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Well it’s early days as the MVHR has only been on for a little under a month but my pre filters seem to be doing the trick But not perfectly, some of the little rascals are getting through, I think I’ve got a ladder in me tights.

Would do again Timber frame build with render / cladding exterior Passive standard - means low energy costs even though we don't have solar panels Triple glazing - so quiet No heating upstairs apart from UFH in ensuites External electric blinds - a godsend to keep house cooler in summer Aluminium trim around base of house for a finished bottom "edge" - looks smart Larder (but would do it a bit better as it isn't perfect - gets too warm still despite being accessed via an insulated external door, and on a north facing wall with no sunshine). But it is useful extra storage, hidden away and I do like that. MVHR Still might do Solar panels (cabling to the roof is there just in case) Wish we'd done Two dishwashers Some way of cooling the house via the MVHR ducts. Got way too hot last year (though have since fitted solar film to some glazing so will see if there is any improvement this summer) Insect screen on door to patio Wouldn't bother with next time Huge architecturally pleasing windows in upstairs bedrooms. Requiring juliet balconies or safety locks. Complete waste of money - could have set them 300mm off the floor or higher, had a similar visual effect from the outside, would've been cheaper and easier in every way.

Not sure where to put this, but I thought that this might be useful for other members considering switching to a ToU tariff. I've been considering moving my Home system to use a ToU tariff and Octopus seems to be the only supplier offering one ATM. My main concern was that they have a spreadsheet for historic pricing for 2019, but no hard data on current pricing on their website. You can't get access to their forum until you have an account, which is a bit of a problem if you want the data to make an informed switch. Luckily they do offer and document a REST API where you can query the ToU tariff data. I used this to pull the data for the last 2 years, and aggregated this for time-of-day by Month. I've attached the quick and dirty scripts (minimum effort to write) that I used for this as a starting point if anyone is interested in doing this themselves. I used httpie and rs (because Octopus did and I couldn't be bothered to recode these; you can just sudo apt-get these utilities on most linux distros.) I've also added the main summary graphs below. My main conclusions are as follows: Electricity prices are rather high at the moment (winter; an increased demand due to Covid home working; and possibly a Brexit hike), and in my case I have a 24 month fixed E7 tariff from OVO which isolates me from this hike, and so the rates will need to fall somewhat for it to be worthwhile for me to switch. However the ToU tariff is cheaper in comparison to current single rate and E7 "flexible" tariffs, so long as you can stick to some basic rules: Use the Midnight - 6AM window as much as possible for high-load stuff. Avoid the 15:30 - 18:30 peak demand pricing where practical and move as much daytime use out of this window. About the only use we have in this window is for "always on" devices and cooking and this is rarely more than 1 kWh during this window. The price can fall considerably on an infrequent basis (11:00 - 14:30 on sunny days in the summer; anytime the wind is blowing). If you have a Home automation system and use the daily price forecast API, then you can reduce your electricity overall costs further. Analysing our past usage E7 saves us about £15 / week in the winter months and a ToU tarrif would increase this saving to £20-25. Be aware that you need a converted SMETS1 or a SMETS2 meter fitted to allow your smart meter to be switchable between suppliers. In our case, we have SMETS1 meter that is due to be converted in by July. (This OVO form post gives the back story.) Hope this is useful. These are all calendar monthly aggregates by 30-min pricing slot. Min and Max are the usual definition; the remainder are averages over different time windows. Get-tariffs #! /bin/bash BASE_URL="https://api.octopus.energy" PRODUCT_CODE="AGILE-18-02-21" TARIFF_CODE="E-1R-${PRODUCT_CODE}-C" TARIFF_URL="$BASE_URL/v1/products/$PRODUCT_CODE/electricity-tariffs/$TARIFF_CODE/standard-unit-rates/" W=~/Desktop/agile for ((i=0; i<$2; i = i+1)) ; do START=$(date -d "$1-01 $i months" +%Y-%m-%d) END=$(date -d "$START 1 months" +%Y-%m-%d) MON=$(date -d $START +%y-%m) echo Processing $MON http $TARIFF_URL period_from=="${START}T00:00Z" period_to=="${END}T00:00Z" page_size==1490 | \ jq -r '.results[] | [(.valid_from|capture("^........(?<m>..)T(?<t>..:..)")|"\(.m) \(.t)"), (.value_exc_vat|tostring)] | join (" ")' | \ sort > $W/agile-tariff-$MON.lst done Aggregate Tariffs #! /bin/bash W=~/Desktop/agile for ((i=0; i<$2; i = i+1)) ; do m=$(date -d "$1-01 $i months" +%y-%m) perl -ne ' my ($h,$m,$v) = /.. (..):(..) (.*)/; my $i = 2*$h+$m/30; $tot[$i] +=$v; $cnt[$i]++; END {foreach (0..47) {printf("%.2f,",$tot[$_]/$cnt[$_]);}; print "\n";}' \ $W/agile-tariff-$m.lst done

