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No apologies needed. As self builders sometimes the pressure of managing everything just gets too much and when things go wrong it's usually our closest that bear the brunt. I recall a renovation where we had sunk everything we had into it and needed it finished desperately in order to sell it before we ran out of money just for day to day living. Our 10 year old had got used to coming to site with us most weekends as we scrabbled to get done. I gave her the job of painting a short length of cast iron downpipe with some black gloss. She did ok with that but didn't put the lid back on the tin. I picked up the dust sheet without noticing and poured black gloss all over the indian sandstone patio that had been freshly laid only a couple of weeks before. I do admit to ranting excessively, not directly at her but just how unfair life, god, the world and everything was. It was the straw that broke the camels back so to speak. Later that day, having dropped her back home and returned to site, her elder brother rang to say he couldn't find her in the house. A frantic search all over the village ensued to no avail. As we widened the search with the help of neighbours and decided to alert the police, a call came in from a nice lady in Cambridge who had found her wandering the streets. It seems she had packed a bag (including an OS map for reference!), boarded a train (unmanned village station) and traveled a few stops into Cambridge with the intention of going to her aunt's house. She had got upset and thought all the problems were her fault. Boy did that bring home the important things in life and certainly gave me a new perspective. We never let ourselves get into that situation again and despite many a frustration over the years you just have to press on through it - worse things happen at sea!

Well, it's been nearly 9 months since we moved in, and I didn't leave a list last time, so here are the parts of the last list that still needed work. As you will see there still remains a lot of stuff to do. You'll soon learn why they're still here 😞 more stone work - still on the list but much reduced rainwater soakaways - still on the list rainwater collection system - decided after deliberating a lot to leave this out for now as it's not a condition backfilling - partly done, still on the list concrete lego brick retaining wall - delivered, to be fitted Flooring - en-suite and "attic" room left to do Wood cladding - still on the list Fit internal doors - one last door to do Fit en suite - basin and bog outstanding Build MY garage - still on the list A green roof system, because its on the planning application, and may be required for certificate of completion (unless someone can enlighten me as to how to avoid this, and be able to delay the installation) - still on the list, but good news on the completion element for this below. Back in August 2025 we moved into a building site, and worked hard to get the remaining bedrooms completed before our first Christmas for which SWMBO had invited MY family. Not sure whether to label this action as bullying, blackmail, fraud, spousal abuse or whether another specific crime was committed. But, we got there, and a fantastic Christmas was had. Also during this time, we managed to secure a buyer for our old house. We had decided to stop calling it home to start the process of removing 29 years of emotional attachment to the place in which we brought up our two children, and in December we removed pretty much all the remaining furniture in readiness for Christmas and what we thought would be a completion on the sale in January/February of 2026. You may recall me asking questions about a retaining wall which was holding up the new buyers getting a mortgage. Now, this wall was not a part of the house but on our boundary about 2 feet or so away from the side wall of the house. It has a crack in it and the lender wanted it repaired. We had requested an SE to come give us a report, hopefully to tell the lender to stop being a d1ck, and we had arranged to meet them on the 6th January. We arrived the day before to find it difficult to open the front door because there was some plasterboard behind it which had come from the landing ceiling at the top of the stairs. This had been caused by a leaking water pipe in the loft. Subsequent water bills showed that 28m3 of water had come through the ceiling - we now had a major water leak insurance claim repair to deal with. And the upshot of the SE visit the following day was they said it did need fixing. B0110cks!! So, now instead of a completion in Jan/Feb, we were looking at a completion in 3-6 months. We then found out that the retaining wall was our liability, and not the people who owned the land behind it. This put a huge dent in our plans. Everything we had planned to do in the first half of 2026 (work on the house and a ski trip) went on hold as we got someone in to repair the wall (in March, once the rain had stopped) and to deal with the insurance company who thought it was a great idea to appoint two separate companies to complete the drying out/repair work - WHAT COULD GO WRONG? We sat down, and reworked our plans for work on the house. This has been limited to work that we could carry out with little spend because either it was something outside in the "garden" (read mud bath), we already had the materials on site, or the materials required were not hugely expensive. What have we been up to in between complaining to the insurance company about the lack of co-ordination and progress (WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?) We bought parts to start finishing off the rainwater drainage pipework, which also allowed us to do our first bit of hard landscaping, some steps down to one side of the house, and starting off the path as well. We still had a lot of stone cladding to complete, so once the weather improved, I set to completing most of this. There are still a few odd bits and pieces to do once the balcony and connecting bridge have been completed (one of the large ticket items that is on hold). The other main area of work has been the en-suite bathroom, where we spent a little bit of savings and created a service wall on two sides, got it plastered and painted, and also installed the walk-in shower. After a bit of back and forth, SWMBO agreed to a wall hung toilet pan (thank you to those who responded to my cry for help). So, the en-suite requires said bog, a basin and vanity, tiling behind the basin, flooring and a door to be completed. All materials on site or on order, and the plan is to get on with that over the next few weeks. So, where does all this leave us? Well, the bits of good news we've had:- - our BCO visited just before Christmas and gave us a list of things he'd like to see before he issued a completion certificate, and on that list found that the green roof was not required to be fitted, but just some documentation about what we proposed to put up there. I know what many will think, but we will probably still install one at some point, but it does mean we can delay installing it until after completion. - I mentioned we secured a buyer for the old house. Well, they have stuck around through all our tribulations and we will be completing on June 5th. Come mid June we should have the following major items to complete, and the funds to do them: Balcony including balustrade Connecting bridge to balcony Balustrade by internal stairwell Exterior porch floor rainwater soakaways - still on the list concrete lego brick retaining wall and backfilling Flooring - "attic" room left to do Wood cladding Finish the en suite - as outlined above Build MY garage - still on the list A green roof system Once all that is done we might also be ready to clear the site of the touring caravan we used for the first four years of weekends and holiday time we spent building the house and a lot of left over building materials. I'm glad to say there is very little of that as I resisted the "order 10% more than you need" rule, and am pleased to say it only bit me twice in extra delivery charges. This has meant we have incurred zero cost for skips/clearaway etc. and, no, we have not buried it all in a very big hole in the 3 acre field we bought. There's still a lot to do, but as we approach June 5th with lightened hearts, we have a much clearer view of some form of end game, with may hours to be spent creating a new garden around our NEW HOME!!

