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You had very good airtighess, well proven materials, plenty of insulation that relies on air (not gasses that migrate off into the ether) as the insulant. A sensible roof and with good overhangs. Assuming the occupants use the MVHR, keep the chutes clear and treat the windows properly it'll last forever. Much like a cathedral it will be there long after you're gone but unlike the master builders of yore at least you got to see it finished.

I have to say that the pinnacle of my life times doing DIY culminated in my build, I designed it (with tech help here), built it (with a main contractor to do the heavy stuff) and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. Although I was not able to keep it the sense of achievement I got can never be taken from me. (I am now doing little DIY projects on my sons house).

We went Alu-clad uPVC (internorm) - I had to get over ‘they’ll look like plastic issue’. They don’t and are foil anthracite inside. Very good, thermal and u-value and airtightness (u-values is only part of the performance). We have previously gone aluminium sliders, windows and doors in a previous project 5 years ago and although documented performance was good, the real performance of the frames was shocking with condensation.

A very wise move If you can get the staff. I’ve really struggled to get an electrician after the one we had on most of the build moved back to Poland. And getting a good joinery has also been mission impossible. So getting them both on site within reasonable times has been very tricky. The joinery is coming back for two days of snagging with this week. Let’s see what they say about making the lighting bits and bobs more accessible…

Get in touch with either Envirograf or Flametect, both companies of which provide coatings but it needs technical input for the corrct certification.

no you haven't but if you rent it you will have to pay 20% of the lot back. unlikely to be worth renting unless its a massive rent.

I am not convinced the issue is the soldered connections instead of a plug in connector. Before installing and connecting the strips I would have given them a dry run on their own to make sure the light they give and the startup characteristics are to your satisfaction before fitting them into the cabinet.

yes. pay all the vat back.

Allow £5000 for a patio door at the very least. £1800-2000 for a front door. and £1200 for a back door. but it really does depend what quality you want to build to. I can buy a pvc back door for £600 and self install it, but there pretty shite and better suited to a renovation or a tart up and sell project.

@Kelvin i have a Graf unit. if you look at the riser for the lid of the tank it comes with additional 110mm rubber grommets to put additional pipes in. I have a 110mm vent pipe that vents the tank over to a shed and up the back wall of the shed. I also have a short external vent pipe on the beginning of the run, as long as there are no windows above it you can use a short stack.

Use the hole-saw (Erbauer one will be a stronger option) to first drill a template hole in some waste material such as 12/15mm plywood / OSB. Then, lay that on the item to be drilled, with a knee on the wood or clamps. Use that to prevent the hole-saw from 'departing' and use high revs / little downward pressure. Bobs your Uncle, no need for Fanny. The critical thing is to keep the saw at 90o to the workpiece, and do NOT stop drilling until you are 100% sure you are through the metal. A good option is to put timber under this so you have something other than air underneath the cut (keeps the saw trained right the way through the cut)

Thank you so much for that, I've tried to address the points above. In the interim I'm doing more research on the insulation element, certainly feels like between and over rafters is the best solution when it comes to comfort/heating (although I don't believe it addresses the ventilation issue). I will play around with calculators but I'm guessing a flexible insulation between the 75mm rafters followed by 150mm PIR on top of the rafters will get me in the right U-value ballpark for building control whilst not being shot down by planning permission for excessive roof height increase.

Ours are 3G advertised with rain noise reduction. You can still hear the rain quite clearly. I’ve no idea how much quieter it would be if it was a 2G window. They are very good at keeping other sounds out however. With the vent open I can hear the babbling burn at the bottom of the garden. Close the vent and it’s silent.

We have smarts door, curtain walling, and bifolds. Matched with rational alu clad windows. All triple glazed. Nice doors

Thank you all. I will give the water company a call and see what's what. They only started charging last year after fitting the new meter 6 years ago. So the first bill was huge but seemed to represent more than two baths per day when typically there's only one person in the house most of the year. Will post back when I hear from southern water.

Is this your bike shed? Just get the cheapest hole saw and it will be fine. No need to go overboard with this. It is a simple job as you will find out, in about 30 seconds of starting.

The cost might be prohibitively Vs resilient bars.

Finished the Kore Passive Raft Foundation this week. Just in time as it's currently sleeting it down out there! Cold enough to make a pour more difficult. they set in a 70mm rebate for the lift & slide door and also cut out the kore to let the concrete out to the edge (up to shuttering) for a steel post to carry the blockwork over the two corner windows. We'll insulate around that later. the Kore went in really fast, then rebar, ductwork for the kitchen island and getting it finished before more cold weather kicked in. It rained just after lunchtime which slowed down the curing. But really pleased with progress and we're ready for the timber frame next!

Thought this was a philosophical question about needing Building Control and Building Regulations - pity. However - yes this will require an application.

We're currently building up near the Coast in Northumberland .. great area!

New build house, with decent insulation and airtightness. UFH pipes on 200mm centres generally, do 150mm centres in bathrooms. No buffer or plate exchanges 3 way valve to divert between UFH and cylinder. 3m2 coil cylinder around 250 - 300L Most likely a 6kW heat pump would be fine, based on heat loss calc. Our build was completed with gas boiler, but added an ASHP last summer. Heating this year NE Scotland, has a couple of weeks at or around -7, with zero issues. Heating costs during the really cold period is more expensive than gas, but during less cold cheaper than gas. My self install cost around £2k as a retrofit. UFH materials were around £1k and it took me alone 2 days to install. A cylinder is £1k ISH.

Think the following happens - found this the other day with my ASHP. Both ASHP and GSHP manage dT first based on return temp, as return temp increases the flow temp increases towards set point. Our flow from the UFH completely overwhelms all other flows which are very small. So as the floor heats up the flow temperature increases. So just running the radiators has a different feedback to the heat pump compared to UFH on its own or as a mixed system. A mixing valve on the UFH resolve?

using made to measure sub-frames is much better. The brickies love them as they give them a true plumb level to work the reveals so they dont need to use a level and they come with ties that fix into the brickwork so they wont move. cost about £18 per window. https://subframes.co.uk/

We had some very expensive joinery made. It went through umpteen design revisions before the final drawings were shown to the joinery company and they were asked to quote. Some of the cabinets have integrated lighting. The joinery company said they could router the channels for the LEDs but I would have to get my own electrician to install. I did. The electrician came to do the first fix, he explained to me which cables had to be fed through the joinery and I explained this to the joiners. When the joiners installed the joinery they forgot to feed two of the four push to break switches through a hole at the back of one of the cupboards. I complained to the joinery and was told “don’t worry, your electrician will have a way of fishing them out.” My electrician did fish them out, but in doing so he snapped the connectors/plugs. He said that this could be fixed by soldering the connectors back on. So he did, and now everything is more or less working… more or less because the LED strips activated by the bodge job connectors flicker a bit when they come on. When the cupboard door is open they are generally fine, it’s just doesn’t look as nice when the light comes on, as rather than a soft dim on, it flickers on rather unpredictably. It just pisses me off, that such an expensive bit of furniture has turned out this way because of a momentary lapse in concentration at the time the joinery was installed.

We have a treatment plant. Everything I’ve read states you can’t install air admittance valves instead of an SVP.