Thanks Peter, kind to say that. I think admitting I have a stress problem (not seeing or speaking to anyone for 14 months esp elderly parents, one with bigC is mostly the cause, & n'bors stress too) is 1st step/ then manage any Q's on this fine site better.. not run off up pickle street. is my aim. thx zH

A bit behind on this thread, but we went through the whole SuDS nightmare with our build. LPA rejected the first attempt by a drainage engineer which included a hugely expensive concrete chamber (with a ladder to climb down into it - about 2.5m deep and 1.5m wide) with a hydrobrake to limit the output - I was kind of glad the LPA rejected it! Then I went the rainwater harvesting route but LPA still wanted the hydrobrake - pointless. In the end I had to employ new local drainage engineers who 'knew what the LPA wanted' and specified a 'swale', which is in fact the pond @Ferdinandrefers to! This last report and scheme drawing cost about £600 but indeed the LPA accepted it. SuDS was without doubt the most expensive, long-running and craziest of the 15 planning conditions we had to meet. And we live halfway up a hill, with a slightly sloping site and a stream at the bottom! Learning, employ engineers within the LPA area and quiz them in advance about getting SuDS accepted.

We used granite on the window cills throughout the house . |It came cut to size- easy to fit, never need to paint . We have grey aluclad outside with cream painted wood inside

We have a site where the show house drive was done with these grids After seeing this we immediately decided to do our 400m2 drive with these By the time we were ready 18 months had passed and The show house drive was looking pretty shabby Mainly bare and broken grids around the edge The groundwork’s company who laid these said they are not maintenance free and will move with vehicles running on them We bit the bullet and put 400 m2 of pavers down instead and will probably do the same on our next builds The grids arnt cheap Though I do like them for off road hard standing Grassed over

First thing to do is an indepth heat analysis of your next build. Then you can start looking at what will service it. It is juts like buying a car. work out what it needs to do, then go looking at different models.

Thanks Joe, got a pile thats been gathering dust in the corner of a field for years. Everyone always talks about the removal side, I just need a skip. It’s been there for 10 years, time to get rid of it maybe.

I did some calcs on basalt wall ties and ended up with standard stainless as the losses for my near passive house was negligible.

I just take photos of my meter readings. That way there's no arguments about misinterpretation and photos are date stamped. Also means I don't have to remember where I wrote them down !!

Johnny contact christopher.hirst@orlimex.co.uk . He is very easy to deal with, Ordered by email, got a pro forma invoice and paid by bank transfer. If you are close you could collect, although I found delivery cheap.

SE can’t certify product if no BS for teplo type tie. Even if there is a BS manufacturer normally has to certify as part of CE marking. Note both teplo and neutras have BBA certS I so assume normal wall tie BS does not cover these. No BBA or compliance with BS means fitness for use under Building Regs can be questioned.

You can actually buy it in 500m coils...works out very cheap. I think www.basalt.tech carry coils. there is also Neutras ties in uk https://www.vistaeng.co.uk/news/neutras-low-thermal-conductivity-wall-ties/ note the yellow end cap...so u can see it and not gouge your eyes.

