Did we overpay for the windows purely as materials - yes we did. But with the hours that went into supply+fit + particularly into make good they went a fair way over on their guess on estimated hours in the overall fixed install price - so I don't think it was a roaring success on margin for them either. So in the end - I was happy with my one and done contract. A quality site install team was a big priority for me. I am not sure it is the optimal brand for supply only but you may be luckier than I was with other resellers

I will be buying through a UK distributor so playing UK VAT so no issue.

Not sure how much of that stuff would have found its way online (the legal stuff was mid-90's). I think I still have a box of papers somewhere but not sure I fancy trawling through them again, even if I could find them. The following paragraph is however from a short piece on the lead law firms site. "After the first death here, the programme was immediately stopped following consultation among the clinicians involved, and Hgh was replaced by a synthetic version. The human based product had been prepared from pituitary glands recovered from cadavers - pituitaries were routinely collected at post-mortem examination in mortuaries and it is estimated that over 960,000 pituitaries were harvested to make Hgh and/or other pituitary derived hormone treatments." To add a little more background, mortuary technicians were paid 20p for each pituitary gland (apparently removed without any permissions from next of kin). Some of these mortuaries received cadavers of residents from what were then known as mental institutions. Typically the glands were stored in glass jars for weeks/months until collected by the MRC. In crude terms, we were told the glands were then "boiled up in a huge vat" to extract the hGH. Sterilisation practice at the time would have had no effect on the CJD prion and hence each new batch was to a lesser or greater degree contaminated by any affected glands in previous batches, regardless of whether the batch being processed contained any infected glands. I understand that at least 80 of the approximately 1,900 kids treated with hGH have since gone on to die from CJD (though one report I read suggested it could be as many as 129). Of course, many of the others died of other causes (one of the reasons it was given was to replace hGH lost when treating pituitary gland cancer that subsequently killed them anyway), and the longest gestation thus far has been 38 years after treatment. Mrs NSS was one of those treated very early on in the programme and all the evidence points to her treatment having been completed around two months before the first contamination is believed to have taken place. She is one of the lucky ones. Ironically, she was the only patient in the UK to receive hGH that was not growth hormone deficient (either naturally or as a result of radiotherapy). She had a much more rare growth disorder but her consultant at GOSH thought it worth trying hGH. It had zero impact and she is in fact a little smaller than average for women with her syndrome.

Directly next to. Who do you know?. PM we if they are a wanker and objected to my build. Apologies if you know them but they are still a wanker.

I’d fit the pump between the buffer and the manifolds first and try that, as it’s the easiest and cheapest path. That pump needs to be activated by either manifold wiring centre, so will need to be brought on by a pair of relays, each one connected to the pump on the output, and each individually triggered by each manifold. Ideally that needs to be off a 2-port zone valve at each manifold, so one that is off cannot allow return water to be pulled backwards ( sucked ) by the other ‘flowing’ manifold. I’d just try the pump install first and see what results that yields.

Yes, properly in. One bedroom needs a lot more work - no plaster yet - and you can feel the cold streaming in. Durisol is 86% fresh air after all. Vistors are offered a paint brush on entry ....? VAT return beckons

Milestone reached today: all the Mains dimming circuits are terminated to the panel. Slight frustration of the Weidmuller terminal blocks is the Live core is hidden under the neutral wire, so if you have a few circuits not yet terminated at the fixture end it's tricky to make them safe on the panel. In theory the spring clips should make it easy to disconnect unused cores. The WhiteWorks dimmers are very nice. The built in test modes very handy indeed.

Current estimates suggest over half a million Europeans have been vaccinated. All of them on Plague Island mind you...

I used to work on a west coast estate. My anecdotal experience is that many continental hunters are much more switched on when it comes to sustainable hunting. They have a strong culture of hunting for a purpose, rather than fun. On the other hand, some (but definitenly not all hunters) from the UK couldn't care less about the impact of what they were doing and were by far the most ignorant people I took out. Stereotyping entire populations is a lazy way of constructing an argument.

Which brings me back to which property show is actually any good for the likes of us 'seasoned' self builders? Pre build, were fascinated by Grand Designs and glossy copies of Homebuilding magazine and trips to the NEC shows. Post build I struggle to watch any of them without shouting at the telly about airtightness, insulation and the like. The only shows I can vaguely tolerate are George Clarke (really his small homes series vs the current ugly nonsense) and Your Home Made Perfect with the VR headsets and the Belfast architect / new age shamen who is on a mission to introduce wall to wall benches in every house on the planet.

The importance of the fabric first design appoach. It's the first and last consideration, everything else depends on it. For me, discovering fabric first was a bit like my introduction to wine: first, sweet and white, lots of it - now the decision is far more nuanced - far drier, much more expensive, and just one or two glasses at any one time.

Why is this thought to be unusual? Cities are full of them due to eg neighbours or conservation areas or overlooking. The Healthy House in Grand Designs last year S18 Ep3 had this arrangement, as you could also say for the early Passive Haus in the Cotswolds built under that barn etc. The design key is to put it in a big enough landscaped hole to give a two level garden, such that it does not feel as if you are a shrub being planted in a flowerbed ..rather than use a conventional basement. https://www.granddesignsmagazine.com/grand-designs-houses/397-grand-designs-third-episode-2018 But doing one for the sake of doing it would seem a little eccentric. If it is for privacy reasons then there are probably better above ground ideas such as the interesting parallel view windows invented for the GD chap who built his house in Southwark in the ‘inner space’ of about 30 houses in a block of streets, and around an inner courtyard. If you are talking earth sheltered then that is a different type of ballgame. Ferdinand

Hello....this seems as good a place as any to pop my first post..... we too r building in Aberdeenshire, Lonmay area to be more precise. We have our foundation slab complete and have just moved on to building the kit... exciting times!

Weren’t you saying you were bored only yesterday on another thread?? Get on with it man ??

A pity that striking a deal on walk on glazing isn't so easy.