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(There’s way too much verbage here - sorry - but it reflects the deep spring clean my head needed. Will try to make time for a demolition summary in another post which would be far more useful for others). Each Monday morning, since we started demolition on the 17th of March, at stupid o’clock, I shuffle round the kitchen getting breakfast ready trying to assess how my body is doing, physically. Well, sort of. What actually happens is I slowly get my knees and my back working while bemoaning my stupidity and sheer arrogance in thinking I can do this, convinced that my I am starting the week more tired than the previous Monday. In some ways, almost certainly mentally rather than physically, having a break really takes it out of me. That Monday restart is just simply tough. I could tell myself that this should be the last week of demolition. That this is the last push of the hardest bit of the build. But inside I know that it’s getting towards the end of one phase of a long line of phases each of which I’ll be convinced at the time is the hardest one. But two hours later, at 07:35, I’m on site boiling a kettle waiting for Steve to arrive and my head is in gear and my fatigue is mostly forgotten. My 20 minute meditation, aka the drive to the site, has done its job. I do know I can do this. Anyway, I s’pose I should write a few words about da bungalow. Today, the kitchen gets it! All that’s left now is most of the kitchen walls, composition uncertain, and the dunny. The end of the kitchen nearest the road is, we thought, mostly masonry. The other end is now naked studwork. We left the studwork last week as we suspected it was needed to help the 6m long part timber frame kitchen wall stay up, which is surprising given that this studwork waggles like mad when nudged. So the first task was to take some of the weight off of the 6m wall. We didn’t dare hack the plaster off as we had elsewhere, leaving clean-ish metal mesh to peel off for recycling. Instead we peeled both plaster and mesh together, piling in a heap for me to process later. That worked to start with, but as we made our way along the wall it became clear that there was progressively less strength left in the studs. In the end the wall plate that ran through to the single skin masonry section gave just enough strength to allow us to dismantle the wall in a controlled manner. At one point we did stop and consider just pushing down the middle section, but that could have destabilised adjacent sections and also given the likely state of the soleplate it could have kicked out at the bottom. With next door’s wall only 1,030mm away that felt too close, even with heras fencing between. So we carried on slowly peeling and it became evident that in that middle section, all that remained intact was the two layers of render, topped by a wall plate. Truly scary. Another thing not to share with the neighbours. That done we could then take down the studwork. It was by then wobbly enough to push over safely onto the floor, and a couple of well placed cuts meant it would fall the right way, so push we did. Timber frames falling like that just don’t give that satisfying thump that masonry does, but it does still leave a lot of clearing up of timbers bristling with nail heads. The nail points are, at Steve’s insistence, all hammered over safe. In fact it’s been drummed into me so hard over the last 5 weeks that I now referring to it as ‘Steve-ing the nails’. The wood mountain grows and we learn that the wood man is maxed out and won’t be returning. Would have helped had he told me that last week but that’s life. Back to faceache it is (other social networks are available, but few are as annoying). As we work our way along the kitchen wall towards the road we find a mixture of stuff. Odd bits of plasterboard. Glass fibre insulation as well as the nasty snowy type stuff we’ve had in many other places. Pieces of wood and brick and block and tile just shoved in to repair holes in the render. Satisfied that the remaining masonry end walls (a ‘C’ shape) are safe and stable, we stop for the night. Next day we have rain first thing - the first on the project so far. So we bravely don our hats and coats and bugger off to Cafe Nero to drink coffee and plan. That turns out to be fabulously timely. I have picked up bits and pieces over the years and I’ve recently read tons about building stuff but putting it together in the right order takes Steve’s experience and caffeine. We’ve now got our slightly unusual foundation design, and that enables us to talk over who should do what, when and how. Annoyingly, Steve, with his wealth of experience and such a brilliant, caring and dutiful attitude, would be the perfect ground worker to safely and cost effectively pull our foundations. But he’s semi retired and he hasn’t got the right PI cover and all that. Our party wall agreements (which I was pleased to get as at one point it felt like it might cost us lots and lots of time, money and angst) and our warranty provider (thank you Protek) require fully insured, experienced professional