The end caps are supposed to be for eye protection. The bar I got is sand coated pultruded basalt which gives stronger bond- same as the original Teplo wall to wall tie...you just have to buy a bag of orings to push on as drip point. orlitech.co.uk a subsidiary of Galen industries in Russia. http://galencomposite.com

Yes definitely. It was actually the builders that built the timber frame that installed them for me.

Im using Basalt but not Teplo, you can buy the material in 7mm diameter and 2.5m lengths for £1.20 then you just cut to length... 20pence a tie. I showed spec to SE and he's happy with it.

Not unless you’re at passiv levels of wall thickness where having a 300mm cavity they start to become reasonably priced. As @Declan52 said - find the places you can add insulation or pay more for some better tapes etc for airtightness.

Just use standard stainless steel and use the money saved to boost insulation depths elsewhere.

Thank you, we do have a mop so may try that although not an old school janitor style- there may be one in the house somewhere. As a secrete extra tidbit we do have the original blue prints but wary of unrolling them. The plan is to get a reprographic place to do it, copy and digitise and return to the tube. These may have the drainage plans drawn. House was built in 1936.

Have they given any hints on the likely outcome? Sometimes they suggest a retrospective application if they think it will be approved.

Look at your LPA Enforcement policy. That should give you some indication of how your case should be resolved. Micropolitics matters. You now have a clear incentive to resolve this quietly, amicably. And at the core of that is polite outcome-focused discussion. Avoid value-laden commentary. It just puts people's backs up. It's in nobody's interest to make a drama out of quite a low-level issue . You could easily have followed the terms of your permission, but didn't. By your own admission the outcome of your action is minimal. So people could easily be puzzled about why you did it. As for trying to delay resolution for 3(ish) years, it beats me. Have you nothing else to worry about? Sort it out quietly, politely and quickly. Who knows you might even make some more friends as a result. And will save you money.

I’ve got nothing better to do in the wind and rain today so I’ll have another play with things. (if I go down the raft route, I have 5 tonnes of backfill in piles around the garden and more than enough bricks and blocks to go round the perimeter twice so should be able to prop some shuttering well enough. Keeping the insulation in the right place though...)

I would run them down the corners as that is an electric cable safe zone so less likely to be drilled into.

@SeanDean What’s the total area of the garage floor ..?? Also, what is the construction of the step between the two floors ..? That may have to be cast first or constructed differently. Added couple of questions after talking to my engineer ..!! - What is the load on the area marked “Pit for lift” - What is cross section across the pit area. How is it tied to slab / depth / etc and how tied to foundations.

Sorry buddy can’t advise if 1 or 2 are needed, I have a SE and architect that I use on all my projects, and follow their site specific advise, my concern was regarding the UFH pipes as laying sheets isn’t a delicate operation.

@Big Jimbo lives up to his moniker with surely one of the greatest posts in the history of BH. Could be his Sistine Chapel on here, will anyone ever scale such heights again? Thanks. 3.5 years of stalling and time-wasting sounds spot on to me. Plenty of time to build a hefty war chest and pay well-resourced planning consultants to comb through every local application...ever...and build an argument, while hitting the council in the only area they actually care about, in the process. For clarity your response only focussed on the "local" time-wasting one can do - I appreciate it comes with a huge bill but to take an extreme example, that guy who built the house behind the hay bales took his to the High Court, from this article he stalled for 10 years, minimum, but it was likely more I'd imagine. I wonder what his bill was to take it that far? Anyone have a speculative idea? @Mr Punter predictably, a neighbour complained. Essentially we have unilaterally replaced a smaller hipped gable, with a taller (full) gable. Volumetrically the difference is minor and the room said gable has created has hardly any useable head height. But it is bigger. And taller. You realise how staggeringly ineffective enforcement dpts would be without their not-so-little army of self-subscription spies, furiously twitching their curtains and blasting through gigabytes of broadband data trawling the council's planning website...

Yes, we went for Basalt grey (7012) and it's a lovely blue/green grey. Inside we went for a 50% paint finish (a mushroom colour) so the underlying grain shows through - just basic spruce frames. We got all cills and other metal work (guttering, soffits etc..) in the same RAL and even our external gates. The slate roof, black solar panels and grey GRP all sit well with it also.

