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I've been tracking our electricity use in our new build since last March. A little background. 2 story 186m2 (175m2 Treated floor area). External footprint 114m2. (150mm concrete slab over 200mm graphite EPS) Strip foundation. External wall area 249.4m2. (Masonry build 250mm cavity with SS ties and EPS bonded bead insulation. Wet plastered both sides. External Glazed area 36.6m2. 3g Veka Softline 82 UPVC. I modelled all junctions myself in THERM and did the best I could to eliminate any significant cold bridges, the details were similar to Denby Dale except the threshold's which were I suspect a one off with fiberglass grating. Roof was a trussed hip design, copy again of Denby Dale's but with 400mm of blown cellulose. Sealed roof design as per the Tyvek Supro booklet. Windtightness continued with all junctions externally being sealed with airtight paint. There is one 150mmx4m area of block which hasn't been done. Airtightness tested at 0.31 ACH 50. MVHR is a Proair pli 600 unit with a passivhaus efficiency of 86%, care taken to insulate the very short run of ducting into and out of the house. The 1 soil pipe was fitted with an AAV. We installed no central heating. Instead we use a 2kw plug in rad on a timer. For DHW we use a 300l UVC direct cylinder on night rate electricity. PHPP predicted 14kWh/m2/year *175m2 = Total of 2450kWh total annual energy for heating. Our daily electricity usage was 18.1 kWh/day in the summer months. Of this 10kWh for DHW. ( 2 adults + 2 preschool kids) Our total annual usage was 9876 kWh. Isolating DHW at 3650kWh and everything else at 2956 kWh left 3270kWh for space heating. It is almost 33% more than PHPP predicted. Although it is still not much energy at 18kWh/m2 I'm a bit disappointed. I have a couple of theories about why this might be the case. Please jump in with more knowledge/info if you can. 1. The house was still drying out. Some say a heavyweight house can take over a year for this to happen. 2. The insulation manufacturers overstate the K values of their products, EPS ( although it is my preferred plastic insulation!) seems to have dropped from near 0.04W/mK to closer 0.03W/mK in the past few years by changing colour. 3. The house was often closer to 21 deg rather than the 20 deg in PHPP. 4. Maybe I made a b*lls of creating my own weather dataset from the closest met station ( Cork Airport) 5. I was using an old version of PHPP which I gather has higher internal gains than the newer ones. 6. We had locally less sunshine (I haven't checked this)? 7. Mrs and Kids wander in and out with the doors wide open more often than I calculated for. ( Obviously I never do this!) 8. I haven't properly balanced the MVHR (a cheapo DIY attempt as usual) 9. The main south facing open plan living area has a floating ( never again) LVT floor which doesn't allow the concrete slab to soak and store the sunlight as much as a ceramic or glued down floor. 10. The floor was laid when I wasn't here so I'm suspicious quality of floor insulation fitment. 11. Maybe I made a mess of PHPP. Overall I feel somewhat vindicated by the choice not to bother with central heating. The house is comfortable without, a heated slab might have been even more comfortable however and would allowed more energy buffering on cheap night rate electricity. An A2A is probably on the cards at some stage but the likely saving might only be €200 per year when a 10 year lifespan is considered. Better ideas include properly balancing the MVHR, getting a thermal camera to check insulation. Maybe putting towel rads in the bathrooms to have them warmer and the run rest of the house cooler. Inputs welcome.

No. It will bend and warp and is usually made of low grade timber in B&Q… Either do it properly or do it in UPVC.

Looks just the same as a car air filter and the filters in my MVHR. Pleating makes the filter area larger for a given foot print, not sure what's new in the article? Having a larger surface area allows a finer filter to be installed with a similar pressure drop to a lower performance flat filter.

Just 'learning on the job' with my Mother. It is really difficult to know what to do, a walk in shower, with a level floor (wet room) is necessary, them may sure it is large enough for a seat, controls are reachable from that seat. Lavatories need to be higher, and if doorways can be wider, or at least a 'straight line' into and out of them, that helps. Remote control light switches, but make sure you can override them manually and you have plenty of pre-programed controllers. An oven with a drop down door, an induction hob (as it is not very hot) after use, taps that are easy to use, without looking like industrial ones. And a very good chair. One thing I have found is that old ladies can be quite determined and are happy to get on with it, it an amazing manner. Considering my Mother was sent home from hospital 'to dies within a week to 10 days' after a couple of strokes and a hip replacement, 5 months on, she is trotting about and starting to look after herself again. Just this morning, as I took her a mug of tea, she said that she had to get up during the night to wee. I said that is a victory, not a hindrance. She agreed.