contractors to be used for the foundations. So it isn’t a good idea for me and Steve to do them, even though we’d probably do it more carefully and with less noise and disruption than a ground crew. Sigh. It feels like the litigious nature of our world is killing common sense. In theory the party wall awards required specialist demolition contractors to be used. We did get two quotes, each of which were going to send in a nice big machine with bloody great jaws to eat da bungalow and cause mayhem, and in my view, likely do damage to our neighbours. But we managed to get site insurance (thank you for real this time, Protek) which specifically covered demolition. But if we weren’t bloody minded enough to test and challenge then we could easily have gone with it and ‘done it properly’. Bigger sigh. OK, rant over (for now). The rain stopped and it’s back to site, having lost a couple of hours. We keep telling ourselves that we are not in a rush and it’s not sensible to set targets so of course Steve and I rush to recover the time and hit target for the day - the rest of the kitchen. We first hit single skin red brick, then round the corner, a red brick outer skin and under the internal stud skin, some very old painted plaster from the original outhouse. From the broken earthenware pipes I’ve found digging near there I now believe that this bit was originally the privy. Nearest to the road, so as far from the living rooms as possible, with sections of lead water pipe built in, it conjures up an image of such a different way of life. We find a ‘T’ joint in the lead pipe, simply sweated together - a wonderful illustration of what 100 years have done in plumbing technology terms. By home time we have a short lower section of red brick wall and a twin skinned block section of wall left, both stable but still irritatingly short of the target we didn’t set ourselves. Next day even though we want to finish the kitchen first it’s better to get the dunny down whilst there are two of us. It’s the last chance for a collapse to damage next door so I need Steve on site to blame in case anything happens. The potty is carefully pulled out (will be reinstalled in the house as temporary welfare suite - i.e. a pan, a bucket and for special occasions, a loo roll). The metal lathe and plaster remains only on the inside so is dispatched fairly quickly. Some hammering from a very mobile (but safe) bandstand removes the mostly masonry wall with the window and another sellable catnic is discovered. We now have a trio of them to clean up and sell on faceache. Thence the last studwork to drop. Just like one end of the kitchen, a couple of thought through cuts and a push and it’s down. Just like that. We tidy up, and quickly knock down the last little bit of kitchen wall thats next to a neighbour, and we stand back and contemplate for a mo what isn’t there any more. Steve won’t be back for nearly two weeks, and I think he’s a bit disappointed that he leaves one little corner still standing but he points out that even I can’t cock up taking that down. Personally I think he underestimated my talent in that. So Maundy Thursday sees me bashing plaster off of metal mesh, to get it ready for recycling, and generally clearing up and loading up for a tip run. And something very odd happens. I’m working at the front of the site, nodding at passers by, smiling with my eyes at them (isn’t it weird how a smile gets through a dust mask), when a chap from over the road I’ve not met before comes over. Richard introduces himself and I brace for what I know is coming, as in fairness the dust and noise can’t have been nice for the street. And he hits me with it, and I am taken aback but I try not to show it. He tells me how well we have done and how little disruption, mess and bother there has been. He’s impressed. Wow. Chuffed. We have quite a chat (after all, he will be one of our neighbours and it beats hammering mesh with a spade) and he leaves me rather buoyed up to say the least. Then a chap from three doors down comes and has a chat, just for the neighbourliness of it, and it reinforces how nice a community our new pad will be in. And then (how do I ever get anything done?) Monica stops to say hello and tells me that our demolition ‘is a work of art’. She walks past regularly (I have said hi to her a good few times) and she’s been watching and she is hugely complimentary. If the god of fat, little bald fellas had carefully planned a reward at the end of the demo phase she couldn’t have done better. Tip run done, I then felt I could reward myself by taking down that last corner. Rather than do it top down I stripped out the inner skin (more bloody snowy insulation) and one side to leave a bit of wall to go down with a satisfying thump. Next door have a couple of young lads, the oldest being 9. It struck me that at that age I would have loved pushing a wall down - so a quick convo with his mum, a hastily fitted hard hat and oversize gloves and with mum filming we rock the wall till I can let him give the last push - his grin was a fitting final smile for da bungalow to provide. Bye bye bungalow.

