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If done well the whole point of automation is you don't need to operate it. It automatically operates itself, thus automation. E.g. turning on the bathtub hot water tap can automatically turn up the ventilation, get the towel heater warming, set the lighting to bathing mode and cue up some soothing tunes. I have all the sensors and connections in place to implement this, so now making it happen is just a matter of software. Once settled in the idea is resorting to a touch screen or voice assistant is a last resort (mostly just used for browsing/choosing media)

Finished.... Didn't make the Christmas deadline or do it without some help so I can't take all the credit. It wasn't the cuts that got me but the grouting. I nearly walked off my own site vowing never to return during that job!

You don’t normally put the waste behind the machine, it goes in the cupboard next to the machine with a hole in the side of the cupboard for the drain pipe, putting it behind normally ends in a world of pain trying to install the machine and get the pipe all in, let alone clearance problems.

It is, JUST as long as you have a 21kVA / 100A supply. And you are careful what else you are using at the time. Oh and the showers are not too large, say 8kW, perhaps 9. We officially here only have a 12kVA supply so it would not be possible.

Have you considered a warm roof with the insulation on top of the rafters. It does away with all that fiddly cutting between and leaves a void for your ducting, electrics etc Here's mine

New Strap Boss on to the soil pipe and do it properly - get it much lower down. If a WM is going on the end of that run then I would give it it’s own run along the bottom with the correct pipe work or you are asking for problems long term.

I am currently going through this with my Panasonic Aquarea 9kw. Everytime I go past the plant room I check the parameters on my ashp. With help from @jack(many thanks) I have turned the heat down now to reduce the hot flow as it was over 35 degrees. I also think you have to get to know your house as mine is predominantly ground floor (26m x 9m ish internal) so will take more heat than a smaller footprint. It is a steep learning curve and you do not get instant results like a boiler so you have to persevere!

An update from today, following all the helpful advice last night. Went to Ironmongers and bought D4 foaming glue (wow, amazing stuff) which seemed the best they had. Cut the ply into strips. Realised, of course, that the floor/ceiling has a Heringbone down the middle, which I'd forgotten was there (despite having looked at the many photos I'd taken of the underside when we had the ceiling down recently). That limited my total possible span of the ply to about 1.5m which I decided was still worthwhile even if not ideal. Who knows. Cut the ply strips down to size! Put glue, clamps and screws in. Filled the middles of the notches with offcuts as suggested, and plenty of glue. Weighed down with a brick to counteract the expansion of the glue (of course the brick the stuck to the top!) . Generally happy with efforts. Most joists looked fine except one which had a crackl on one side - nothing obvious I could see to cause it. Hopefully the ply/glue will help that also. Thanks to all for their guidance. Might need to start a post about some rotten rafter ends... was waiting for the carpenter to have a look but given how helpful you all are....

Where is Appendix F? Or do you mean ADF and Paragraphs 7.11-7.15? If so, paragraph 7.12a makes reference to Table 5.2a and a note under ‘Intermittent extract’ states... “Intermittent extract rates are given in Table 5.1a. For sanitary accommodation only, as an alternative, the purge ventilation provisions (windows) given in Appendix B can be used where security is not an issue” So to me that reads mechanical extract is not required if an openable window can be!?!

PIR 120mm is on top of rafter secured down by 3 x 2 tanalised timber fixed with 180mm stainless fixing through tanailsed timber and PIR into rafter. This is then has roofsheold membrane the cross battened for slate

Yes the long thermal lag is a big benefit of this type of insulation, it is not all about the U value. I can confirm my house neither heats up or cools down quickly, as the prediction forecasts (I had exactly the same analysis done at the design stage)

You can play with this calculator. I find it tremendous fun, but then again that's just me. https://www.ubakus.com/en/r-value-calculator/? I knocked up @Russell griffiths and @ProDave roofs. Have a look at the Heat Protection page. Its shows much greater heat swings with the lower density insulation of PIR that with denser woodfiber. I'd be interested to know is this a problem in reality? Both have similar U values so should preform well in winter. prodave_roof.pdf Russel_G_roof.pdf

So do Online Cables - they do SWA in all the colour choices.

Err.. outlet has to be 7m, not the tank or inlet...! But they say the tank has to be 3m from the boundary when installed but as you own all the land it becomes irrelevant.

in an HMO that would just guarantee a lot of "the shower is broken" phone calls.

You get priority fuse boards that allow you to have 2 high loads and switch them google garo depends on the cut out fuse!

No I would not put two electric showers in an HMO where you don't know or have control of the other users, unless you have 3 phase, then I would be happy with 3 showers. Our sailing club gets away with 5 showers in use at the same time as well as the kettles etc from a 3 phase supply.

I’d put the rank where the green circle is, leach field under the field with an easement written up for replacement in the future, or do a linear field.

Do I need a licence or permission? Not usually. Anyone is allowed to extract up to 20,000 litres per day without a licence or a charge. If you do want to extract more than this, you will have to get an abstraction licence from the Environment Agency.

