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I've gone through the whole "elderly parent" thing, watching them struggle with sockets just above the skirting, or having to let go of their walker and reach up to "high" switches. Most sockets or switches I fit or move now are put in / back 450 - 1200mm. Seems very practical to me.

People are where they are in the house-ownership cycle. Maybe their ' push ' to just get-on-the-ladder was (is?) harder than you realise?

The same way as you choose to live there, no one made you rent there, you could have chosen a different place to live. Again you would have seen all this, before you signed on the dotted line, and paid the deposit. If you don't like it, move noone is making you stay there.

Remember there is no such thing as a daft question, daft is not asking, we all had to start somewhere 👍 yes Coombs and eaves trays best way to stop birds getting in but still allow ventilation, eaves trays support roofing felt that often fails near the gutter so will extend the like of you roof.

I appreciate that I am most likely speaking to the converted regarding this topic, but we are currently renting a property on a large Persimmon built housing estate, and I honestly find it so depressing and cannot understand why anyone would choose to purchase one of these houses. Not only is the build quality shocking, but each house is orientated 180 degree relative to the house in the parallel road. Eg, you would never sit in your back garden, as you are overlooked by about 6 houses. You have to always be mindful when looking out your windows, for fear of staring directly at someone who is looking directly at your house. If nothing else, it will make us get on with our self-build, and make us appreciate that we are fortunate enough to be in a position to do a self-build.

Our plot is 24’ wide, and we’re building in pretty much the footprint of the bungalow we will be demolishing. We’re too close to each neighbour to have an ASHP either side, and we’re not keen on it being our most prominent frontal feature. We also don’t want to sit next to it on our patio out back, so we’ve shoved it 10m to 15m down the garden. We’re building an attached slightly oversized garage at the front of the house (to keep our campervan snug plus it looks ‘right’) which will be half the width of the plot and that’s where the MVHR is hopefully going - intake on one side exhaust on the other. Ditto this sort of unit, if it ticks all the boxes. Otherwise it’s a remote monoblock ASHP amongst the daffodils.

At the risk of offending our fellow members - WTF.. you can actually prove, using the three riders of the MCS apocalypse viz; data, physics and algebra that you only need 3kW and that your DHW demand is manageable in that envelope so why emit the carbon making an 11Kw unit when 3 will do it. This whole game is madness but if you want a decent EPC, in your self build, then your choices / options are limited.

It's worth unpacking that. BUS requires MCS and both space and water heating by ashp Building regs do not require MCS or that dhw is heated by ashp Planning under express consent does not require MCS unless your LPA make it a condition which is unlikely. Under permitted development MCS is required (there is a possible argument that if you install to equivalent standards it's ok, but if you wish to deploy this I'd get a certificate of lawful development in advance because this argument is untested (and in my view shaky) and, more importantly, the burden of proof if your LPA disagree lies with you). Either way planning doesn't require dhw by ashp I'm not sure whether the MCS standard actually requires dhw to be by ashp (it's worth checking MIS 3005-d), but many MCS installers will insist anyway on ripping out whatever functional dhw you have so their rookie plumbers can fit a pre-plumbed cylinder. However there are some that are more sensible. Depending on your situation you may be able to circumvent the grant chasing vampires, but most can't. And yes it's crazy but it's what you get if you don't have the necessary skills in the civil service, have politicians almost none of which have any engineering or science qualifications, and thus are entirely reliant on the industry to advise on regulation without any meaningful ability robustly to interrogate them. Of course I'm not suggesting that is what we have!

People buy what they can afford in the area they choose to live in that’s practical for work and schools. One advantage of these kinds of estates is that they tend to be full of families roughly the same age so lots of kids. My sister (Dr) and her husband (Professor) live in such an estate. They have two young children who have a large circle of friends on the estate.

You will need to ask the planners what constitutes starting development. Normally they expect you to have dug foundations and had them inspected by the BCO but I suspect this is so they have some record of work having been done. Planning law doesn't require that, it just say development must have started. The definition of what counts as development is open to interpretation. It's quite possible the planners won't tell you what you need to do or give you any confirmation that you have done it. Officially the only way is to do something and apply for a certificate of lawfulness/development on the grounds that work has started. I've seen this done for a wind farm they don't want to build yet. They build a short length of an access road and apply for a certificate.

The cost of drainage / tanking / extra concrete / pumps etc will cost way more than you'll ever get from a handful of solar panels. Make it 2.5m above the highest ground level with a flat roof.

Mine is set to 48C and I can just about hold my hand under it continuously, so it sounds like you are a lot lower than that if the bath is just warm enough, at 50C you get burnt in 5 mins. Also depends where the temperature sensor is in your tank if its not towards the bottom a lot of the tank won't be at 52C

Yes it is, phoned SE today and asked the question: low and behold - 1 layer A393 will be sufficient. Wish I was an SE who over spec'd - so I could reduce reinforcement by 50% and not worry.

