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Now that I am partly retired, I will begin my dream project: starting a new build once the bungalow which I am in the process of buying is complete, then will move to the next phase of PP. The bungalow came with PP but the design was not to our liking, so back to the drawing board for a new PP. As a newbie I will definitely need all the help from forum members. We have decided on a highly efficient energy house like Passivhaus but will not go for PH certification too costly!! A passive Timberframe with an insulated slab with triple glazed windows, MVHR.

Funny, I did think of SBR earlier today but was thinking to paint each one neat as I set them in place. Your idea is better.

@Onoff have you thought about brushing a cement/SBR slurry on the backs of those flints? I don't know if that would get you the adhesion you need but it works on shiny stuff like porcelain.

Pocster... i was trying to be polite about the flint panel. I see you can't be bothered with that.?

I am I own a tiling business

That last statement sums it up. By ONLY the architect having the CAD files, means that you HAVE to go back to them for any changes. At which point, they have you over a barrell. The reasons you end up there are many and varied, from legitimate reasons to modify the design to a unbuildable design and refusal to rectify. Regardless of the reason, essentially as a client you leave yourself open to being taken advantage of, with your only other option being to start afresh with someone else. Im sure some architects will protest and say they would never use this situation to their advantage. Few people in business are that morally principled even if they think they are. Lets not forget, architects are people. Like any trade there will be a small number of exceptionally good, half will be OK, the remainder a waste of space. And all will have differing morals.

From my experience, any tiled wet area will present damp to the substrate after at most 10 years or so. I believe grout is slightly permeable and ceramic certainly so once microscopic cracks appear in the glaze. Which they will. For complete peace of mind use a waterproof backer.

why do you need an RSJ? are there no supporting walls downstairs? here the requirement can be as easy as increasing the depth of the joist by gluing and screwing a suitable depth of timber to the top of the existing joist.

UC and UBs are used because engineers and builders are familiar with them. Look at universal columns rather than beams, they can provide the same load rating as a beam but for less depth.

Just doing that now, already have 3.1kW of PV. Could do with some water heating in the shoulder months when PV output isn't generating at full capacity.

Immersion for DHW. Maybe a Willis heater for UFH like @TerryE's system. I haven't seen it done but maybe install a large UVC with a coil for ASHP. Then use that coil to take heat from the cylinder heated from immersion. It would give you the option to retrofit an ASHP if that became a more economical option. We have no G3 in Ireland so I did my own UVC. ( I did a topic somewhere if you search) It's really not too tricky. This man explains all. If you have a good plumber they'll check and sign off on your install I'm sure. Smaller thermal stores like the 250l one you mention work best with high temp heat sources like fossil fuel boilers. However I do like the principle. Maybe a very large coil in tank thermal store (>500l) run at a lower temperature would work. I'm sure some of our plumbing gurus can advise. Infact I'm keen to know myself.

I constantly point out to people that Bill Gates, Tim Berners-Lee, and Steve Jobs, if he was still alive, are now pensioners. Could probably export most file types as a basic .txt file, then rebuild it. There is free, open source, CAD software, I think our very own, grubby fingernailed @Onoff knows a bit about it. Like me, he pays for nothing.

I though it too obvious to mention that there are several easy to use packages that files can be exported to. Shows that some practices need to change is they think about technology.

our [A|a]rchitect gave us a SketchUp file of the CAD drawings. that way I could zoom in, measure, check, adapt etc to my hearts content without affecting the CAD drawings. seemed like a perfect solution to me.

Before you figure out your spec, the key question is what do you want to achieve? Do you want to be able to play different sources in each room? Where is the source coming from? Do you want a wired or wireless speaker system? Is it just radio / music or do you want to tie it into AV (i.e. your TV). How do you want to control it (app on phone etc..). Figure this out and you'll then have a better idea of how to deliver it.

For budget, all I would do is ask the person what they wanted to spend per m2 (like the other poster) and then design them a ~100m house for 5k to get planning. I’d leave it for them to budget for everything. I’m sure that would get me some ‘architects know nothing’ stick, but really, a self builder to me means you’re the PM. All I’d be doing otherwise is making a spreadsheet and googling, they could do that themselves and there’s plenty online calculators for working that out. In terms of what I’d do, I’d get them to get a site survey, then I’d do a desktop planning search. Then I’d take their brief and do some sketches. Then I’d develop the design with them, then do some 3Ds, the site drawings and I’d probably do the D&A statement too. Then I’d help them through planning and then charge a little extra to discharge the conditions. Just wondering if that’s what people generally want. I know a few people have said more hand-holding, but I probably wouldn’t have time to do that. I’m still early on in my idea to start a business btw.