Well, I bit the bullet : 1 tonne moved a hundred meters or so . Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Age Appropriate Wheelbarrow (Branding deliberately removed by AI )

Mainly watertight now. Almost finished the front section and one gable

Don't do as I do - do as I say, comes to mind. Not much different from a multi millionaire pop star, movie stars, telling everyone to dip their hands in the pockets to give to charity.

Yes, we moved into our new house on Monday last week, pretty much 9 months to the day since we broke ground and 15 months after we purchased the plot. We know we’ve been very lucky with our build. The weather has generally been in our favour and we had no supply issues or delays. Above all, we’ve had some excellent people working for us without whom we could not have achieved the build. There are too many stars to mention here but if you look through the blog you will see them all get a shout out for their excellent work as it happened. Ahead of the move, Mrs P. did a superhuman job getting everything packed, and the move itself went relatively smoothly, with dry weather and no mishaps. Amazingly, Mrs P. also managed to unpack most of those boxes within a few days, though we do still have some residual boxes to deal with in due course. Moving in day: As we all know, moving house is always a stressful business and moving to a new house is no different. But it is a relief to finally get in - there is always the nagging fear that some disaster will strike at the last minute while the house remains unoccupied. But of course, all was fine. Is our build complete? Not quite. We have some minor electrical and joinery items outstanding, both inside and outside; we have the garden landscaping well under way but some distance from completion as you will see from the photos below. Beyond that, there is a list of jobs of the sort you’ll have following any house move: curtains, blinds, wardrobes, shelving, etc. - but these are ‘house move’ rather than ‘house build’ tasks imo. We do still have to obtain Building Control sign-off and there’s a VAT reclaim to do. On the BC front we had our ‘As Built’ air-tightness test performed by Richard Harris of Peninsular Energy Compliance this week (highly recommended). The result is 1.16m m3/m2 at 50hPa on the envelope basis. Virtually the same figure for Air Changes per Hour , as our envelope area is 583m2 and our volume is coincidentally 580m3. We are very happy with 1.2 ACH. Air-tightness test under way: We have been in the house for a week now and we are really happy with the way it feels and works for us. It’s warm, draft-free, well-lit, quiet, and comfortable; the layout and spaces are working just as we hoped. We are both sure we are going to really love living here. The plant room is (to me) surprisingly warm, running at 25-26 deg C due presumably to the amount of heat-generating equipment in there. I raised this as a separate Build Hub topic but the consensus seems to be that it's not an issue, so I shan't worry. As a side benefit, it does make a splendid clothes airing room. https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/46744-hot-plant-room/ Energy use The combination of solar panels, batteries, ASHP and insulation levels seems to be working well - in our first week we used 0.7kWh from the grid and exported 63kWh. Not bad for February. I need to work out our best tariff option but that’s a job for the future. Enough talk, time for some more photos (some taken just before we moved in)... Kitchen/dining/lounge: Hall: Bathrooms - master ensuite: Shower room: Guest ensuite: Bedrooms Master bedroom: Guest bedroom: Bed 3 / hobby room (Ok, so we still have some unpacking to do.) Landscaping - plenty to do yet. The layout is literally as clear as mud to me... I'm sure it will all be fine in the end(!) And finally... Troy likes the new house - it still has yogurt pots that need licking out Dashboard: Contractor days on site this past two weeks: 15 Contractor days on site since build start: 587 person days That 587 days is well over the 500 days which requires HSE being notified of the build using form F10 (which we did). HSE have not spoken to us or troubled us at all and the F10 notification is simple and costs nothing, so I would recommend any self-builder do so - if you are unfortunate and have an incident it’s surely means less chance of getting into hot water if you registered properly. Budget: I confess that in the final weeks we have gone a bit beyond our self-imposed budget contingency and dipped slightly into savings, but that is really down to choices we have made about the quality of the fit, e.g joinery, kitchen, bathroom equipment etc., and also the extent of the landscaping we have chosen to do. We could probably have remained well within contingency had we needed to but luckily we had some leeway. Plan: We did it! Conclusion: Overall, we set out to use the entire proceeds of our previous house sale to buy a plot and build a better house, and we believe we have achieved that. Thanks once again to all the dedicated and skilled people who have worked on our house and made the build a success. Especial thanks to Mrs P. who indulged my yearning to do a build provided brilliant design input and kept the whole show on the road throughout - a truly wonderful person! That then dear friends is the final blog! Thank you for following us and for your kind words of encouragement and support through our project.

