Helen2

We have just moved into a rental property so that we can demolish our existing house and rebuild on the same site. We will be handing the site over to the main contractor for the duration, estimated to be about a year. I have arranged with Royal Mail to redirect our mail for 12 months. But does anyone know if I also formally need to change our address for things like our driving licences, bank accounts and credit card. I know we will need to change the address for car insurance and obviously we are dealing with council tax etc, and I am not going to change the address for various charities and things that we subscribe to. But we are still the formal owner of our main address, even if we aren't living there for a year so can we just rely on the mail redirection for the semi-formal things?

We are about to start work on our self-build. We need a structural warranty, partly to keep the mortgage company happy and partly because who knows what will happen in the next 10 years. I got two quotes from companies that are on the mortgage lender's list, both marketing themselves as being 'self-build specialists'. Both quotes came in at, give or take, 1% of the build cost. I assumed that was therefore the going rate. It was only after I had paid for one of these and got sent the Personal Guarantee form to complete, that I realised that the niggling doubt I had about them insisting that I was the 'Developer' was in fact a major flaw. It meant that I was being asked to underwrite the cost of any defects in the first two years myself. So in effect the 10 year warranty is only for 8 years. And were we to sell, the purchaser would claim against us for any defects, not the insurance company. I asked if they had sent me the wrong paperwork - after all, the company markets itself as being "specialists in self build insurance". I pointed out that the definitions in the policy made clear that I was not a 'Developer' as I was not building the property to sell to another person, and the policy is clear that it expects the 'Insured' and the 'Developer' to be two separate people. I also pointed out that the precise reason I needed the insurance for 10 years was because I would not have the money to rebuild should the construction company go bust in the first two years, and a defect materialised in my house. But alll to no avail. In the end, I decided to exercise my rights under the 14 day cooling off period. I then got a quote from Protek - and it was one third of the cost of the previous two quotes. What worried me most of all was that the company insisted that many self-builders are entirely happy with their arrangement. Maybe I have missed something, but I can't imagine many others in our shoes would want to knowingly put themselves in this position. So I am posting this here in the hope it helps others still finding their way through this minefield.

Thanks everyone for the super-helpful advice. It gave me just what I needed to have a robust conversation with our architect who is now fully on board and making up for lost time rapidly! And the contractor has confirmed that they frequently build to these standards so has also given helpful input. Works due to start on 13 June - it is getting close and scary but exciting at the same time! I look forward to reporting our air pressure tests!

Correction - I meant 4m3/h.m2, not 4ach of course. Said I was a newbie!

Newbie question here. We are finalising the spec for our new build brick and block house in the south east. We will be having an ASHP and MVHR - we want the latter for the quality of air as much as for the heat recovery. We are not looking for passive house type standards of airtightness but do want to make the most of our MVHR system. The spec for the heating and MVHR are based on 4 air changes per hour and the general view of our architect, SAP consultant and construction company is that wet plaster plus triple glazing and Compriband will get us to where we need to be. But that seems to us to be missing the opportunity of the new build to get it more airtight. We therefore want some fresh advice on what to specify but don’t know where to go for this. There are lots of companies that do airtightness testing, and some that offer passive house consultancy but we want someone who could review our design and then advise on the most cost effective steps and, importantly, what materials we should use to improve our airtightness, without chasing after full <1 ach PH standards (which would not be affordable or achievable). Any suggestions?

That sounds promising - just hope I can persuade them to agree.

Thanks - that's helpful to know. Yes, this is definitely only rainwater. I'll speak to the BC on Monday - I was just hoping to be able to quote some chapter and verse.

Yes I've read doc H which just says change in direction, but it also refers to a whole of of BS EN docs which aren't so easy to access. And it seems odd that so many creditable companies say that inspection chambers are only needed for more than 30 degrees if there isn't a reason. Unless perhaps it was in a previous version of Approved document H.

We have discovered a 400mm surface water overflow pipe runs from the highway in front of our house across our property and out to some woods beyond. It is our responsibility as it counts as a private drain. We need to divert it for our replacement build. Approved doc H says you have to have an inspection chamber at every change in direction of pipe, but all the drain construction sites say there only has to be an IC for bends of greater than 30 degrees. I would like to find the source of this reported standard - presumably in a BS-EN document somewhere? Can anyone point me in the right direction so that I can have a meaningful conversation with our BC guy and architect.