I DIY installed my Vaillant Arotherm via an umbrella scheme and it was cost neutral once I received the £7.5k BUS grant. Headline figures were £4k for 7kW heat pump (250 m2 property) , £1k for 250l Vaillant cylinder and £1.6k for umbrella side of things. I did all of the plumbing and electrics and it took me 3 or 4 days off and on, it was fairly simple as already had the underfloor side of things installed, I did take the opportunity to remove the mixer and pump from manifold, also removed all of the actuators. System has been running great with COP in high 4's I used : https://www.air2heat.co.uk/mcs-umbrella-scheme Paul was great, he does a site visit, does the heat loss calcs, all of the BUS application etc. He is also flexible as to what manufacturer you go with and as far as I am aware supports Vaillant, Panasonic, Daiken, Mitsubishi & Samsung. I had already set my heart on the Vaillant but I remember Paul being a huge advocate of the Panasonics. I also understand he supports most of the country but may be wrong. A really nice chap so well worth a call.

Hello Saul Sorry to hear you are having a hard time. Here are a few comments. They are just general but may help you, even if just to rule out. Often ruling things out let's you focus. I do a bit of Claims work now and again, not a lot as I would rather be having fun designing stuff. I'm off the day job so excuse the spelling, grammer and hope you get the jist of my comments! When you get sight of a professional report you must read the caveats and scope of the brief. But as a lay person you will still struggle to understand what these actually mean. This type of report is carefully crafted. You have a lot riding on this and so do the insurers etc. Ok I see you have gone a bit legal.. part of the torture these folk put you through. I was interested when you discussed about the diffferent views on the mortar compressive strength. There was professional who: Now that is almost / true in some context.. An example. Say you have a building that is made out of quality Bath Limestone. The beds are just there to keep the weather out and allow the stone to move so we don't get movement cracks...and shed some of the local stress in the stone. Anyway.. You are in dispute, your text and posts exhibit an often observed pattern from my end. You may be feeling that you are getting stuck as you are focusing on the mortar. Now there are lawyers and so on thta add to the confusion. I often feel this is a standard appoarch by say Contractors / Insurers. From their end it's about numbers, size and frequency of claims. Let me paint you a picture: Let's say you find an SE that is a crusty bugger and who does everything based on evidence, knows how the game is played. Let's also say that this SE knows how to inform your Lawyer, who may be young and wants to learn / win and pocket a bit of cash. For me as an SE part of my claims work is to provide the tools to allow the laywer to fight the case. I always go back to basic design principles and most laywers can make hay with that. You write to your opponent and ask to see the original design calculations for the house and if there are any "as built drawings" Now 99% of the time these will not be provided. No calcs / drawings you now have opened the door! Saul you are focusing on mortar strength, say durability, a professional report is introduced about 1:10.5 mortar mix. Your opposition is tying you in knots, taking up your time, causing you stress, potentially blighting the value of your house. This is standard fair and practice when you go up against developers and say the NHBC.. especially when there may be more than one house at risk. What can you do: Ok you are feeling that you are fighting a big wall. BUT it's an old expression.. just change the conversation!.. it's an old addage from I think 1960's marketing.. but still true to this day! Go around the wall! I do claims work now and again.. I don't take on a Claim unless I think I have a decent chance of winning. The NHBC et all have huge resources.. the trick is to find a way round their firewall. I focus on structural safety / fire safety and how all the other ements of the building rely or not on the wall and mortare for example. You can quickly turn the tables on them and rack up their costs! Importantly you can highlight structural safety issues which puts the shiters up them. They have to address this quick as you might report them to the HSE. You are concerend about say the mortar falling out over time.. I'm concerned as an SE about the current structural safety! To fix this the NHBC often need to fix the structural safety aspect which fixes the thing we started argueing about in the first place which is the mortar strength..there are different ways to skin a cat! Well as a home owner you can write, I'm just touching on a few examples here.. but in my day job I go to town! I'll go into any beam bearings on soft mortar, durability.. the whole lot. Once I get going with my SE design safety hat on it can be free for all. In my experience most insurers just throw in the towel.. but you must educate your Lawyer and a good SE for example will do that. Some question you may ask as a lay person: 1/ I know the roof sits on the walls and puts vertical load on the walls does this report (1:10 etc) take the behavoir i=of the buildingninto account. I would love to see copy of said report for interest. 2/ I know the wind blows on the roof and to stop it moving sideways or upwards it needs to be tied to the walls. I know that the regs require the masonry to be of a certain standard so the vertical and as equally important the sideways wind loads are transferred to the walls all the way down to the foundations. 3/ The floors tie into the walls and for these to work the walls need to comply with the assumptions in the floor design. 4/ The wall ties as recommended rely on a certain strength of mortar bed.. if my mortar is not strong enough then that invalidates the wall tie design. 5/ Fire protection. Now I can see the mortar is falling out on the outside. If it is happening on the inside then the fire pretection in the cavity may be compromised? How do you know it's not? 6/ Bridging of DPC's and wall ties in the cavity.. is the mortar falling out causing bridging? 7/ I have windows and doors.. my supplier needs to verify that the walls they are fixing into to comply with the standards. I've just touched in laymans terms on some questions you may want to ask. Gus (that's me) What I do from time to time is to phone up the technical department of say the wall tie manufacturer and say I'm in a bit of a bind what do you think unoffically ? Is this defensable or do you think I'm right? Remember folks that from time to time I may defend a builder? To close: To win this I think you need to change the conversation.. focus on structural safety and how the weak mortar has invalidated the rest of the design. Try and rack up the cost and time to defend for your opponent. At some point they will come to the table and want to negotiate. That is a story for another day.

