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I followed your @TerryE story a number of years ago and designed my system based on your posts. Thanks for all your detailed posts all those years ago. My system: Installed and running 4 years instead of 6 yours like yours Heated by the same 3kw wills heater during the night 100 sqm of polished concrete, 100mm deep and reinforced with fibres not a steel mesh. Self installed Wunda 16mm PERT-AL-PERT PIPE, manifold and pumpset - 5 heating loops with similar double back loop design. The pump is on a low nice quiet setting. I’ve no idea how to calculate how much water it pumps or the flow like you did nor do I feel I need to. It's working so I’ll leave it. I’ve a temp difference of circa 5 degrees after the system is up and running. It’s the basic temperature dials on the manifold so this isn’t digital or recorded like yours. Portable oil heater for the misses for when she thinks she’s cold. We’ve our temp between 20-21 degrees so lower than yours It was a major refurb, not a new build but we did a PHPP for the house which I can compare to. Main differences: I don’t have all the fancy temperature probes or data logging you have. We have temperature sensors but they aren’t recorded. I could fix this by purchasing a few but don’t really feel the need. I have an electrical meter on the wills so know exactly the energy going into the slab. I don’t run the pump after the wills is off to spread the heat like you nor do I do it for a few minutes on the hour. I did play around with this for a while at the start but it doesn’t make a massive difference. This slab is all one large open plan kitchen / dining / living / entrance hall area. You do notice the floor warmer in the hallway nearer the manifold but this is fine as the heat rises in this double height area to the upper unheated rooms. Things I’d change: I don’t have the fancy controls you have nor do I have the coding skills to develop it. It’s therefore a much cruder timed system. Note I’m based in Ireland, not the UK. For the first two years it was definitely cheaper to use a cheap wills than invest in an ASHP but the massive increase of the electrical unit rate has changed this. I've had the ducts fitted for years from outside to the wills heater so it’s an easy swap we’ll have to make soon. All loops are circa 90-100 meters long so I’d like to connect the ASHP directly to the slab avoiding a buffer too. Question: If I were to data log temperatures does anyone have any advice on what products to use that don’t require coding, are relatively cheap and what number would you advise getting and what to record? Do I go all out and record the flow and return temperatures for example? My biggest achievement: For the winter period 2021-2022 when everything was turned off in Spring the total units used was 3,347.1 when PHPP has a number of 3,349.0. Other years were higher or lower but that year was bang on!

I paid for the application in August 2023 to allow me to get on with getting the footings in for the extension (and have them inspected). I then spent 3 months maybe, doing the plans in the evenings. I finally submitted them in October. They came back after about 6 weeks and asked for some ammendments (that are included above) and finally got approval 19th December 2023.

Latest "from the mound" picture. (could have been taken back in August, but I forgot 🙂

aaaaaand relax. I even managed to get the EPDM on today a couple of mins before the heavens opened. The engineer is scheduled to come tomorrow to set the foundations out but may cry off due to the incoming rain. If so he says he will come on Sunday. Digger Tuesday if the warranty company get their shit together. Southbank1-210748-210804.mp4

I've had the same one for 45 years. Still think that I am a lucky chappy. 🤣

Roofs completed, gables built on one house and half way up the other. The roofers start on Monday after a delay in deliveries due to me changing the roof tiles. I had both the LABC and the warranty inspector out on Tuesday and they have passed the houses off with flying colours. 😀 The LABC inspector was there for about 7 minutes and the warranty inspector for about 2 hours. I now know all about the LABC guys divorce 😂 Onwards and downwards now. I can't wait to see the back of the scaffolding and regain access to the rear of the site for the landscaping before I say goodbye to the forklift. My next battle recommences with the DNO. It is now 19 months since i first applied for electric connection quotes and I feel that I am no nearer getting connected now than I was 19 months ago. Oh and I just had another council tax bill for a building that was demolished in July.

1 ready for UFH 1 to go. UFH going in on the first plot tomorrow and Sunday 🙄🙄 No church this week.

After some snow and heavy rain, I can see my design in action, physics doing what physics does. This is the 1st pond that has now overflowed with run off. This level has raised about 400mm. Although not finished. This has now overflowed into a gulley / pipe, that when it's finished will be concreted and form a better overflow outlet. The last pic is the new pond and the darker green shade in the water is the overflow water entering the pond. The new pond rose around 150mm so around 1500l.