I just bought some Integral Warmtone LEDs from Toolstation to try - very impressed so far. When you examine them closely, they have an 1800K LED surrounded by 2700K LEDs and crossfade between the two depending on dimmer setting. The effect looks, as advertised, just like dimming a Halogen. I tried them because I have some old-school phase angle dimmers with IR remote control in a bedroom and normal 'dimmable' LEDs are a bit hit & miss with them. Not all 'dimmable' LEDs really deserve to be called so. It occurred to me however that these Warmtones must have been carefully designed to ride the AC phase angle and drive the appropriate colour LEDs accordingly. This they do very well. Other 'dimmable' LEDs I've had sometimes don't dim all the way down smoothly but suddenly cut off at some point.

Completely agree with this approach, exactly what we did. For a start, you'll be zero rated VAT for the build vs 20% for renovations. Even with a traditional renovation, you'll quickly reduce that to a shell and will need to replace a lot of it regardless. The pain of renovation is tying new in with old, as you strip back you just keep discovering more problems. Also you get a house that performs consistently vs a poorly insulated, draughty downstairs and a well insulated airtight second floor.

You see this on housing forums where a surveyor has marked a building down because of it. I believe the big complaints are they cannot inspect the state of the roof structure and in cases where there is no felt on old houses, the foam will be stuck to the back of the tiles making a roof repair very much more difficult. the notion that it makes the property £0 value is absurd. I would like to find one if these and would hapily buy it for £0. Surely at worst it would down value the house by the cost of a re roof?

I'm confused with this. I assume your saying build up is joist, flat PIR, firings, boarding and final top coat? If that is correct, it doesn't sound right to me. I'm with @Radian M

Maybe but there will always be a certain volume of water vapour in the air above the plasterboard, vapour pressure differentials will see to that. But by the very definition of a warm roof, the area from ceiling up is unventilated so the timescales for vapour equalisation will be greatly extended and therefore out of phase with outside temperatures and RH levels. I fear there's nowhere you could place a vapour barrier in this kind of build-up other than on top of the insulation - except that that would just promote condensation directly below and collect on the deck supporting the insulation. Hopefully the insulation is tightly fitted together such that very little air exists at the cold side such that the quantities of vapour are small. This circles me back to why a largish void under the firrings sounds like a bad idea.

Russia was effectively "working to rule" on their previous Nordstream 1 contracts to apply pressure (or as they claimed 'rebuild reserves'). Germany (Merkel and Gerhard Schroder her predecessor (?) ) had built Nordstream 2 in the teeth of EuCo opposition, and thrown Ukraine under the bus by making it possible for Russia to pivot to Nordstream 2 instead, which would cost Ukraine a couple of billion Euro a year in transmission fees. Schroder was employed by GazProm on a generous salary (600k Euro a year iirc) to help their Nordstream project. To the extent that a billion Euro compensation package was being set up for Ukraine. The new German Govt and especially the new Green Party FM (Fraulein Baerbock) is stronger towards Russia, and even under Merkel they had done a semi-reverse-ferret by being tough on regulation to try and put some back pressure on Russia. Germany has also - unlike a lot of European countries - failed to build LNG import terminals (we, for example, have 3 big ones, and pipelines from Norway and Holland plus our own remaining supply), and so have Russia's apron strings somewhat tied around their neck in a noose. We get a lot of our LNG from Qatar, Norway and the USA in tankers. There are a lot of USA gas wells coming back on stream this year after COVID which will help. LNG terminals: https://www.natlawreview.com/article/lng-europe-2021-current-trends-european-lng-landscape-and-country-focus#:~:text=The current large-scale LNG, Also Germany has a crunch because they decided to close all their nuclear power stations after the Japanese nuclear accident and keep lignite power stations open, and are now rushing to close those coal power stations a decade earlier than they were planning (2028 not 2038 roughly I think), for Green and possibly embarrassment reasons. They just closed 3 former GDR nuclear power stations (to be fair, they needed closing). So in the absence of Plan B, they need loadsa-naturalgas from somewhere. Plus Holland - a key source of gas for DE - are now running down their gas fields for green reasons. And there is pressure to keep them open, but earthquake problems in local towns. Plus there's all the Russian sabre-rattling on Ukraine, and Germany was preventing defensive weaponry being supplied to Ukraine via NATO schemes. Plus UVDL rather trashed the German armed forces in a previous position as German Defence Minister before she trashed the European Commission's vaccine procurement programme. They are still flapping around about a fighter procurement decision that should have been made more than a decade ago, and someone decided "no F-35s" and made a political announcement that makes it embarrassing to reverse-ferret on that one. It's all a bit of a complicated Dachshund's Breakfast, and not really the sort of comprehensive mess that Germany is in the habit of making. And now they have Mr Macron prancing around trying to turn the EU into a kind of Greater France Mk 2, at least for the next 6 months. All he needs is a Cuirassier's Uniform and a Martini-Henry rifle and he'll be as happy as a ranting hippo in a mud lagoon. Although we are not dependent on Russian Gas, we are impacted by contracts set with reference to the international price. Germany need to build some LNG import capability pronto, and drive real Green Energy as fast as possible - but that will take at least a decade or two to really have a big impact. We got we are today by being the single country in the world with the biggest investment every single year in offshore wind from 2015 to 2020 as the implementation phase of rolling waves of contracts, and we are due to add another 250% to our current offshore capacity by 2030. I see Germany doing a dash for gas in some way. For fairness, I should also perhaps note that we imo cocked up by not keeping a serious strategic buffer of gas; we chose to close our end-of-its-life facility in approx 2015. I think history shows that to be an unwise decision - a 90 day rather than 9 day buffer would have helped us last year, and we should have leased a tanker full of gas as our reserve. F

