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It's interesting how this is panning out with the pricing and erection of kits. I've been mucking about with this as a contractor and a designer for a good thirty years in Scotland where we embraced TF a bit earlier than down South. Some of the Scottish TF companies have sold out to the big outfits, some truss manufactures also. What I can say is that it is worth a look at getting your local builder / joiner to price to stick build the kit and buy in the trusses. And / or spend a bit more earlier and get your SE to do you a traditional kit with the roof you want, if you need a bit of steel then it's relatively cheep for your local SE / Builder to sort this out for you. Even 30 years ago it was hard to compare like with like from TF suppliers, now the waters are further muddied. Really unless you are a developer / or have a lot of technical knowledge you have no chance at getting like for like costs from the TF folk on a one off build. What you do need to know is what could you build based on stick built with you supplying the insulation and so on, how long will it take and then make the call on what suits you. Then you have a real base line. I often do the panel drawings for the local builders and spec easliy sourced stuff (truss clips / hangers) and rough out the truss design with the key dimensions to make the roof bracing work. You'll need to pay up front for this but I have found that it is often an economical way of doing it in the long run. It can also work for some folk on the cost plan where you don't need to stump up a big deposit for the kit up front.. you buy the timber.. belongs to you then you pay as you go as it gets erected. Also on the "soft side" many self builders change their mind as they go.. stick building can offer more flexibilty to "just change your mind" without the financial penalty.

Lots of great views expressed here. For me the test to apply to your design team is this... Ask them where they see the risk to you in the design. That could be on the Architectural side.. say bespoke materials price fluctuations.., the SE.. where is the risk.. is it in the ground or some where else, the folk that are maybe providing services to the plot. Where they are confident that say the doors, windows, roof will perform in the long term and where they are less sure about long term performance. It might sound a bit odd but a good professional will explain to their Client where the risks lie, inform them and let them make their decision. They will also explain / outline how they are going to save you a fair bit of money that will mitigate their fee maybe make it cost neutral!.. but they won't tell you how until you sign on the line. It 's a case of seeing if they are open on honest about the whole design. You too need to accept that if you want something special you'll probably need to take more risk if you want to keep the cost down. In summary just have an open and honest conversation. If you don't hit it off then find someone else, even if their fee is a little higher, in the grand scheme of things a good designer can save you thousands sometime tens of thousands on a self build. Also remember that designers love working with engaged Clients who communicate with them too! often you'll find that they don't bill you for every hour they work and that when you look at it in the round your shopping about has been fine up till now to enable you to get a feel for the cost but has now become counter productive in the relationship?