Screed laid this morning, all good, no leaks no issues, no pressure increase. Remarkably smooth & uneventful. Big sigh of relief.

Whilst I have a heat pump and think they are good, in the right circumstances, I find it hard to believe for most people, that swapping a gas boiler for a heat pump will reduce bills by much, if anything. I have always believed a heat pump with a SCOP of 3 will deliver similar running costs to a mains gas boiler. You would have to achieve a much better SCOP to achieve a saving and I just don't believe the average retrofit ASHP can achieve that.

Finally got around to starting on the man-cave after almost a year living here. I really wanted to knock down and replace with a portal frame building but the planners are worried it would get converted into a bungalow even after I offered to have a covenant restricting its use to ancillary use. So it’s going to be a messy refurb/restoration. including a lot of stone wall rebuilding, some interesting steelwork to open up the interior, off-grid 3-phase power (local infrastructure would need an upgrade to be grid 3-phase even though it’s an old farm) with large batteries and a lot of PV, portal extension and timber cladding.

The BBC should be banned full stop There miles away from the BBC of thirty years ago Far from impartial

Yes, we have used that acoustic pipe wrap for ensuite soil pipe running across a ceiling. The Mass Loaded Vinyl does seem effective. We found we had an issue with rain noise beating down on a singly ply warm roof like a drum, so we are sticking a layer of adhesive MLV internally to the underside of the deck between the joists. We tried it out in one room and it was very effective in reducing the rain noise. Agree with all comments above. Obtaining the right materials at the right time is a hell of a challenge. Builders & trades are often completely uninterested and unwilling to obtain anything which isn't immediately available off the shelf at any builders merchant. If you want anything other than the most basic spec items it is highly unlikely to be stocked by any standard merchant as they all seem to focus down their stock ranges very severely. The internet amazon style delivery model has taken over for anything beyond basic items. Often there will be a weeks lead time. And our builders were constantly over optimistic about when they would need items and we have stuff stored all over the house for months. I have had to help unload and carry stuff delivered on an artic lorry that couldn't get down residential streets. Unfortunately I consider the building materials market as pretty dysfunctional. Most materials are purchased by trades people and not the building end customer. This means many manufacturers focus on the needs and interests of trades which are distinctly different to those of end users. Trades want - off the shelf, low discounted price to them with high list price they can charge their customer, to use the same stuff on every job, stuff which is very quick and easy to cut, handle and install. One product variation, not 15 different colours, and 10 options. They don't care about 'nice to have's' or 'bells and whistles' or 'detailed spec requirements' etc. They are not going to live in what they build. They don't want 12 different trade accounts. This makes the building industry very resistant to change, and makes it very difficult for manufacturers to get products which benefit the end customer, but not the tradesman, into the market. I have used habito plasterboard...higher spec, higher price, heavier, and you have to work to source it and no tradesperson knows or cares that it exists. https://youtu.be/VltFR-kXtcw?feature=shared

