Leaderboard

There are a lot of inlet and outlet terminals going on, looks overkill. 4 extracts in a kitchen and 2 in most bathrooms is just daft. It's fine running multiple ducts to a single terminal to keep the pressure drops in check, but you just don't need all this terminal points littering your ceiling. You only need one extractor or supply to each room. I would. You will need to seal the terminal manifold to the plasterboard once it's complete. I would have a single supply thermal in your master bedroom and only one extract in each bathroom to reduce the number of points to make airtight.

@Omnibuswoman hopefully it works, I've just rollered it on, it's odd stuff, quite thin but with a grit in it which will give the adhesive something to adhere to. The tub says to allow it to dry for at least 24hrs so that gives me a bit more time to pluck the courage up to fit the tray.

Me also, but used only during the thinking process and getting ideas on paper. Once I had my plan it was frozen, think during the build we only changed the shape of a cupboard in the hallway and moved a few lights. Stayed offline (buildhub) during the whole build, so as not to get diverted, on many tangents and over thinking decisions that had already been made, for me that was a good decision. Did lots of the build myself with hired help when needed, a year from starting foundation (late 2020) we were sleeping in the house (mostly finished). Then came back to contribute once the bulk of the house was complete. Have I found things I would change, a few. Have since installed an ASHP (mostly for cooling) and unvented cylinder, I could have made the house slightly smaller and changed a couple of windows for smaller sizes. Things I learnt during the whole process Have a plan for everything before you start, down to where you want light switches etc. Airtightness is good. Have a ventilation strategy and stick to it, make sure every room is ventilated. MVHR will reduce your heating requirements. Understand how you route ducts and pipes before you start building You can never have enough insulation Hot and cold water distribution manifolds are good and make life simple. Low energy houses and big boilers are not a mix made in heaven. Do not listen to anyone that uses rules of thumb, they are generally wrong and screw things up. Do the calculations yourself and make your own decisions. If it's difficult, move on to something else and come back to it the next day. Ways to get around a problem come when you are thinking about it (it's how the brain works). Shop around, big variations in pricing. MCS and ASHP equals being ripped off, unless you are very careful. Forgot to mention - don't work everyday, you will burn yourself out. I worked from 7.30 until day light stopped me during the winter and a out 5pm when it didn't. Treat it as a job, if doing it yourself.

Hi all, a quick intro as I've been reading posts for a while but only just signed up. We are building in a house and annexe with double garage in Suffolk. Building with timber frame and using hempcrete just to make things complicated. The hempcrete will be laid with an experienced local builder who has worked with hemp for several years. This will be lime rendered on the house with timber cladding on the annexe. It hasn't been simple so far to get a timber frame designed that works for the hempcrete that a structural engineer was happy with but we have got there and have started building our annexe building. I'm building the frame myself with a local carpenter helping to erect it. The grind for walls went up this week. My background is joinery so building the timber frame is simple enough. For the main house we have a local timber frame company build the frame to keep that moving forward this year. This should be delivered and up in the next 6-7 weeks. We are living on site, in a static, and are concentrating on getting the annexe watertight first so we don't freeze in the static over winter. Life is very busy so I'm not online that much but I've be using the site for research a bit and thought I should start posting. Johnny

It's probably too late to reply to this and help the OP but the hinges Temp has linked to are a heavier duty hinge. The last company I worked for used them a lot on heavy doors. They are a different hole pattern to Blum hinges so won't fix directly into these doors without making changes to the holes. If the OP is still having an issue I would look at Grass hinges as I believe they do a slightly heavier duty hinge than Blum. They also have different back plate thicknesses and fitting a thinner backplate should help the door look better when shut. It's say that any joinery company that leaves a door that out of square doesn't deserve to get their final payment.

The OP has been edited all quiet on the western front!

