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I am not sure that you have as much room as you think upstairs once you account for reduced headlight areas, but it is hard to tell from the render. Main issue downstairs is having the stair open to the kitchen. That is an issue for fire regs and I would move the kitchen door to the other side of it. As here seems to be space in the upstairs landing I would have a half landing and turn the stair back on itself so it does not create a pinch point on the way into the kitchen. This would also widen the hall beside the stairs upstairs which is very narrow especially when it is such a big hall. Further winder staircases are difficult to use and only normally used when people lack space, you have plenty of space for a proper half landing. I would be tempted to do away with that study downstairs and have a proper cupboard and larger WC. I know people like the idea of pantries, but I don't really see the point, how much food would you realistically keep in the house. If you really want one then fair enough. Not sure about the utility room. I certainly wouldn't spend the money on it having 4 windows. They also get in the way of being able to use the wall space. Why not put a study off the back of the kitchen if you need two studies and make the utility room smaller. We have a large laundry room and the units are arranged in an L. I think units across from each other with lots of opening doors facing each other would get in the way. You would be better putting them all along one side. I would consider reconfiguring it so the boot room is larger and opens into the kitchen without going through the utility room. As you have a laundry room upstairs, what is the utility room actually for? We have the same arrangement and made the downstairs utility much smaller, it just has storage for cleaning supplies and a sink. On the other hand depending on what goes in there the plant room may be a little tight. I like upstairs, bed 4 might be better with the bed against the side wall and losing the wall in the room as the bed is a bit tight to the window. Similarly if you did the same in bed 1 you could have room for some seats in as well. Those walls are normally used when the dressing or ensuite is behind them but in your case are eating into the space. Unless you really want to face the windows for a view?

So... when we took the Mixing valve off the manifold it was full of a reddy/ brown/ clay coloured sludge. We have no idea what it is or why it was in there and why it impacted the system to quickly after installation. The mesh inside the mixer was completely clogged up. The heating has been working since yesterday, the flow gauges are open well and they haven't closed off again (yet). I'm not convinced the centre of the floors are quite as warm as they should be but he think that's balancing so now we need to figure out which room is which on the manifold.

We built to Passive standards but never tweaked the house design. Our house is 330m2 and has a lot of glazing which is not compatible with Passive!! We kept things really simple in terms of ufh and it is all one zone. We use ASHP for ufh and hw and it works well for us. We only moved in two months ago so we are still getting used to the ASHP and tweaking it but our electric bill for last month was £122. The house does not have any other form of heating and the stat is set at 21. We built in t/f and used the Passive frame/foundation combo. As @jacksays the floors are always warm if the house is warm. We just used the concrete slab as a thermal store and it is brilliant. We only have porcelain tiles so it is great at heat transfer. Mvhr is a must and the fresh air feeling is lovely inside all the time.

They were so crap I didn't bother getting a landline fitted in the end.

They always go on about a call out charge if it’s your fault, must tell you ten times in each attempted engineer call out, never turn up when booked, tried to get a line moved to allow extension to carry on. in the end, I bought the jelly crimps, crimping tool and moved the cable myself, I gave myself a good discount? and did a better job than these clowns who also tell you they aren’t insured to go up lofts, under floors to run cables and just want to clip cables along skirting boards...

Some great ideas as always and lots to think about. Agree about the stairs moving and pantry. Utility room is must for spice cooking, you'll understand when you come over for dinner!

Thanks. It had disappeared up the pipe. Seems to be holding now. I couldn’t see it properly and those corners on the bath support are lethal...

These are all my ideas which I'm going to present to the architect to discuss my requirements. It was to difficult for me to put the ceiling heights on my drawings, I do understand that it may not be an accurate representation, but will give him an idea of what I'm looking for.

Check that the black rubber taper ring hasnt got pushed inwards , remove nut and put on pipe , put on thrust washer if supplied then tapered rubber on , thin edge to trap then assemble trap to bath with a smear of silicone on bath threads and tighten up then fit clip outside to hold pipe still

Sounds like that black pipe is the wrong size (too small diameter) or the rubber gland is not the right one. Can you measure the outside diameter of that black pipe?, is it solvent weld , push fit or compression?