We left you with a poured slab and we were chomping at the bit to get the ground floor Nudura walls up before the end of the year. Well, I am glad to report we got there - almost ? After getting the slab done, I figured I'd get ahead a bit and it would be a good idea to talk to someone about the waterproofing we would have to put on the outside the walls before we started backfilling. To cut a long story short using waterproof concrete in walls such as these is a complete non-starter, so Type-B waterproofing cannot be used. Visqueen's R400 Radon barrier is not an effective waterproofing method and so we now face having to use a Type A and a Type C waterproofing method - basically this will mean for us a waterproof screed being added to the floor with channel ducting where the walls meet the floor and the "egg-crate" plastic material across the screed and up the inside of the walls. That should eat into our contingency ? ? ? But also it meant a dash to get some waterproof slurry to paint round where the Nudura blocks would be laid the following morning and mixing and painting it on under floodlights (it's the dark grey stuff in the picture to the right). Oh what fun!! But, the following day we were up early to welcome out walls, the bracing and two fine chaps (Louie and Harry) from The Fell Partnership who would be helping us Day 1 to get the first row in place. We then scurried around unloading things off trailers and flat beds, and installing the waterbar between those pieces of upright rebar. By 10am we were ready to go. By about 2pm we had most of the first row in and part of the second row (see below). If it hadn't been for some non-standard corners in the design, we would probably have been at Row 3, but that's what you get for following a design religiously ✝️ (FYI - the T-corner is all to do with the design - don't ask yet) On the second day we were left to our own devices, I had to make a dash to collect some extra Nudura parts and some waterproofing equipment (due to the direction our waterproofing system now had to take) so we made a later start but still we were very pleased to get up to 4 rows installed. Day 3 we were ready to begin installing all the bracing system, and after hitting her head SWMBO was made to wear the Christmas present from her children. and on Day 4 it inevitably rained in Cornwall ? , but before our help arrived again we had managed to just squeeze a block on to Row 6 (the final row before the first pour of concrete) After the help on Day 4, we continued to finish things off on Day 5 by constructing part of an internal load bearing wall, and a wall with the only window opening at this level which will be for the family bathroom. FYI - the rest of that side of the house will consist mainly of windows into bedrooms plus some extra small sections of walling (to be determined) Where we were not able to complete things before the pour happened (time didn't allow) was where the internal wall meets the external wall and there are two doorways to construct (this is why I said we almost made it). I will have to do these in the New Year, mixing and pouring the concrete by hand (just under 1 cubic m) so that'll burn off the Christmas pudding ? A week later (during which we had some more high winds) I came back down to finalise a few bits (like lack of scaffold planks and bracing in some places) to be greeted by a snaky ? wall. so that was all straightened up, the rest of the bracing fitted, and the Nudura joist hangers inserted. (Between straightening and the pour we had Storm Barra, but my remedial work held up nicely) I won't bore you with pictures of hunky men doing manly stuff with concrete pumps etc. but suffice to say it all went very well, with no leaks or blow outs so "he who shall not be named from Channel 4" would have been very disappointed if he was allowed onsite. And so, last weekend (after a midweek pour in the remnants of Storm Barra) I was able to deconstruct the bracing and we are now the proud owners of some freestanding, high-wind-proof walls. Really happy at the attention to detail that Louie and Harry paid to ensuring the walls were straight and true before the pour began - right up my street. So now we have a tidyish site again (for a short while) ready for steels installation in the New Year. We have to finish off the internal wall, then waterproof and backfill outside, and install joists and flooring before we can continue with building the upper floor walls. We're hoping that by middle of next year we can start on those upper floor walls. So until 2022, and the inevitable next lockdown, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas ? and a Happy New Year ?

I decided to go for a stick build kit for our self build, a few years ago. I found the large timber frame companies to be very expensive. It cost £13k for the materials to build the kit. Included within that is £5k for engineered attic trusses from Pasquill. Labour was £9k, for making the kit, erecting it and also a suspended ground floor. Other expensive items were a steel beam for the vaulted ceiling and three Kerto beams for the middle ridge part. I also had to hire a telehandler with a truss jib for two weeks that cost around £750. By the end of that we looked like this (excluding the velux windows).

EW is ΣW (Sigma W) which is the sum of the all the factored load (W is the loads from the ULS column) on the beam. Thus ΣW = sum of total ULS load =0.46 + 0.45 = 0.91 kN/m (kilo Newtons per metre run) * 4.0m (beam length) = 3.64 kN (kilo Newtons) = the factored design load applied to each beam. Zyy Req... Z is called the section modulus and the yy indicates about which axis of the beam the value of Z applies to. The British Standards and Eurocodes use a different axis of notation. Your SE is using the Eurocode here. The letters "req" are short for required. The SE is working out what value of Z (a geometric property) the beam needs to have as a minimum to carry the load. To calculate the Zyy required we use the formula Z req = maximum bending moment / maximum design stress allowed in the timber. The bending moment is shown as m = 1.8 kNm and the design stress is 14.8 N/mm^ (Newtons per mm squared). We need to make the units compatible so to convert kNm (Kilo Newton metres) to Nmm (Newton millimtres) we multiply by 10^6 as below. Thus Zyy req = 1.8 * 10^6 / 14.8 = 121621 mm^3 = 121.6 x 10^3 mm^3 this is the minimum value of Zyy required to carry the load. Next the SE is checking to see if a 150 x 47 timber has a Zyy value greater than the required minimum. Zyy for the proposed timber is calculated by the formula b*d^2 / 6. Beam width = b = 47mm, Beam depth = d =150mm thus Zyy = 47 *150 *150/6 = 176250 mm^3 = ~ 176.3 x 10^3 mm^3 (millimetres cubed) > 121.6 x 10^3 required thus OK. The Iyy is called the second moment of area (units mm^4 ) and you'll probably see this on the next page when the SE checks the deflection.

No, just fitting of roof sarking and membrane, though I guess that's "wind and watertight" isn't it?. And it doesn't include windows and external doors.

