Leaderboard

Hi everyone I just wanted to introduce myself. My family and I are just coming to the end of a self-build steel framed barn conversion which started back in 2019. We only have minor things left to do. I project managed and also designed the entire house and my wife and I did all the planning application. I'm not an architect - it was more the fact we were left in the lurch by a really poor planning consultant/architect that we decided to take over ourselves and pleased we did. Our house is fairly standard block and brick masonry cavity-wall construction and we have quite large 150mm block cavities (concrete blocks for the external skin and thermalites on internal skin) full-filled with 150mm breathable mineral wool insulation, plus a further 50mm waterproof mineral wool externally behind cladding (crucially still allowing plenty of ventilation behind cladding), 100mm PIR celotex in floor (would have done more in floor but we're limited by potentially low ceiling heights), 200mm PIR celotex warm roof with an airtight VCL. We had a builder build our foundations and shell and he also put up some plasterboard on internal walls, we have a full wet plaster on all external walls. We had a separate roofing company do our metal roof, a cladding company have done our larch cladding and electrician and plumber are close to finishing our second fix items. My wife and I took over from the builder after he left. I then spent many weeks applying a cement lime "parge" coat on the inner face of all external walls (prior to our plasterer doing the full wet plaster), and I applied air tight tape everywhere in an attempt to make the house as airtight as possible - it was hard because our builder did not see the importance of air tightness. I've also built an exposed brick wall spanning half the entire downstairs and we also fully prepared the entire groundfloor for our concrete pour - doing the insulation, membrane and steel mesh etc, as well as doing some of the insulation and VCL in the warm roof. We had a concrete company pour and powerfloat the concrete slab which acts as our finished floor surface, as well as being a good thermal mass. Our house is heated solely by an 8.5kW ASHP and costs very little to run, which does all our hot water and our space heating, via wet underfloor heating in our concrete slab on the ground floor (no heating upstairs aside from a couple of electric towel rails). We also have solar thermal tubes which isn't doing much at the moment with the cloudy rainy weather and we also have 7.6kW solar PV on our roof which will be connected to an inverter and batteries later in the year. We also have MVHR. We just had our air tightness test done and we scored 2.5 m³/hr.m² @50Pa for the standard air permeability air tightness test, and 1.96 ach/hr @50Pa under a passivehaus air tightness test (although I can't use the Passivehaus test result for my SAP calcs). Dealing with non-straight original timber roof perlins and other characteristics in the original barn, and being masonry construction meant getting it air tight was a challenge.. plus it was a bit of a battle dealing with most of the trades who did not understand the importance of air tightness - our main builder thought we would never be able to open our windows! And it was solely me doing any kind of air tightness work. I'm not sure if 2.5 for a masonry house is ok or not?? I had hoped it might be slightly better after all the time I spent but I'm glad it is lower than 3 though because we have an MVHR and these work better at 3 or below (and at the end of the day it is just a number). House appears to stay warm, costs virtually nothing to run, no mould or condensation thanks to the MVHR which also evenly distributes the warmer air downstairs to all rooms upstairs, so overall really happy. It's been a lot of extremely hard work, especially with three quite young daughters, and working full time. Sorry for the long introduction. Attached is a pic. Matt

That would have been criminal damage, even to our own property., and 800m2 is a big thing to chop. But we did turn up at 6 am with a hiab to at least take away the 15T of unfixed cladding. A gang somehow soon turned up with chains and threats. Police came, then stayed and allowed us to load up. Well done her. Well done them. It would be helpful if they can offer security of ownership. That is easy and cheap for a big company. They perhaps have the material schedules for most orders.

Jamie was quite critical of Durisol, taking money when they knew they were going under. It looks like he’s done the same thing. It may not help many but I’ve been in contact with Isotex and they are offering a 45% discount to those who’ve been stung.