Re UFH, you need to distinguish loops vs zones. Keep your individual loops as close to the same length as possible and < 100m. So we have 3 × ~100m loops (IIRC the shortest is 92m) all drawn off a 300m coil. 4 × 75m could have worked as well. Don't have any joins in your UF pipework below slab. The reason for the suggested 100m max is the head needed to get the necessary flow. I used the delta T across each zone to trim the flow rates and balance them, but once balanced, like @joe90 and @Pete, I run my 3 loops as a single zone. There's little point in doing anything else in a passive-class house, IMO. Ditto no point is trying to dick around with time-of-day temperature strategies. In terms of JSH's spreadsheet, the obvious Google search gave it as the 1st hit: Fabric and Ventilation Heat Loss Calculator, though IMO, you could dump most of the complexity about the under-slab soil temperature as it is going to be a pretty constant 12-14 °C for most UK insulated slabs that are in direct contact with the soil. Ventilated are another issue. Yup KISS - Keep it Simple Stupid.

@freshy this is starting to take shape! Looks good. Might be helpful to see the outline of the rooflights on the floorplan. Nice use of jack and jill bathroom, but is this really necessary? Who would use the communal entrance to it from the landing when every bedroom has it's own ensuite? When I had suggested a jack and jill, it was so that you could get away with one bathroom less. I like the walk in wardrobe behind the beds and I like how you've sited the beds in the middle of the rooms in the other bedrooms. Have you thought about making the study open plan to the hallway, or do you need it to be quiet so you can take calls etc?

You need to add the R-Values of all the wall components together, then take the inverse and see what it is. How do you work out the R-value of a structure? The R-value of a structure can be worked out by adding up the R-value of each individual component that offers a solid, consistent layer in the structure. Like this rudimentary ‘wall’ example below, the constituent parts come together to make the total R-value.

The guying doing our ICF was originally a concrete shutterer by trade. Says there's not much in it but prefers the ICF work as it's physically much easier and less to go wrong.

I used 3 coats of the 2 pack varnish that Howdens sell (sorry I forgot to not the actual make of the stuff) Super finish and very hard wearing. I doubt you will have a problem once it is dry but very stinky stuff to apply, so wait for good weather and all the windows open.

If you have a section drawing it would be useful. Handy to see foundation, ext level, slab, insulation ffl etc.

Yes - Osmo Top Oil. Brilliant stuff

Technique Update: I discovered today that by shining my line laser across the irregular brick finish it creates a heat map of the high points on the cavity side of the facing bricks. I started off with a spirit level and marked the high points with a pencil, now I keep the laser trained across the brickface I am smoothing back and skim the grinder over the high points picked out by the laser line.

SSQ or look at the range at Roofing Superstore https://www.roofingsuperstore.co.uk/browse/pitched-roofing/roof-tiles/slate-roof-tiles/natural-slate.html

It is well worth getting a sample. I had a front door with painted finish and it looked cream rather than the white I ordered.

As long as it’s not freezing or frosting overnight Your render can go on any time of the year Any Aldi build ups can be sorted in minutes We use Algicide 6-1 dilution sprayed on Tge rain does the rest

Make sure your drip details are sufficient - this is the number one reason you'll get algae bloom and water staining. We can clearly see on ours where it's sufficient and where it is not. You want a good 50mm overhang for cills and 150mm for eaves.

+1, I did similar, kept things simple, one zone, ASHP, MVHR etc etc and like Pete it all works very well.

Make sure you have notified the planners that you have started the development then your planning is locked in for good.

Get a basic physics book. http://www.mhtl.uwaterloo.ca/courses/ece309_mechatronics/lectures/pdffiles/achall_web.pdf http://www.pgccphy.net/1030/phy1030.pdf And this one is useful: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Buildings-Fall-Down-Structures/dp/039331152X Download the Building Regs: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/901517/Manual_to_building_regs_-_July_2020.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/899279/Single_stitched_together_pdf_of_all_ADs__Jun20_.pdf Learn SI units, and then always use them, without exception. Learn basic algebra, statistics and geometry. Get used to spreadsheets. Make use of this website. https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/ This is useful for terminology. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Penguin-Dictionary-Building-Reference-Books/dp/014051239X

It started with an unexpected receipt of a neighbour planning notification for a couple of holiday pods and a laundry shed close to our boundary. The proposed application would be in a raised position towards the back of the house/garden. After a while we started to jot down our objections and after a week of picking it up and down we submitted our comments to the planning department. Today we have received notification that our neighbour is withdrawing the application. It's unclear whether this will come back in a different location but it should not impact our privacy or amenity. I appreciate that most of the discussions on here is for obtaining planning permission approval, but when objections exist there are two sides to every coin.

