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Use precast concrete floor slabs. Half the cost of a Lewis deck and 10x faster. Metal stud walls with 50mm accoustic insualtion. Suspended ceiling with 150mm void and 100mm insulation. ICF walls Solid, fire rated doors. Triple glazing. Concrete stairs Carpet and rugs. Thats what we have (apart from stairs) and our house is silent. From both inside and from out.

My father-in-law was an acoustician and insisted we install resiliant bars as a cheap and easy solution for decreasing sound transfer from one room to another. As well as this, we did a lot of double boarding and all internal walls and ceilings had a sufficient layer of acoustic insulation and the results are a nice surprise. My parents built a very similar construction to ours, but didn't take sound transfer in to consideration and can hear others using the bathroom elsewhere in the house. We can barely hear a relatively loud radio from one room to another. I'd definitely recommend resiliant bars: https://www.floorscan.co.uk/product/db-resilient-bar/ was my supplier. Cost me about £650 inc VAT for the entire house (downstairs ceilings and all partitions where sound transfer wasn't desired).

I think maybe the porch would look better sloping forwards?

When we looked at it over a year ago, concrete stairs were £2.5k. thought it was a bit much so skipped it. Ended up with an oak staircase with cut string for the same money. In hindsight would have gone for the concrete as would have made things simpler and faster.

https://www.permagard.co.uk/double-sided-tape-dpm-tape-permaseal?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwvW2tob29gIVCuvtCh0mbgHlEAAYASAAEgIeOfD_BwE others are available

Carpet on the stairs for me

When the systems I've put in for clients have been fine ( in Hep2O ) the question has to be asked where it is applicable and where it's not. If it's in a cold drafty home, fair enough. In an airtight high-spec dwelling the delta is often not so converse, plus the issues seem to be far less with plastic vs copper. I always insulate at the plant, and for the larger primary distribution eg to the manifolds, but after that I only ever insulate the hots and the hot returns tbh. Systems where there is a water softener and some larger bore primary stuff, the stored ambient in there often staves off the slug of ice-cold mains water that usually causes this problem, so it is horses for courses, not just a one answer for all afaic.

Good luck with the project! im sitting in my 60m2 extension and it’s great! watch the mortar joins on those blocks to make sure the are fully filled and tape over the insulation joins with metal tape. good luck

Yes i insulated mine. A good place to use up offcuts of insulation. The hardest one to do was the posi joist that ran parallel to the wall, many a skinned knuckle threading bits of insulation through the surprisingly sharp metal webs.

Low surface temperature radiator / cover

And improve the bio-diversity score. Yes, works a treat for me, and requires very little capital expenditure. Though I think I am close to the lower bound of what can be achieved.

22 companies have provided budget estimations from the planning drawings. Naturally some are way out and so we will not be proceeding to ask them to fully quote based on the technical drawings. It should go without saying that we are not buying on price only.

You'd stick on your LVT or engineered wood to the stairs.

Comparing Microlouvre to Mermet Satine 5501 to Mermet Ultravision. Images at 0, 20, 40 degrees inclination.

A total power cut is one such event. A previous rental property had an outside oil combi boiler so by nature it has raw mains water inside it. The boilers frost stat will take care of things in normal times but I always worried about a several days long power cut in the middle of a cold winter spell. I guess running a hot tap frequently would purge the near freezing water out to be replaced with mains temperature water, or even leaving a hot tap on a slow dribble to keep a constant flow.

@thefoxesmaltings, 22 companies is an impressive number. Out does me. Your approach sounds good & thorough. Best wishes. An exciting journey lies ahead.

Either way, for an accurate fixed quote, I am going to have to pay a TF company or an architect to produce BR & technical drawings. Each TF company I approached has given budget costings for the planning drawings, but they need technical drawings to fully cost and engineer the frame. The TF systems are pretty generic, yes (hence why my architect can produce the TF technical drawings), but there are still nuances between each company. I've contacted 22 companies, and all came back with different TF systems and structural engineering approaches. All of the tweaking has been done through my architect (whom I trust) and the design will be set in stone when it lands in the inbox of the TF companies. I'm not looking for the TF company designer to tweak or change the design. If the TF company can assist with value engineering, that's fine. As such, I don't really care about getting lots of access to their "in-house designers". I just need the TF company to spec the design up in their TF system. We're going to be very strict and not make any changes during construction, once the frame has been finalised/manufactured.