It's usually just 4x1" planks, double nailed and lapped to the underside of the trusses. https://nhbc-standards.co.uk/7-roofs/7-2-pitched-roofs/7-2-9-bracing-for-trussed-rafter-roofs/ https://www.tra.org.uk/download/2572/

The xgimi aura is a very capable projector. The Texas Instruments DLP Chip 0.47” DMD is in a lot of these short throw projectors. This guy does a good projector ladder where he covers what you get for the more you pay. There is really only 3 price bands for USTs, sub £500, £1500-£2000, over £2500. He also does a good round up on the various screens. If you go down the AliExpress route you should be able to get a pretty decent screen, just make sure it is for UST, these have different requirements to long throw. UST needs a lower gain. I prefer a fixed screen, but this is so room dependent and not SWMBO friendly. In the projector community they tend to upgrade their projectors a lot. But the screen is a long term investment. Try searching AVForum.co.uk for any successful ALR AliExpress outcomes. Or you might be able to get a 2nd hand screen on the AVForum classifieds, these don’t often make it to eBay.

I can't see any diagonal bracing or binders. I suspect the roof warped a bit and was straightened/strengthened with the extra timber. The 'noggins' are especially suggestive of that. The survey will probably advise bracing is added.

Or a bifold door .

Personally I don’t think those sister pieces of wood weight very much compared to the whole weight of the roof it’s more about sagging which you can measure with a piece of string tied to a nail at one end of the roof (half way down the slope, )pull it tight and go to the other end of the roof, when the string touches the middle joist how far from the joist at the end you are holding! (I hope I described that ok?) some sagging is inevitable but will give you an idea. Very DIYable, biggest problem is access, a scaffold tower or scaffold, don’t try this from a ladder.

It's a requirement for the BUS grant. If you aren't taking the grant then you are right in some cases, mine included, that the payback time vs just using an immersion heater can be rather long and the money might well be better spent elsewhere. This is particularly the case if you already have a functioning dhw system that the 'industry' insists on replacing.

Be conscious if drilling into a slab if you break out the other side. You can end up pumping copious amounts of resin into any void. Learnt the hard way when a mate and I were fixing to a cavity wall using the old resin capsules. We keep pushing them in and they were falling down the cavity! With pumped resin like we're on about here you can get special mesh sleeves: https://www.kernow-how.com/ProductGrp/resin-plastic-mesh-sleeves Tbh, for what you're doing I'd just scrunch up newspaper and push it tight down the hole. Try and avoid breaking through in the first place by using a depth stop on the drill. When fixing say a 4 hole base plate then use the base plate to mark through with the drill. Then drill and CLEAN the holes out. Clean holes are paramount to the resin taking. Have your 4 studs sat ready next to the holes. Pump in the resin to each hole quickly. Push a stud in each, with a wee twist. Drop the base plate over the studs which won't yet be set. WALK AWAY and let them set before putting nuts and washers on. Don't worry too much about excess resin squidging out of the hole but do worry about excess resin getting on the stud threads where you're going to put a nut. I clean the holes then drop a stud in loose. I'll then tape the thread with some leccy tape where it projects above the hole. Peel off later when set.

Perhaps for this reason (moisture getting trapped in outer osb layer) Kingspan TEK systems are built with PIR installed internally. The supplier we used has the u-value data for different thicknesses of PIR on this page https://www.clays.com/sips-technical-data

A very good point. I don't think you will find spacers for 10mm anyway. Ahhh, but there are the bars the other direction too, 6mm or 10mm twice. and do gap remains. So it is a very heavy, single layer in mid slab. Have a word with your designer and ask for an explanation and a solution. You want an agreement to omit one layer, not to increase the slab depth. I also find the 25mm top cover strange. that will got very close to the surface because it is all approximate and it is wobbly stuff. The numbering on the sketch all seems to be random. It looks like it has been wrongly copied from someone else's system. Maybe time to pause and check the design is sound and people know what they are doing. Isn't that a very thin strip of insulation retaining the slab? And a cold bridge from slab, through sole plate to outdoors?

I think the quote you have is very different from what I’ve done Mine was just standard concrete Very easy to polish the following morning Your quote will be for concrete to be into your building once watertight On top of the floor you already have Highly polished and a multitude of colours

Not sure about that, although @TerryE has the skill set to set and manage direct heating to be cost effective, many people don't. The next owner could just change to a standard tariff, switch the heating on and then have to live with the cost. Which is going to 4x the cost of gas or ASHP. The EPC system is just a comparison tool, flawed but ok in most cases

Think I have lots of stop beads but again, the killer will be carriage. I'd try EWIstore. I have found them very helpful.

