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It's been a while since my last blog, but we've not stopped, the days are shorter and the weather skipped autumn🍂 and dived into winter with a few storms and loads of rain. Our windows are budget friendly triple glazed UPVC, and composite doors. The external EPS was sealed at the cill with EPDM airtight tape, the tape has reinforcement in it and can be moulded, it does crease but creates a water tight junction and sticks like the proverbial to the EPS. We created a cheek reveal with an additional layer of 50mm EPS and sealed the upvc frames against this, I then ran a bead of sealant against the face and edge of the EPS giving two seals. Then when clad a third seal. I used soudal air tight foam and I thinks it's LMA sealant, soudal's airtight solution. The winds gave good opportunity to test for air leaks when had several days of 35mph winds. This proved a good test with a smoke pen. The internal frame was sealed with soudal sf40 which adheres very well to the upvc and timber blocking, when cured it is like rubber. The cladding is larch boards in 2 widths 150mm for the bottom layer and 100mm for the top. We finished the top of the windows with a custom palistol coated drip The bottom of the EPS footing was finished with reclaimed slate. Inside we are having a cold roof. We needed to add 25mm pir under the truss cord to satisfy the tightened regulations in Scotland. We tapped the foil boards with foil tape, and the perimeter boards were pushed to touch the wall plate. Then used airtight foam between the PIR and internal IFC wall creating a seal. Under the PIR I used plastic membrane that I spray glued to the PIR, and this draped down the perimeter walls. The under ceiling was battened and counter battened, this created a service void for the cables and not penetrating the loft. The plastic was jointed with EPDM airtight tape on joins and walls. Cables were put inside Flexi conduit that was cut into grooves in the ICF. (All water pipes were run under the slab.) This picture shows the detail for the airtightness and the service void. MVHR ducts (7 plenums ) were run in the loft, and under 400mm of loft roll. The manifolds are also under the loft insulation. I made these airtight using the same EPDM tape. I made gaskets out of the plastic with a circle cutter and stretched it over the plenums, then air tight tape to seal everything to the plastic/ PIR. The walls also needed some IWI to meet the tighter regs, so decided to go with 25mm PIR. This also added another seal for the plastic airtight layer and walls. The poly steel ICF has these metal plates at 150mm ctrs that allow the cladding battens to be secured externally and the plasterboard internally, we used self tapping drywall screws and insulation discs to hold the PIR in place before installing the plasterboard. Picture for detail below. At this stage we've got a large airtight box. Now it's a case of installing the stud work. I lined the plant room with pre painted 12mm OSB, and the bathroom with 18mm OSB ( a Scottish building regs requirement needing the ability for future hand rails etc) Electrics are simple, a few Ethernet points and sockets and spotlights. One pendant over the dining( and if I get my way, and budget allows pool table). The only penetrations from the loft are a light, PV cables, TV aerial, and 4g antenna cables. These are in conduit and sealed both ends. All other cables run in the ceiling void or stud work. I've put a few sensors in the studwork for future Arduino projects to accompany the in slab sensors. The plant room is compact, and work in progress. The PV is up and running and to date produced just shy of 300KwH in 5 winter weeks With the first fix complete it was time to plasterboard, we got 80 boards delivered Wednesday midday, just as storm Babet hit, it was too windy to bring them in, I tried, I failed so it had to stay outside 😭, covered in plastic, tarpaulins, scaffold boards and the obligatory ratchet straps. 3 days of constant 35mph gusting 50mph gave opportunities to check for airtightness. I managed to install the flush shower tray during this downtime. Once the storm blew though we got the boards inside and cracked on, the open plan lounge, diner, kitchen was boarded first and as soon as it was complete I skimmed the ceiling, 11 boards was too big for me and my tennis elbow, that coupled with not plastering anything for several years. I split the room in two and used several layers of scrim tape to plaster up to, then remove the scrim tape and skim the 2nd part. It worked well, and it's painted and the join is seamless. The next few days we mixed it up skimming in the morning and boarding in the afternoon for the next day. Today is day 182 of the build, this is basically from the cleared site that was down to rock with the pecking already done. Currently the house is fully skimmed, most of the ceilings have been primed and painted white and we started the kitchen install today. All the bathroom is here waiting to be installed, and some appliances are here most arriving this week. This has been pretty much 7 days a week, with only around 12 to 18 days off to earn some money and pay off some labour debts. We're hoping to move in, in 2 weeks with a working bathroom and kitchen 🤞, the static has now reverted to ice box during the night🥶