This would suggest my architect is incompetent, as he has basically suggested buying different bits and bobs from different suppliers so as to meet his conception of the design, even though he knows full well that we need FD30 compliance.

Up firers are not going to be able to re-produce the over-head effects with a sloping ceiling, and I'm pretty sure they won't work as a wall speaker at the edge of the room, no matter how high you can get them. If you've not found this page before, it's a good reference to walk you through the options: https://www.dolby.com/about/support/guide/speaker-setup-guides

Well, if your builder uses the wrong glue (most will default to cheapest unless otherwise instructed) then you may end up with a squeaky floor later on. They won't have to live there and good luck proving that that was the issue and getting them to fix it. Same goes for tapes, sealants, fixings etc. Because premium products are more expensive and they will quote assuming bog standard. If you then ask for the better product it's 'extra over'. Oh yes, builders will buy from the BMs that give them a decent discount but more importantly good payment terms. They will not spend an hour on the internet to save you 20% on insulation or sockets etc. Whatever it costs them gets passed onto you, with a small margin. We specced EPS 200 under the basement slab and EPS70 to basement walls. Groundworker had never worked with it and said that I needed to take care of it. I found a buyer who got me a great price (on commission from me) and had it delivered to site.

Could embed your rocks in resin, maybe a few LEDs as well. That would look very 'Essex' and keep people away.

A "caravan" does not need to be on wheels to fit the legal definition of a caravan. It must still be possible to move it and slinging it from a crane to pick it up is still a valid way to move it. If the bricks used to build the "house" inside it extend down onto or into the ground under the caravan then it would not be possible to move it even with a crane so it would fail the definition of a "caravan"

The stress test is not really that onerous. Not all lenders have the same approach and yours may be a little conservative. If it is actually the case that no lender thinks you can afford the additional repayments, maybe they are right.

They don't actually say that. They say allows lower temperature to be put into the heating circuit. In many houses (I'd almost wager the majority, certainly, the majority where CH was a retrofit) a lot of pipework is uninsulated and travels in cold voids outside the useful thermal envelope of the building (e.g. under floor voids or in the loft). By extracting more heat in the room (i.e. increasing delta T across the radiator itself) it will reduce the average temperature in the circulation pipes (esp the return pipe, but potentially also the supply pipe if the whole system can now run a bit lower) thereby reducing the wastage from the pipework blowing out the building in useless locations. Put simply, if you can improve the ratio of energy delivered to room vs energy wasted in the pipes, then getting the same amount delivered to the room will require less total output from the boiler. that is all irrelevant to a well designed system in a low energy house where "wastage" in the pipework is still in the thermal envelope so not wasted at all.

If this decision is allowed to stand, it will become case history, and sets a prescident that conceiling a house inside a caravan for 4 years can no longer be enforced

Can't help thinking you could have made up a re-inforced flint panel flat, on the bench, then fixed it in to place and pointed in afterwards...

How about remortgage through a new lender? If you go through a decent broker you may also get a better deal than you currently have. I have just arranged a deal fixed for 5 years at less than 1% and they will do 80% LTV. The broker should be able to steer you towards the right lender.

Don't count your chickens yet - you know the old maxim that if you don't ask you don't get ? If you have such considerable equity and your history is impeccable, discussions with the underwriter, even through what appear to be intransigent lenders can pay off sometimes. I know, because I've negotiated mortgage lending for myself from a lender who wouldn't normally touch self-build with a barge-pole. Are you also dismissing the idea of exploring an equitable charge? I suspect the problem you might always come back to is point 2 of your OP as any mortgage based lending will need to pass those tests - ridiculous as many of them might be! I quite like @Ferdinand suggestion of getting PP in the garden ? (I'll run away now too!)

don't discount timber frame yet. try the other suppliers. it's interesting that you got the Fleming to design the house. I guess that makes sense if you only have the one TF supplier in mind but most people, myself included, got a house designed by architect/architectural technician etc and then pimped those plans out to various TF companies to get quotes for the design. seems a bit strange to get different designs by different TF suppliers.