Maybe a mistake. Will be using cement board as you say.

@twice round the block Apart from the OP is asking about Planning, not Building Regulations.

I have a passive-class house with a 70 tonne MBC "warm-slab" within the heated fabric of our build. I went for the deferred option of putting in the 6mm radial from the CU to an outside wall box and a insulated double pipe run from the UFH cupboard to where I would put the ASHP, but held off installing an ASHP and used a 3kW Willis as an interim means of heating the UFH loops so that we could size the ASHP based on a year or two run rate. The issue that we have is that going from using the Willis (plus Oil filled rad top up Dec/Jan) on an Octopus Agile optimised heating schedule to an ASHP at an average CoP of 3½ say might save us perhaps £300 p.a. in electricity costs. (We have a handful of days a year when we put in more than 30 kWh heat.) I'd want at least a 10 year payback so would want my install costs to be at most ~£3K. And then you have the issue that the typical life of an ASHP can be ~10 years. It's just easier to pay the extra £300. 6 years on, and I still can't make the investment case.

Hurray!!! Someone agrees with me!!!! There's no black and white here, just shades of grey. There is no breathable or non breathable. Just degrees of vapour permeability. You could really dig into the weeds with the units but it's largely a futile exercise without understanding the BIG principal. The amount of "DRYING" needs to exceed the amount of "WETTING" for the materials used. EG if you have a mass concrete and EPS you can afford much higher moisture. EG the "WETTING" side of the equation can be huge with factors like: 1. Terrible airtighess carrying vapour laden internal air into the structure below the dew point. 2. Driving rain on an unrendered external skin. 3. Very high internal humidity. 4. Incomplete insulation installation causing internal cold spots On the other hand if you have a timber framed wall you will have a structure that can accept lower average moisture levels without damage. This leads to designs with more consideration than concrete walls. Really concentrating on the DRYING side of the equation. Things like. 1. Well ventilated external rain screens 2. External membranes lapped to drain rainwater safely away. 3. Tightly sealed airtighess layers. 4. Vapour control layers placed inside the dew point of the wall so they don't provide a location for condensation. HOWEVER. Much of this depends on workmanship. Take the poor but very common solution of internal insulation on a solid wall. PIR boards are mechanically fixed to the inside face followed by plasterboard. It is theoretically safe as all calculations consider the PIR boards as a vapour barrier and perfect airtight layer.. In reality poor airtighess allows drafts to blow behind the boards and electrical penetrations and vapour to condensate in the gap. The brick wall is now colder than before too so less of the moisture accumulated from inside and wind driven rain from outside will evaporate. Freeze thaw action may come into effect and the wall will degrade over time. There is too much WETTING and not enough DRYING. This is a delicate balance and a sunny South facing wall may survive while a shaded North facing one may not. You may be able to rectify it to your satisfaction by adding MVHR or external silicone brick cream or sealant to the skirting boards. Think added "DRYING" It's impossible to accurately calculate as workmanship is so variable.

Me too. Or use bricks set below the level of the lawn. And I'd invest in a robot mower...

Sorry... dodgy 80's game show reference. Ted Rogers would have liked it....

https://www.screwfix.com/p/zinsser-bulls-eye-1-2-3-primer-sealer-white-1ltr/10135

Yes 1-2-3.or 3-2-1 whatever its called. in a tin, I think screwfix flog it. 🤣

Is that like Zinsser Bullseye 1-2-3, but comes in a Dusty Bin? 🙂

Depends what stain blocker was used in the first place. I use Zinser Bullseye 3-2-1 apply with a foam rad roller, apply 100mm beyond current stain. 3 coats should see it off forever.

Ah, I meant car mirrors (I have a junction near me where I use a door mirror to see if the road is clear)

The 400 litre tank was specified in the same diagram as the manifold location drawing that was largely ignored 🙄 I have learned from this experience never to assume the trades will read plans or listen or understand airtightness or do the obvious. I think line paint is my best friend from now on. Anyways, I spoke to the plumber and the manifold is now being relocated to the inner wall. He did of course assume a 300l max tank and says he's never seen a 400 litre tank. I wouldn't describe the plumber's mood as delighted but he is moving the manifold to the internal wall. And that's the main thing. Plumber also tried to talk me into a split ashp instead of a monoblock again but that's another story. Says monoblocks get locked in defrost cycles they can't escape. I remained steadfast.😬

I am 200 miles from @Pocster, though I would worry about him hiding a camera somewhere. Edit This site is a bit spooky, went to 'new posts' and it is about extending semi and damp patches. Filth, pure filth.

My house is 3 meters higher than the ones across the street. I can look directly into the bedrooms, and from upstairs, can see their beds. There is never any decent action where I am.