Card processing is an area I know, and for the situation of taking a deposit on a larger order, these fees are negligible. Taking a pay-as-you-go card processor as an example (i.e. the most expensive fees on offer) a £100 payment by card has £1.60 in fees. If you're doing volume you can quickly negotiate these down. If a company wouldn't accept a small fee + accounting overhead to secure an order worth thousands, I'd be concerned they weren't credit-worthy enough to be accepted by any card processor. Or their order books are so full they can be choosy. Which when I come to order windows is the argument I expect they will make... I'm sorry for everyone caught up in this liquidation. I've been caught in a couple (losing 4-digit amounts each time) and it's an absolute emotional rollercoster. After the shock and anger came an "I feel so f*****g stupid" phase which was the worst. Stay strong.

No you’re not - you’ve got this confused over the protection under the CCA and product specific loans. If you had taken out a credit agreement with the supplier, for specific products and the payment is made from the finance provider to the supplier directly, then the goods are protected from point of payment until the goods fully pass to you when settlement has been made. The key here is who makes the transaction. If the supplier defaults then the agreement is then void as the finance provider is partly liable for recovery - it’s how you can get issues resolved on faulty goods by getting the finance house to get involved. What Martin Lewis was referring to was the voluntary scheme that some banks offer, and that is where issues occur and you’ve taken out a specific loan for goods, and they may assist with chargeback but again it relates to debit card payment chargebacks and not bank transfers. sadly, bank transfers are the least safest method for consumer protection but becoming the norm.

Based on a recent thread, if you pay the £500 deposit, pay it on a CREDIT CARD.

Sorry to hear that. That's a real PITA. I hope you'll get some money back. Were they on credit card or anything? Using regular dense blocks is a better way for cavity walls IMO Vs lightweight. Get some prices and do some U value calcs and you'll see. Blockwork isn't too different but in my hands it's extremely slow for DIY. EPS beads or full fill mineral wool and a 180mm cavity will get you to a respectable 0.17W/m2K. Stainless steel cavity ties for up to 300mm cavities are easy to get here in Ireland. UK must be similar I imagine. For DIY only a stick frame would be my choice. As you've unfortunately found out there's a big plus in being able to walk into any builders merchants for materials. 220mm stud full filled with cellulose. 11mm OSB racking, 50mm cavity and 100mm block facing would fit nicely on the 380mm foundation. A/T membrane to the inside and a 50mm insulated service cavity. U value about 0.14, quick to watertight and will perform excellently.

We normally just nip the edges every 50 mil top and bottom with a grinder and break off with a chisel Hours topps Then fix a a sheet of stainless mesh over 2.4 x 600 Then scratch over Don’t fill the holes prior

I seem to remember years ago filling these in with snapped headers and lots of mortar.

I'm not sure why legal people may come after me. I've only stated information they themselves have made available on their website. I try to stay clear of the muck slinging whenever possible, although my time may come. When my build system and a fair wad of cash goes down the pan after months of planning, I think a little knee jerking is called for, or possibly required....It's been one way to ruin a good hoilday weekend.

@Jamie Kent It is a bank holiday weekend, so no need to knee jerk anything. Also, may be best to get your name changed on here as you don't want legal people search for you and what you may have said. It is an over connect world now. I also don't think the time you have invest in getting to the BR stage is wasted, there are many ways to achieve the same result.

Yup. They can write anything down in their claim and it's almost impossible to defend yourself if you hadn't stopped to get quotes out, get them signed, and then did the work.

My moral compass told me not to go under when folk were invested in my company ( life savings / earnings etc ), so I just bit down even harder and weathered the storm(s), and some utterly disingenuous scrotes of clients to boot. I'm still owed north of £40k, but ain't going to see that ever again. All of that went out of my account and into these snakes new builds. I can only thank them for me now having a proper and robust billing system, where things get signed for, agreed, and then done. Never go on faith and smiles, is what this had taught me. I was quite a happy-go-lucky guy, but nowadays I'm far more weary of leaping before looking. There are defo two sides to these stories, but this one stinks.

Amen. This is not a thread for giving false hope to people who are already emotionally compromised. If anyone would like to offer advice or support here, please only do so with the accompanying, current, facts that their statement is based upon. A-la, the above Thanks. Mods.