Yes - max 12kW on a UVC if it is fitted with a pair of 6kW immersions but unlikely as they only get put in very big UVCs. You can also load shift to overnight to reduce the chance of overloading the CU. Also can put big immersions onto their own CU if needed (sometimes done with E10 time switches) Electric showers are disposable cost wise but they are what people expect in cheap rentals.

Immersion heaters are usually 3kW (I have two in my tank as backup either together or separately) showers go up to about 10kW.

There is still nothing stopping you having the tank under agricultural land, and if that ever gets sold separately it would be sold with a wayleave to allow access to maintain, repair or replace the tank.

To lay and grout that, including logistics, would be in triple digits for me. Cracking job on the grouting btw, and yup, a labour of love that is.

Yes you ventilate the space between the roof and the tiles with eaves vents and a dry ridge system that incorporates vents. But there is no need to vent ANY of the internal space. So if you are not using it for room in roof or part room in roof, you have a dry warm draught free loft space, and it is easy to detail the air tightness around the perimiter of the roof and no worry about light fittings, loft hatch etc upsetting your air tightness.

We did it! Today we received a completion certificate for our new house - our home! It took us 61 weeks from breaking ground - and these included a very wet winter seasons, a change of builders mid-project, difficult neighbours, sacking the PM, a lockdown, tons of remedial works, and another lockdown! What a journey - feels surreal! Could not have done it without you lot here - love this forum totally Before and after pics are below

That tree will be a fabulous thing to give your new garden character ?

Thanks for this thread @Ferdinand. I have been dipping in and out of this forum for a good while because I was due to start in March last year ('nuff said) and then again in October but the builder and groundworker then didnt fancy the timing. We are on a sloping site and previous ground clearance work in Feb saw machinery sliding down the hill though the mud! Would have reluctantly postponed again with no-deal but now we have a deal the planned start date is April 1st (!). Will be on a bridging loan so time is money and I am concerned about material delivery delays. Nearly all the suppliers I am asking for requotes (last quotes were Autumn 2019) are putting prices up by 10%. Timber seems to be in the spotlight as most of it is imported from Eastern Europe, but hopefully by April things will have settled down a bit. Nevertheless I will ask the builder to pre-order more than he would normally (and he has a yard to store it) to ensure we are not sitting waiting for anything. My roof tile supplier is quoting orders now for October delivery! That order has gone in (no deposit thankfully). Anyone else looking at a start within the next 6 months? How are you feeling about it? Most builders are up to their necks in work so I see no option than to lock them in for the April start based on their availability. In any case I want to finally get this house built!

I believe (but can’t find a link to) that a concrete slab should be poured over the pipework and the pipe in pea gravel so the weight of a vehicle is taken by the surrounding ground and not the pipe. In my drive I did not bother but only because it was under where cars were parked and it was quite deep. My builder told me he has seen pipework driven over above ground with no damage, it’s quite strong.

That is probably in the realms of statutory nuisance and your local council may be able to put pressure on. I would start with the insurance company first.

I renovated a cottage in Shropshire, miles from the coast but digging down I came to sand (the Shropshire plain used to be underwater decades ago apparently), the BCO asked me to just put some steel mesh in the footings, job done.

i did this on my icf house 1. Plasterboard 2.service batten 3.pir insulation taped at all joints and sealed to walls 4.was going to be vcl but left this out as I used the pir board to do this. 5.i joist. 6.knauf Omni fit insulation 7.breather membrane 8.counter batten 9.sarking boards- battens 10. Roof covering. This could all all change depending on your roof buildup mine is all vaulted. Be aware of what you will do with ductwork I have had a bit of a drama planning where to put it as I started building before it had all been finalised.

Lowest flow rate I can set on the Samsung is 37, which is what it's now set to. My house is only ground floor (apart from unheated mezzanine) and an inefficient shape to boot, so I knew it would take more ASHP running than if I had built a cube. At present, just got the heating on a timer running 06:00-11:45 then 14:00-20:00 (with DHW being done in the gap) and the house is nice and warm. Electricity bills to be worried about later

I had the Clearview which was excellent. Fully welded steel construction but still a few noises as it warmed up. These were not at all intrusive, just part of the character of a real fire.

Dunno if that's been missed? In my view. The glulam is there to support whats above. Where is the glulam supported?. You can see there is a direction change of the floor joists so.its a key interface. That glulam.is in bending doing all the work. You could not remove a section in between the floor joists as you remove the ability of the beam to support the UDL. I dont know much about Glulams, but if it was steel beam and JJI you can get a hole schedule for it. But dunno how that works with beams glued together. Disclaimer: I've been drinking so I feel I have read everything above but could have misread your post above

All depends how hard and fast you fire them. Anything metal expands, stick half a bag of kindling and a couple of dry logs into a cold stove and open all the dampers and light it and you can soon get some pings and bangs from any cast iron or steel stove. Wouldn’t surprise me if they were using warm stoves in the videos as they do draw and light easier so you’ll probably get the same noises from any stove.