Hi @cipn First thing will be to serve them notice to remove their equipment on the grounds that they do not have a current Wayleave which will trigger a negotiation phase (you'll want to speak to their "Property & Consents" team in the first instance). They will likely threaten you with acquiring a compulsory wayleave from the Home Secretary but this is a lot of effort for the DNO from what I understand so they prefer to come to a deal with the land owner where possible instead. As you're offering them an underground route as an alternative you shouldn't have a problem getting what you want but you'll need to dig your heels in and escalate things every time you get knocked back. It will probably take a while though so if you're in a hurry then paying for it might be your best option, and also be aware that to cover full costs they'll want a permanent Easement for their troubles which may affect your property value in the future depending on placement. Good luck!

Sometimes accessed through a solicitor, I think. Do you have something like a life policy or potential pension lump sum you can secure it against? Life companies used to offer low interest loans secured against such. Can your pension provider loan you against the future lump sum? Do they still? I once had one from Standard Life. Personal loans are currently around 3% up to 30k. Is that enough to help? Or you could get PP to build in your garden ?. (Runs away at high speed.)

I don't fully understand the legal ins and outs of it and it was a few years ago, but as a general overview it was first about approaching the restrictive lender to obtain a consensual agreement on the basis that there was significant equity in the property and also a bit of leaning on the argument that the restrictive clause may be unfair and unenforceable in any case. However, this situation may very well have changed due to current accepted practise and case law, which might be why equitable charges have grown in use. Sorry I can't be more helpful on this point.

I would first try a blanket over and around the noisy box. If that works at all, make it prettier and use some soft absorbent material and some dense. Of course check that this won't set it on fire/close off vents etc. Perhaps a solid box around it, lined with foam and stuffed with rockwool. Plus check whether the noise is coming from vibration (which can be fixed) or inbuilt in the mechanism.

+1 same location. Same result.

What's your 75mm concrete going on top of? If it's to be the sole structural slab, that sounds thin for concrete. I have a ~65-70mm polished concrete layer on top of a nominally 100mm slab (with many deeper ribs and a couple of spines along structural walls) with 300 EPS insulation underneath. The slab has the UFH pipework. We were told 75mm minimum, but didn't have the height available, so we were required to sign something saying we understood the risks. We do have cracks in a couple of places.

Door seals on the doors, including a dropper seal, should make a difference. Soundstop do a dropper seal for about £60 which looks decent. Lorient make one with a floor plate that provides an even better seal. As will sticking a bunch of insulating material on back of doors.

Well, the tender drawings really need to show everything if you want comparable quotes. Can’t really be too prescriptive in my advice as I have no idea what you are building and what spec you are going for, but here are some examples of the things you need to cover: What insulation are you using and in what order and thicknesses? The build up of every wall floor and ceiling should be specified, including whether you are using resilient bars. If you are using resilient bars, for example, I would also specify genie clips over standard ones. And after experiencing a misunderstanding with my builder, i would also specify details such as which type of glue you want for essential things such as chipboard flooring. I specified Egger peel clean flooring, and even though they instructions specified to use Egger glue, my builder used a standard D4 glue initially. Once I spotted this, I insisted he use Egger’s version. It is also D4, but it is expanding D4 glue. What air tightness measures are you implementing? Which tapes and which thicknesses? Primer spray as well? Electrical drawings and reflected ceiling drawings should also be very detailed showing location of all switches and at least the number and type of of sockets in each room. Where you have non standard features like two or three way lighting your drawings should also specify this. You should also be really clear as part of your tender pack what you will be supplying materials-wise and what you expect others to supply. You probably also want to think about glass spec in all glazing. 2G or 3G. Solar control? If so, which type/colour. Safety features of rooflights? PAS24 ? I’m barely scratching the surface…

38db is plenty noisey. After my sewage treatrment tank noise issue, i can imagine having anything like this in the house. Am i just sensitive to noise? I assume most are living with some level of background hum?

Agreed. Every cavity ive ever had the misfortune of being involved in has LOTS of air movement in it. Even when its not that windy.

