Leaderboard

As someone who has worked with NEC contracts in my day job I would strongly not recommend them for a self build unless you are familiar with them. They require quite a lot of understanding to administer and I would go so far as to say a self builder may be putting themselves at more risk by trying to do so. NEC contracts often use specialist contract administrators - they work well for the scale of project they were envisaged for. If you do need to go down the route of a self build contract then JCT is often mentioned and other options are available. For me, I had no contract on our self build. A few suppliers in or trades with terms and conditions but we had no main contractor overseeing the work. This is not me advising you not to use a contract, but the majority of self builds I'm aware of around us haven't used one so it is not unusual.

How about blowing all the water out with air and then pressure testing it again? Alan

... that they'd be willing to lend/hire out, please? Daughter and SiL bought a brand new house from a national house builder that I'm suspicious has little or no insulation in the walls. Currently averaging £17/day on gas for heating alone (mix of wet ufh and rads). Daughter works from home and has two children, one pre school age. She has the thermostats set to 18.5c downstairs and 17.5c upstairs but is struggling to even maintain those numbers. For example, temp in her study/office was just 13c this afternoon. Thanks in advance 👍🏼

Our groundswork guy brings someone in to do the setting out.

core drill them after !!!

Unless you are having full MVHR, building regs stipulate you must have an extractor fan in a kitchen, and there are different extraction rates for extraction via a cooker hood to extraction elsewhere.

@Onoff took a few more snaps now I've man-caved it up inside a bit more. 26*C seems consistantly achievable, albeit only at 2nd half of evening, & that's currently @ -1*C outside. Can't quite believe what a fab project this has turned out to be. I think you need an Onoff man-cave too.

You might already have what you need. Anyway, just popped on the All4 app. Grand Designs: The Streets series 1, episode 1, timestamp 34m:48s This is also the episode with the Thermohouse EPS roof boards, which I have used.

Given the title I am surprised that @pocster did not gravitate to this thread.

Have you considered just emptying a can of expanding spay foam in there?

Worth a read. https://www.enhabit.uk.com/2020/07/08/is-mvhr-suitable-for-all-homes/

We normally use flex tile adhesive 10 mil notch on the block 10 mil notch on the Cement board Don’t forget to seal your board with SBR the day before Some Architect's spec four BG knock ins per m2 the following day Bit over the top really

It's been highly variable over the last week, from twice an hour to nothing all day. As a new user it's been very interesting to see how the new HP performs, and hear other's experiences, during these prolonged freezing periods, with plenty of useful learnings along the way, this forum being a great help. Thanks to all contributors

That's excellent. But if your heat pump is consuming a lot of power just trying and failing to get your UFH up to temperature then either it is keeping something somewhere very hot (giving rise to a poor COP) or there is some other type of fault giving rise to a poor COP. It doesn't make much sense.

Aren't architects supposed to work this out for you?

looks like it was Grand Designs 'the street', a lady called Lynn https://www.savelikeabear.co.uk/grand-designs-the-street-recap/

Better to be safe than sorry in my mind

What exactly makes you think it has frozen? You’ve got water coming out of the manifolds which will be colder than in screed. Also you had 1 bar of pressure. If it has frozen, you might expect the pressure either off the scale due to expansion, or zero if it’s leaking (although it depends if and where an ice plug may have formed). I would be surprised if it has frozen and even more surprised if UFH pipe has burst.

Same issue here but only on a couple of inlets.

Yes, similar to yours; a really fine dust that seems to stick by static. It comes off easily enough with the brush attachment on the hoover. Filters are changed every 6 months.

... or try this simulator if you don’t want to do sums https://www.ubakus.com/en/r-value-calculator/

I know - it's just that my architect is a bit skeptical of things that have been proved to work in the lab but haven't been certified yet. She found a Swiss aerogel-based product - its R was a bit disappointing, but it could be very useful for outside insulation. The thing would be to get something that is certified to have a substantially higher R/cm than reflective materials (notice how the workmen managed to make reflective material fit on the short wall). We really have just 1-1.5cm (if that) to play with in the (long-wall) space above the staircase. We are talking about the diagonally ascending area painted black here (before it becomes horizontal) and the white space above it: It's not a large space - once one gets to the upper landing, there's already a bit of wall insulation installed by the previous owners (or the antepenultimate ones).

Playing Devil’s advocate. He’s driven past your site by happenstance (let’s assume) he works for the HSE and sees two builders on what looks like a building job on a frosty day. What’s should he do? Drive on by or check what’s going on? He doesn’t know if you are a keen DIYer not bothered by H&S or a builder taking a chance or a contractor being coerced to work when it’s not safe. Seems fair enough to me for him to check given that the construction industry has the highest number of people killed in the workplace than any other albeit the agricultural industry has the highest rate of death per capita.

Did you tell them you we're practicing for the winter Olympics and there are no other ski slopes locally?

So that zone is not switching off. Perhaps that actuator is wired to the wrong zone or it is simply not screwed down onto the manifold properly.

Hope you get a price off the builder for stage 1, and don't do it on a day work price. Will stage 1 include putting the drainage in and supervising the concrete pour for the footings? so stage 2 will get the slab in and upto dpc etc.

If it works for you, install a temporary wc for site use when the plumbing and some walls are in. Costs about £60 for a basic one. Then replace at the end.

Not really. You need toilet, wash basin, and somewhere warm and dry to rest. First aid, and fire extinguishers. They don't have to be in an expensive self contained unit. In my opinion a site diary is adequate on most projects, doubling as accident book. The diary, kept daily without fail, is the best value of all your project expenditure.

For our selfbuild we bought a cheap shed, cheap toilet and cheap basin. Plumbed it in via a hose pipe [froze a couple of times] , and run it to the sewer. All the trades thought it was luxury compared to the usual Porta Loo. Problem with Porta Loos:- 1) Expensive - you will require it for twice as long as you think. - You don't want random tradesmen christening you nice new porcelain. 2) Hot in summer and smell so much people avoid them and p!$$ behind them. 3) Smell even in winter. 4) Soon get dirty 5) Smell

As the man says, they prefer to sit in their vans. No one will challenge you to provide CDM welfare facilities on an individual site, just a portaloo (to stop them going elsewhere)

Thanks for all the help, I also found this thread useful, (Floor heat loss and UFH calculator) and I will be looking into loop cad at a later date. So far I have required underfloor heating power 10.5 W/m2 and required floor temperature 21.2 deg Thanks to everyone.

I am going to try to see if I can get the ASHP to run without interruption in Hot Water mode, rather than UFH, in an attempt to rule out blockages in the UFH circuit. Normally we don't use the ASHP for HW because, reasons, but it is connected for HW. (We use solar HW and an immersion for HW). Just need to persuade Mrs. P. it's ok to dump 100l of 65C water to get the thermostat to trigger ASHP HW heating (!)

I grew up working on a farm and currently live on a farm. When I was 17 I fell through a roof into an open slurry tank although fortunately it was empty. 😂 I also got kicked in the plums by a calf. The vet was debudding the horns and asked me and another guy to hold on to it. I’d helped the vet a lot so knew what to do. The other guy was a first timer so didn’t realise how the horns are debudded (gas tong things) As as the vet started the other guy immediately let go of the front end and the back end hoofed me right in the stones.

Things started to go down hill when my son told him to get a proper job 😁