curlewhouse

Waste Water Heat Recovery. I saw a product like this a short while ago for showers, basically the waste water from your shower runs through a "heat exchanger" (this was in reality simply a straight run pipe within a pipe and it would be easy to make your own more efficient one, but was being sold for some exorbitant price. I briefly considered making one then realised it wasn't worth the bother and I reckoned would cost more in parts than it would ever recover) and loses some of it's heat to the incoming water, pre-warming it before your boiler or electric shower unit. I also just stumbled across a page about the principle http://www.buildenergy.co.uk/blog/wwhr-as-standard/ . Personally I think it's snake oil. It sounds a good idea, but given the short time a shower takes (unless you are my daughter!) but I can't see these ever paying back the miniscule amount of heat saved. There is no doubt a lot of heat does go down the drain, you've only got to look at some inspection chamber covers when snow falls to see the temperature difference, but in the case of a bath or washing machine, the refilling has already happened when the hot water flows out, so the incoming water would be most likely stationary at that time. It would be interesting to see a real-world test of one of these.

That's been my main bugbear about RHI since I first read about it, it seemed to make no sense that the more energy you use/less efficient your build, the more money they'd pay you... on a scheme meant to reduce energy consumption! Self sourced it is for us then! Knocks a few £k off my figures.

Am I right in thinking from all of this that there are considerable savings to be made by forgetting the RHI scheme for those of us in well insulated builds and just sourcing our own? I'd planned to do my own pipework anyway but am wary of how complex commissioning sounds. But I'm also aware that there seems to be an eye-watering markup on supply and installation packages. I can wire a house to code from scratch and do anything at all a car needs from changing a wheel through to fitting an new engine, and have never needed to pay for a plumber in my entire life, but I'm not in any way an engineer. Is it doable by a layman from pipe run planning to commissioning?

As Peter says it depends on what kW you are going to need. If like most of us seem to be on here, you are building a really well insulated house, then ASHP is a safer bet. Oil prices are only going to have one general trend in the years to come despite fluctuations, and if you are able to have solar PV you are offsetting some of the electricity your ASHP will use, making it win-win. Even without being able to have solar PV on our build we are going for ASHP over oil or LPG (no mains gas where we are).

I also have concerns about all the little LED drivers in voids, especially since the vast majority come in from overseas (though I've bought lots of stuff direct from China with no issues to be fair - you just have to be more careful with certain items from there when mains power is involved ... like this classic and terrifying "2.5kW baby-cutor" or the "oriental LED death star ") The Building Services Handbook (I've reviewed it on another thread) p658 says "Fire dampers are required in ventilation and air-conditioning systems...." and show diagrams of various ways this is done, including an intumescent "honeycomb" (which you'd think would play havoc with adding friction and noise) which sits in the duct and swells if it gets hot. The book also shows mechanical dampers, one a very simple with just a fusible link which drops down and blocks the duct. These of course both depend on the heat reaching them so seem less effective (or too late) as they would probably work faster on the outflow rather than incoming air. I do wonder though that given the low velocity of MHVR if it's really an issue as long as you have detection in place.

I found the Housebuilder's Bible good as our first introduction to the whole subject I guess, but was disappointed by lack of detail (bear in mind this is simply my own opinion based on what I want from a book that declares itself to the "Bible" of self building) for the actual self builder and again a detailed explanation of the proper order if you are managing the project yourself. It is covered, but not in the way it is in The self-builders guide to the construction phase. Now the Building Construction Handbook and Building Services handbook I really love and these two books really deserve to call themselves the "Bible" of their specific areas (but don't). If you could read and absorb these two from cover to cover you'd truly be an expert. They are aimed both at the trade as reference and as course reference for building trade students. At £27.54 for 966 pages the Building Construction Handbook is just absolutely jam packed with technical drawings and information, and I really mean jam packed without a single word wasted. Because the books are a reference for builders and for students they take you from "this is a house" all the way to cross sections of every part of a building you can think of. Unfortunately Amazon don't have a "look inside" tab on this one so it's hard to get just how comprehensive and well laid out it is. They are not primarily written for self builders and are technical manuals really, but eminently readable in how they are written, even by me who once didn't know a noggin from a stud or a Wide Lady from an Empress ( they are names for slate sizes ) before getting these. I actually cannot recommend these books enough. The Building Services Handbook (£30.19 new) by the same publishers takes you in 756 pages from Water regulations through to things such as calculating drag on long sewer pipe runs, cross sections of how loos, taps and other systems work, water, supply, drains, gas, electricity, earthing, sprinkler systems and fire, wind and solar calculations and so on. Just for working out my sewer line run and inspection points that will satisfy BC this book has paid for itself. Similarly to the Building Construction Handbook it's used as a reference for experts and a course book for students, which sits nicely for us non expert self builders. Even if you are not doing the work yourself, I think having a proper understanding will let you deal with the trades far better and I think being able to drop in some of the technical language and appearing informed may also prevent you being taken for a ride in some cases! Amazon does feature a "look inside" on this one, so it's worth taking a look at the contents page.