Why on Earth would the OP want to do that? Great way to piss off your neighbour, who you then have to live with until one of you dies or moves.

First night with the dMEV in the en suite last night and, even without the trickle vents, the CO2 in the bedroom didn't go above 1000ppm all night. By comparison, the previous night it hit 2500ppm at peak. I'd say that means it's working! Looking forward to getting the vents and getting rid of the PIV now...

We didn’t fit a wood burning stove because morally it seemed hypocritical to fit MVHR and a stove that pumps smoke into the atmosphere. We are fortunate in that we only have one neighbour who is only there once a month and the fields behind us aren’t arable so no spraying.

Repeaters are not great for reliability - worse than powerline extenders. There's a good explanation of repeaters Vs extenders here: https://www.screenbeam.com/wifihelp/wifibooster/wifi-extenders-beat-wifi-repeaters-every-time/

An infrared mirror might be an invisible solution.

With the right filtration things might be different, but mine are just standard G4 filters so wouldnt do anything for smoke.

This does raise the question why? BS EN 1329 has been withdrawn so that's out of date. Why can't you use underground pipe above ground? The pipe itself must be made to the same size as above ground because they have to fit to each other. The underground may not be as UV stable as the above ground but using it inside that'll not be an issue. You would expect underground pipe if anything, to be stronger than above ground as it's normally buried. So that leaves it being the wrong colour. The Building Regulations are quite clear in Regulation 8 that Part H (along with most parts) only relates to reasonable health and safety matters. I can't see having a brown internal svp would have an adverse impact on anyones H&S. Just musing...........

Timely post for me. Reinforces my idea to double-up the heating in my place under construction; am at first fix. I have wet UFH and am planning to install electric-mat UFH too on my two bathrooms, probably under LVT flooring.

Did you get it from the same guy on eBay? Just need to resolve my heat pump woes now.

Moved it around and slightly better in this orientation

Tiles look good, will they just fill up of dirt though?

Get a bigger TV and centralise it by shifting it left?? Prob not be much more once you've removed, patched and repainted the wall and then drank £200 of wine to forget the mess you've made of it!

Tuff tiles - in a garage / dungeon setting . Easy to wipe down I bet you dirty (expletive deleted)er 😉

I used https://www.herschel-infrared.co.uk/product/select-xls-white/ XLS ones need power to the panel, and then an option of battery or wired stat which communicates to the panel wirelessly - i.e. simplifies wiring if thats useful. My 2mx2m shower room has the 300W 30cm x 90cm. Their own thermostats also have time clocks and the mains ones will talk to an app via wifi if thats your thing. Personally I use their stats in manual mode for temp control and switch the panel power off/on via a central oldschool time clock. Avoiding a proliferation of timers in the house & any reliance on cloud (This isn't by any means the cheapest place to buy IR panels, but I've no idea if the cheaper ones are the same thing)

People have bought into 'lots of natural light'. So while in terms of exposed area, windows may only account for 25% or less, they can have a disproportionate affect on the heat losses. So I am all for improvements. Technically the glass adds little to the overall U-Value, so adding a thin pane in the middle is a sensible thing to do. A 1mm or thinner sheet of cast acrylic would do as it will reduce the convection currents.

