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Myself and my wife have just fitted our garage door The quotes that we were getting for a fitted door where double what we paid It took us two hours to fit and I had a further hour setting the limits Exstremely easy to fit Though an exstra pair of hands feeding the curtain in would have made it even quicker

Well I have been busy with some timber, and enclosed the space under the panels to form a shed . Henceforth to be known as the Swiss chalet.

Surely the massage setting will just drill a hole in the top of your head?

ICF and less weight should not go in the same sentence! 120-150mm of concrete is a heavy method to build a wall!!

The better insulation is primarily for sound insulation rather than heat (on a flight path) Thank you all for the guidance, I think I have understood. We need to increase the UFH input temperature and run for longer, and have the lower temp down only to 18C rather than 16C. Is that correct? From the manifold the pipe spacing is 150mm. Tonight the input temperature is actually 40C (not changed anything, must just be that on a weekend the heating is on all day)

Excuse me all ! What about my bloody amazing shower ! . Talk about off topic ?

Don't use the pir type in the cavity. Do as Peter has said above and get eps beads blown in to a 150mm cavity. This will result in a far better job than using celotex type boards.

Mine has a safety edge but no batteries ?

100x50 timbers doesn't limit the insulation to 100mm. Could be another 100mm of EPS stuck on the outside, for example. Worth understanding, though.

Wasn't me who called his golden retriever Roger! That's just wrong...

I posed a question. Onoff was enthusiastically in the affirmative. Filthy beast!

@vivienz and @Onoff both want to roger the cabin boy ..!!??

Roger the Cabin Boy?

Having got all of the groundwork out of the way, it was time to build the timber frame. We were carrying out a stick build, ie: we purchased the i-beams and glulams and the carpenters cut and assembled everything onsite like a huge jigsaw puzzle. We had looked into using a timber frame manufacturer, but we had a good team of carpenters who had experience of stick building a frame, so it didn't seem to make any sense changing a proven formula. Initial jobs were to get the scaffold up and sole plate down. First i-beams were installed on 3rd Dec and by the end of the day, the main i-beams for both gables were up. The work is not helped by the weather which is cold and wet. You need to be pretty resilient to be work outdoors in this weather, nevertheless good progress is made and by 6th Dec the walls are up and parallam beams and ledgers have been fitted. Big day on Dec 10th as we finally manage to get the electricity switched on. No more generators which should make everyone's life a little easier on site. We now have water and electricity on site and only need to connect to the mains drains at some stage in the future. First floor joists together with the MVHR ducting that needs to pass through these joists is next to be installed and state of play on Dec 12th is as pictured below. The first floor is glued to the joists on December 14th. The view from the top of the scaffold isn't bad either. There is no way the big heavy glulam ridge beam is going to be manually handled up to the top of the roof, so on the 17th Dec a crane is hired to help out with this operation. It is the only time during the build that a crane is required. Everything else has been manually shifted into place. The i-beam roof rafters can now be put into place and on the last day before the teams Christmas break, most of the rafters are in place. Following a couple of weeks break for Christmas, the rafters are quickly finished off and by January 9th the skeleton of the house is in place. Over the next couple of weeks the house is clad with panelvent on the outside and smartply on the inside and then wrapped in membrane so that by the 22nd Jan, the house is looking like this.

Master Bates anyone?

And Seaman Stains.

Christ I'm not that old!!! I must have been second generation matey .

If we’re doing 70s nostalgia...public information film here, remember it?

Oh I’m sure she charges more than that so I’ve heard .

Way back I did consider something on those lines. Bathroom's not big enough. Tbh I'm stilI concerned I might need an enclosure if the splash zone is too great. Still debating a ring of the cheap blue deck lights around the rainfall head that rotate Knight Rider style. Or would that look tacky?

No, no power yet. Making a shed of it was an afterthought. There is a SWA buried ready to feed another shed just the other side of the burn, so I can extend from there when I am ready. I could always just put some solar panels on the roof. Oh wait a minute......

I would hate that. I hate and don't use the ordinary rainfall shower contraption we have.

Cramer Fugi kit ordered (via a student Amazon Prime account ) Thanks @PeterStarck. Some idiot forgot to position the bath prior to filling it up with water do had to drain & refill! All grouted now. Wouldn't have believed the amount the deck "sank" with water in the bath. Must have been a good mm. Another top tip from @Nickfromwales! Pipes for the towel rad grouted in too.

We poured 26 tonnes of concrete in one go, to the full height of the ICF shown (2.6m) The most important thing is the prop the ICF as per the manufacturers instructions, then add more props, for good measure. We also chose an ICF system with a good internal matrix of cross ties, this helps stop the two sections splitting during the pour, we also used s small concrete poker and resisted the urge to over poke the concrete.

It was Easyfit garage doors 4.6 wide x 220 cost 1050 plus 300 of that was for the non standard colour Sectional was another 300

Useful exercise to send your planning drawings to all of these TF firms for an estimate and then check to see what's included in the price. Some can seem expensive (or cheap) but when you factor in plant hire (i.e. crane), slabs, internal walls, floor decking, u values etc then you'll be able to compare apples to apples a bit better. Some of the cheaper quotes I received wanted me to provide full fall arrest systems (i.e. airbags etc) ...