89sqm. it will be less than that when we get the VAT return

Why can’t you fit the kore in place , shuffle it until you are happy then fix 4x2 strip at corners screwed down to keep it in place. if the blocks are put in place first you are at the mercy of the bricklayer’s accuracy.

Having lost family members during our build and having been made redundant myself and turned 60 last year, I know how you are all feeling. You'll get through it, and the build is a great way of re-focusing. Keep going

If you have any more floors like this to do, then there are other possible constructions that will be more user- friendly. On the bright side. The land was free and you've got PP. You are willing to learn. The concrete hadn't gone in. Sharing more on here will help, but make your blog less interesting.

First time DIY self building and my fault to be honest. Hubby knows how to build, but not really how to read plans, he's used to be told, do this, do that and then do the other. Plans are down to me and I've been so busy at work that I didn't stop long enough to even think. Not again, I've spent this time going over everything again to check, double check and then do it again. This wall was also supposed to be under-pinned, but when we took out the floor as per the plans the walls turned out to not be attached to the existing foundation and after one fell down it became clear that this bit of the build needed to be done from scratch. This also necessitated involving the LPA as the existing plans were for single skin and EWI not a cavity wall, which is why there wasn't enough bearing space. The other option given us by SE was to put in secondary foundation inside what we had poured, but then that had to be attached with horizontal rebar and vertical mesh as well as the existing mesh. So, knocking down the cavity wall up to damp proof was a much easier option. The shear links are attached with metal ties, bit like cable ties, but metal in the middle of each mesh, so that side is 100mm so shear links are also 100mm. There are also 'foam' expansion sheets around the wall at 20mm thick to allow for any movement of the slab / mesh. Barn conversions are definitely much more tricky than new builds.

I have been logging temperature data from a dozen probes across the system: hall temp, the outs and returns from the slab, the willis, etc. ever since we started using the CH system after we moved in in late 2017. I have started an exercise to mine this data in order to calibrate a simple heating model which gives a reasonable fit to actual house performance. Take an example, the current heating algo computes the predicted heating time, and when the external temperature is low, this is invariably more than 7 hours, so this first 7 hours is dumped in during the E7 off-peak window , with any remaining heat only added if the internal hall temperature fall below a preset (~22°C). This sometimes doesn't happen if the hall was slightly warmer than average at the midnight rollover. So I have a bunch of days where the external temp was ~5 °C and the house was only heated from 0-7 UTC. I can average these out to get a typical house response curve for this initial condition. Ditto when the external temp was ~10°C, say, though in this case I need to group by actual heat input. as the CH system is on for less than 7 hrs. Also in warmer periods, the unheated slab still typically hovers at about half a degree cooler than the hall; this is because the ground is at ~10 °C below the slab, so there are still heat losses to ground, this set of reading can give me an estimate of these. Anyway, I'll crank the numbers over this next week or so, and the next post here will be on what I've found. One quick spoiler: my actual overall heat losses are about 50% more than what the simple JSH approach predicts. So the as-built house is only low energy rather than true passive-class: we need ~20-25 kWh daily top-up in the peak winter months instead of 10 kWh or so, but this is still many factors less than a typical 2018 house of our size.

Update….beam and insulated block time. I didn’t know what time they were coming so I went alone and planned to wait there and unload them when they arrived and go and catch up on paid work. The weather wasn’t good so I opted to stay and move the beams around on my Tod. Not a bad day in the end but I was ready for a pint when I got home. Today was a bit slow. The insulated blocks fly in but the cuts take a while. Hopefully we will have one house completed tomorrow. A76C3DCA-8293-4180-BEC6-3F803568637B.MOV

Brickwork tomorrow / Weds depending on when everything arrives on site. Wellies are at the ready.

I do like a Demo video. This one was put together by my daughter. Last one I promise. Today we move on to excavations. 4a4c26f5-54e6-439f-8e26-4670eb6b9664.mp4

Nearly done and it’s raining. Just in time for 10 loads away on Monday. That’ll keep the dust down.

I just love a hash 4af3a3b61d25366b7b1efa7923eea289.mp4.2618557127cdcfbcb915c3701917b219 Bit extreme, I would have just redecorated.

with a little help from his friend. 😉 IMG_0405.mov

ICF arrived today 😁

10mm polycarbonate, I used 6M long polycrub use 7M Bends no problem the pain is connecting the joint strips

Thought I'd round this off with a bit of info on running costs. The last few days have been fairly Windy in the static, and the heating has been used a lot. I bought a plug in WiFi energy meter to have a look at the power usage. Below is the screen shot. It seems to use between 5 and 45 watts in standby. The unit was in standby when this screenshot was taken. And using 7.03W. I'm quite happy. We run the unit to set temp of 20 Deg and leave the internal doors open In the static to try to get the rest of the van warm. Appreciate anyone's thoughts on this.