What worked for me Being the self builder, I was on site at all times and doing a big lump of work myself. Used CDM Wizard (Phone app) for all risk assessments, these were stored until house was signed off. One contractor company on site, at any time. They controlled their own work, as they were independent companies, so under my control. They worked to drawings I provided and they quoted for work against these drawings. I did quality checks to ensure work complete satisfactory manner, if not they rectified at their own expense, prior to invoice being paid. My manhours were free, so not deemed as employed on site. That could be me then. But was also the project manager. My engineering background is managing jobs way more complex than house. I read and digested building regs knew as much or more than any contractor we had on site. I was in the review process for all architect drawings, none were complete until I had reviewed and or commented and given a green light. Fell out with the first architect as he didn't like it, so found one that would accept a two way design process and me as the client, as someone that would actively review and comment on drawings, make changes and say no when not happy. I come from a different field, but all relevant experience. You work to drawings, contractors quoted against drawings and specifications, if something is not clear, you ask for clarification - this occurred during quote process and at the work site. If a contractor didn't want to play ball, he didn't get the work. I didn't bother, didn't meet the 500 person day or numbers on site criteria. No point putting head above the parapet to get shot for no reasons.

Another thing to add in is the local weather regime. There is little difference in mean temperatures across the UK. There is quite a difference in how they are distributed though. So West Cornwall may have a similar mean temperature to Hull, but the extremes are closer to the mean. Sunshine hours are also different, which can make a difference to cooling costs. 3 years ago when people where paying 2.5p/kWh for gas and 12p/kWh for electricity, there was a case to be made for just meeting building regulation levels. But different now that gas is 7.5p and electric 30p. And then there is airtightness. More energy can be lost through this than through walls, floors and roofs. The much mentioned Jeremy Harris spreadsheet was originally designed to compare price comparisons to help establish best value for money. Easy enough to use it as such, just fill in different numbers and see what it churns out. One word if caution, if anyone says that "it meets building regs', or 'airtight houses overheat', walk away from them, they will do a bad job.

@alexo Thank you

Another thing I found useful this winter as an adjustable door catch. The door sealed well when locked, but was drafty when not. A quick adjust of the catch airtight again. Loosen the two silver screws and the stepped piece can be moved in or out. Adjusting the door to seal compression.

Totally agree with John, there are too many terminals

If you need a remote for a toilet, shower or bath or to replace a light switch, the words "more money than sense", come to mind.

this is their coloured stuff https://hueasphalt.com/

It's about 10 degs here at the moment and back of the hand feels slightly cooler on the krypton double glazed compared to triple. But not much in it.

Passivhaus have the criteria for triple glazed, but not for heat loss, but mostly for comfort factor. It's the internal skin of the glazing temperature which is important, the closer it is too room temperature the lower the room temperature can be and still feel comfortable. We have a big bay window fully triple glazed and at -9 outside I can sit right next to the window in my tee shirt. We do have a couple of wooden framed double glazed doors, but these are krypton filled units, which reduces the U value very well. They have a Uw of 1.0. So midway between decent double glazed and triple glazed. So you can have the windows you want, good comfort and reduced heat loss. Krypton come with a price hike, but you get what you pay for.

+1. Can I come too. Please. Pretty please.

The structural warranty (mine is protec but assume all is the same) requires to see all the certificates and guarantees. It excludes flat roofs and ‘forces’ you to pay for an insurance backed guarantee - unless your roofer provides it as part of his guarantee - most smaller roof companies don’t offer this - I am still jumping through hoops to get this sorted. my understanding is that if you claim on the structural warranty the first thing they do is chase all the original guarantees and try to get them to pay out first, so many claims take quite a while whilst this chasing is happening. But without a structural warranty including the flat roof part a) it’s very difficult to mortgage b) very difficult to sell in the first 10 years.

Collen Bros are the guys for coloured asphalt locally, AFAIK?

It looks like Cutwrights are very similar to Cutlist. There are plenty of others out there too and you might find a local one. What sort of finish were you lookng for when you got the £30K quote? If you want any input on how to put it togther feel free to ask. I've got loads going on as it's now taking off on site so might take a little while to respond but I should be able to help out if you have questions or get stuck. . I would say stick to your original design and find a way to make it work, it looks better balanced. Probox drawers might be a useful company to look at with all those drawers, althought they are quite expensive as mostly solidwood drawers. Daro are another drawer supplier. You could probably get the sheet material supplier to cut the drawer boxes if it is all well planned out, that would help a lot with the cost as drawers can work out expensive to buy good ones but don't have a lot of material in them.