DON'T PAY ANY MORE! Write to them explaining that the work is not satisfactory and you will be withholding all further payments. Attach the photos. Reserve the right to claim all expense to rectify.

Well I'm chuffed to bits with the performance of our new self-build house. With another 6 weeks to go before mid-year our 2026 electric bill has balanced out. By mid-year we should be in credit by about £150, so maybe £300 for the whole year. That is for DHW, heating and domestic load. 2 people in permanent residence, with guests, 200m^2, thermostat set at 21.5c throughout. We run a sauna but not an EV. Contributing factors in approximate order of importance: High levels of insulation in floor, walls, and roof (MBC high performance timber frame) Very good air tightness (0.8) Large solar array 3kw facing SE and 6kw facing SW with no overshading from trees / chimneys etc Octopus Flux tariff Tesla Powerwall 3 battery 5kW ASHP UFH Triple glazing Each item has value in itself, but they also complement each other e.g. the UFH reduces heating temps which increases the efficiency of the ASHP which reduces demand which . . . I just need to tell Octopus that they need to set up a Direct Debit to pay me : )

Vanity was an Italian import, but imo the hung pans look very exclusive. Plenty of shapes and sizes to choose from.

I know CVC are crazy busy atm. Just swap from 92mm round to ‘oval’ (rectangular) duct to pass the steel and then covert back to round. Done it plenty of times. Some examples of my MVHR installs… Hope these examples help. 👍

Can you move another 400mm away from your neighbour?! That would simplify things greatly.

Hiya. To provide a bit of context, much of my initial SE training and Masters research was on portal frames. I know enough to make a contribution on this type of design. Here is my offer. You can call me on the phone on (mobile number removed, PM for contact details) for a 15 -30 min chat. It's free for BH folks! This forms part of my pro bono work that is good for my soul, my primary qualification is in Civil Engineering, you work for the public. Text me first so I know it's you. I'm pretty deaf so sometimes miss calls. I use my own name and can be easily found on the internet.. I get some interesting calls and offers, these range from "massages" to lots of "financial" offers and other "stuff" that actually breaks up my day, hence me filtering calls. The section sizes you quote might be dependent on your eaves height, wind loading and the types of finishes. That the best I can do for now.