When thinking of mine I went and bought a couple of lights, got off cuts of plasterboard and mounted the lights in the ceiling and wired them to a plug then with various extension leads got them all working, I soon found out I needed half the light I thought I needed. Also good for working out warm white or cool white. Cool white is harsh in a bedroom.

Personally I don't think a bedroom is the place for rows of downlighers, and I much prefer some nice central or pendant light, and a bedside light possibly wall mounted each side of the bed.

I would also look at your external skin for the walls. Forgetting daves dramas at the moment, it doesn’t strike me as a robust detail for your external walls. If your fixed to a rendered outside then I would fit a block outer skin with a good cavity between that and the frame. If not render then then I would look at larch cladding and again a good cavity between that and the frame. Or just go poly icf and larch cladding. Lots of good systems out there, but your location dictates that you need something a bit tough.

OFGEM will announce the new cap around the 7th February and it will run from the 1st April for 6 months (Unless the system changes). I don't understand the call that the cap could rise substantially again in October 22 as the wholesale price of gas and electricity have fallen recently. They are around double where they were in August when the cap was last set and the level in August was around double the historic level. As the previous cap included £528 of wholesale costs and the wholesale price has roughly doubled then you can expect the cap to go up by around £500. A month ago wholesale prices were much higher again, but if current levels hold then the cap will peak out around this level, events in Ukraine may have a bearing on this! With 28m households in the UK, every £100 on bills is £2.8bn, so it is not that easy to fix this. This is almost exactly equivalent to 0.5% in income tax payments. So to keep bills at current levels would be equivalent to a 2.5% tax cut. People on pensions/benefits should see their payments increased by inflation, which will take this into account to some extent. There is the problem that their inflation rate may be higher as utilities are a bigger proportion of their costs. The point is though that if the government then also subsidises utility bills then these people will get a double counting in the benefit which will have to be paid for tax payers. As ever the government does not actually have any money. When the government pays for something it just takes money from some tax payers and gives it to some other taxpayers. You also have the problem of what happened with Universal Credit. Once you give people a benefit like this they won't want it taken away. I think this issue in particular will make the government wary of making large "temporary" adjustments. Basically I don't now what the government will do! (One solution would be to allow utilities to borrow to pay for the wholesale costs today and pay it back from future bills. This would spread the cost over time, but mean bills would be higher for longer) The best thing to do in the long run is actually considerably more investment in wind energy as this has considerably more fixed costs and is not impacted by global commodity prices. Expediency suggests not arguing with Russia until we have fixed the issue of being dependent on their gas. It doesn't actually matter where the UK specifically gets its gas from, as gas is priced on global markets. If Russian gas goes up in price all gas goes up in price. The fact that basically every government in Europe has allowed themselves to get into this situation shows how hopeless they are. If you look for example at Rolls Royce (and they are by no means a well run company) they do understand that the pound/dollar exchange rate has a massive impact on their business and they have a massive multi billion pound hedge in place to mitigate against this.

I agree with this, as a consulting engineer I hate when you see "Sales Engineer" on a sales rep's email signature, or some random manufacturer who has trained an 18 year old how to quantify and quote roof coverings as a "design engineer". Everyone in the construction industry now is apparently an engineer. I had someone tell me about their son who was an electrical engineer, I asked who he worked for and didn't recognise the name, I asked where the office was and she oh he is just on sites, I discovered he was an electrician, there is nothing wrong with that, but he was not an electrical engineer.

