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Prompted by a private message today We have just finished the house With just I say just the drive and patios to do As with our previous build I’ll put the cost m2 Excluding the purchase of the plots But including fees surveys Architects etc etc While I’ve a trade background and plenty of contacts There’s lots of aspects of building a house that where as new to me as they would be to most of you I’m 63 and my wife is 60 and both work full time Monday to Thursday From our previous build to this we’ve tried to do as much of the work ourselves as we possibly could The figures are to encourage Not to discourage and show that you can build a house far superior and much better insulated for less money than your average Persimmon home we are at 420 m2 and have spent Just short of 350k We expect to pay 12k for gates and allowed 20 k for materials for the drive and patios Which the 39k vat refund should cover The seller wouldn’t split the two plots Or the field So we may have another build in us 😁

Kind words Jack Thank you I’m often asked can I recommend a good roofer plumber etc I don’t like to recommend anyone that won’t do a good job at a reasonable rate and is reliable You tend to find that with most tradesmen So my massive list of contacts is quite small Bits of advise If you are using a main contractor or getting the trades in yourself Expect delays between trades Or your just going to get who’s available Be patient A few weeks delay in the grand scheme of things won’t make that much difference This is why mass produced houses are so bad Know what you want before you visit your Architect Don’t let fees rack up Get a good SE onboard We spent 800 -1500 on the SE Plus 500 for a Topo Familiarize yourselves with the drawings Then you can spot mistakes easily LA building control won’t be swayed by the builder that’s brought them in and are readily available and on anyone’s clock Most builders will tell you that LA BC are a pain in the arse and they are But at least there inspections don’t rely on Photos of YOUR house More so this time round Do all the buying in yourself Quotes for the same items can be double when going in to negotiate on tiles bathrooms etc Go in your scruffs and boots It’s common knowledge that all self builders have money to burn 🔥😁 The biggy Do as much as you can There’s lots of jobs that we have tackled that neither of us had any experience of So many things are a learning curve Oh Remember when you go into the merchants The chap selling the stuff probably only knows slightly more than you 😁 When dealing with trades There working for you not the other way round They are definitely not your mates Plenty will take advantage of your kindness The best way to earn respect is to have everything ready in front of them DON'T LET ANYONE OVERDRAW OR DRAW IN ADVANCE No exceptions Im sure there’s lots more feel free to ask

I go by instinct too. The main builder I used had a system whereby you paid every 2 weeks as things went along. I thought it was quite a good system for a small business for damage limitation on both sides. It meant they kept their cash flow if they had laid out for materials. Bills were manageable and if things had gone t*** up, it was only 2 weeks money to fall out over.

However, my plasterer had his van re possessed after getting stiffed on payment for a job and told me he could not work as he had no transport. He was due to do my job in 3 weeks. I took a punt and paid him in advance so he could buy a cheap van and do his work, and mine. He has been loyal ever since, even working evenings for me to get me out of a jam. I am sure he was an exception but I trusted my gut. So never say never.

Only one got me on this and it hurts. The tiler. Not much money but just the principle. Probably the best tiling I have seen and when he was there he was quick and tidy. He couldn't manage more than 5 hrs a day though and unbeknown to me when I met him had no license or vehicle so his visits were limited to when he could find a labourer with a vehicle. 🙂 I felt sorry for him I think because he had so much potential to get a thriving business going. I just gave him one advance too many which most likely went up his nose and I ended up finishing the last few return visit bits myself. DON'T PAY THE FERRYMAN. This is so true and if you are supplying the materials make sure they help you format the shopping list. It saves hold ups which invariably lead to bigger charges. I always do this with my brickwork customers and it saves me money. Also Nods sites are spotless. There is no better way to prevent chaos than not presenting trades with chaos. My advice is to take time out to plan ahead and keep some work that you can do yourself while the other trades are working. This way you can be on site when queries do arise. My back just loved 210 m2 of porcelain paving followed by fencing and landscaping.