Yeah, that's not great. It should be fully insulated and the insulation should go all the way through the wall. Just resting like that isn't good either. I would personally probably have 2 clips - one just after the bend as it exits the wall and the second before it enters the down pipe. Also, wtf were they thinking with the black? Just looks crap. Not very good standard at all and enough to question the rest of the installation, frankly. Get them back to sort it out as it doesn't comply with the regs or with the manufacturer's instructions on condensate drainage for a start. They should know better.

Local Authorities have no idea what things should cost, so selling them a £300 wind turbine made for a boat, a fifty quid PV panel, a small battery system for say £500 and a person to put it all together, should probably be about £1000. Councils will probably pay 5 to 6 times that amount. Then, where there is a meeting to fit renewables to council buildings, someone in accounts, will drag out the £5000/kW number and say 'it is too expensive'.

Our last house had a fully insurance approved and maintained alarm. Out of interest, at one renewal time for insurance, I asked to quote with and without alarm and got the same cost. All these things were true if I declared the alarm. Kept the alarm, didn't declare it any more.

Just download ChatGPT and take all the effort out of it.

As above. As soon as outdoor temp exceeds desired indoor temp we shut all doors/windows and turn the MVHR down to its minimum setting. When the outdoor temp drops below indoor temp of an evening, we open all doors/windows and turn the MVHR up to max. Currently 33.7 degrees outside and 22.5 degrees inside. No active cooling but we do have external blinds which are game changers I reckon.

Just to report, our underfloor cooling is working nicely: 31 deg C outside, 23 deg C in the house - even with the lift and slide doors open. Beautiful day here in Dorset!

I have followed this exact advice. Job's a good 'un.

I've refrained from posting on here for fear of asking stupid questions, but I have concluded that on this occasion, I really could do with some guidance. As you know, we let our first brickie go as his work was substandard. We waited nearly 8 weeks for the new one to start and he started Monday. He is making good progress and aside from not listening to me or reading drawings where service lintels are supposed to go, it's ok. However, when he started, I was really surprised that he did not build up the corners of the house using a laser level, to ensure that the height of the first course would be correct. Instead, he started at one end and made his way down the 24m length. He is now at dpc level on the internal leaf and he is 22mm out from one end of the house (excluding garage) 17m to the other end. Alarm bells are ringing in my head again and I don't know whether I should raise the issue. It's driving me mad that I have to deal with such incompetent individuals. I also had to explain to him that he had missed out the lintel for a back inlet gulley. His response "you don't run a soil pipe into the back of a bottle gulley. You put the sink waste through the wall and into it." Clearly, he is wrong, but I am just the dumb IT Programmer who knows feck all. Just after some help here, as I really don't want to sack another builder and start again.

Anyone thinking this will happen in a few weeks appears likely to be disappointed. The latest NICEIC trade rag just came through and had this to say. It also doesn’t mention the problem of uni or bi directional switchgear. Anyone who has had an RCBO consumer unit fitted in the last decade is very very likely to have it full of uni directional devices. These are not permitted to be used where current potentially flows in both directions. Bi directional rcbos have only been readily available for a couple of years, if that. They are still not standard fit for most people. Usually only fitted to solar pv or EV charging. Europe has very different switchgear to us.

1200mm gives me this dream scenario, much like Dave.

Diplomacy isn't working. You can't repeat the action and expect a different result, so stop him from doing any more work and ask him if he's interested in the rest of the job (or not). His response will be what decides your new direction / next decision. Tell him straight, no quivery top lip, that you have slept on it and cannot accept the discrepancy. End of feckin chat. If he shrugs his shoulders and packs up and fecks off, good riddance. If he decides to offer up a solution to rectify, then tell him it has to be removed on his time and not yours as it should have been right first time. Stop tolerating useless assholes. I wouldn't get away with this, how can he????

There was a recent article in the IStructE magazine just about this and promoting the use of C16 timber. It's pretty well available in Scotland (in EU metric sizes, CLS Canadian lumber standards are slightly diferent in dimensions for example) and for years I've used it where I can. The U value regs in Scotalnd quite often drive the timber external wall stud thickness on a basic timber frame house, call that a major developer type house. You can use C16 at a deeper depth so you can fit a decent thickness of insulation between the studs. The deeper stud in C16 still delivers the strength and deflection limits you need. The problem can be that C16 significantly reduces timber connection performance one you get into transfer beams and anything (say goal posts around openings) that needs to resist sideways wind loading. There is a practical side to this. What you don't want to happen is that the builder mixes up the timber grades on site. When I'm designing I try and make sure that the deep timbers are C24 if I have to use that grade, the shallower ones C16. You never mix grades of timber of the same size. The same applies to steel buildings in terms of bolt grades., you make sure it's not possible to fit the wrong grade of bolt into same sized holes. You can't make it totally idiot proof as a designer but you can try your best.