As someone who has built my own house from start to finish, AND work for an ICF contractor I can safely say that there are very few self builders who become repeat business. I'll never build another house for myself, I've got one! Overheads do obviously contribute to the cost of service, whether that be advertising, equipment, office staff (🤫) or profit(🤫🤫) but a significant factor is also the uniqueness of every job. Architect's first time, owner's blue sky thinking and the idyll is generally not just off a trunk road with ample parking. Cost is therefore reduced by simplification and duplication and adoption of ICF for these sort of projects is critical for bringing product costs down for individual consumers. As a contractor, approaching developers comes with it's own set of overheads; h&s being a massive one and the corner most likely cut by a self builder. Not to be dangerous but there is no commercial risk attached to not having a risk assessment or all the other paperwork. And that costs. Therefore a reputable ICF contractor aspiring to deliver commercial multi unit projects is always going to be more expensive than someone with little experience or not concerned about working for the larger clients. The irony is that plenty of developers see ICF as a self build product and not a serious mass build option. Compounded by a potential labour force made up for first or part time ICF contractors. Until large scale opportunities exist nationally, offering repeat business, this isn't going to change. Chicken or the egg? There's a massive difference between too expensive and unaffordable and if a contractor quote comes back as high, it's important to acknowledge why; too expensive or just unaffordable, all risks covered? There is a reason why nearly 30% of the new housing stock in Ireland is ICF. It is because once economies of scale are reached, cost ceases to be the prominent factor. And anyone quoting embodied carbon stats as a reason not to use ICF needs to give their head a wobble. Rant over

Delivery on large items can make or break a deal. When ordering a treatment plant, most said I would be responsible for unloading, so would need a telehandler or forklift. But ordering it through a bilders merchant not only got a cheaper price, but delivery on their own wagon and offloaded by it's hiab.

@flanagaj, for me the procurement process was the most difficult and fatiguing part of my build. Every week across my build I was having to buy something, or researching buying something. It was very draining. Inevitably you sometimes get the wrong stuff delivered and have to sort out the returns process. Three toilets were wrong (wall mount vs standing), ordered 10mm Fermacell, they delivered 12.5mm. Very carefully specced order for all SVP materials and they delivered 1 wrong item. For the insulated raft foundations, the fitter told me on the day, he needed the DPC, so off to the BMs to get it as quickly as possible, all ideas of any cost savings out of the window. Many times trades will need something, where time is the most critical factor. There are £000’s to be saved with good procurement practices, like at least 3 quotes, asking for discounts, large volume orders, etc. But these things are easy to say, but hard to do week in and out during the build. I could not get a bathroom tiler for love or money, had to beg one guy just to do the plant room. Another big issue is what you choose to spec materials wise. If you go off the well trod path, then you lose all optionally with pricing. For example I wanted to use Siniat Resilient Metal Framing for my stud walls, this is a product aimed at student accommodation market, schools and hospitals. The amount I need for the few stud walls, meant I had no leverage. You can get free shipping if you meet the minimum spend threshold, this sometimes means you have to bunch items together, even though the BM might not have the best price for all items, but you make the saving on no delivery charge. I wanted a particular material to sound insulate my SVP pipes, the only merchant that would sell it online had a £100 delivery charge, the materials were £150. Sometimes you just have to take the price hit. They sold nothing else I needed, it was a specialised item. Did I need this solution to sound insulate my SVP? I don’t know, but I did not want to finish the house and have noisy SVPs and regret the £100 delivery charge.

Shop around, but consider delivery, convenience and offload too. Our bricks and blocks came from merchants, insulation came from online, but in bulk that negated any delivery, it had to be handballed off the wagon, but it was light so easily managed. Timber from merchants as convenient to pick up in trailer as and when needed. Plasterboard from merchants as I'm buying 20 -30 sheets or so at a time which I can move in 15 minutes or so into the build to keep dry and they hiab off the wagon. Cabling came from screwfix or toolstation whichever cheapest at the time. Bathroom products from online, but most of this gets drop shipped from the manufacturer... By merchants I mean buildbase(huws g) and TP get a feel for the ballpark you ought to paying, ask if needs be. I'm happy to share what I'm paying as a bit and bobber diy builder... I've got nowt to hide or be secretive about, got my big boy pants on and can own the situation if i've paid too much 🤣

A 2 port buffer looks like this - the grey box being the heat pump

The irony is that very efficient houses, where the heating requirement is especially low, will often be cheaper to heat by gas as their energy requirement is dominated by DHW where Heatpumps struggle to reach cost parity. This is entirely a function of our electricity market pricing strategy. However, given our greening grid, in all cases a HP now outperforms a gas boiler when it comes to CO2 - which wasn't the case as little as 16 years ago. Whichever way you look at it discussing Heatpumps, even subsidies, isn't politically controversial. It's no different from a consumer program discussing and informing viewers about how to find out which benefits they can apply for. Is "moneybox" going to be canceled because they advise on disability allowance or unemployment benefit claims - about as politically charged subject as you can get at the moment?