Temp..Yes good /great summary. @LSB Is there another page or two of calcs relating to the roof? I have deduced that the calcs are based on Eurocode 3 rather than BS 5268. I did this by comparing the SLS (serviceability limit state) to the ULS (ultimate limit state) ratio. Your calcs give a ratio of 1.35 and 1.5 for SLS and ULS respectively and that correlates with the Euro Code safety factors. The BS code is different.. I'll leave the explanation out for brevity. Before making any further comment it would be good to see all the calcs relating to the rafters and the cladding on top. A 6" x 2" rafter spanning 4.0m invites interest even at 400mm centres then you have the insulation.. closer centre rafters the more bridging effect.. sometimes the lightest structural members can be counter productive? I can see an alpha factor... 16.0mm Assuming this is some kind of deflection limit then BS 5268 recommends a limit of span *0.003 = 12.0mm but the Eurocodes allow for the limits to be agreed to some extent between the Client and Engineer... they cut you a bit more slack.. allow you to innovate. I'm interested to see the if the rest of the calcs take into account the deflection limits set by the metal cladding provider and the internal lining provider.. say Gyproc? While the roof may not collapse it may bend so much that it tears the cladding fixings and causes cracking in the ceiling. If you are going to stretch the deflection limits as an SE you should be pointing this out to your Client and let them decide what level of risk they want to take on. Have you got a good builder who has said.. mmm, these rafters look a bit small?

Like this:

My reading of Para 32 is that the statement is not absolute, but is in the context of this Appeal, where as noted in Para 42. "the Council have offered no evidence of positive deception in this case". Since they were incorrectly enforcing against the caravan, they wouldn't have initially considered concealment. I believe the Council could enforce against the building under 171B(1), on the grounds of concealment. There is no immunity after 4 years if positive deception is proven.

Fire rated doors should have a coloured inset plug. That way the BCO can easily check it if there is any doubt. Re complex regulations. I find it best to do an old-fashioned printout of the relevant pages, go into a quiet room, magic marker the clauses that appear to be relevant and draw arrows between them. Once the logic is sorted, keep the notes for when you inevitably forget it all. This works especially well if 'discussing' with a BCO.

Unless the battens go on top of the pir to create a service cavity!

2014 04 09 Kudox Steel Panel Radiators Technical Data.pdf This may help.

I have an RPA at my new build and had a Aboricultural Method Statement, etc. Your works sounds to me like the sort of thing that would be allowed in an RPA. I'd ask a friendly arboriculturalist in a quick phone call whether it requires pre-approval or not. My guess is you might be asked to have a qualified arboriculturalist "supervise" the insertion of the ground screws, with a mind to relocate them if they would hit a big root. Are you on the radar of your local tree officer already?

My architect designed us a great house and got us through planning, inc. navigating around an initial refusal. He freely admitted that they had no skill in low energy design, just standard regs. It worked out for us as the house design was fairly traditional (a gable ended cube) and the low energy specialist timber frame company (MBC) took care of all the detailing - however we 'built inwards' from the approved plans so the interior is a fraction smaller than if we'd 'built outwards' from the original floor plans. That said, it was not really an issue - only the single story utility was a squeeze to get a run of standard 600m units in but we managed. Architect was really interested in what we did but said that there was just not enough demand from clients for them to specialise. Most of their work is commercial or domestic extend & refurb - even a whole house 'build from scratch' is a rarity.

On the bridges, If it's any consolation, even when employing a passive house certified designer as architect, I still had to employ a building physics expert to do thermal bridge modelling *and* an independent assessor to review the whole lot and find any missing gaps, so if you're employing a nonspecialist architect it's not surprising you need some extra eyes on this. Their lack of attention to the better than BR insulation request is disappointing though. RIBA have been sat on their hands for the last 2 decades, they really should have been pushing the agenda on upskilling architects - so at the very least they know what they don't know and have more ability to flag this to customers and advise them on having specialist input in these areas.

I'm finding myself in so-far-reasonable, but still- discussion around those 'gray areas'. My Architect delivered good work overall, but the points of contention I've run into: - They agreed to design a 'high insulation/airtightness' house, yet with their current design there are still some cold bridges and their design featured very thin walls - They didn't give any details around the tresholds (which is needed to determine airtightness) I've had to tell them to do better on the above points, and I'm a beginner, so as @joth suggested I'll probably have to hire some 3rd party to validate the design, because ha other than a few comments on buildhub I don't know if I've missed any major issues in the house design that will come to haunt me. So far they haven't been unfair when discussing these points. I did make very sure to say I expect the source design files (DWG, VWX(vectorworks) and they have delivered those. I guess before you commit to a contract, call out as many points as you can explicitly.