The worst being machine operators. Over-digging (but they don't pay for muck away or more concrete Filling too thick before compacting. "Look at that, it is perfectly hard" (on top only). Not using the roller because "the tracks do it much better". Got a degree in this/ I'm the Engineer/ don't even do it because they are digger drivers and don't know what they don't know. I'm your boss's client works though. The worry though is that they are clearly doing this as standard and creating very inferior work elsewhere. Next come bricklayers......etc. An 'amateur' has to be even more diplomatic, and judge the balance between sensible control and getting in the way....but it can be done, and is important.

We (wife and I) are both from an electronic engineering background, In that domain there is an expectation that everything is designed & specified before moving to production as retrospective changes are not trivial (if even possible) - very much a waterfall method of development. I'd liken self build to agile s/w development - sprints of activity where you then take stock at the end of each phase and course correct. Takes the pressure of needing to 'know everything' at commencement but you're still working to a fairly well defined framework. If you require absolutely fiscal certainty then you will pay a significant premium for that as your contractor will just price in all the risk. Also, as the build takes place and you actually see it 'in the flesh' you may well change previous decisions, even ones that were firmly held. For that reason a degree of flexibility, however uncomfortable that makes you feel, is required. What is also important is that you find contractors who you trust in their field of expertise and do your best to specify the outcome you want but leave the implementation detail to them. Experienced trades don't often like being told how to do something by an inexperienced client, but they are happy to facilitate the what. What worked well for me was having high certainty for works that were ongoing (with still some wriggle room), and deceasing certainty for works further out with some being just vague ideas (e.g. we will need the walls painted in 6 months, don't know who will be doing it or what colour they will be).

Hello Balraj. It's worth starting from under the ground up and getting a handle on the foundation cost. This is the bit that introduces uncertainty, and can "burst your football.. burst the baw in Scotland" , it can put the rest on a bit of a back burner. A bit of time spent on the ground conditions here can save you a pile of money which you get to spend on the things that matter, the things you see, the functionality and so on that you want, and sometimes more too! One great thing about self building is that you can experiment, do stuff that no one else has and is unique to you, often at a budget cost. Put in the research work and get a handle on how things work and fit together. Adapt it to suit you, not something that a developer wants to sell you. If you get stuck ( say on ground works, passive slab / insulated slab design and the ins and outs) then just ask folk and you'll be surprised at the positive response you get. Many get to a self build point where they can price the windows, roof, finishes, kitchens, lighting, bathrooms and so on. The uncertainty can lie in the ground, drainage, choice of foundation, soil conditions, and type of superstructure (the bit above the ground) and so on. Can I suggest, although a bit dull that you go back and review from the bottom (foundations) up. Start by looking at the ground and what is best to put on top of that. There may be good savings to be made. If you are not sure post here and you will get a lot of help. It's hard to wade your way thought the merits of different designs and insulation offerings / methods but much of it is not that complex. Yes, it is complex if you are working on high rise high end stuff but you can still get a pretty good outcome by simplifying things while still keeping the innovative concept... without the associated cost and design fees. Have fun and all the best.

As @pocster would say, a lot bit mad.

I usually have a good long term memory, but when I went over to see him, he had just put the SA in and the old Combination was still in the spare bedroom. I know he did some strange stuff with plate heat exchangers to preheat water and recharge the SA. There has been some confusion (certainly in my mind) about what a thermal store actually is. Seems the term sometimes gets used incorrectly.

He only has tiny marbles that’s for sure

Like your diction and grammar! ?

Nah . I’ve just had a 45 minute online argument with Deliveroo and then had to go to the restaurant myself . So I’m in no mood for prisoners , executions all the way .

I love you again Yeah @Onoff I’m with @Big Jimbo on this it looks (expletive deleted)ing shit ?

Obviously only for solweld stuff buddy. The rest of your exploits are spot on.

I agree. My first layout for this panel was: I ended up with this: I can see me ripping this all out and going "traditional", like might have been suggested once or twice.....here and elsewhere.....

Probably a lower fraction of the population than you would find in an architect's office.

I don’t at the moment, but I have covid to thank for that mostly! I’m in a different situation where I work currently as we have offices, but while I can see that people would want to meet up, I’ve always found it pointless from a design point of view. I think it’s more to reassure the customers that I’m going to visit the site so I can ‘absorb the ambience’ or something, so it’s for their benefit. It was sort of another thing I bothered about, going to people’s houses because you never know who’s going to be a wierdo who murders you. I’ve had 2-3 customers who were legitimately insane.

Ooo, I do love a good compromise, warms the cockles of my heart.