I asked for one as a birthday present (I got a new deer rifle for my birthday the year before so we may be officially rednecks I think!) and even before our build starts it's been really useful and we've made paths, a shed base, and odd bits and bobs like bedding in posts which I'd have mixed by hand and hurt myself doing (I have a prolapsed disc and live on Tramadol), so even if I'd paid for it, it would have more than repaid itself by now.

Thanks for this Jeremy. Absolutely excellent resource.

A few years ago we were trying to buy a remote property which had not been lived in since the 1970's so it was a big project. Solid stone walls and zero insulation anywhere. The long and the short is that the seller decided not to sell after all and sadly the house stands empty to this very day. Anyway, at the time there were some crazy bargains to be had with rockwool so I took the opportunity and bought enough to do the proposed loft to a depth of about 2 feet! So since the project fell through I've had this stuff stored. Our house is to be built with SIPs and real stone outer wall, so there's not an obvious use now for all this rockwool, and our house will not actually have a loft - any thoughts on the best use I can make of it? I have thought about using it in my stud walls for soundproofing, maybe the bedrooms, particularly as my wife is a nurse and often needs to sleep during the day, so extra quiet would be good. Now obviously it will slump in such an application, but I'm sure I could find a way to support it, and there's no shortage of the stuff if I just had to keep stuffing..... or between the floors for the same reasons maybe? Any thoughts?

The self-builders guide to the construction phase. Thought I'd start a thread where we can comment on any books we have found of use. Kicking it off, I've just finished The Self-builder's guide to the construction phase by Vince Holden. I found it a good read and it has addressed to a degree something I've struggled to find elsewhere - namely a detailed breakdown of the order to do things on site - like scaffold lifts and avoiding unnecessary changes (and thus cost), who does what after who and so on. Certainly for someone of my knowledge level this is helpful and for some reason seems to be skirted around in other self build books I've read, who allude to it, but are short on the detail, which always stuck me as odd given how important it is if you do not know. This book definitely gives you a handle on that issue. It also deals nicely with some of what the various trades will want from you and from each other and who you need to have a 3 way conversation with if managing the build yourself. I've really enjoyed the read, and also available by Holden is his guide to project management, although I have not read that. The one down I have is that this paperback book is 294 pages, can be read in a day, but costs £24.95 at the time of writing. You can look at this one of two ways - either he's split what should be one book (600 pages would not be unreasonable at that price for a specialist subject) into two, meaning just short of £50 for both, or since you will save far more than £24.95 from even utilising one bit of the advice he gives, then it's good value.

I've thought a bit about this in our design and since the ground floor is pretty much one large space and is open to the stairs and thus second floor, a lot of sealing seems almost pointless for us beyond giving some extra time in bedrooms and bathroom I guess, and given that I cant see posi joists lasting 5 minutes in a fire, doubling up on detection and getting out seems to be the way to go (obviously in a home split into many sections there would be more delay in spread). But then I've laways had smoke/heat detectors in every single room of my house. They are so cheap why wouldn't you? I learned some firefighting in the military including fires at sea, but given the open plan of many new homes like ours will be, anything more than a minor one like a pan on fire and I'm outski! A misting system sounds attractive for "just" £2000 though, though no doubt it would go off in error as soon as the new floors were laid

Yes, I saw that one with the suicide staircase and couldn't work out how the hell they were allowed (not that you'd really want to do it!). As for the boat/sheds, there are a whole row of them on the island of Lindisfarne here in Northumberland http://www.secrets-of-shed-building.com/lindisfarne-boat-sheds.html

Visited a site being built by Sips of Clays today, who are our choice of supplier. Had called Clays to ask a question about lead times (it's around 12 weeks) following a query from one of the builders I've asked to quote for the outer walls, roof etc. and discovered by chance that they are erecting a SIPs build about 15 miles from me -now that's not something that happens often in Northumberland so it was great to have the opportunity to go and see the work in action, and their client kindly agreed I could. Really helpful staff gave me lots to think about and some ideas already that will save cash - like far cheaper to add extra Kingspan internally than go for thicker SIPs panels and actually a better result as you get a better thermal break at window reveals for example that way too. Very impressed by how keen and helpful the two guys from Clays working on the site were. Below is what we intend to build. We have full PP so I am just now awaiting responses from several builders I sourced via the check trade type organisations and asked to quote. Some I spoke to were at a bit of a loss when I mentioned SIPs, (but really, it's simply timber frame from their build point of view of course), but it does suggest they might not "get" my requirement for strict attention to thermal bridging etc. so I haven't asked those ones to quote. That still leaves us with 6 who have shown a serious interest, and just today learned of one who has built at least 3 previous houses from Clays Sips.....