Hello I'm Al, Finally got round to introducing myself, having scavenged lots of info on here. Previously Refurbished and extended various houses the UK. Spent 15 years living and working in the wilds of Northern Turkey. (Not where the tourists go). Turned a wooden shack into a comfortable house. Decided to move back, nearer home and completed on this place Feb 2020 just as COVID lockdowns hit - any plans and budgets blown. 14 months later managed to get here, moved in with no electricity or drains, water from a standpipe and no planning permission. Still 'camping' in one of the barns but life is more civilised, wood burning stove, basic electrics, and STP. Working on the rest of the place. So far, new and refurbished roofs with lots of insulation, all floors dug out and new slab throughout, doors and windows fitted and internal stud walls all up. To do, floor insulation UFH and screed, MVHR, electrics and plumbing, heating system, plastering, flooring etc. Then start again on the other section. Doing a most of the work ourselves with one semi full time builder. Will probably be looking for advice on MVHR and heating systems next.

I put the direct air feed in early, and the penetration through the roof for the flue much later on when we actually fitted the stove. Don't let the nay sayers put you off. As long as you have the ability to open some doors so the stove heat can spread around the whole house, you won't instantly melt when you light it and if you have a good supply of wood it can be free / cheap heating.

Hi ,just joined ,im a british expat living in france full time for over 20 years,Mr Macron in his bid for less pollution has made it impossible to order a part for a oil fired boiler ,ok if the repair company have it the part in stock but cannot order one in ,no new instalations reliant on oil neither,wood ,gas and pellets are ok still. With this in mind and my old oil boiler looking like something from frankensteins castle i've had a mitsubishi air /water ecodan system fitted and will be picking your brains later regarding the running been in over 12 months now,got the basic running sorted so just need the tweaks for efficiency, hope you all have a great 2025 and look forward to your advice Cheers Coeurdelion

Introducing myself as required. Purchased a Victorian terrace about 3 years ago and am renovating slowly, but struggling with a lot of damp issues. Hoping this forum can help 🤞🏼

Yes that’s exactly what’s happening with the pump-over. Hot going up the vent and down the cold feed. Everything is hot up there. Ok I can do this. I can see that the PP2 curve should give a lower pressure at reduced demand.

Snotgobblers I call them One thing I did like about Covid was it showed the world how good a childs developing immune system was and how it could take on a novel pathogen (CV-19) and just bloody laugh at it like all the other colds and coughs They didn't need vaccinating and there never should have been any attempt to do that all the data screamed that!!!

Right, if possible, before your plumber arrives tomorrow??. Just to be sure to be sure, check that the pump is on CC1 as shown by the one green LED. Then change to PP2, as shown by the combination of flashing LEDs on the right, see if you've still got pump over.

Can you please point out which results this conclusion refers to (where in the paper). As I read it the savings occur (in your model) only if you also accept a reduced temperature in the occupied rooms. I said this above and you didn't correct it, however I may have misread so I'd appreciate it if you could clarify. You are obviously enthusiastic about trvs. For transparency please confirm that you are not involved in any way with anything that benefits from the sale of trvs (or if you are please explain the involvement). I should add that I'm not anti trvs in heat pump systems (I have some!) but, so far as have so far seen, there is great potential for them to be misused to the detriment of running cost. In part this is because of the behaviours learned from fossil fuel systems, but these behaviours are pretty well embedded so there is a big risk that people get a bad (expensive) heat pump experience if trvs are widely deployed without very clear re-education.

Why just the 2 options. How about natural slate?

Can you draw a diagram?

This is an old post. I have a MVHR combined with a DIY carbon (10 kilo can) and a HEPA filter (12"x12"x10"); the fine filters are installed downstream from the MVHR, and there is an additional booster for the input air. I have severe pollen allergy in the summer, and I am very sensitive to wood/weed smell in the winter, and the filtration helps tremendously (otherwise I would have to go to the hopsital all the time). In the summer, I bypass the MVHR and run the filters directly. Considering how much condensation there is the MVHR in the winter (which I am still figuring out how to properly deal with), I am glad I installed the fine filters downstream of the MVHR. Otherwise all my fancy HEPA and carbon filters would be soaking wet. The innter coarse filter in the MVHR is still there, I am hoping to replace it once a month (if I source the generic fabric). With the fine filters downstream from the MVHR, all the condensation gets captured in the MVHR and the air downstream from the MVHR is warmed to abt 16C which is well above the dew point in the flat. If I had to use a commercial product I would prob put in an IQAir box with a 200mm duct and its own carbon bed (about 2.5 kilos), I believe it's about 1K, and one can adjust the air flow between 50 and 250 m^3 per hr. I ended up making my own, b.c. IQAir's HEPAs have their own smell. One needs to be careful with the carbon itself serving as a source of particles. Some people use horiculture carbon as a cheap replacement (not meant for indoor air applications), and end up breathing the fine carbon dust. That carbon can be caught with a HEPA or a Filtrete, but a laser particle counter is necessary to ensure that it's safe. IQAir has a HEPA downstream from carbon, so it's safe in terms of carbon-emitted particles. Re: cheap car filters: I found that the amount of carbon in car filters is negligible to have any effect for an extended time, if the unit operates 24/7. Unless one is willing to replace the car carbon filter every week.

