Dreadnaught

The two main sources of noise are (i) the unit itself and (ii) the high speed air in the ducts. And for (ii) especially the turbulence caused when the velocity of that air changes at, for example, the point where a duct joins a larger valve, such as at the point where air is supplied in to a room. (i) is addressed by buying a better quality Passive-House certified unit and fitting silencers. (ii) is addressed by slowing the speed of air flow in the ducts by increasing their cross-sectional area by doubling them up. The rule-of-thumb for noise in ducts is to keep the speed of the air below 2.5 metres per second on boost level. I went even lower.

That's me! You embarked on your path 7-years ago; I am taking my first steps on mine. (I am presently ruminating on the daunting prospect of installing 4,820 brick slips during the winter.) You were once the pupil; now you are the master.

I have just specified and bought my MVHR kit. But I have not installed it yet. I purchased it directly from the manufacturer of the unit I chose. Great service from them, by the way, even including a site visit, when he was in the area visiting someone else (!) Like you I was keen on whisper quiet. First, I chose a PH-certified MVHR unit and bought the ducting from he same manufacturer. Choosing a quite unit I think is key to having a quiet system. And I slightly over-specified the unit too. There was a smaller model available that would have been sufficient but the price difference was small. To tackle the risk of noise, it wasn't required by the MVHR designer who did the calcs for me, but I chose to pay a little extra and double-up almost all the duct runs (other than very very short ones). I also chose to have 1m-flexible-silencers on both the supply and extract from the dwelling. And I have bought a supply manifold which has extra baffling inside too. The ducting is semi-flexible and radial, so no cross talk and I used the wider (90mm external diamater) ducts rather than the smaller ones (75mm external diameter). The expert who sold me the system said that my system should indeed by whisper quiet and the marginal increase in cost will be modest.

I have a copy of the 2017 Sunamp manual. Here's (part of) the replaceable parts list. Could it be the "Heater cartridge 2.8 kW x 250 mm"? Message me if you want a copy of the whole manual.

I wonder if it is worth simply writing to the council citing the relevant time limits and appropriate sections and simply stating that you now deem approval to have been granted as it has timed out. And let them contradict you if that is not so. You could add something like: "if I do not hear from you by X then I shall deem approval to have been granted" or such like. In my situation, when I did this on a planning condition, my planning officer was kind enough to play along and mark the condition as approved in the system. He did not seem at all surprised that the particular domain specialist in the council (trees in my case) did not provide any comments within the time limit. And he was probably relieved to have one fewer issues to deal with himself. He also told me that I was the first person in his experience to use this mechanism. Just my tuppence.

Thanks all! Marvellous. That's really helpful advice. I think that my first try will be: sacrificial timber inside, tape outside, and a fine hack saw.

Outside cladding > Cedral Lap planks > Aluminium corner profile (1mm thick, 3m length, powder coated). What tool to use to cut it? Tin snips? Something else? Want a nice clean cut. And want to re-use the off-cut somewhere else on the façade.

Yes, I had both my planning fees refunded and one of the conditions discharged automatically because of non-determination deadlines. They work. Statutory limits are by far the best but correspondence like this can also be useful: "I shall will expect your response by X but in the event that I do not hear from you by this date then I shall deem/assume that…", etc.

Just an idea: perhaps find a new electrician, explain the situation, and then ask your previous electrician if he would be willing to do a one-off handover, either by phone or in person, with the new electrician. Although I am not in a similar situation, I plan to use a local electrician who I have found to be reasonable in his approach and I imagine would creatively help me solve a problem like yours. They are possible to find. Personally I'd go for a middle-sized firm of electricians, not a sole operator, and speak directly to the boss. (Unusually, I chose my electrician from his YouTube channel! A first for me.)

I used Sky Plastics and was happy with what I received and the customer service.

Aren't surveys copyrighted by their authors? I inherited a bunch of surveys when I bought my building plot. I used them all without asking for permission from the authors but my understanding is that is is generally accepted that it is OK to use them for the "purpose originally intended", i.e. building a house on the plot in question. A neighbour copying and posting wouldn't, I assume, fall under that purpose and therefore could fall foul, but presumably this is likely only to be a theoretical risk as who is policing it. There is also the matter of liability risk. I imagine this is only important for structural and soil surveys and such like where you'd want an engineer's liability insurance in case of any cock-ups.

My fridge will be in the open plan living room/kitchen, under the kitchen island. It will be a larder fridge only; the freezer will be in the utility room. I am now planning to surround the back of the fridge with sound-absorbant foam panels. I got the idea from @ProDave. And I will buy a decent fridge with a low decibel rating. It is helpful that all appliances now have a decibel rating (although I am not sure how definitive are the figures). I know that even quite noises can become intrusive in a well-insulated airtight house as the background noise levels are so much lower, but hopefully these measures will do the trick.

Ah yes. Fair comment. I have been lamentably lax with my blog posts. Should get back to them. Foundations are done. Timber frame is up, roof is going on. Windows are on site and I am just about to install them. Roof windows too. Hope I will be superficially weathertight (without external cladding) within a a month.

It took my hours of reading (and learning) about screws before I settled on which to use to install my windows (DIY-max install of six big-ish IdealCombi windows).

From your photo, it looks like the one's nearer the ground are suffering more. Is that so? Is it restricted to one region or set of planks or are they all showing symptoms? Are you just unlucky in that you received a bad batch of planks from the production line?

I am generally a fan of buying direct from manufacturers where I can. I tried with Celotex and got nowhere. In the end I used a local insulation firm after comparing prices. I bought a flat-bed lorry full at Christmas for my foundations. I was pleased with the price.

Be aware that back-to-back holes for faceplates might compromise sound proofing.

I had my planning fee refunded. I was asked to approve an extension just prior to the decision being made and after being told what that decision would be (a "yes"). I obviously politely declined the extension request, waited for the decision, and then sent a request for the refund. Out of politeness, I told my planning officer, with whom I had good relations, that I was going to do all of this in advance.

Welcome @bungledlow. I am building in Cambridge. Let me know if I can help in any way. Good luck with your build.

I have corresponded with Thomas on this and he said the following: He ordered through the DE site (the German version of the site as the English version did not work very well). They automatically refunded the German VAT once the consignment shipped (less a small arrangement fee). He then received a message from the courier to the UK VAT and duty. He said the duty on 13 rolls of Vana was about £10. He said it was still a lot cheaper than buying in UK. Hope that's helpful. And thanks to Thomas for sharing his experiences.

(Note that Signify, above, owns Philips Hue). (Both Google and Apple are already selling Matter-based products).

Members of Matter (and many others): Members of Thread (and many others):

A roofing supplier like Bauder would happily give you an opinion. They designed the detail of my flat roof with lots of roof windows. Contact your local area representative.

If you can, wait a year for "Matter" to become widespread standard for home automation. It uses Thread as a communication protocol for lighting, which is superior Z-wave/Zigbee, etc., and I think will be widely adopted. With Matter, you can use Google, Apple, whatever ecosystem you like. It is what I am going to use for my build, inside and out. And I have stopped buying any other home-automation kit for now (despite my natural instincts) while await the Matter roll out. Future proof. The Matter standard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter_(standard), https://buildwithmatter.com, https://csa-iot.org The Thread protocol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thread_(network_protocol), https://www.threadgroup.org