Thanks Mark.

Hi, welcome and well done!

Absolutely agree. My experiences with every so called "professional" including architect and draughtsman have been woeful so far and this is why this site is so helpful. We managed to submit and get approval for our Building Regs plans before the Regs changed in June 2022 - we were give a year's transitionary period to commence so only have until the end of May 2023 to start the work.

Here's ours, been in for 5.5 years now. This pics from a few years back, just after we cleared the debris from the build and started to get it seeded. I've settled on going with the S5 also, but am hoping to go without the rails. I'm just looking for a few similar installations to get a bit more confidence in attaching in that way

So it is going well with the levelling clamps. Pretty well essential for these 900 x 150 tiles, and quicker than manually minimising the steps. Achieving about 1m2 per hour with whole tiles, but will prob get faster.

If they are solid and not just hollow I wouldn't bother. But that me, our house (new build) with undercuts seems pretty quite with the doors closed. They are defeating ventilation requirements. Just undercut and move on to the next question.

Just about all property with mechanical ventilation have door undercuts. The noise transfer is insignificant. Stop over thinking. It doesn't stop you do sound insulation in walls and that should be done.

On our current project, we had stick build, so the timber was immediately ours, delivered by the BM. The joiner still called it "kit" but it was he who converted it from sticks and sheets into kit, on-site. I recommend having a look at this option.

Can you not extend the build insurance ? We had to do this monthly for a few months until we got a completion certificate [not cheap though] , and once we had one we could get normal household insurance, and then we moved our official place of residence to the new house, ensuring its was never unoccupied for the terms of the insurance, and left our son as sole occupant on the old house.

Adrian Flux is another broker worth trying: https://www.adrianflux.co.uk/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwuLShBhC_ARIsAFod4fLCwNBbu0lZm94gHf8MPfA2A7ZW99NRwP-b2X9Mph-vBYIJotepLmwaAu0zEALw_wcB

Mine is not and probably never will be on the Postcode Address File (long story) but is on every other address database you care to mention. I insured ours before it was complete, when we only had a certificate of temporary habitation and I used this company on a recommendation from this forum for being flexible. https://gsi-insurance.com/

Hello Everyone! I've been following BH for almost a week now and am gobsmacked with the knowledge and helpfulness of all you kind people.... So here I am, hoping to learn (and in time, perhaps contribute) to this wonderful community. This is a long read (sorry!) We have planning permission to convert a shed into a 4-bed house in Kent. We've brought in mains water and electricity. There is no connection to gas or sewage. The barn sits on a cement foundation which we will retain. The main double-height shed is made from a pre-cast concrete structure (to keep). The 2 lean-to single storey structures on either side are built on steel beams (again, structure to keep) I am in charge of this project as I have the time and *some* experience with small renovations (extensions and loft conversions). My husband's work keeps him busy and out of trouble for the most part (it's my dream to build our home that got us here!!). We're very happy with the design drawn up by our architect. My challenge is to translate that design into a build we can afford. The QS (first pass, Stage 3 level) has come up with an astronomical build cost - more than double of what our brief to the architect was! Some serious value engineering along with compromises have to be made to keep costs down. We are prepared to part-build - focus on the main shed and west lean-to, leaving the east lean-to and landscape for a later time. Overall, we want to take a fabric first approach and make the home as low-energy and sustainable as possible (near Passivhaus standards). We would like to engage a local contractor in Kent (any suggestions would be most appreciated; we live in London, 1.5 hrs from the barn so don't know the local area well) Would it be cheaper to have the groundworks done by the local contractor, then bring in a Timber Framing company (Frame Build UK?) do the build before passing it back to the local contractor take charge of the rest? What hybrid model (if any!) would be best? What professionals are essential? Our architects suggests... - Building Services Engineer for heating/cooling/electrics.... We're keen to install ASHP (with UFH), MVHR, Solar PV (under PD, so just 9sqm), (Tesla?) battery storage. And they all need to talk to each other! Can a one-stop shop (e.g., Better Planet or Total Home Environment) who supply, install, and commission be a good substitute for a Building Services Engineer? - SAP consultant - we have one who can also provide Airtightness Testing if needed - Civil engineer to specify the sewage treatment plant... Again, can the folks at say, Graf be just as competent to specify the duct/pipe design? - Structural Engineer - already engaged - Building Regs Inspector - already engaged - QS - already engaged for first pass... We will likely need a Bill of Quantities before going out to tender. And wonder if using ProQuant would be more cost effective So far, Roof and Wall insulations have been specified.....Is there a way to gauge how close they will be to Passivhaus standards? Does there appear to be room to reduce costs here? Roof Insulation 1. Form new roof structure comprising; allow 150mm timber joists with 140 thick Rockwool Flexi insulation between joists; 12mm plywood decking; 100 thick Rockwood Hardrock insulation; breather membrane; form 50mm ventilation space from timber battens. 2 Fibre cement corrugated roof finish Wall Insulation 1 New external wall structure, comprising; 150 thick timber studwork structure with 120 thick mineral wool insulation; 12mm WBP ply; breather membrane; 50mm metal studs to form ventilation gap; vapour barrier and 25mm Rockwood RWA slab on 25mm timber studs to internal face; 2 Corrugated cladding; 3 Timber perforated screen on 50mm studs; 4 Insulated render Apologies for the long read and many questions! Any help, guidance, advice, will be deeply appreciated. Many thanks! L09P-Proposed Cross Sections.pdf L08P-Proposed Roof Plan.pdf L07P-Proposed First Floor Plan.pdf L06P-Proposed Ground Floor Plan.pdf L06P-Proposed Ground Floor Plan.pdf L07P-Proposed First Floor Plan.pdf L08P-Proposed Roof Plan.pdf L00-Cover.pdf