I wouldn't use anything else!! You would just excavate down enough to cut and joint the pipe. UV? That's only e real world concern if the pipes are outside, but then they are already produced to be outside in direct sunlight....al-a every house you drive past which has waste pipes / soil pipes on the external facades. If there is a tray on top, zero damage or degradation can occur at the end of the day. You are, I'm afraid, worrying a little too much here. I still speak to people I have fitted bathrooms for, some over 17-18 years ago and some over 20 years ago ( before I had kids and my oldest is nearly 18 ) and they're still functioning perfectly well.

See how thick the roof build up is? you get a good idea of that by measuring the depth of the recess that the velux windows are fitted into. My guess would be very thin, indicating a lack of insulation barely meeting building regs. If you are building well and well insulated the recess for the roof windows will be a lot deeper because the insulation is so much thicker. My top tip is such a roof is make it a warm roof with insulation on top of the rafters before membrane, battens and tiles, and then full fill insulation between rafters. That will make a well insulated noise free roof and will be easy to detail air tightness.

I know and have met some of the designers. And my architect was, I realised after I chosen her, an ex-TF designer for a number of the TF companies. And, as I mentioned, I had a very good relationship with the designer I ended up using. Most TF company use outsourced timber-frame designers that work between multiple TF companies (as they do with engineers). Only the biggest ones (such as MBC) have them in-house. But even they are all ex-freelancers and even they have a lot of turnover. The TF systems are actually pretty generic. Any good TF designer can design for any system. The downside of going by your approach in my opinion is that the some TF companies ration access to the designer. I found I wanted lots of access to mine to tweak the design over many months, and even went back to him during construction phase on a few small issues. I would not have been happy with restricted access via an "customer account manager".

Something like this https://www.directplastics.com/soil-and-waste-systems/drainage/underground-80-x-110mm-adptr Would advise some acrylic sealant then aluminium tape to make sure air tight.

Yeah, but they'll be cold and drafty! And never exactly what you want... The rises in material costs is hitting everywhere so it's levelling out build cost differences across the UK. Quarry products and concrete are still relatively cheap here but are catching up. Everything else has pretty much doubled in 2 years. You could do it for less than this but you'll have to cut corners and build to minimum building control spec (do not so this).

Solid construction helps, if not rockwool batts, four layers of plasterboardvan walls all different thicknesses, double tack ceilings never had creaky floors used ringshank gun nails joists mustn't move pipes wrapped through joists,no unsupported ends of boards no air paths, no back to back sockets or light switches, no downlighers use acoustic sealants, restrict sound going over/under/round walls

I'm sure there are lots of shitty clients just as there are really good M and E consultants. I can assure you however that bad M and E does not mean bad client. Quite the opposite. To summarise... My passive house architect got the M and E team on board early to ensure proper service voids and plant room etc go into the design. M and E have the PHPP model hence the M and E team know this is a low energy build and what heating load to expect. The M and E team have been supplied with a full list of all plumbing requirements including all sanitaryware and taps, showers. Designs done at single local bathroom showroom etc and liasing with M and E. M and E team have met with KNX designer to finalise all the lighting and electrics. Full kitchen spec including appliances supplied. Solar PV specification including battery and locations for installs etc all done. Meters, connections, all agreed. Car chagers included in spec etc. Every single detailed requirement and design from my side has been supplied in full to my M and E team. No changes, no messing about. The problem is that, for example (and there are many), when my M and E team tell me that the heating company only do serpentine UFH layouts because they are better than counterflow layouts (despite my objections) then I am left to conclude that the M and E team are more interested in what their business partners want than listening to their clients. When they tell me they won't specify an IVAR manifold because the same heating installer doesn't like them, then again, this is the M and E team ignoring their client for no good reason other than to try and set me up with a pretty crappy heting installer they work with. The M and E team appear to be guided by their own commercial relationships, not by best practice design or serving their clients best interests. It happens. ... back to my original question, @PeterW, as an M and E guy, should I avoid using AAVs and vent outside on all three soil pipes?