Ooh, that would bug me!!!!

pige -cat- ons.. I'm definitely going to be putting a self leveller down, Knauf N430 to be precise. looking at 20mm worth. That would make the max depth of any pipe 60mm and the minimum depth of some pipes 20, I was planning on a floating bamboo floor with an expansion gap on the perimeter and the 20mm thick skirting above the floor. I've used cork edge on a laminate floor before and it worked well, would bamboo be likely to contract more than 20mm from each edge...?

It will handle such pollutants, but only insofar that it will indeed happily draw them in and distribute them around your house! Unfortunately, likely more effectively than if you were just passively ventilated. A continuous controlled supply of fresh air was one of the motivations for us retrofitting MVHR and so it was to much concern when our (friendly and perfectly pleasant) neighbour opted to fit a woodburner... Panic set in and fearing certain death from them lighting the thing up I rigged up an air quality sensor inside the supply manifold which, if a particular threshold of PM1/2.5/10 was reached, would 'trick' the MVHR unit in to frost mode which keeps the extract going but cuts the supply for 10 minutes before reassessing the situation. It works really well and since fitting it we've never once noticed even the slightest whiff of smoke even when conditions (wind in the wrong direction, overly damp wood etc) might otherwise have potentially caused us to do so. However, and this is probably he biggest point I'd like to make, not only did I fit an air quality sensor inside the supply manifold but put one inside the house and that has made me realise that we almost certainly create as much pollutants (assuming all particulate matter of a given size is equally harmful?) ourselves every day from cooking than what the neighbour's woodburner some distance from our MVHR inlet might do and so have really become quite chilled about the matter!

Nice & congrats.

We kept our bathrooms at 24C with electric towel rails.

Great Progress. I thought that another 50mm of soft insulation in the attic would be easier that the 25mm under the trusses or is there some specific requirement i'm missing? Could you do a sketch of the Check reveals with EPS. I'm intrigued as the UPVC frames of our building are the weakest spots. Speaking of windows, what did you choose?

Fantastic progress @Jenki 🙂 .I am still at planning stage but I have been following your progress through these months and I feel more confident that I will be able to do some of the work myself (whenever I am able to get through the never ending planning process)

Don’t bother move it to one side and use it for the drive, turning circle for deliveries path around house under scaffolding. Bring in nice and new for the slab as specified by the slab designer, by the time you have asked and they have thought about it any money saving will be long gone.

In our case, I asked the same question. No - was the answer. But since we built on a gentle slope, we just shoved the top layer (made ground) downhill.

Is this a really primitive old tank? Even so, the 'burps' from it should expel through a vent where it doesn't cause bother, and the outfall be kept underground. I expect something is wrong, eg the waste isn't fully treated and should go on to a big herringbone drainage system. The jcb driver who lifted in our tank said he'd never seen a herringbone system like ours, and most just put in a rubble soakaway or chuck it in a ditch. Then the bco doesn't question it.

It is common to get three quotes for any build project - part of the Due Diligence process. If you don't go through that process (need not be as complex as implied in the link given) you increase the risk of coming back to us with a (commonly heard) tale of woe. In short ; ask, talk, look. Lets speculate about the costs involved - this is PURE speculation Ancillary works: 2 days £400 Felt 3 rolls (3* 275) £825 Skip 8 yards £280 Torch-on felt kit £300 2 guys 2 days (4 man days) £800 Equipment hire £100 Incidental costs (fuel , phonecalls , consumables) £100 Profit ( roughly the sum of the above) ~ £ 2000+ That coffee house fag-packet calculation makes the quote above about right. Yes, you'll get it done for less. But consider that he might do a good job - in which case you've started to build trust. And thats valuable. Network hard: has yer man worked in the area long? Who has had work done by that firm before? Go and look (or sneak a look) . Talk to as many as you can about the builder - ask at local estate agents for anyone who knows him . Mind you in Devon the Jungle Telegraph works particularly well if my experience is anything to go by. Other members will have a view about whether 3 layers of felt is enough straight on to concrete where the surface will be walked on every day. My instinct is that it isn't .... We aren't experts. Just nosey, hard-bitten (often nosey) self builders with long memories. There is no substitute for doing your own research: it builds confidence and decreases risk. Photos please. PS, I had no idea how acidic ( alkaline? ) seagull shooshoo is.....