I was unable to complete the garden office which will serve as site office and canteen during the build due to trying to avoid it getting demolished for free.

Whilst waiting for the legal processes to go through I embarked on clearing the rear of the site and reducing the ground levels and building a 43 m long retaining wall. I made use of the digger to get the base in for the garden office. I actually built the garden office in sections one cold winters week in the living room of the house.

I don't remember. a lot though! if I ever remember or find the information somewhere I will let you know.

Well done - I always enjoy reading your blog entries!!

Excellent reading. Well done. The reinforcement doesn't sounf excessive to me 10mm is just a heavy wire. Small poker packing in. Yes vibrating pokers are the business. But never underestimate the ability of a long 2x2. It won't shift so much air out of the mix, but it will get flow round and into corners, and combine successive bucket loads.

This is inside the ICF, so no shuttering to remove, I did use some timber battens to protect the ICF from a vibrating screed. These are obviously staying where they are.... off to water the edges of my slab 😁

A like is insufficient. Brilliant rock snd thanks gog thd info. Don't eorrh zbout the visible fibres they zcuff off under the tiniest ftiction eg foot traffic. Also the concrete finish looks fine. Try not to look at it and the appearance will improve. Some of the messier areas are surface laitence or froth marks from the coating. Does your varnish completely seal the surface or do you need to wet it again? The shrinkage cracks will be starting about now. Do not panic if there are any rogue ones. A minor thought.....the shower and bath drains could go to local soakaways as Grey water, if that helps in any way. Brilliant work though. Well done indeed.

Good info. To me this is better than the average site in the se where we've been building on tips for decades. Founds to 2.2m seems conservative, with firm ground at 1m. This has really got my interest xnd I keep thinking "what would I do". Much as I love innovation I think oois would stick with traditional here. The 50 years life often surprises people. When deciding what load needs to apply, there is a conscious input to make on this because of the increasing possibility of high wind and snow loads. The Romans overdesigned.

Thanks Folks, Lots to think about. I had an extensive ground investigation report commissioned with window sampling and dynamic probing. That's when I realized it was made ground. From the report: The sequence of strata encountered were consistent across the site and generally comprised; • Topsoil • Made Ground • Cohesive Deposits • Granular Deposits TOPSOIL: Topsoil was present to a maximum depth 0.20mBGL. MADE GROUND: Made Ground deposits were encountered and were present to depths of between 0.20m and 1.00mBGL. These deposits were described generally as brown slightly sandy slightly gravelly Clay and contained occasional fragments of redbrick. COHESIVE DEPOSITS: Cohesive deposits were encountered beneath the made ground and were described typically as brown mottled grey slightly sandy slightly gravelly CLAY with occasional subangular to subrounded cobbles. The strength of the cohesive deposits typically increased with depth and was firm to stiff or stiff below 2.20mBGL in the majority of the exploratory holes. GRANULAR DEPOSITS: Granular deposits were encountered below the cohesive deposits and were typically described as brown/grey sandy clayey fine to coarse subangular GRAVEL with occasional cobbles. Based on the SPT N values the deposits are typically medium dense and become dense with depth. The pull test was using 1.5m groundscrews - yep, just like a big wood screw, stainless steel. My original SE was asking for 2.2m deep strip foundations before I sought alternatives, groundscrews / mini-piles being a potential solution. That felt like too much risk, too close to boundaries and would need perfect weather. The groundworker was sure a raft would be fine without any fuss but he can't sign it off, that has to be the SE. Good idea to tease out options and thanks for the extensive explanation above. I'd have to read it a few times to fully get the gist but worth looking into. The flange appears to just screw onto the top of the groundscrew and isn't further welded. Lifespan of a house, not something I had though about before this exploration! Expiry dates like cartons of milk - I can see insurance firms getting in on the action and charging more for older houses someday! But 50 years will see me out!

I've got ideas to half the cost that this is going to be. Don't commit. Interested to hear other comments first. BTW do you have good access ?

That was a really interesting post thanks very much indeed for writing it. My only wish is that you had made this post about eight years earlier than today full stop because I would have had another strategy for my 'made ground ' build

That is a great result. Now you only have to imagine all that muck away, followed by tonnes of concrete. I bet that result made you smile.