But it is not. It is a very big water tank, and if the ground moves a tiny bit, the slab and or walls could break and it gets very messy and expensive. And you will be indoors now, not outside., so damage and repairs are x3. There are a lot of failures of swimming pools and contractors have gone bust and Engineers had very expensive claims. And some of these are for proper designs: the ground we live on is very mobile. If the results of the boreholes are encouraging then you will save cost on the amount of concrete and of reinforcememnt. If they show poor ground then it really is essential to know that and design to suit. Is it still 27m long as previous posts? that is big and not to be dabbled with. How much do you want it?

They are, though I don't think this is really an argument that can be used against wind turbines or similar. The amount of concrete used in them (even if massively expanded) pales into insignificance compared to other big projects. Concrete + steel are pertty good in the end. Steel can be endlessly recycled pretty much. Using ground concrete as filler for other things is relatively good compared to many of the other things we do in terms of materials recycling. I believe ground concrete can be used in place of virgin sand/aggregate when making new concrete at least in a decent percentage of use cases. Concrete over its life absorbs a lot of the CO2 put out during manufacture and if we can switch from gas firing to renewable heat we lower the carbon footprint a decent chunk. A lot of more renewable building methods have overinflated/misreported environmental credentials once the full lifecycle is considered and once those things are considered concrete really doesn't seem that bad, especially given it's about the cheapest construction method. At a societal level spending more for a more environmental construction method may mean less money for more beneficial environmental spending.

Thanks for all the advice. In defiance of @dpmiller I bought the Bosch pair for £110 which I think is a pretty good price. I might get some bigger batteries but I quite like the light weight 2ah ones given that I am no spring chicken these days.

You are going to gasp in horror, but this is my absolute favourite tool storage box (now bear in mind they're being used almost on a daily basis). It's something that does just work. https://hultafors.com/en-gb/products/tool-bucket It's been so popular, they now sell a tool organiser to go in the bucket. I have 6 of these buckets 😲 I've even had customer say what a good idea as their other trades are coming in and out with loads of boxes. For example, one of mine just has the drill/driver/screwdrivers with bit sets and a drill roll, the other with have the sds & multi-tool etc. While I'm working away I'll have an empty one where I throw bits of rubbish as I go, including pipe off cuts, old screws etc. and then it's brilliant for the odd emergency when I'm removing old pipework where I can grab the bucket to collect the always expected run out of water from said pipework.

I would agree with this and the need to evolve ever more effective prompts. Naturally AI supported prompt engineering is a thing as well although, so far, the Human in the loop remains - once they start prompting themselves who knows. However, I am not sure of the exponential growth in the model's capabilities themselves. Three other things seem to be emerging in the region of AI that also merit our attention: Firstly, it seems to me that the eco system is perhaps where the real explosion is. The number of other technologies, techniques and spinout applications is growing very fast EG in the areas like increasing use and application of vector DBs and all its variants (Hybrid Indexing etc), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and all its variants (Embedding free RAG, Chain of thought RAG), agent frameworks ( Swarm etc), structured knowledge stores, synthetic data engines and model side retrieval. Of those variants today not all will survive contact with reality and many more will emerge. Interestingly some of the early front runners in this sphere are reaching the end of their useful lifer already - Langchain is, for instance, being shunned because it is seen unstable and poorly documented as developers move over the likes of PydanticAI, Pocketflow & LlamaIndex. This tells you a second order story around the rush to get eco systems tools out quickly but skipping essential QA steps which leads to a broadly experimental feel rather than a sound production basis. Some argue that this because the LLMs, in the hands of developers, can create tools at an alarming rate but few are built well enough to live long! Secondly, although we still live in a gas guzzling age where the size and power of the global scale models makes huge demands on memory & energy the size of really powerful, sometimes task specialised, models is falling fast as mathematicians and engineers work out ways of squeezing them into ever smaller memory spaces. This will, admittedly somewhat hyperbolically, eventually bring the full power of the models onto our watches. Thirdly, as the HAL - "I can't do that Dave", example above illustrates some would argue that the control of this technology is getting further and further behind the bleeding edge. Perhaps we might conclude that while there are burgeoning combinatorial opportunities in the first two, eco system and small models, the third is somewhat being neglected, pushed into the too difficult box by politicians or being briefed against by the tech companies. It always was and always will be ..... until AGI!