It would save a good chunk of the budget for sure. For a truly low emission impact building be careful that your design is climate appropriate too. No reason it couldn't last 500 years if done right. In the British Isles we have scores of examples. Robust water shedding is much more important in Wales than the Mediterranean for example. Consider the optimum roof angle and orientation for PV, make informed decisions about glazing. Too much will be expensive to heat and cool.

If you're sensitive to air quality, it may be a problem. I am. Going to attempt to mitigate this with a chuffing huge carbon filter on the air intake to the house. Something like: https://www.globalairsupplies.co.uk/product/carboair-100-filter/ A big one with a large surface area and bore should not cause too much extra work for the MVHR.

We've the PVC as well. Don't see why you would want wood, unless for the look or you wanted a different colour.

We've got the PVC frames and they're very good. Obviously they're near-enough maintenance-free, and are clean and bright. You'd need to go digging to confirm, but they're probably a bit better thermally?

We have no issues with stoves or similar. But just over the neighbours boundary is his discharge from his septic tank. On one of those dead still nights the "pong" from his ST hangs around and gets drawn in by the mvhr and the air in the house starts to smell stale. If we notice that I turn the mvhr off until the wind picks up a bit. Clearly the filters are doing nothing to stop that sort of pong.

Ah, OK. Not sure if it's always been the case but when I applied to Octopus for export payments last week they didnt need the MCS cert but just the number. I guess they've got access to the MCS database cos they verified the number within seconds.

+1, get all that sh1t removed and see what you have got (and post pics here).

You need a PoE switch in your plant room. It basically injects low voltage power into the ethernet cables in order to power whatever is on the other end without running a separate power cable. Only works with PoE-compatible access points, of course. You can also use that PoE switch to power security cameras amongst other things. Very hand bit of tech.

We're also next to fields but find neighbour's BBQs more of an issue. Our Zender can switch ventilation mode from 'balanced' (i.e. normal supply & extract operation) to extract only via the app - this mitigates the issue effectively. It runs automatically on a timer (1 hour by default) so you won't be deprived of fresh air if you forget to switch it back! I'm guessing that other MVHR brands would have the same facility.

I decided to tell the the sparky my unorthodox plan. Delighted to say that he has no problem with it. Also delighted that he/his company came up with a price that seemed very reasonable considering previous quotes I’d received.

Don't worry too much.. it is what it is. There are plenty folk on BH that have spent ages planning heating loops .. but on site when the pressure is on pipes get lapped over and some have little cover. Life is not ideal! Think about this another way..it's not 70 deg C water you are pumping in through the pipes more like 35 - 45 deg tops.. about the same as our body temperature give or take. Ok you have some bamboo flooring. Now imagine you have some patio doors and the sun has been streaming in all day on the floor.. how hot will that get locally? I have a big floor on UF.. but floated it rather than glued it down.. it moves about but is still a happy floor. Don't panic.. just turn it on and enjoy. Bamboo is very forgiving... think about the climate it grows up in.. humidity, big changes in temperature and so on. What you do need to watch out for is this. In the winter when the UF is on.. the moisture content is low so the floor shrinks. BUT the biggy is when the heating is off in the summer the moisture content will rise and the floor will swell a lot that funnily is when you get the visible problems at the end of the summer.. and folk blame the UF. Leave a gap round the edges of the flooring for the movement.

First thing to do is cut out/remove all that silicone and filler 'bodge up' in the gap above the window frame......then see how deep it is or if it goes right through to the inside wall, then take some more photos inside and out and post the photos here for further help/comment on what to do to rectify the problem.

Thank you for the suggestions. I do have some money in cash which will be used for the build. And I plan to fund the rest of the build with the sale of my home (hopefully soon but the market is very quiet). I did check CIL (I actually was not aware of such levy until I saw some discussion on BH). Thanks again!