I suspect the axe being ground is trying to pull evermore things into the culture war. Net Zero and climate change is a natural thing for certain factions to latch onto now Brexit has occured. Consider. It is a fairly technical subject that most people don't have the time or inclination to understand. It requires trusting what experts tell us. It is highly complex. Experts (by definition) cannot offer certainty. Whereas commentators can offer certainty and simplicity. It requires changes to our behaviour - we primarily use metric measures (Brexit), we shouldn't drive such big cars (climate change) All of these features make climate change ripen to be the next Brexit which is why it's no surprise Reform/Farage are pitching their tent firmly in the "no to net zero" camp.

Just how we did it, but then we also hate clutter.

Excellent. Step 1: Accidentally burn it to the ground.

A quick run of sketchup copying the above idea. Stud out the end to make a bath fit tightly, Have a wetroom shower adjacent. Bidet + Bog Vanity. I'd put a few cabinets above the toilet/bidet for storage. I would probably opt for a sliding shower door as my children are feral and maybe a 1700mm double ended bath as I'm tight with using too much water. As for shampoo storage, I reckon a hook in the ceiling for a basket to carry shampoo etc is the best way to avoid scum in niches etc. I'd prefer to keep the toilet away from the door for the sensibilities ( and tender ear drums) of other house occupants.

We had to make all sorts of design trade-offs and TBH sometimes "shooting from the hip" decisions during our build. Sometimes these were driven by Local Planner push-back and sometimes to avoid exacerbating relationships with neighbours that were getting fed up with the new build going on next door. Good examples here are (i) PV: we wanted to have cassette in-roof PV (similar to JSH) but the planners really didn't like the visual impact on the street scene, so we gave up on this one; (ii) ASHP: my modelling showed that we would be hard pushed to get a 10-year payback for installing it and it would have to be installed quite close to a sensitive neighbour's boundary, so I took the easy way out an put in the pipework and electricity supply but installed our Willis Heater, and deferred the decision on the ASHP unit "until we had a enough data to make an informed decision" -- 9 years later and I still can't make the investment case. In our case MVHR was an easy decision. We had ecoJoist floor voids and this was before boarding out, so this was one of the jobs we could do ourselves, so the cost was in the few £K range and at that time we could self certify for the BInsp. The modelling showed that we had a clear case for putting it, so for us it was a no-brainer. And we've never regretted that decision. The entire house is always fresh smelling and mould-free despite it being pretty airtight (about 0.5 ACH). The system does need maintenance but that's one of Jan's jobs 🤭. And when it comes to the warmer period (maybe 6 months a year), we just open doors and windows if we want direct external ventilation; I don't turn off the system because even if the kitchen patio doors are open, say, you still notice the street noise etc. even in what is basically a quiet village, and it can get stuffy in the bedrooms on the street-side with the windows closed overnight. But in your case Ian, this might be your equivalent of my ASHP decision. The fact is that you now live in the house and have over-wintered without it, so your heating can cope with the heat losses from non-heat recovery air exchange. It is more an issue of CO2 build-up and moisture control. In your OP, you mentioned that you haven't got BCont sign-off. The reality is that there are two design modes for ventilation: the leaky model where all of your windows have get weep vents etc, and an airtight one where none of fenestration includes vents. In this second case you won't realistically get sign-off without an MVHR system installed, and this is a big problem for you. You need sign-off, so unfortunately MVHR isn't really negotiable. My BInsp went through my report in some detail and asked some supplementary Qs on it. Your inspector might be a bit more lax, or perhaps you could just fabricate a piece of fiction, but IMO that's a dangerous path to try. The least risk root is to self-install properly and go through the self-certification exercise (if Bregs haven't closed that path now).

Forgot to mention - one thing goes wrong generally the whole thing is toast. Monobloc and 3rd party cylinder every day.