We're not short of other working toilets thankfully!

God, I hate you some times Peter........

Here you go https://www.bathroomspareparts.co.uk/porcelanosa-flexi-hose-100041333-189125-p.asp

It's hard to get the feeling across in the model but I know myself what it will be like. That said, if I was the only one that ended up liking my own house that would be plenty!

I'd be more concerned about the water pressure lifting up the house than water ingress! but I'm not a structural engineer or an engineer of any kind but I do know that I have an external sump and pump with a land drain around the base of my basement and there is a constant run of water (and it's above the water table!!) where water runs beneath the surrounding rock 2m below ground level. I'd hate to know what would happen if I let all that water build up with the upward pressure on the basement and house above. I'm sure more intelligent people will be along soon.

me neither. you need a structural engineer to sign off on that

We're not technically finished. A2A and PV was always the plan when the budget allows. ASHP wouldn't make any difference to the energy demand, just a more efficient way of using it. The mark up of 100% was too much for me to stomach too. It's certainly not as much as a leaky house but it's not nothing. Just one. It was at scratch coat stage and before the cellulose in the attic so I suspect the reading would be better now. Yes, however if you play with PHPP the returns get really small beyond a certain stage. To the point of basically not being able to change the heating heating demand by adding more. There's a good article about small houses here. Even near passive small houses often need no heating, as the difference in absolute energy required can often be made up by an extra person or dog! https://passivehouseplus.ie/magazine/insight/the-small-passive-house-problem-a-solution I've very suspicious of insulation manafacturers. Some have been proven liars recently. I would avoid any high tech insulations if possible. EPS and cellulose but use a K value of 0.04. Simple is best. Natural insulation provides more heat buffering and protection too which is oft ignored. No, but I've spent ages playing with it. TBH most of the sheets don't make a huge difference and I just read the manual and/or assumed worst case where I wasn't sure. Monitoring the temp+humidity is almost pointless as it almost never changes. It's been 21deg and 55%RH with ages.

The 3D battery adapters proved their worth in the Einhell chainsaw with Makita batteries. There were some runners from the cherry tree grown into saplings about 3" in diameter. I've logged some of it and stored them to dry. The rest of the rubbish I'll have a bonfire. All that's left aside from the hedge plants is an original apple tree that fell over years ago but still fruits. It's hard work this gardening lark! I'm going to splash on on an Einhell 36V hedge cutter to tidy the hedge up a bit.

That's shows the confusion around it as I got that version of 2 farmers one of which was a contractor... Either way I have just asked for 15 load of stone to be delivered to site next week so I can stockpile it before they put it up the week after up to 50 quid a load to account for them switching there plant to road diesel.

Yes you always insulate under the slab otherwise you’re basically heating the earth. It won’t meet building regs without.

Hi After receiving our Octopus statement I thought I'd report back on our energy use with our ASHP and Octopus Go Faster. As anyone knows it took me a long time to get settings that worked well and our external insulation definitely helped. I can now give figures of our electricity use from 3 July 2021 until 3 March 2022. In total we have used 5,215.80kWh over the 200 days of which 2469.70kWh has been at our cheap Octopus Go Faster rate of 5.5p between the hours of 20:30-01:30, the remaining is at 14.63p. The Standing Charge is 25p a day. We found in summer our use was very little, between 3-4 units a day. We completely programmed the DHW off on the ASHP as our solar was diverting excess to our large tank. Our heating is controlled by the thermostats. Rooms are set as a minimum of 21 degrees (our bedroom is the exception at 20.5 degrees as I don't like to sleep too warm) with the whole house consistently heated even rooms we aren't consistently using like bedroom/ensuite. During the Octopus cheap times the temperature raises up to about 22-23 degrees in some rooms (those we use often) which means they generally stay warm, tripping in early morning on some cold days. The hot water is similarly programmed in to trip in at 8:30pm during the cheap tarrif for a couple of hours if it isn't at 48 degrees although the solar has generally got this way over, particular recently. On days we had temperatures go below freezing with some very cold days we were using around 35-40 units just on our heating and hot water but in the main this has been in the cheap times. We also have a wood burner and the free wood we have been storing from CRT cutting down trees in the storms definitely comes in useful. With us still experiencing some frosts we have had heating kicking in again recently overnight though days have been fine. Overall we have made the Octopus Go Faster Tarrif work for us and the heat pump is programmed to suit this. Had we not got specific times of cheap electricity I may use the ASHP slightly differently but either way we are warm and generally pleased with things.