Protec has become worse. A total PIA to deal with and asking for ridiculous details photos and lots of other nonsense - the 'underwriter' arbitrarily adding new requirements as they go along that are incorrect too and won't communicate properly. Our BCO also said their company had stopped working for Protec because of this and will only work with Buildzone now. Just my humble opinion being one of their customers.

Hi @JohnnyB We are also awaiting planning for our timber frame build in Hintlesham IP8. This is round 2 so hoping to get it this time. Researching passive foundations, timber frame and window suppliers at the moment while we wait.

I'd prime the boards first, you'd lose nothing by doing so. Something suitable and not water soluble. and for the jackoboards

That 600mm depth is nonsense, you can run drains as shallow as they need to be, as long as they are bedded correctly for the depth you are using and covered correctly to add the level of protection needed. if most places started at 600mm down as they leave the house you could be metres below ground by the time they reach the destination. you still haven’t provided a picture so we are all guessing here. pipe can sit 30-40 mm above the footing and enter the house via a hole left in the brickwork with a lintel over the top. your builder should know all this it’s fairly standard. put a picture up.

We have a 1.2m overhang which ‘shifted’ the peak solar gain by a few weeks, plus reduced the maximum modelled room temp by a couple of degrees. We’ve also added external Venetian blinds on our south facing 5m sliding doors and windows. The Part O modelling will also inform which windows should be opening as well to provide purging. it’s also worth saying if you are going airtight and MVHR, the simplified spreadsheet doesn’t take this into account, if you get it modelled MVHR is accounted for in the over heating assessment.

Yup. I’d rather the extra pipe / volume / storage tbh, particularly if it’s not a huge house. Not running pipes under things like kitchen islands etc is just a complete waste of time and effort in a passive type setting, as a) the temp is too low to cook your cornflakes lol, as you’re only ever getting the floor to a few degrees about room target temp so just entirely moot tbh, and b) as the heating is on ‘long and low’ the omitted areas will warm up anyways! It’s in an insulted basket, so the heat will eventually get there folks, and there’s nowt you can do to stop it. I will leave a pipe at the start of the run of fixed kitchen / other units, stopping about 150mm into the dead under-plinth space, leaving an unheated perimeter of around 450mm in the slab, and then it’s ‘fill yer boots, matey’. I’ve been installing / or been in and around / specifying M&E for these types of (PH style) systems for over a decade now, first ‘taste’ was an MBC PH TF, and not looked backed since. These Pert pipes are 1000% kosher to attach near to / directly to steel reinforcement mesh and the results are always excellent. Damage to the pipe must literally be malicious to get it to the point where it’s a total loss. “People of Buildhub, go forth and zip-tie”. 🫡. El Presidenté.

Not sure about that. I'm either ticking away in WC mode or batch charging. WC mode you really don't need more thermal storage. Have about 60Te. Batch charging will last just fine between E7 periods, so no added value. Think we have a total of 670m of pipe and 7 loops in around 195m of 100mm concrete with pipe clipped to 200mm of insulation. Works fine and dandy. You can stuff pipes at 100mm centres, but even at that I wouldn't be able to flow any lower temps, because the floor is at 22 to 24 and the heat pump runs at 5dT and requires a dT of between 6 and 8 to restart after a heat cycle. So if I flow at 25 to 26, the heat pump runs once than cannot decrease return temperature enough to get a restart permission. So min practical flow temp is 28-29.

I claimed for it ok!

Probably had a traumatic incident at school.

Hmmmm. West Suffolk peeps. East Suffolk peeps. Me on the border. Who do I choose? Jets or Sharks? 😉

It will be if we ever get PP .

I’ve wondered about that. It does appear that a lot of SIP based designs use lots of timber splines rather than SIP ones. However, I did also think that in comparing SIP and stick built each has the same timber framing round windows and stuff s that’s just the next problem to work, and therefore not highly informative in the making of the SIP/stick built decision. Spot on. I also only want it to rain at night. Oh, and be buildable within a sensible budget. 😉