Our bathroom is almost identical in shape and dimensions, albeit 50cm shorter. We lost a few centimetres from tiling so consider that too. We had considered a similar layout to your diagram but went with this in the end and are generally happy with it. The bath is 170 as we didn't want it to look too crammed in, and have some hope for cleaning around it. It feels plenty big enough. A different style may be more suited to filling the space. The shower is rarely used so it's not too bad keeping it all clean, but might be an issue otherwise. The mirror does steam up but we don't find it an issue particularly. Things we would consider doing differently: - Somewhere to store shampoo and soap for both shower and bath (will probably solve this with furniture) - More width around the toilet - Don't buy the cheapest toilet seat, it's awful and will be replaced - The bath towel rails are behind the door and bad planning meant the door handle conflicts with them - Not sure the colour of the window frame works but it is what it is - We are going to use plants to add colour and interest - We will eventually put a blind in to reduce the silhouette issue - Some may find the shower glass a bit exposed but it's been ok in practice even with toddlers

Your over analysing this. I’ve got a 1-5tonne kubota, there’s only two jobs I haven’t been able to do with it in 6 years of being here. bulk excavation of house plot as it was just too much volume 300m + I could have done it but it was taking too long, 8 tonne machine for 3-4 days sorted that. then installing the septic, I could definitely have done it with my machine no question, but I had to hire in a box shoring system to hold the sides up, the 8 tonne machine struggled with this as well. so two weeks hire of a bigger machine in 6 years of owning our place. there’s not a single week I haven’t used the digger.

That folks, that's no rant. From an ICF builder (as in DIY MAX) All of that is plain simple truth. No rant.

Hi everyone! Learning a lot from the forum and enjoying the content, so thanks. My wife and I are relocating to Pembrokeshire from Hampshire and embarking on a self build with a timber frame supplier. Finally in for planning (after three years of delay in Wales caused by the phosphates issue...) so fingers crossed. We've designed the house on the basis of our current house of nearly 20 years, but modified a little here and there to our ideal configuration and adding lots of wish list items like PV panels, battery, MVHR, heat pump and lots of insulation. I have been talking to timber frame suppliers for last few years and am out to reprice on the basis of the planning drawings (Scotframe, MBC, Fleming Homes & Frame Technologies). The timber frame feels like the easy bit as they are all so helpful, although comparing quotes like-for-like is proving a challenge. Now starting the daunting task of getting quotes from all other suppliers and trades, so I'll be asking for some help from the hub on that front as I'm getting a bit overwhelmed! Hope my questions won't become too tiresome.

If you leave the unwanted text and hit refresh on the browser you’ll return to an empty text editor box. When you click on it to make the comment again you’ll see the text reappear and an option to restore that text or ‘clear editor’, so click on clear and the text will all disappear 👍.

Yup. For stuff which you cannot go back to, it is sensible to only use quality, industry standard stuff every time.

Wavin Osma or polypipe hands down. Brett martin, hunter etc are cheaper alternatives, but as everything cheaper for a reason

The wall is about 8m with no expansion joint, so could be that maybe, but seems a bit odd that the crack goes directly through the padstone rather than around it or elsewhere. SE said to check foundation (couldn't see any issues) and replace the padstone but nothing else required if it's just a hairline crack and doesn't get any wider. We've decided to cast in a padstone instead and have put in some reinforcement too for good measure. The new padstone is also more evenly spaced under the steel so fingers crossed there's no more movement.

A common mistake is to put the wall on the boundary forgetting about the eaves overhang or guttering. Make sure they start the wall in the right place. Don't wait until the wall is half up or they will never change it without a fight.

We need a dedicated rant section, similar to Boffin's Corner. Then let our level headed @Pocster be the moderator for it.

Just a heads up for what they may offer. Our detailed heat loss cals show a heat loss of 6.5kw at -2. This winter when it was zero outside, we maintained house temp around 19/20 degrees with 4kw of fan heaters running so I'm quite confident the calculated loss is fairly representative at 6.5kw Seeing the Coolenergy offer of a free kit of parts with me sorting the installation I made an enquiry and fell off my chair when they quoted for an 18kw unit. The 18kw unit won't even modulate down to my max heat loss so will spend its life short cycling and putting a significant dent in my bank account. When I shared my detailed calcs with them they stopped talking to me! By all means go down the Coolenergy route but get your heat loss worked out by someone else and don't accept a massively oversized heat pump

You can but there's a charge for it. A tariff if you will.

coolenergy

Regarding merchants I’ve used several Prices vary wildly from one to another Ive had accounts with TP and formally Build Base for thirty plus years and a local merchant has beaten these on price for most things Except blocks and foundation blocks Sheffield insulation beats all on plaster products Online sellers beat all on lintels and underground drainage and Gebrits SHOP AROUND £££££££¥