Couple more hours and I've got most of the low voltage runs terminated - top left corner. This is 24V LED strips, constant current fixtures and all the light switches and motion sensors. As I have used U/FTP CAT6A I have a lot of spare cores on each sensor run (max 3 devices per run). I also have to earth the shielding. For now I just bundled up all the spare cores and the drain wire and wrapped some copper earthing around it. Not very pretty but it does the job. Interested how others manage this (if you've used screened CAT cable). Pictures invited!

Kerb isn’t high enough by a long way - should be minimum 150mm from the deck that close to tiles. Also doesn’t look like it is insulated either ..? Roofing is rubbish; corner reinforcement looks like it was put on by a child. Needs 2 courses of tiles removed, ply put onto the roof lapped under the membrane then the rubber run up the roof. Kerb needs extending higher and preferably insulating but you may have problem with that now. And what is that socket blank covering. ..???!

It's been a while since our last update but just to let everyone know we may be in for Xmas. We still need the EWI and render but inside should be liveable and we can get out of the caravan. The kitchen is almost complete now after getting damaged units all replaced and given it was ex display I think it looks lovely. The part with the hob on could possibly have been a bit longer but I didn't want a breakfast bar and by time we have our table, chairs and small sofa I think it will look good. At the moment it's like a big dancefloor! And although the majority of the house doesn't have light fittings because frankly we are skint, we did manage to get the kitchen/dining room sorted and I love the light in there which we got from a small lighting place I convinced the other half to drive a couple of hours for. If I would have hated it she would have killed me. We got the whole house sprayed white by a local decorator because I didn't want to look at plaster for 12 months and I didn't fancy doing the pitched ceilings in the kitchen and with a bad neck injury. For our bungalow which is around 190m2 it was a few hundred pounds Inc all materials, paint, masking prior to second fix. It would have taken weeks to do it and the spray finish is brilliant (although has a few marks on it from second fix now). No woodwork has been done because it wasn't in place and frankly we can't afford it and once we decide on colours etc we can get doors, skirting done later on when we have calmed down and gradually work through each room. We have already decided we want the kitchen orange eventually and our yellow living room sofa is due to arrive too just before Xmas so it will definitely have injection of colour. The bathrooms are almost completed now after the showerwall saga, on the third replacement it now looks decent. We went for LVT throughout and the UFH is working well in that it's warmer than the caravan......

This is the Christmas present my husband lovingly made for me, as a permanent reminder of my favourite ever comedy sketch. He taught himself embroidery just so that he could make this!!

I think it would be normal to have a stepped cavity tray installed above the stepped lead flashing, but not an option retrospectively. Can you consider coating that damp wall with Stormdry Masonry cream? I have used it in the past and it works really well at repelling water and leaves the brickwork breathable. It soaks in and apparently lasts over 25 years. I am using it on a forthcoming build where there is an exposed brick section that will be difficult to access in future.

Welcome Mark, As mentioned time spent at the design phase is invaluable and I feel your pain in trying to find the right professionals. To oft it seems the case "I've always done it this way" or else you are expected to fund someone's ego trip. Nonetheless with research and care an amateur can achieve a very good quality build as many on here can testify. External insulation is an excellent way of cutting thermal bridges and and I think you're on the right track. The passive house magazine have a guide on it and other topics that I found useful. https://passivehouseplus.ie/magazine/guides/the-ph-guide-to-external-insulation How far down the road of the design process are you? Jonathan

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.

You have an illegal loft conversion that has been carried out without B Regs, please note B regs is a statutory requirement, how you or an estate agent describes it has no relevance to B Regs. To legalise it you will need to apply for a Regularisation Certificate with the local authority, this will mean opening up/remedying parts of the work to comply with the B regs applicable at the time of construction. This option is only available for work carried out after 11 November 1985.

How "out of spec" is the staircase? If not much, I would just use the room, and accept when you sell on, it might still not be classed as a bedroom. To convert legally everything has to comply, stairs, headroom, insulation, fire escape access etc. Plenty of old houses with stairs that won't meet current building regs and they are not deemed "not habitable"

Personally I would get a recommended local loft conversion company round, they will know the regs but they may need to “cut” into stuff to see what’s there and they could give you an estimate to do any work required.

We requested our meter installation in June. We are five missed appointments in, countless phone calls and lies, have a decision from the Ombudsman that we must be treated as an emergency and still have no meter... Buckle in for the ride. Avoid Scottish Power like the plague!

Argh ! Grouting has shown up a cracked tile !! Ffs

What stuff have you automated and how do you operate it? Does the rest of the house look like somewhere a Bond villain could live?

This happened when we were out of the country (lived in France then), and I had a bit of an argument on our return with a shop keeper (Martin's Newsagents) that there were 240 old pennies in a pound, not 200. Thieving bastards.

Need to borrow a few litres ?