I'm sure everybody has come across this before! Caution it has expletives might not have copied well for that reason ? angry ANGRY BT customer! Very Funny! - YouTube

Or was he just testing the local reaction? I would go and have a chat and say look old chap, site it somewhere where it cannot be seen or heard from our house, and I will raise no objection.

Agree. i never work to a minimum specification. money well spent at the correct time, pays dividends later.

Just be VERY careful you don't miss any re application, or ammended application, don't assume it will have the same planning application number.

This method is perfectly adequate, however your relying on your sheathing board transferring the resistance to other parts of the frame. With a tie that is fixed to a stud it uses the stud to hold the frame down, not just the sole plate. Really down to the engineer designing it and what loads are on it and wind loading. The last stick frame I did was in a cyclonic area so I tend to be a bit belt n braces.

I have 32 of them so quite a big job to replace and unless I can use a hook/tingle then virtually a reslate. I will email their technical people to see what they were thinking. Since I have membrane and sarking I don't really need them, so I could just fill with foam.

I would use an anchor bolt, either 400 or 600 spacing so there is one fixing per bay. m10/m12. sds drill bit through the timber into the masonry in one go.

I looked into this when we were doing our house. Many (most?) dishwashers and washing machines no longer have a hot fill capability, in the sense of having separate hot and cold inlets. From memory, some machines have a relatively low maximum water temperature at their single inlet. You can't cold rinse with a single inlet machine if it's connected to hot water. Also, the relatively low water consumption of modern machines would have meant the need for a hot water loop for each of these devices, because otherwise you'd be filling with cold water until it heated up. Since we weren't planning a hot loop, it all seemed like a lot of extra effort and cost.

Someone posted a little while ago about that little voice in your head that suddenly realises you're doing something risky, followed by another voice that tells you to just finish up the thing you're doing because it'll probably be fine. You'd probably reduce accidents by half if you could get people to listen to the first voice and ignore the second.

We much +1 to @Bitpipe's comments. MVHR gives you lots of fresh air in the colder months without having to throw heat out of open windows or trickle vents. Brilliant -- but that doesn't stop us opening windows when it is warm enough. IMO, the only good argument for not doing this is if one or more of the occupants is allergic to pollens etc. You really need to think of the house as a system and understand where your relative thermal gains and losses are. IMO, the PH and SAP spreadsheets are just too complex to do these sorts of trade-offs. The sort of simple spreadsheet that Jeremy Harris or I developed is plenty detailed enough. The whole build process is one of trust(-ish) but validate and verify at every step. You need to understand potential thermal bridges and make sure to avoid them when practical. You need to be sympathetic to the fact that UK building trades in general have little or no understanding of the importance of the detailing needed to get good thermal performance, but this doesn't excuse sloppy workmanship. You either (i) need to pay the premium for a subcontractor that does have this understanding; (ii) validate and specify at every step, or (iii) accept that you will be disappointed with the as-built performance of your house.

Sheathing boards cover the frame. A racking board is sort of the same but has a more important role it provides the racking strength to stop the building folding like a pack of cards. So a sheathing board might just cover up your frame. But a racking board covers the frame but also adds structural stiffness, racking boards should have a fixing schedule it’s normally a nailing schedule so one 50mm ringshank nail will be provided every 150mm apart on all studs and sole plates and top plates. Some walls that need need a lot of added stiffness might have racking both sides. If I was building any frame I would fully board both sides.

Freecycle is a great resource, I'm sure you will find someone to take your stuff and reuse it.

It is not easy to tell if timber has been treated. @Faz 's "old school" approach could lead to trouble as it looks like a commercial scale site. We have recently used a community timber recycling scheme, where we keep the waste timber separate from other waste and they come and pick it up and take it away. Works out half the cost of skips. We also use a firm to collect waste cardboard. Just break down the boxes and store them in the dry. Free collection. I think we could have sold it had I had the time.

see also 'sheathing'

It is not the timber, it is the treatment used on it. Don't burn treated timber. The law is there for a reasons, don't think you are a better research scientist than the ones that did the research.