hahaha good to know. keeping on top of their tariff salad is a full time job https://octopus.energy/help-and-faqs/articles/which-export-tariff-can-i-combine-with-my-import-tariff/

I believe they need to assess the 30 minute meter readings for a few days before the tariffs change. I got fed up with having to learn a different language to speak to BG to sort out their metering problems and recently moved to Octopus at no charge,. The transition went smoothly and we have been up and running with them for about a month. We are on their cosy tariff which gives us 8 hrs of half price electricity at various times during the day. All has been good so far and their customer service for a couple of minor queries has been excellent.

Opened up, removed the large Recuperator & all dry inside. Pretty clean too.

Do you have a cavity tray installed there should be a tray above those steels to prevent water dripping down the cavity. if you can’t get get the beams encapsulated in closed cell foam that would be excellent in my opinion. but let’s see what others say.

Interesting comment about familiarising yourself with the drawings to spot mistakes. I know people are only human, but I found there could be teeny questions and mistakes each day, which if not put right, could be a big problem later. Course correction. As a general rule, if something looks wrong, it probably is, but I needed to research stuff (BH rabbit hole) in order to have a proper conversation about it and not appear like a whinging idiot. I think the reason @joe90 and @nod have had such a good experiences, besides choosing a great builder, was knowing what to look out for at every stage. Most self builders start from the other end and learn the hard way.

Obviously you are right in principle. How much this matters in a real house where there is a fair amount of mixing between rooms is an interesting question. I have been surprised at how easy it turned out to 'balance' my downstairs radiators, which I'm pretty sure is not because they are perfectly sized but because adjacent rooms share heat. My house is basically square though, in a long thin house (or other square houses) it might be very different. My guess (but it's only a guess) is that a typical 2-3 bedroom house with tolerable external insulation may well behave as a single room per floor in practice.

No Nothing to do with that years back We would parge everything Sand and cement then the more convenient bagged stuff (Sound coat) Mainly due to snotty block work The block work would be so bad that you could climb up walls and see into cavities About 15 years ago All at once BC clamped down on this and Brickies where paid an extra £1 m2 to point and bar rub all joints The housing association jobs and commercial jobs carried on doing both for a couple of years But now only self builders do it It’s one of those things that came in when sites went from wet plaster base coat to dot and dab We still use it But for sound deadening As I’ve said on many occasions If you tell your dryliners that it’s for airtightness They won’t bother sealing anything

Well done.

Consider sub boards in the kitchen and garage/shed/outbuilding. Don't be reliant on multiple long cable runs. I've seen kitchens fed with a ring and 6 radials, all dragged through the house to a tiny space under the stairs, just whack a sub board in the kitchen and keep the runs short, it also allows for much easier renovations and additions in the future.

Welcome. I replaced an old boiler by a Mitsubishi Zubadan air-water heat pump a year and a half ago. The help of the good people of this forum was invaluable for doing the calculations. I imagine you have radiators rather than under-floor heating? - The key to efficiency is low flow temperature. - I imagine the heat-pump is auto-adaptative? In that case you are best off letting it do its thing rather than dictate strictly what it is supposed to do. Just provide a starting curve in accordance with your calculations. - Old-fashioned thermostatic valves on the radiators are your friends. Remember that the valve in the room you have the (portable?) thermostat in should be fully open. If you plan not to move the thermostat, you could keep it in the naturally coldest room in the house and just install a regular valve there, as opposed to a thermostatic valve; again, keep it fully open. PS. I live in the Paris area. I imagine you had the heat-pump installers take apart the heat-pump themselves? Otherwise you lose most of the installation subsidies. PPS. I'm a semi-newbie, and am very glad to be corrected by experienced people in this forum on anything.

