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Agree with @Kelvin ‘s comments. Why hasn’t vendor secured a warranty themselves. Why are they selling after completing a couple of years of completion. I’d be walking away, too many red flags. All the risk would be on you. Doubt a warranty company would provide sufficient coverage to take in the risk.

Looks like they split the difference and put it in the middle, the template boys recommended where to put everything

95mm at the front and 130mm at the back leaving 110mm once the upstand goes in if your having one

Just to add a bit of balance (and to state the obvious) - of course, structural warranties are generally only for 10 years. This means, that the vast majority of UK houses (i.e. ones over 10 years old) get sold without one. What's more, structural warranties only cover structural problems. Then, supposing you find a structural problem between 3 and 10 years out - what do you think your chances are of claiming on the warranty after the warranty company has argued 'no it wasn't bad structural design, it was bad workmanship' etc etc etc. That is, the warranty won't be 100% protection - 50% maybe? I think I would dig into the detailed problems and see which really bother you and the surveyor. Negotiate money off to cover these if you can - because 'cash buyers only' reduces the available market. Maybe contact the builder and ask a few polite questions to cover some unknowns. See if the seller wants to provide an architect's or SE's cert - again these are not 100% watertight. Life is all a bit of a risk and even if you take all the insurance and make all the mitigations you can, there'll still be uncovered risk - on this and every other house purchase. Take a view of seller and builder integrity. By all means go in with your eyes open and as best informed as you can be, then make your decision bearing in mind how much you want the house and how much risk you're happy to bear - warranty or not.

my chippie mentioned something about fitting battens that the sink lip sits on. not sure if that's possible or any good for you?

Yes full building survey by local surveyor who specialises in old buildings and followed up with timber and damp and external wall. Seen on wet day in late Oct and was warm and no evidence of leaking. I grew up in 500 year old farmhouse so used to wonkiness, deathwatch beetle, beams etc but clearly some elements of bodging going on. Our solicitor chasing for SW and other paperwork. Thanks for advice.

If it is an old barn, done up by the farmer. 1. It has stood a long time and isn't about to fall down. But check the condition of timbers... 2. Farming build quality is traditionally well below housing standards. Cows and hay bales don't complain. Beware general bodging, through ignorance and corner cutting, prob more than deceit. Needs a survey I'd think. Have you been there on a wet day? Not just to see any leaks, but also gutters and drains in action.

Only if they advertised having a structural warranty. A new house doesn’t need to have one in place. If your lender won’t offer a mortgage without one then you go back to the vendor and tell them this and that you’ll only proceed if they put one in place. This will be true for anyone buying it with a mortgage. Cash buyers less of a problem and most houses are sold without them. In this current market keen buyers are few and far between so you have a reasonable negotiating hand if you really want the house.

https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/heat-recovery-efficiency-d_201.html

That stain on the ceiling won't have appeared overnight. Assuming this is a rented property you own?

I’d recommend also speaking to mayflower, they provide lots of advice as well looking at different options and lenders. My only connection was they helped us get a self build mortgage and provided a lot of advice

+1 for ecology.

As many previous discussions: building control do spot checks by invitation. Many things go uninspected.

ag tie properties are acceptable to Ecology. https://www.ecology.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Lending-Criteria-Guidelines-Feb-2023.pdf

It's very unlikely to be a blocked overflow then, but as you've now got plumber booked, you can leave it to him!

Have a conversation with Ecology BS. As you own the land already, especially with PP, it has a value so you may find you don’t need a cash deposit. Thats what we did. as such the cash they’re releasing to you is always an amount that’s less than the value of your project at that stage. id imaging a plot in Sussex with PP has a significant value to it. That would be your deposit. search Ecology on this forum you’ll find many have had excellent experiences with them, including me. we’d already bought the plot and demolished the existing house, then applied for the SB mortgage. We used cash reserves to go a few stages before drawing down money as and when required.

Is the overflow pipe supported, I have come across numerous ones sagging, no cement in joins and gunge collects in the low spot leading to leaks 🤷‍♂️

Got to get on with my kitchen so have appointment a plumber to view . float failing and overflow blocked seems like low probability too me . But I can’t see anything else obvious. All external pipework fittings are dry .

https://www.builditsolar.com/Experimental/DIYHRV/DIYHRV.htm

Or Shelly H&T, currently 40% off, at Shelly store, similar output. Not sure how you get data to excel though.

https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/heat-recovery-efficiency-d_201.html https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/enthalpy-moist-air-d_683.html He had MVHR unit with a heat pump in it as far as I know, and off the shelf unit, cant remember who made it now,

Sheet insulation, polystyrene or PU. Could be a secondary box stuffed with mineral wool. I think it is a general term for the heat exchanger itself, rather than the complete unit.

Monitoring our MVHR results, with the inlet and outlet ducts and MVHR in our loft, we soon realised that the results were seriously effected by the loft temperature. We then super insulated the ducts and MVHR (2 to 300mm insulation to all) and we now have very good results in the high 80%. retained room temperature when using "heat recovery" (which also acts as cool recovery in the summer). Good luck M

It would but I doubt I could be dedicated enough, unless I could automate a system. Here's a couple of pics I took when I was building it. I built it big on the idea that the longer the air was inside the better. That may or may not be true. It's 820 by 800 by just under 500. It could have been quite a bit smaller and possibly worked as well. I made the enclosure from 50mm polystyrene. I wouldn't do that again. The polystyrene is cheap, light and easy to cut but born out of wedlock to glue. After I've monitored and or tweaked it a bit I may make the box again from something more substantial. I'd like some suggestions, maybe MDF or good quality plywood. Not that I've seen but I'm a newbie Here you go.