In summary, the plug is knackered, cut it off and change it. The socket has signs of heat damage from the plug, and is cracked, the overheating may have been a factor in it cracking it could also been a slightly misaligned pinned plug being persuaded into the socket. Doesn’t really matter the socket needs changed as well. When you change the plug and socket don’t fit cheapoes. I always used to fit MK, hundreds of them, but the quality is not what they used to be. I tend to fit Hager or Click now, probably only very slightly more expensive than cheapoes but they are better.

Anthracite outside, oak inside . Really happy.

Used them on this job for someone as log cabin base. Can be hard to knock the spikes in to the hard-core but if one or two break off not the end of the world as they all interlock anyway.

Don't beat yourself up! That's probably better than happens on many sites (particularly on a Friday afternoon). Improvise, adapt and overcome ?

@jack It is a strip, but when insulated underneath also, has a much bigger difference.

Your welcome

Mine would say ' this 6 bed, 400m2 house with full footprint basement costs under £2.50/day for electric and gas'.

If you have prior approval for a PD loft conversion, what are the LA about to enforce and how do they know you have not built as per your PD?

Yes it does. Have a really juicy case going on next door. In haste... got to get on with the paths today. Will post over the weekend with details. It is not pretty, the process has messed everyone around. Short cut to pariah status really. ?

Put a safe plate over any studs you drill! https://www.screwfix.com/p/sabrefix-protecta-safe-plate-galvanised-90mm-x-45mm-20-pack/30038?tc=MC3&ds_kid=92700058021678484&ds_rl=1249407&ds_rl=1241687&ds_rl=1245250&ds_rl=1245250&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIrdbDl6fO7wIVibbtCh3_kgr3EAQYASABEgKmhvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Take photos when you have all the pipes in. Then there is a point of reference before anyone gets a drill out.

Yep it would be a separate zone.

MarkyP - many thanks for taking the time to give such a detailed reply. Given me plenty to think about! Much appreciated..

-+1 to the bungalow with attic truss design - do the expensive floor / founds / walls / roof now and then convert in the future. All internal low(er) cost to do and none of the major issues.

It will cost you twice as much to build it in the future as it would now, especially if you are building to a high standard and need to eliminate cold bridging. We're strapped for budget as well, and instead of building smaller, we're leaving several rooms unfinished, until money and time allows. Is it cash flow or future mortgage repayments that are the constraints?

In a good way or a bad way? The company I work for undertakes ICF shells on a fixed fee basis and because of the market, delivering on schedule is the only way to be profitable. Day rate might seem a good option but all delays will be paid for, rain days, material wastage, broken plant etc etc. A well specified job for us is a dream to work on, it's our responsibility to minimise wastage, supply the kit, wear a wetsuit and the build quality. We take those risks on. I think that if you are in a hurry, picking some major phases to be undertaken by contractors could save you money in the long run. If time isn't a factor, take it on yourself. And only day rate trusted, referenced individuals. A block layer on £2 per block can earn £300+ per day or be on day rate, £150, and take twice as long. Same amount of money but how much is the time worth to you? Blockies around me do day rate in winter and price in summer....they're not daft!