There hasn't been any change, I think our fix must have been for longer as we seem to have stayed on the same one I signed up for last February and it now says it's fixed again until March next year which is a relief.

Agri vehicles are only exempt on the road as long as they are moving between land parcels owned by the tractor owner not further than 1.5km apart and as far as I know if they are contractors they will need to be on road diesel. Bloody madness it will only help drive this inflation.

Yeah sorry Both said Agricultural vehicles are except on or off the farm

Yep - which is basically using straw bales as a very expensive insulation .. would be better with blown cellulose at that point.

I guess your going to be constrained by the SE but what about filling the trench with stone as you have suggested and then trying to acquire some large cut stones to lay dry on top of this instead of blocks, when I built a road in Australia I used over one ton sandstone blocks purchased from a local quarry, they worked out very cheap for what they were and will be there is a few thousand years. Tightly fitted they will go nowhere and if absolutely necessary you can join them in the middle with stainless steel rod, the stones I laid were just put down on a crushed stone bed and laid without mortar between the joints (there is mortar in the middle of the track but it’s not structural to the outer stones, just there to “look” like loose crushed sandstone) these stones were aprox 1200mm long x 600mm wide x 250mm deep. The road was full designed by a structural engineer to closely resemble my design.

I did my own foundations with my own little ancient 3 ton digger. I pegged out and marked the centreline of each trench on the ground with ground marking spray paint, which was then easy to align with the centre of the bucket when digging. I dug down to what i thought was hard ground and then called BC to inspect and they were happy. The builders came along to take over, they looked at my trenches and said there was no way they were right doing it that way. They then spent a day with their surveying equipment and set up the profiles and at the end of the day said what a good job I had done, there was just one corner that needed squaring off slightly which we did by hand. They brought their own larger digger with a much longer reach for pouring the concrete. The one thing I did different to most sites, is I only stripped the top soil off the actual build area plus a metre or so just to give room to run the digger tracks while trenching. My reason was we only had limited space to store spoil on site, and all of the excavated soil will be used to raise the ground level and make it more flat on our sloping site. So all the soil surrounding the house there was no point removing it just to put it back and some more, so it was all left and just added to from the piles of stored top soil.

Incredible, thank you!

I can understand the flak. I would always design and specify to budget - but at the same time it's important that clients are realistic when it comes to what their budget will get them - so expectations have to be tempered and managed. I wouldn't really have to go through much VE during projects because I would generally manage and track costs quite well. Have a good working relationship with a few QS' - they know what I want and I know what they need. Some architects are just lazy and apply the "we'll sort it when we get there approach". It's too late at that stage. What I like about the hipped roof as well is the continuous gutter. It's a nice simple detail.

He doesn’t need to remove the render A 10 mill drill bit will establish this for him

Thanks, it’s now making much more sense to me. Looking online, there is quite a bit of guidance and hopefully I can find some decent templates. I think this is something we can prepare ourselves, alongside the drawings and BoQ which I will do some more research in to. Initially I was hoping to get a rough cost per sqm from builders before we get our full tender documents ready. Our budget is around £2500 per sqm. I just hope this will be enough, as we will be paying top London prices here.