Here you are boys

I don't see how all these numbers mutually-reconcile, even before we start trying to decide whether they are possible or not, and what is necessary in order to make them possible - eg between employing subbies and doing the PM yourselves, or whether you have to get your dungarees on and start doing some of the labouring yourselves. I think a copy of SPONS would be a worthwhile purchase - one thing you need now is a good head-feel for what you can buy with how much, and what you can save by contributing yourself or calling in every favour you have ever been owed. My take: I think £1500 per sqm in Oxon is a low cost if you are doing a self-build without doing significant work yourself. Others may clarify. All costs are ballpark. As you go through your build it just gets to be a smaller ballpark. That's trite - but it says do not commit to so many specifics in advance (eg pre-buying a 5k cooker) that you cannot cover possible variance in the later stages. Sufficient thought experiments are worth their weight in gold. My general opinion is that on average it should be possible to save 20-25% over initial costings without compromising cost or quality too much, or by finding an alternative item or strategy that will be acceptable. Obvs that is a general rule, but set you target high. 15-20% is what your minimum self-build contingency should be anyway. That can be reduced progressively in amount if not in precentage, as finish costs are more predictable than "what's under this soil" costs, but most people will have lots of gold plating they will want to spend it on anyway. Work through some of the thorough cost saving examples that have been done here. One or two people have threads with real detail. You need to know where you stand, and how you will get it to move-in point even if it goes 20% over and you have a shell which still has concrete floors, and only one sink on a batten. Here is @Visti's thread where he did that for his build at Gravenhill. Ferdinand

We have a timber frame house build to passive standards by the same company that @JSHarris used which is MBC. Like you are planning, we are not passive certified. They laid the foundation installed the ufh heating pipes at the same time and supplied and erected the timber frame, and guaranteed air tightness. The house passed on the first test. We decided to go to a company that would do the whole package as the interface between different contractors is often a major stumbling block. We did visit a few different timber frame company builds before opting for them, and realised that the fewer contractors involved the less chance of problems. Which you will find from the experiences of some of the members on this forum. We have nothing but praise for the quality of their work and have now been living in the house for a year. It is such a comfortable space, no draughts and always pleasantly warm all through the winter and not too hot in the summer. If you have a look at @TerryE 's blog you will see some more information. This forum is an amazing source of very useful information. Good luck with the build.

Nice to see it's a sensible design with a wired safety switch at the bottom. I made a mistake in buying a Seceuroglide door, that has a wireless safety edge at the bottom. What they don't tell you is that the wireless safety edge eats very expensive lithium batteries, plus you have to undo half a dozen self-tapping screws, screwed into flimsy plastic, in order to replace these batteries. After three battery changes I found the screws were no longer secure, and started falling out as the door operated. I enquired about a new safety edge transmitter and it's a ludicrous price, so I removed the Seceuroglide control system completely, discovered that the roller motor and limit switches were pretty standard and would work with any controller, so added a much cheaper controller and wired safety switch. This has no batteries and just works reliably.

Well done!

I got a quote from these guys early on as I was thinking of doing the basement in ICF so explored doing the whole house that way. https://thermohouse.co.uk/

Hi and welcome. As mentioned above most build methods can be to passive level inc masonry but the devil is in the detail. But first I would question if you really want the passive certification (not a bad thing), a lot of people on here have taken the fabric first approach and built to passive level of insulation and airtighness even using passive design principles for overheating in the summer but have not bothered with the certification. Certification adds cost and time which most self builders run out of both!

Welcome ..! Plot and plans are a good start - has the build been designed to be to passive standards ..?? If you’ve got plans it may be good to post them as it can give an idea of what’s achievable. Any construction method can be used to meet passive levels - it’s the detailing that causes the issues later on and this can happen with anything from blocks to timber frame or ICF. Sadly there is no golden bullet ..!!

Just read your link. £120 with a 16mm chuck. I'd go for it too over my Record suggestion.

I think this proves cutting square works:

https://www.rutlands.co.uk/sp+power-tools-drilling-morticing-machines-drilling-machines-16mm-bench-pillar-drill-rutlands+dk7228 Slightly more money but heavier by 6kg and more speed and chuck adjustment. Have seen this for £100 on various occasions, sometimes you can track down discount codes...... don’t know what postage would be.......

Have you ever worked with concrete, it's bloody heavy!! 120mm of concrete is almost the same weight as 2x 100mm 7nm blocks (standard build block not fancy lite weight ones) so 150mm of concrete is a lot heavier! I don't know anyone who has built a external wall in 120mm ICF, it's not a good idea! For the record I am a big fan of ICF but there is many ways to build a house not all but one are wrong!

I feel like I'm missing out on the original link

For another thread perhaps? ?

I have watched a good mastic man before and I would happily class it as a trade. But I have also seen a lot of hotel mastic which I can only assume they get specialist's in for and they may as well have covered a hamster in said colour and let it loose. Onoff will get this close enough. I have faith

I constructed our using ICF, defiantly a DIY job if your willing to get stuck in! Here it is with the insulated slab ready for the concrete. A view part for the completed basement with interior walls.

I used to use masking tape and a flat blade screwdriver until I got a Cramer Fugi 5 piece kit. Although it's still tricky to use if I'm trying to do a basin behind a tap. https://www.ironmongerydirect.co.uk/product/cramer-fugi-applicator-kit-5-piece-711919 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBT3kvbocbc