They don’t make it anymore, and it’s tolerance was +/-3mm which caused issues with aligning skins. Much easier to go partial with a gap - 100mm cavity boards with a 20mm gap doesn’t lose you much but your brickies will be much happier.

I've been watching for sometime the discussions surrounding per m2 costs. I've always felt these comparisons on per m2 are flawed and not a fair reflection (even when comparing per m2 cost with one another and potentially from the same supplier). The quantity of fixed versus openable can be different and the amount of doors for example and type. So I thought I would put a quick excel calculation tool together to get m2 based on the entered info. Which can then be filtered through the relevant options. There is a couple of minor points to make. It's basic but does the job. Due to the sheet being locked (password supplied), it won't expand the table as new data is entered, so I extended the table to accommodate. This presents an issue when calculating subtotals as it includes zeros and in the average cost per m2 field, this presents an incorrect figure for "all items" as they aren't filtered. I have entered a cost per m2 field for all items to combat this. It doesn't take quantities into account, each item needs to be entered individually. When you filter, it will calculate only the visible cells in the "Average cost per m2" cell and displays the correct per m2 cost. So you can filter by style for example (tilt and turn, top hung etc.) and it will always calculate the per m2 cost on the selections made. Discount amount (if any) can be entered and it will advise the percentage of discount supplied and then the cost per m2 cells will adjust to the discounted rate. I have tried to cover all the bases, including uPVC, Timber, Timber Alu Clad, Aluminium, timber type, internal finish, glazing etc. I've also put linear meterage data in plus install costs, which will display install cost per m2/linear meterage as well for a further breakdown. If you find this useful and can use this for comparisons with other suppliers / Buildhub members or if anyone would like to expand on it, feel free to download and amend accordingly. cost_per_m2.xlsx

@ProDave I checked the handbook before the epic trip, but was unable to find a set of scales to weigh the staircase. It wasn’t massively heavy so I took a punt, seemed to go ok. I also checked the overhanging regulations, not exceeding 1m, no problem. As I opted to put the stairs centrally on the roof bars (crazy, I know) the overhang was around 0.5m.

Fill it with concrete.

A (expletive deleted)ing drone ? ; at ground level !!! . Get back to your shag shed !

Just wondering what you need to know?

What’s the question?