Luton man left shocked as his house is ‘stolen’ :- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-59069662 Property fraud is where fraudsters try to “steal” a property, most commonly by stealing the homeowner’s identity and selling or mortgaging the property without their knowledge. They then disappear with the money leaving the true owner to deal with the consequences. The Property Alert service below helps people to detect fraudulent activity on their property by sending them email alerts when there is certain activity on the property being monitored, such as a mortgage being taken out against it. The recipient can then decide whether they think the activity is suspicious and act quickly if so. The alert email tells them who to contact should they be concerned. HM Land Registry Property Alert is a free property monitoring service for anyone who feels a registered property could be at risk from fraud:- You can sign up to get email alerts when certain activity occurs on your monitored properties, so you can take action if needed. The property you want to monitor must be situated in England or Wales and registered with HM Land Registry You must create a Property Alert account to use the service You will receive a HM Land Registry email (please check spam inbox) to enable you to verify your email details You must then sign in to your account to add a property Email alerts are sent when official searches and applications are received against a monitored property If you receive an alert about activity that seems suspicious you should take swift action. The alert email will signpost you to who to contact. You don't have to own a property to set up an alert The same property can be monitored by different people. Property, especially flats/apartments, can be registered with two titles. Blocks of flats are often owned by companies (Freehold), and the person owning the individual flat (Leasehold). When registering for this service please choose Leasehold title for individual flats/apartments. https://propertyalert.landregistry.gov.uk/ Advice on registering your property or properties against possible fraud was highlighted this week on the ITV Martin Lewis Money Show:- https://www.itv.com/hub/the-martin-lewis-money-show-live/2a1827a0127

Our neighbours were also polite during the pre-app discussions and then lodged lengthy objections that they did not discuss with us, despite every opportunity. We built, they got over it and relations are now fine. Best not to take it personally, just be polite and business like but do not attempt to appease them for the sake of good relations - often being over accommodating can make relations worse as they will keep expecting more.

What nobody has mentioned is joining them DEVALUES both properties, turning them from semi detached to mid terrace. This is probably what your neighbour wants to avoid hence he built his extension on his land with a (small) gap and you cannot join to his wall without trespassing. I would just carry on building on your side leaving a gap as well. What happens at the eaves? There will be some eaves overhang you have to allow for that in setting the position of your wall so your eaves overhang and his don't clash. I would not make any attempt to fill the gap between them. Have building control raised any issues with building so close? A friend of ours was not allowed to build so close and building control insuisted they left space to maintain the wall.

If they have no drainage, they won't get building control sign off and won't be able to sell the houses. So my opening response would be "how much are you offering for a wayleave agreement? "

Council officers, be they Planning, BC or Revenue, are generally not lawyers. I had a similar issue with Planning about what it meant to "start." It's probably best if you gently prompt them to consult with the council's legal team. Perhaps a simple letter to the officer along the lines of: Dear XXX, Thank you for your visit on Mary 14th, when we discussed the liability to Council Tax of our unfinished house. For the avoidance of doubt, our position is that the property is not yet a rateable hereditament, for the following reasons: a) b) c) We are confident that your legal department will be familiar with and will agree with this justification. However, if they have further questions, they are welcome to contact us. Yours sincerely, Joseph McClaine.

No, as completion in the sense of being a hereditament is not the same as completion in the sense of compliance with all building regulations. A Notice of Intended Completion can be issued by a rating authority which gives three months notice of their intention to declare the building as being completed, in terms of becoming an hereditament, and to avoid being valued for Council Tax after this three month notice period you would have to go to a tribunal and argue your case. The second case quoted in the link above, this one: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKUT/LC/2011/RA_63_2008_Dec.html has some useful examples from previous case law that you may use to argue a point at a tribunal. A lot hinges on judgement as to whether or not a specific building could be considered to be an hereditament or not, and the chances are that council officers may well not be well-versed in the law, and almost certainly seek to apply the law incorrectly (as they did with us initially). My experience was that when challenged, and presented with examples of case law that showed their assumptions were unlawful, the council just backed away as fast as they could. In fact they stopped contacting me and just requested that I inform them when I felt that the house complied with the legal definition of a rateable hereditament. I got the distinct impression that the council staff concerned felt way out of their depth in trying to counter my argument and decided that for a single dwelling it was a lot easier for them to just back off, rather than spend money on lawyers.

TBH, because it's not a Geberit, you may be better off using a far more reliable item, perhaps one of THESE. Better be safe than sorry

Most likely. I'd put money on it working fine with a lower input temp. NEVER joke about something as serious as plumbing.

Welcome. Are you sure you are an architect....where are the curved walls, overhangs and other expensive to build features!