Well, Richard, good to see you've found us at last. Vive la difference!

Welcome, interesting to hear how other countries are dealing with these issues.

I took 'bare walls' as meaning that the walls were stripped back, whereas in fact 25mm is pretty thin, but as your experience shows it is on the 'steep bit of the curve' in terms of insulation efficiency. Nevertheless, since you do not have what I thought was a 'blank canvas' (to 'engineer' a lay-up with both insulation and support) I suspect the answer is to fix battens for the units through the insulated plasterboard, doing your best to make good the VCL which you puncture (a 'liquid grommet' of silicone is the best I can suggest, or small 'tabs' of EPDM or butyl tape) and then make sure your screws through the back of the units go no further than batten depth + plasterboard depth. If your insulation were much thicker I would be worried about torsional stress on the screws but 25mm is pretty minimal. Edit: Just realised this is still in the 'introduce yourself' section. OP, you may want to see if the moderators can move it to the correct section, where it will be more accessible for others searching re similar issues in future.

Wayleaves sorted which is one thing done. The non contestable part of quote from National Grid (3.5k) was pretty much just the connection work. The £95k part was everything else..so 11kv SWA cable, ducting, trenching.. but according to my sums that should be more like 15-20k for trench and similar for cable/ ducting.

The advice I was given by someone who works for a DNO was to keep questioning the estimates you get from them and get a breakdown of the cost. Although they are reluctant to go into detail until they move the estimate to a quote. They all seem to start off high. My initial estimate was £26500. In the end it cost us less than £500. I did need to do all the trenching etc myself.

Hi All We are going to be designing and hopefully doing our driveway in the new year. We are going to go block paving and now we are just looking at lighting as its very dark on my driveway area One option we were looking at is the drive over spot lights, has any body got these and happy with them? Or would a bollard type light be better? Could any recommend any driveway lights they have used at all? Speaking to the driveway guy (not an electrician) as there is soft dig either side of the edge of my driveway he said on some previous jobs the electrician has ran SWA between the lights in a wiska JB with magic gel and then flexed out the light. Then buried the JB and cables adjacent to the light in the driveway. Is this the standard way of doing it? best install method? Any advice/information greatly appreciated on this as obviously its not an easy/cheap fix if you want to change it Many Thanks

I signed up on Thurs so you should have a referral incoming. The switch over went over very quickly, just over 24 hours. Predictably enough, they're having trouble connecting my smart meter so I'm on the standard tariff over Christmas. And even more frustratingly, for completely unrelated reasons I rebooted the ASHP this afternoon, and for unexplainable reasons it's failed to reconnect to the outdoor unit; ecodan communications error code EE whatever I do. So now I'll be spending Christmas paying 26 p per delivered kWh of heating/DHW, rather than the 3p I was on a couple days ago. All I wanted for xmas was a 900% price hike. Not. Sometimes I really should heed that distance voice whispering "don't tinker with it, just leave working shit alone". 🙄

I would say that housing in the USA (well PA where I lived) was made to a very high standard. Most were factory build, so probably cheaper as they could build thousands out of shared components, but not low quality. My Aunt lives in Halifax, NS, Canada. Her road is the poshest in the province. You can tell who are the British immigrants as they build the brick houses, most of the rest are TF.

Nah....Durisol did nothing there to protect the glass in the windows

Or you build with Durisol ICF

When you live in an area impacted by Huricanes and Tornados in the USA - you build cheap as it's cheaper to rebuild - Bricks and mortar don't fare any better when faced with a powerful force of nature

An American friend of mine, who worked for a large Architect practice had never heard the saying 'put all your money into bricks and mortar'. Took her a while to work out what it meant, and confirmed her suspicions that the British are backward looking and parochial.

From my observation of stick build in the Highlands, it was very quick and good value. It's what they did, and was second nature. There was no factory element just a stack of 4 x 2, another of osb and some glulam for the ridge and hips. I wouldn't expect that in SE England though. And the reverse applies for brick and block.