We live next to a field. When they are spraying we turn it off, also when they are ploughing, just for the dust. All around us are houses with wood burners/open fires and not far away is a big pig farm that, on occasions stinks to high heaven. We’ve never turned it off for these events and never noticed anything indoors. You’ll be fine.

What's at the other end of the gap? A piece of plastic trim? Looks like window is way too small. You'll want to rake all that out and get a plasterer in and put a new bead and build render to meet the frame.

So a G98, 99 certificate, from DNO which you should have anyway!

OK, if you’re giving us a complete report, then you’re being misled on a number of points: + your solicitor would likely have been negligent if they hadn’t have investigated the right to light issue fully and demanded the report from the sellers etc. Talk to the solicitor and then the managing partner to get the ball rolling re their potential negligence. You’re doing the groundwork at this point and collecting evidence, no need to be aggressive. In fact, try to stay as calm and reasonable as possible. But be firm. + the sellers would have misrepresented themselves if they said the issue was closed when it clearly wasn’t. Hiding the report from you with some BS legal privilege argument would be part of that misrepresentation. No solicitor, worth their salt, would put up with that. You might want to discuss this point with your solicitor. + LPAs do often use right to light as one of their planning criteria. You’ll find examples here I think on BH. + the ‘legal privilege’ argument is BS. Your solicitor could ask for any and all info they want and decide (with you) not to proceed if the information was not provided. No solicitor would accept that argument. + you might want to get some evidence on file. Write ‘contemporaneous notes’ of all verbal communications and copy them to the other party asking them to verify the notes are accurate. Add a line saying ‘if you don’t confirm by xxx then you will assume the notes are accurate’. I would still ask the neighbours, in as pleasant a way as possible, what design changes they would accept. If they say ‘only for you never to build a house’ then that’s good to know too (and document). If they say ‘move this element a metre further back’ then see if that can be accommodated. You might also project that you’re not going to accept any more BS or sold anymore lines. Ask them to provide you with a history of their conflict/discussions with the seller and document it. Lastly, is there something important you’re not telling us here? Otherwise this situation would be one for the case law books and solicitor training manuals.

>>> I am not permitted access to the right to lights assessment that was carried out before because apparently it is legally privileged. This was done by the previous owner, the one who obtained the permission? But not made available to you? I think your solicitor should have insisted. And you can still ask. Goodness the Mail article makes sad reading - what nonsense. 'Right to light' in a garage occasionally used as workshop and office? Maybe ask your neighbours to detail exactly what the problem (and solution) is. I think some people will try all kinds of tricks so it's worth pushing hard into all the detail. Re the foundation - ask your BC (maybe informally) if they have any knowledge to offer in that specific geographic area. p.s. this self-build game seems to be full of existential challenges. Assume you'll prevail, you just have to figure out the best way to do that

This was on a cold night and we’ve gone from waterfall windows to mist! So mvhr does help with condenstion in an old leaky house!

There is a difference between a product and the way a company conducts itself. Yes @Russell griffiths, there are far superior products out there, yes @SteamyTea many have had difficulties with the product. But as many traders have found - not least those who post very regularly on BH - businesses fail for all sorts of reasons. You may not like a product . Then don't buy it. Poor products deserve to fail. Just as poorly administered companies need to be reminded about the realities of the marketplace. A series of recent international events may or may not have contributed to the current situation. We just don't know. Yet. I am keen on evidence-based comment and discussion. Thats why I have written (perhaps too much) about Durisol. But I know nothing at all about the financial conduct of the company . And so, in my view the Schadenfreude above about Dursiol's descent into administration is entirely misplaced.

You could just have a cold shower, then step into a toasty 20 degree room with no need for additional heating source. Problem solved, save your stones may disappear for an hour or 2.

Yes, that's right I remember you posting the link now! 🤣

@Dan1983 I bet that makes you feel loads better lol