There's so much sensible input here already on this so I'll likely duplicate much of what has already been said, but here are some of the things I've learned. Know your area - by this I mean build somewhere you know already people or know people who know people. We moved regions, away from a network of trades and contacts to somewhere we didn't. None of the trades/contractors knew me and this really made things difficult and time consuming because I had to find people, or as what has happened, do it all myself. If trades know you, that you won't waste their time, you make decisions and stick to them, treat them with respect and you pay on time, they'll come back. If they're busy, don't know you, and don't know if you have the experience to manage them, you're less likely to get them. Design your build to use squares and triangles. A square shape is more space efficient than even a rectangle. Triangles, as in on the roof are well understood, simple and cheap to build. Avoid things like dormer windows etc. Not only do they add complexity, they're more difficult to detail for energy efficiency, for example. Avoid large spans as this requires extra structural design and materials. Keep materials and build method standard. For example, use standard sized windows & door so you can get them off the shelf. Design according to material sizes - 8' x 4' (2440 x 1220 or 2400 x 1200) sheet materials and as close to standard lengths for carcassing timber etc. The easiest place to spend a lot of money is the bling that lots of self-build magazines will try to sell you - high tech stuff, home automation, network cabling, even the type of light fittings. Really consider how much you really need all this stuff as much of it will be obsolete in a rather short period of time. My electrician has, for example, suggested using standard GU fittings for downlighters and using replacable LED bulbs - far cheaper than your LED units (I think there's already lot of discussion about this on this forum). When buying materials, go to the supplier with a large order quantity, this will get you a better discount and potentially reduce your delivery costs. Get multiple quotes and play suppliers off against each other if you can. A minor thing, but over the course of the project which can really help is to phone online trade suppliers. For example, I saved £200 on my framing nailer and received and automatic 20% discount on all fixings from one supplier compared to if I'd bought online from them, all with next day delivery. An alternative option for some purchases is to use your architect or someone else in the trade - this way the supplier thinks they may be in for repeat business and may be more helpful. There's also a couple of items here that I think is the most important, but often overlooked - also contrary to what many people might say! Give yourself time to think things through when you need to. The building schedule can often be very intense and trades, if they come up against an issue, will want an immediate decision on a solution or diffierent way to do something. Don't fall into this trap and instead seek to understand all the implications and take time to think through all the alternatives - but when you make your decision stick with it. Do not be afraid to change your mind and stick to your guns! This is your house and your money. I don't think there is any way you can really know what your house design is going to look and feel like on paper so I personally think you need to give yourself leeway should you feel you need it - if you include this in your plan and design it will save you money. The building trade is notorius for given advice that suits them, not you. They'll almost always tell you that anything you ask, that's different from what they have in mind is going to cost you loads of extra money. This is not born out of truth, more a trade culture in the UK. If something doesn't feel right, stop what's going on, think it through and take a different direction. I've found that having thought something through and then explaing it well to the trades can often overome this problem. Sometimes this may end in a builder or tradesman walking off site, but if that happens you may just be better off anyway. Finally, do as much as you feel you can and want to do.

@nod that's good going but difficult to reproduce everywhere and without a very good network. If you're borrowing money, time is a serious factor. Interest payments and time between draw downs can make a huge difference to your bottom line. The guys who we come across that are on site a stupid amount of time and involved throughout, every screw, do get the "best" return providing the admin is done. Others, seem to like a particular phase but then lose interest, change the plan, tinker without being immediately useful, see their budget creep. A personal shocker is spotlights. We fitted 185 downlights in a place, the specified lights were £50 ish each. He'll of a lot to spend on downlights versus a pendant or lower "quality" downlight.

Go with a timberframe manufacturer who will deliver a guaranteed airtight structure, you will have this at a fixed cost. Then the only variation will be the fit out, no surprises that your build method suddenly isn’t as good as you wanted with expensive additional stuff needed.

We came in at 820m2 and expect to be under 1000m2 on the next one While we kept professional fees to a minimum Doing as much of the labour yourself is the key Even something like loading plasterboards in will cost you £300 plus on a average house

Firstly, being your own project manager can increase the costs if you’re not experienced. As @TonyT said, get it all on paper, work through it again and again, every socket and every switch, the location of taps and doors and then move nothing. It isn’t hard to do, volume housebuilders do it all the time. It just takes the ability to say “No” when your other half wants to change something mid build. And shop around. Buy in the sales, get showroom kitchens, and pick up a bargain or two but make sure it’s all there when you do..! And finally, keep it standard. Your 650mm wide worktops may look nice with that “designer overhang” but was it really worth the £500 extra..?? Do you need shadow gaps, or bespoke architraves ..?? Was that £1000 lighting controller really needed..?? Spend the extra money on the things you touch such as door handles and taps, that is where an extra £20 a door makes a difference.