Quick update. Outline Planning Application was refused for pretty much the same reasons again... 😞 Disappointingly, they once again pretty much ignored all the additional evidence and case law examples, and also mischaracterised my questions regarding the validity of asking for visibility splays and an affordable housing contribution as a refusal to provide them. So back at appeal again... However, some encouraging news regarding the initial timeline for the appeal. The appeal was determined to be valid, and we received a Start Letter yesterday. It has been 11 days since we submitted the appeal. When we submitted the previous appeal, it took 97 days to determine its validity and 81 more days to receive the Start Letter. That's a combined total of 178 days versus 11 days this time, so quite a difference! Fingers crossed that everything else moves forward quickly. If it does, we may even get a determination before the new Local Plan is adopted (which will not be in our favour as the "tilted balance" may no longer apply).

A bit like watching your house getting burgled on the 15 CCTV cameras you've installed.

So, basically, if you blew down the white pipe it would blow out the end of the pipe externally, which is not great at all. You need the traps as stated, or a sealed connection from the flexible hose to the rigid white pipe (and then use the excess hose inside the machine to form a U bend (trap) there). You can see these types of traps here, 1x for a heating system discharge and 2x for the softener. These look like a balloon end inside and let water out but not draughts etc in.

My fingers crossed attitude to the UFH pipes in the slab foundation without pressure testing seemed to work. They were all still under factory air pressure when I finally cut them back to fit to the manifold 3.5 years later. Didn't half give me a shock when I cut the first one!!

Plasterer will scrim over that and just flick a bit of skim into that joint before laying on. Chillax. All good 👍. You deserve a medal for that D&D work too, last company I saw D&D’ing were using about 6 dabs per board….. just truly shocking standards.

Review the low star reviews also, some recent reviews are pretty rubbish.

How about that…….

\\im going to try this. The blue bin filled from kitchen and gardening, then transferred to the dalek after initial fermentation. Now looking on Marketplace for a £5 blue bin.

put a radiolink into one of the Aicos to make the whole system accessible, then get a relay box or better still the EI414 alarm interface.

How close to the boundary? I ask because if it were party wall agreement close, this could/would/should prescribe insurance detail. We know this as our build has party wall agreements with both neighbours.

Walabot might do it?

OK what is suitable for the small claims court, particularly the money claim system? Any simple undisputed claim for money. Client hasn't paid bill / deposit hasn't been returned / you've paid for materials or a service and they haven't been supplied. Any simple 'contract breach', especially one where there's a reasonable way of calculating the cost to you. That is, the other party promised to do x and hasn't e.g. they said they would finish the job by this date and they have not and they've stopped turning up on site (claim for a reasonable amount for someone else to finish the job). Or, they promised to use this material and they've used a cheaper substitute without your agreement (claim either for the cost difference if you're prepared to accept the work or the cost for someone else to redo the job using the right material if you're not). Or, they promised to fix a problem and they've failed to do so and they've given up and are not responding - again claim for someone else to conclude the job. In all of these cases, someone else's quote for the remedial work can be the basis of your claim amount. What isn't: Anything less than, say a hundred quid. Anything greater than, say, £10K (by yourself), £100K (with a solicitor). Anything very complex or needing expert opinions. Yes, you can do that stuff in the small claims court but you'll probably want a solicitor to guide you.

Another vote for MVHR here, this is my inlet pre-filter after a month! We are in a rural village so probably a combination of wood burner smoke and agricultural dust. Anyway I prefer not to let fresh air in the house.

If the ufh manifold is in there, then the pipes will need to travel across this floor to get to the manifold, just add a couple of extra metres to one loop and wiggle it across the bits not already covered.

Hi @HughF, thank you for putting this together. I have been looking into decentralised MVHR options for a single room with en-suite. So to add to the list for other people looking at this topic, Zehnder do two dMVHRs, ComfoAir 70 and ComfoSpot 50. https://www.zehnder.co.uk/en/indoor-ventilation/solutions/mechanical-ventilation-with-heat-recovery/zehnder-comfoair-70 https://youtu.be/2Kk-njZlHGk?si=dUphDlw8HPI5TFnE These would be at the top end of the price range, and possibly overkill for a lot of projects.

Don't be shy, the last M&E spec I delivered had about 17 different ducts for everything. Makes life soooo much easier at 1st fix etc, and for any alterations you may want to make downstream.