As said. Run cable to ceilings for access points. Use Ubiquiti networking. This kit is awesome and will allow ‘roaming’ on WiFi as you go around the house. can’t have too many cat6 points.

24/7 as the fan I linked to was under 1 W. So a couple of quid a year to run.

Hi @Susie It worked fine, but make sure your measurements are bang on. Wozza.

They are usually centrifugal EC fans which tend to be manufactured as OEM for inclusion into other supplier's products and so aren't quite so readily available directly to end users. They can be found though (examples) but there are a whole bunch of design parameters you'd need to know to narrow the search down e.g. airflow, noise, size, control etc.

I had hoped some wise person would have commented on the efficiency or lack there of. So in the absence of that I searched for a formula online. I found a formula for a PHI test. My house is nowhere near a PH but I applied the formula which gives 74% Now that the temp outside has lowered it gives a rating of 80.7% not to shabby considering it's held together with titebond and duct tape. The formula used is extract air minus exhaust over extract air minus intake.

The labels are a little confusing, but I think I can work them out by their relative values. One way of calculating efficiency of the heat exchanger (although it's not perfect as a poorly insulated unit will result in higher figures if it allows heat from the room in) is simply: ( Supply - Intake ) / ( Extract - Intake ) Thus, with your figures: ( 15.0 - 12.8 ) / ( 16.7 - 12.8 ) = 0.56 56% efficiency isn't great given that >90% is readily achievable with off-the-shelf systems but I'd say it seems pretty good for something homemade though - it's certainly working!

Just watch out for creating mould traps. Niches are notorious for this, unless It’sa noche in an internal wall (or a very well insulated external wall) and you have MVHR in which case you should be ok.

I didn't bother with a premoulded tray. Just moisture resistant plasterboard, tanking kit and then tiles and grout. Although I did use epoxy grout as I can't be doing with dirty grout

I've seen board to board edges screwed and dabbed together with bits of offcut plasterboard plasterboard and adhesive before.

This one - this is as far as it's got, but no problems so far.

I ran the HW (a bath for visiting grandkids) to cold using this SunAmp for its salt to go through phase change to solid, and I then left it overnight to thoroughly cool, before disassembling / removing the OSB pressure plate and retaining frame. The cells were now solid and nicely cuboid, so reassembly was now straightforward. I will do my commissioning tests at midnight (when the Octopus price drops). I recall that some of our members have discussed issues with their UniQ series SunAmps having issues with sagging or split cells. The lesson is quite clear: Do not remove a side panel unless the unit is well below the phase change as the cells do not have internal bracing to retain their shape at operating temperature without the steel casing support in place. If you need to bring the SunAmp up to operating temperature with a side panel removed then you will need use some bracing formwork to retain the cell side shape.

Posting this again.

I have a strong feeling that the dire state of the housing sector plays a strong role in promoting poor work. Haven't we all talked to tradies who sneer at the building standards of the major providers? Who snigger at the Building Control regime. But the market will take care of that issue won't it? Building Control officers in Germany are really powerful. They can ( or could when I was there) recommend that builders (tradespeople) lose their licence to practice. And the trades' association vigorously police their members. A German mate once said to me - Why should I employ a chimney sweep who can't manage a large block of flats? - Cos someone else will do it cheaper...? ( I seem to remember it takes about 5 years to qualify over there) - Das ist Scheiße.... That translates as it sounds

I bought a 620mm wet bridge saw for around £150 back in 2010. I did all my floor tiles, roof tiles and sandstone paving with it, and at the end, the bridge bearings were knackered so I gave it away. Used several blades but always got clean cuts with no chips.

I was surprised how well a cheap electric tile saw worked. I thought as long as it survived one project it was worth it. Kitchen and shower room, floor and walls Only 12mm tiles, but I don't see why it wouldn't work for 20mm apart from patience failing and pushing too hard that it strains the motor. Didn't even need to change the disc. £50 was worth it. I've never used a professional one, so can't compare.

I use an angle grinder with a turbo blade on most things Ive a couple of Robi zero dust cutters Which are handy if your in an enclosed area and several floors up But a bit big for moving around

Pine has a thermal conductivity of around 0.15 W/m.K So 0.1 m will conduct 1.5 W/K (R-Value = length / conductivity). The U-Value is 0.67 W/m2.K (1/ resistivity). Without knowing the exact dimensions, I shall assume that the thickness is 0.04 m. 0.67 [W/m2.K] x 0.04 [m] = 0.027 W/m2.K for each linear metre. You say it is a warm roof, so the steel will be in the region of 20°C. It is a very rare spell of weather where the outside air temperature is below -5°. So. 0.027 [W/m2.K] x (25) [dT°C) = 0.68 W/m If I assume that the beam is 10 m long, that is 6.8W at -5°C Now my kitchen has two pendant lights of 3W each and my laptop at about 10W that is 16W. (It is early and I may have made a mistake).

>>> a bunch of trained otters from the zoo Looking for a more skilled workforce? >>> So just how bad is the cold bridge created by the ridge board? You can work it out approximately, if you can be bothered (or get someone to do it for you). I would guess not very much - add maybe 3-5% to roof w/m^2? Maybe there some internal insulation detail you can figure - the RSJ was always going to be a cold bridge anyway, so some beefed-up and specific insulation detail under that?

How are the rafters fixed to the ridge board? I don't see any brackets. Normally with a roof hung from a ridge beam, which is what that is with the steel beam, there is some form of substantial bracket or strap to stop the rafters sliding down away from the ridge beam. The lack of that fixing would worry me more. What do the drawings say? and why were the builders building without the detailed drawings?

A coat of Zinsser stain block should hold it back

This is how it is at the moment Please forgive the brickwork.