I just expanded for a bit of fun. The building industry is not full of nice folk. I'm representing a Building Contractor and Client in Scotland at the moment that has been pretty much been ripped off by a small bunch of very well known designers and one " SE? Engineer". This bunch have been on my radar for a while with designs that I've checked and found them wanting as they are incompetent and downright dangerous. The Engineer is puporting to run a limited consultancy company..but there is no record on companies house? The "Architect" is moonlighting it appears.. I'l find out in due course if he and any of the others involved are insured or not. So yes my suspicion is at the moment that my poor Client is a victim of a bunch of chancers puporting to be Engineers and Designers. The Engineer in question is well known in Scotland, big player..in the business papers and so on.. hiding in plain sight, seems he may be a chancer and a fraudulant actor! I'll catch the fu.ker and have his house off him if I can to get some of my young Clients money back. This could be one of your kids, excuse my lack of mercy.

Hmm, no. The logic defies me here. There is no possible means of producing a proper objective measure in comparison. Instead I'd hope that Rasmus et al would be making more sensible decisions around the necessity and means of travel and thus reducing it as far as possible, not trying to justify it on the basis of 'I do more for the environment so it's okay for me' which just gets us into more trouble and bickering. To affect change in behaviour there needs to be systemic change, because the system absolutely rewards air travel financially as a start right now - just think of the cost of a short flight from the SE to Scotland for example versus the equivalent cost of taking the train. The economics right right are shear insanity. But there are also other systemic factors that blind people to the environmental cost of activities and decision - so this becomes a societal aspect, but then there is of course the individual responsibility about taking a stand and making a statement, which in itself may affect the societal and systemic. But who is actually making this kind of stand in such a way as to shift the curve? Our politicians aren't, nor are other leaders, nor are celebrities really doing this to a great extent... but there are lots of more quiet people just getting on and doing it - maybe they're the ones that will eventually provide the gravity necessary to shift things from the bottom up? Who knows, but the winds are blowing in a direction that rather depresses me right now - it feels like taking a positive environmental stand is the higher risk path, both personally and professionally versus embracing and continuing with the status quo.

Respectfully….. I think we need to focus on when the Buildhub massive can attend for house-warming drinks. I’ll man the BBQ, so one less thing for you to worry about I’m all about giving.

The work is so bad that I would not offer them the chance to return and make good. Your new firm will need to strip the whole thing and start again. Make sure you see some completed jobs and have a chat to customers.

Good point Actually, that's probably working as expected as 20° is the 'normal' supply air temperature in 'fixed mode', and the Q series has an adaptive bypass (it can be partly open, not just on or off) However there are a couple of ways you can change that in the advanced settings - see this user manual extract :

By the looks of that, you really do need to find yourself someone else to do the work. You don't add DHW cylinder demand to a system with a heat pump as it's priority hot water - the heat pump switches from doing heating to doing hot water, so even if your house needed 8kW for heating, which I seriously doubt, this would be fine for your hot water. How big are your kitchen/dining, living & upstairs bed? They must be massive. You can go and use my tool at https://openheatloss.com to create your own heat loss and system design. This is supported by a number of videos at https://youtube.com/@OpenHeatLoss taking you through how to use the tool and what to input - the video library is developing day-to-day

Probably lots more to come, scuttlebut on the street is that complex system coding with LLMs is not as effective a professional team almost no matter how much compute you apply the directional control takes vast amounts of work, the smells are far greater, the code is much more complex - longer and much harder to maintain and it looks like you are finding similar challenges.

Slate and tiled roofs let water in but then it stops at the underlapping slate and gradually goes down to the gutter. If there is an underfloor, then that can catch any rogue drips that escape. That looks a decent job, but at your vent i suspect that water can blow up over the top or side of the zinc and has nothing under it. Or some tiny gap where the slates are cut. It would be necessary to take the ridge off to see how far the metal goes.. I think it should go all the way to the apex OR have another overlapping piece to intercept it. And wider too, hidden under the top slate. Wind is the likely culprit. Gusts generally last just a few seconds, firing water upwards, but then releasing it. Hence a longer flashing might suffice. Mastic exists for flues but that should not be very hot there. It is not very flexible so won't last long. Try a local stove shop. There are special and foolproof rubber flashings for flues througb metal roofs but they are ugly and not appropriate to your lovely roof.