Thanks all, good starting advice. I’m looking at SIP’s for the build, and very much passivhaus standards in terms of being “green” rather than just fitting LED lighting and water saving appliances! I think I’ve already decided that given the spec of the house I’m hoping to achieve, GSHP would be a waste of initial outlay, (but can you really not plant a bush or tree above the pipes??) I’m hoping I can be convinced that ASHP can do what I want efficiently. I understand the convenience and minimal cost of it but I really don’t want to install gas. It’s one service I wouldn’t need to pay for install, the government are scrapping it from new builds in that not too far future, and I’d like our energy to be from renewables. I plan on solar PV on the roof and already use a supplier that is 100% renewables. Yes my gas is currently carbon offset but if I can ditch it’s use altogether, then that’s better for me. My current cottage is tiny (not sure exactly of the top of my head), and it suits me (despite having to keep a lot of my tools and equipment in a storage unit miles away) but it’s not how I would like to being up my children if I can afford not to. I’ve got each of the rooms down to what I think is the smallest they can be comfortably, I don’t see the point in self building if I’m going to compromise to such an extent where I cramp things in and force the kids to share rooms growing up. I may as well buy something already built and save myself the hassle and work! Although, if when I get to the point of showing my drawings to an architect he can show me a way of shuffling to save space then I would of course be open to it. We need a workshop as we often work from home (one of us will be full time once we have children) so included in my estimate of size is a garage and a workshop along with a disabled accessible guest room with en-suite for the MIL who may well become a permanent resident. I guess my point is, I’m building for the future and don’t wish to grow out of the house, I plan on building green also in the sense of sourcing locally, choosing materials wisely etc to minimise impact there. Does anyone have a good source of information on the different types of foundations? I know the plot etc will affect what can be used but I’d like to understand all the different options.

There is 'green' and there is what you actually want - I was going to install a gshp - we have a 1/2 acre plot. The drawings came back and they intended to cover every square inch with the ground loop - no trees or bushes in our garden then! I binned the concept and dashed to gas! It is not going to need much heating tbh so f*ck it. Instructed Solarcrest for the MHRV though - they have done one for us before and I can't fault them.

I "solved" this puzzle early on in this thread. Using the LG supplied temperature probe in a pocket in the hot water tank. The probe is just a simple thermistor, a resistor that changes value with temperature. What i did was insert the contacts of a changeover relay into the circuit. So when you want the hot water "on" the relay normally open contact connects to the temperature probe. The normally closed contact connects to a fixed resistor, I chose the value by trial and error and ended up with a 560 ohm resistor. This fixed 560 ohm resistor makes the heat pump think the hot water temperature is 85 degrees so it turns off the hot water heating believing it to be satisfied. The relay in my case has a 240V coil and is controlled by a normal central heating time clock. When Hot water is off at the time clock, the fixed resistor is in circuit so the heat pump thinks the hat water is satisfied and hot water heating is off. When the time clock comes on, the relay energises and puts the temperature probe into circuit, so the heat pump will heat the water if it is below the set temperature. It seemed a bit of a fudge to me and like you I was disappointed there was no proper way to remotely turn hot water on or off, but it works and it does the job.

just had a freind get a quote for elec at 8,000 which was a surprise for them. personally get the things done that you cannot redo and then DIY and take your time.

sorry what you are being told by @ToughButterCup is correct I think separate building- my guess you will need change of use and will have to comply to everything . go ask the questions from planning maybe pay a few quid and get preplanning conversation with them

John Ward is wrong, plain and simple. The previous regs said about placing out of reach. The new regs specifically say you can't. Black and white. He's using the wording of the old regs to justify what he's saying. I quite like him/his stuff but wrong is wrong. Cherry picking to make his point is imo a bit unforgivable. Quoting previous regs is just bang out of order. If you want a "normal" light switch in a bathroom fit a Quinetic. Quinetic MK/Varilight grids if you want them a bit fancy.

Hi Deno. That's great you got the planning permission. I have copied a couple of links below to the HSE website that has info for domestic clients. Much of this is underpinned by the statutory CDM regulations. Well worth a read and they have lots of useful info, templates and guidance to get you off on the right foot. You need to have a rake about to find some of the more detailed stuff, but it is there and straight forward too! Once you get a handle on this it can give you confidence as to what level of method statement you may require and so on. They have another section for small building works that can act as a guide too. All the best with the project. https://www.hse.gov.uk/construction/cdm/2015/domestic-clients.htm https://www.hse.gov.uk/construction/areyou/domestic-client.htm

If you are in a part P area then alterations to a kitchen definitely are notifiable under part P. It sounds to me like they are not even registered under a competent persons scheme? Were they electricians or "kitchen fitters"? some of the worst wiring to be found is done by kitchen fitters, probably only second to farmers wiring.

Thanks for the heads up....Neil Scotland ?