I have a 75mm sand and cement screed and it is solid with no cracks. As long as you have expansion gaps at doors it shouldn't crack. I have no experience of polished concrete so not sure if it has to be 100mm thick. That will be for you and whatever company you go with to figure out.

Did they give you a specific reason for recommending you not use ASHP cooling? Condensation would be the main potential issue. We only heat/cool our downstairs floor. The ASHP pipework comes into the plant room and is connected to the manifold only a couple of feet away, so there's very little exposed pipework. I run the cooling at a temp of 15 or 16 degrees, from memory. In this situation, we get a slight breath of condensation on the metal parts of the manifold, but nowhere else and there certainly isn't enough to drip. I'm certainly not worried about condensation on the floor surface itself, as I doubt it ever drops below about 19 degrees. It might be more worrying of you're running long sections of pipework inside walls and within floor cavities. But if you keep the temps reasonable, I doubt it'll be an issue. Agree not too much risk of condensation if only cooling UFH to ~16C. However, note that @Mr Blobby said he was planning to install FCU upstairs. These work better the colder you can make them. Ours is a delight down at 5ºC, but that's when we got floods of condensation in the plant room until I ripped out the MCS lagging and did it all properly. Also, if running UFH and FCU cooling simultaneously, there will be colder water in the system right the way up to the UFH mixing valve, which (depend on the schematic and layout) may cause more issues even in UFH-specific pipework than if cooling UFH alone. (Also if running both together note you need some way to set separate heating vs cooling set points on the UFH mixing valve. I can vouch for the ecodan FTC6 with electronic mixing valve being very good for this)

Did they give you a specific reason for recommending you not use ASHP cooling? Condensation would be the main potential issue. We only heat/cool our downstairs floor. The ASHP pipework comes into the plant room and is connected to the manifold only a couple of feet away, so there's very little exposed pipework. I run the cooling at a temp of 15 or 16 degrees, from memory. In this situation, we get a slight breath of condensation on the metal parts of the manifold, but nowhere else and there certainly isn't enough to drip. I'm certainly not worried about condensation on the floor surface itself, as I doubt it ever drops below about 19 degrees. It might be more worrying of you're running long sections of pipework inside walls and within floor cavities. But if you keep the temps reasonable, I doubt it'll be an issue.

+1 to all that. Whichever way you do cooling, you'll need to ensure all the pipework, clips, pumps, valves etc are all 100% insulated with no gaps, otherwise you'll get condensation dripping, which would not be good for a pipe buried behind plasterboard. Installers will do basic pipework insulation, but rarely to the detail level needed for cooling. (e.g. the primary pipework should first be insulated *then* clamped into place, rather installed then insulated which is standard practice in UK) If using FCU remember to size the buffer tank accordingly. This was my main mistake. Planning to fix this once the heating season finishes.

I'd do both. Cooling via UFH is very effective, but slow to respond. It is more-or-less free, just select an ASHP that allows cooling out-the-box and doesn't require a hack. I did have to pay for an accessory on my Nibe, but most brands don't require that and I'm not sure if Nibe still does. You may pay a little more for the UFH controller, to understand the cooling requirement. The one thing you have to avoid is lowering the surface of the slab below the dew point. The hotter the internal air and the higher the relative humidity, the higher the dew point, but as a surface temp of 18°C on the slab provides very effective cooling, it's unlikely you'd need to be getting close to the dew point, but some logic in setting the flow temp may be useful. Loxone can do all this for you is you plan some Home Automation. The slow response of UFH in a slab, means it's best not to let temps get to high before cooling is employed. Fan-coil units, perhaps working off the same cooled buffer as the UFH, will give a more instant cooling effect, as it is cooling the air directly. But, as they are only cooling the air, when you switch them off the air temp will rise again, heated by the fabric off the building. Having both seems to me the best of both worlds. I wish I had included fan-coil units within my build, and am now considering them as a retrofit.

Maybe no one told them it was a Bank Holiday.

Erm...yeah, just come to a similar conclusion before I read this! ?

Except sleep at night.

Whale Oil Beef Hooked.

This is my swimming pool. Needs a wetsuit. Think the GSHP is not working till March.

Would these be the wankers that do initial sketches with pencils. And that is only because swan feather quills are harder to come by.