Or more time working to pay for the energy bills. I have reduced my heating bills by 2/3rd. Over the 20 years I have been in this house, that has probably saved me, in today's terms, around £30k. Not bad as I have spent about £1000 doing it.

You can build cheaper with masonry I expect, vs a high-performance TF, but then spend more over time heating it. If you have the budget to go for a well insulated foundation and frame package (a-la MBC TimberFrame Passivhaus spec offering (they do many different specs btw, worth going to visit the factory)) and then spend less over the lifetime of occupancy. You often have to make sacrifices but these will be yours to make; eg pretty things or insulation and airtightness.

As above. Don't fall into the trap that 'it meets building regs'. The Laws of Thermodynamics are universal, so spend the money where it has greatest effect. Watch out for overheating caused by overlarge glazing. A house should just be a well insulated, airtight box with the energy inputs and outputs controlled.

Traditional solid will always be cheaper to build than Timber Frame or Sips While PV is all the rage Unless your electricity demands are really high It will take many years to pay for itself It pains me to say it But gas at nearly four times cheaper than electricity is cheaper to run If available A good example would be our previous build Which we have recently sold Our buyer has installed a massive array of PV and heat pump They have taken advantage of the BUS grant £7500 Leaving them 17k to pay The salesman has as used them that this will translate into a saving of £750 If correct Is still quite a long period to break even and May want replacing by then Which is why we couldn’t justify it in the first place

First obvious measure, is build a smaller house. Unless you are a family of 10 why do you need to build so big? Look at form factor, that is shape, the nearer your building is to a cube the less heat you loose for a given floor area and room height. Then airtight and insulation. MVHR to recover ventilation heat loss. Heating method, generally ASHP is cost effective. Coupled with PV for shoulder season heating cost offset. A battery and smart meter allow you use time of use tariffs for lowest cost per kWh. Radiators, fan coils or UFH is down to personal choice.

The cheapest option is to cut you heating demand. This is done by cutting your heat loss from the building. This is primarily done with lots of insulation (very cheap to do) and triple glazed windows (very reasonable options exist). Solar orientation, building form and air tightness also have significant effects of heat loss. Is it simply money/month or do you value human comfort too? If you then follow the rabbit hole to its conclusion, you might consider building a certified PassivHaus.

If you have a plant room or simmilar put at least one spare duct in to future proof for things you have forgotten or not even heard of yet.

Under "foundation" sub section conduits and services

Hi, for what its worth I have the 7kW Vaillant Arotherm plus alongside the Vaillant 250litre cylinder. Very happy with the performance, overall a scop of 4.8 since installation in Sept. I heat the water once in the early hours to 60 degrees so not exactly the most efficient way of doing things even though it is set to ECO mode. I don't mind as this is when the electric is only 5p/kWh. Heating once to this temperature is enough to last us all day and we bath (large 800 x 1800) each day and its enough. I would advise going to a 300l if you can fit it in, ours is in the loft so restricted to the 250. Bonus with Vaillants is that they are 600mm wide as opposed to majority at I think 550mm so generally shorter than others. Not sure where comments of mini coils come from, the 250l is 2.4m2 and the 300 is 2.8m2. Quantity isn't always better than quality. Not sure what you area of house is and if you have underfloor or not but our 7kWh has performed brilliantly with +5 COP being the norm on heating. We are 250m2 with underfloor on both floors however upstairs is never on apart from bathrooms. The heatpump generally ticks over at around 500 - 600 watts consumption which is amazing. One option is to install yourself or get a local plumber to install this way you can avoid the inflated costs that majority of MCS companies charge. We purchased the heatpump and cylinder ourselves and then used an MCS umbrella company to do the heat loss calcs, paperwork, 7 year warranty, BUS application etc. Our install ended up being cost neutral one we received the £7.5k grant. I then invested some of the money I would have spent if i had gone the usual route by investing in some batteries so that we can run the whole house 24 x 7 on cheap overnight electric (5p/kWh). This I feel is a better option than tying into OVO scheme where you only get the 15p against the heat pump only and not the rest of the house consumption. There is potential that they may end up controlling your heating schedule also? what ever route you take, going all electric with heat pump is best thing we ever did 🙂