You beat me to it. I'm closer to 15W/m2 output at -9. Sounds like cosy feet and melted body to me at 40W/m2. The 75mm spacing make my 300mm strange, I still only flow 28 degs max.

By the time you have used a dozen EPC assessors, to find the one that gives you the result you want, it would be cheaper to just put the house right. I really don't think it is sensible to suggest that the assessor is asked to cheat. I have had too many experiences recently dealing with cheating and lying customers. No one benefits.

I will do that tomorrow morning first thing. And try and be diplomatic so he knows that I want it to that level. It's not bloody rocket science is it. The JCB driver who dug the oversite was within +/-10mm

LABC warranty manual suggests no more than 15mm for walls over 5m long. See this: https://www.labcwarranty.co.uk/hubfs/Technical Manual v10 Files and Images/Manual Sections/Section 1 Tolerances.pdf#:~:text=A 10mm deviation is suggested,over 5m long. It's frustrating about leaving lintels out etc. Our groundworker had a tendency to say "that's close enough". I always countered with "what the frame erectors want they must have, so stick to their requirements please otherwise I'll get the blame". For instance we had set places for rainwater drains so the associated downpipes could be located over studs in the frame for fixing. I had to have the first gulley moved because it had to be 1645mm from the corner and he put it at 1800mm odd. "They'll just move the downpipe" was the reply, but why not just put it where the drawing said in the first place!!! I found blaming others for "being awkward" came in useful and maintained a working relationship until we got there......

Lovely house and design. Interesting Insta account. Your question may well be better directed to legal experts.

Having just about finished a build in North Herts i can say that my ignorance of the building industry and not being on site all day every day has caused me grief. Trusting that a tradesman will do exactly what has been agreed has been my biggest source of grief. No excuses, my fault but annoying all the same. I can state that not one tradesman has done exactly what they were expected to. Apart from the tiling of the Kitchen floor. Little things mostly. Being on site is crucial. I rejected the Potton recommended Project manager option when i realised that the £40k fee actually only got me a one day a week site presence. For a little more than a 54 week build thats nearly £1k/day. I can recommend a good brickie and a good roofer though.

I usually cut a strip of self adhesive neoprene (20mm thick) along the lower rear of the unit, so when it top hangs and the bottom falls back against the wall it is on to something soft. A slice of pipe insulation will suffice, but if you're happy then no need to do anything further. Thanks for updating the thread

Have you considered swapping the toilet and sink positions? Shorter soil run, keeps toilet tucked away, better access to stuff on shelves when at the sink. Maybe run 32mm basin waste into the 50mm shower waste for one less connection at the stack. Personally I'd lean towards a rectangular shower following the room shape.

Prob best to add that eBay have upped their game these days; stuff I’ve sold recently has had to have been received by the buyer before they released the funds (~48-72hrs later!!), giving the buyer time to check that what they received matches the sellers description etc etc. If you buy tools then get them tested in this grace period, or don’t moan that you didn’t

The boreholes should not be too costly. If they are good designers they may use the information from the geotechnical report for a more cost effective solution for the pool.

I'm all for renewables and a full supporter that we need and must go in that direction. I remember having coffee with a friend about 20 years ago while I was doing a post grad certificate in renewable engineering and technology, telling him that renewables are a no brainer - he thought I was a bit mad. However, like my earlier post, we've got to be very careful about how we measure and assess the environmental impacts of what we're doing. I, personally, have long been a critic of the singular approach using Carbon and rather prefer a measure that takes a much wider approach to consider overall environmental impact. Concrete unfortunately is one of those materials that is made up of non-renewable resources and the extraction of the sands and aggregates are causing widespread environmental damage right across the world - and we know the availability of the raw materials is in decline. What we need to be doing is finding alternative materials that are not single use, but also renewable in their own right, which we know concrete isn't at least not at the same level of 'value' - e.g. it can only be re-used for lower value purposes when recycled. This is a big problem, mostly overlooked. The argument about what is eco friendly is as all these things more complex and nuanced than oft portrayed. I wonder whether this is what @Gus Potter is referring to?

Congrats. Also, good to think there’s light at the end of the tunnel. 😀

I would add that I would look at wider gutter, I used 125mm rectangle profile. water comes offf these metal roofs far quicker than a tiled roof.