Absolutely….get that wall level with a masonry base before you even think of putting on those coping stones. Don’t even think of glue or foam!

Don't want to be cruel but you might be wanting to have another go at that wall to level it up before chucking a load of expensive wet cast stone on top - the thing might get on your tits in the days / weeks/ months to come.... Don't know how visible the thing is but, if it were me, I would sort it. If the bodge is the only way to go then concrete and cement haunch the thing to a level - wet cast stone tends to crack if not set level as it is soft as butter. It will look horrible.

I only use 50mm on showers, and run 40mm to basins as far ( close to the basin ) as is practicable. I only reduce down to 32mm pretty much at the basin. 40mm works fine if you’ve got a decent fall, but the 50mm ( afaic ) is much better. I like insurance btw because I post here about jobs I do for others ( as I run an M&E company ) so I tend to go belt and 3 pairs of braces, but I’ve always gone the extra mile tbh, the reason I’m always busy I suppose!!

Update - Planning approved, onwards and upwards to building warrant.

Hi and welcome. The planners down't care about cruck frames or straw bales, they just care what it looks like. If the exterior meets their expectations, no reason why not. Building control may be a little more interested in the details.

I did it the other way and just sent our BR drawings to various TF companies and then put the resulting quotes in to a spreadsheet and could then see which companies included stuff and which didn't etc. I could then go back to the ones that didn't include things and asked them to add that item. I figured that TF companies should know what's required to build a house better than I did and so basically left it up to them to tell me what I needed as a base line. but at the end of the day my decision on who to use came down to quality of work and gut feeling as to whether I could work with them more than price.

I have a canopy extractor and have removed the motor but left the lights and the grease filters. I have a 200mm TD Silent inline fan mounted in a service room above the kitchen connected up with 150mm round ducting and spigots. Operated by a switch on the wall. It is very nice and quiet and very good at extracting.

thanks so much for your reassurance- we currently live in a draughty old Victorian house and its hard to imagine we will soon be in an efficient warm new build

Our ASHP has a built-in 6kW back-up heater for if the compressor fails, but I think the idea that you need another fuel source due to failure/inefficiency is mostly FUD, unless your electiricaly supply is unreliable. If your house is very well insulated and airtight, then a couple of cheap/simple oil-based heaters radiators are very effective as back-up heaters. We used a couple of these to help heat the house before ASHP was commisisoned.

I went with 110mm pipe coming up under the slab, directly to where I wanted the shower drain, but then used a 110mm to 50mm offset connector that allowed me to rotate the connector to get a +/-50mm tolerance in all directions. I didn't use a shower tray, just set a linear drain like this: into the slab, sloped the slab itself and tanked it before tiling I did all my showers the same.

OK. Why is there a bathroom on hard and a bathroom / other stuff on soft? Why the pressure valve? I assume you mean PRedV ( pressure reducing valve ). One will come with, and need to be fitted to the UVC. That valve ( serviced by soft water ) will have a balanced cold outlet for soft feeds to all mixer taps, so would need to go to a soft cold manifold fed from the 'control group' at the UVC. The UVC must NOT be serviced after all the other cold feeds. It must have "cold mains priority" which means 22mm pipe feed from the cold mains direct to the UVC WITHOUT anything drawing off in between ( in an ideal world ). If this is being done from scratch then I would observe this discipline religiously. Outside taps should be outside off the rising cold mains, but if they have to be T'd off internally and taken through external walls then they need to be T'd in AFTER the stopcock, but BEFOFRE the 1st PRedV without exception. The above drawing needs to be scrapped sorry, loads of faux pas there. Ask questions, we'll answer them

poystyrene insulation as opposed to kingspan. different materials and different u- values.

So our M and E are suggesting 3 SVP all internal venting out through the roof. In a passive house I would have thought that one venting and the other two soil pipes capped with an AAV in the warm loft would reduce cold draughts. Which option is best? Does it really matter?