Writing in case our experience is useful to others and appropriate for this thread. We have bought an uninhabitable house in Scotland as deemed by sellers surveyor. Empty for 7 months, owner was in hospital before passing and had built the house himself in 1961. Single skin brick with timber frame, water damage and floor covered in mould and bowing. jackdaws in roof and covered in ferns, 2 storage heaters and single glazing. The poor chap would have been freezing. We have an existing home in London which we have turned into a buy to let due to 3 purchases pulling out due to the hope house prices would come down. We plan to sell when the market is stable so we have some hope of a sale going to completion but presently happy with tenants. So we should pay the extra Stamp duty surcharge on house purchase but because it has been deemed uninhabitable by the surveyor and council we have been able to purchase without surcharge. We were advised to keep the surcharge amount available in case HMRC question the decision and take lots of photos and documents to back up our case. We will be demolishing the house and aim to building a passive house same shape and size and footprint as existing house, basement with ground floor and 2 bedrooms in roof. Our solicitor did not know about the uninhabitable exception and we only found out through own research and he later sort advice to confirm. I should also add planners are happy we are replacing house so this has not effected a proposed development.

Where @Jenki is, there are not many days when the wind is low enough for midges to bother you.

I can support the looking after yourself comment above. I’ve been doing 12 hour plus days on-site 6 days a week since March. I’ve also been training since December for the Cateran Yomp in two weeks (54 mile walk in 24 hours) I am knackered. However good effort in getting going. Well done.

Excellent start. Well done. That sentence stuck out for me. That idea - future proof - was one of our design key ideas. Little did I know at the time that I in a couple of years time, I was going to have two new hips: both done in 6 months. The dual-use bedroom / office built next to the accessible wetroom has made a huge difference. It has (Ithink) speeded up my recovery a good deal. For example, stepping over the bath rim (as would be required in our last house) would have been painful or impossible. And certainly riskier. I think of us as being fairly hard-core selfbuilders. Nowhere near as much so as you are though. For example Keep fit and take enough rest, eh? Almost impossible, I know, but I didn't, and suffered at least a year's delay.

Just had to get rid of some of the skew.

That is a beautiful looking home you built yourself. Well done 😀

QCAD was my weapon of choice for drawing the elevations. Insulation build ups came from ubakus (https://www.ubakus.de/u-wert-rechner/index.php?) which is free for most things, with a paid for option, but i just used the freebie.

I really like it. I love the Huf Haus look. My wife’s uncle built a Huf Haus 10 years ago and it looks as new and fresh now as it did when it was built. He is a very accomplished architect (retired) so could have designed his own house but didn’t.

During a kitchen / diner knock-through refurb, the customer asked me, "What do you think of the tiles Nick?". I said "If you like them, what the feck has it got to do with me?". It's your house, and your design, done the way you like it, and you're the one paying for it. Pointless asking what people 'think', I'd just say to ask 'the massive' here for constructive criticism; so you get feedback to hopefully illuminate any non-obvious faux-pas. Good choice with the Nudura, how far are you going with the upgrade to the rest of the original build fabric though?

Personally I think you’ve lost some of the character of the old house. I’m also not convinced with the flat roof parapet. It looks a bit unwieldy and out of place.

yes. the SEG80s. https://www.hallmarkblinds.co.uk/assets/trojan80-spec-sheets.pdf thank you. we like it to and it casts lovely shadow patterns as the sun moves round.

M6 roofing bolts, penny washers, M6 Nyloc nuts.

I'm a huge fan of A2A since getting a couple of mini splits in my outbuilding. I've been meaning to thank you for your blog post because I started looking into the possibility of using A2A to heat our garage extension right after reading your post back in August. The clincher was the ensuing heatwave which made the room-in-roof unbearably hot. A Solar PV array has since gone up there and now the magic combo - Sun shines, room gets hot stays cool, is a dream come true. If it averages out at around the 7W you were metering, then that's nearly 25% of the total energy use this month. Seems a little high. But then again if it does the magic work of keeping everything up at 20oC for les than 25p a day then it's very hard to complain. I'm seeing consumption of around 2.5kWh per day for keeping around 60m2 cosy but I leave it on 24/7 so similar to yours at around 0.1kW/h Your system seems to be in what my Daikin units call "auto" mode. This switches between heating and cooling to achieve the desired set-point. Mine additionally has discrete cooling and heating modes which means the units turn off once the set-point is reached. This allows a little bit of under/overshoot but saves a small amount of energy. It also widens the available range for the set-point.

Who makes that and can you grab live data in it into a file.