So here we are, owning a bit of field in a National Park. The plan is to build a house for less than it would cost to buy one and of course to a much higher standard, particularly where insulation is concerned. We can build in the national park because I grew up in the village (local occupancy clause on all new builds) Now in this rural area, that is do-able as market forces mean retirees and people on city wages have driven the prices up well beyond what anyone on a rural wage can afford, in fact the only people from my generation who have been able to stay in the village have inherited houses or rent. So it's definitely cheaper to build than to buy. Being in the national park the house has to fit in with existing properties very much more than in a LA planning controlled area, but that's fine with us as a Grand Designs type thing really would not go. So using the National Parks design guide, you basically are looking at building a traditional stone house on the outside. Since we're a stones throw from an ancient fortified border peel tower and a Norman Motte & Bailey and Saxon (in parts) church, anything else really would look out of place to be fair. After going to the Homebuilding & Renovating shows for a couple of years, reading all the magazines and haunting eBuild and the Green building forum, we settled on SIPs for our structure and recycled natural stone and slate for the outside. We wanted the stone to be ready weathered to fit in, but it also has the happy quality of being a lot cheaper too!

Personally I've teed off from the house before (in our last house we used to have enough room to stand up under the floors so work like this was really easy to do) into alkathene down to the garden taps so the 1 internal stopcock covered everything, but regs may require something different now and I won't be doing that on the new house as it also means if you get a leak on your outside pipes/taps you have to turn the whole house off until you've fixed it. I know that the Water authority have to be informed if you plan to lay the outside pipe less than 750mm deep or more than 1350mm deep, but other than that I think as long as you only fit outside taps with double check valves (to eliminate any chance of back syphoning) how you go about it is down to you. I'd be looking this time at teeing off outside the property and putting an isolating valve in so the outside section can be isolated for repairs or turned off in winter if freezing is an issue. Like PeterW I'm hoping to utilise rainwater - our scheme is rainwater to small settling chamber then buried IBC (for plant watering) which overflows into our largish pond, which in turn will overflow into our soakaway. I'm squeezing as much as I can out of it for outside use before it reaches the soakaway! But I'll still be putting outside taps in as on the East side of the country we don't get quite as much rain of course and although we are never on a water shortage in Northumberland (we have the staggeringly huge Kielder reservoir, built to supply a heavy industry which had gone by the time it was built, so we have as much water as we want - hosepipe ban is a term we never hear!) there are times when ponds and rivers get low. Tend not to need water to wash the cars much - in fact my land rover hasn't had a wash in 3 years!

Really interesting. Thanks for posting this.

Getting a basic materials one done by my local BM (free) and a full one done by a company, so will be interesting to compare. I need to do what PeterW has done and make a custom one (should be fun since I haven't used excel in about 10 years!) as there are many parts we will be doing ourselves too.

Must admit this was my view when you mentioned you also have a 20T digger on site! :-)

Same happening in Northumberland Barney as regards any rubble or building waste no matter completely DIY is now charged for. In a way I can see why it has come in as several times when using our local recycling centre I've seen guys dumping rubble etc who are quite plainly trade, and I guess that's what has triggered this (though my own council deciding they need to relocate to a new £20 million town hall in their political heartland whilst claiming hard up may also be a feature!) - though such types are also the most likely ones to start dumping now of course. I also imagine there will be a lot more going into holes in the ground on site!

I have to say that even with an up to date copy of Spons I've found it beyond me to work out with sufficient confidence that I've included every last item the costs, and am putting it to an estimating service for materials at least.

Yes, in the case of our own building society for example, which is one of the local ones and who are a real pleasure to deal with, the staff are told they don't do self-build mortgages, (and if you ask them they actually genuinely don't even know their firm really do them) but if you check with agents, like Buildstore, they actually do, but will not deal with you directly - which as a long term customer of the building society, having to pay extra to fund a broker is a bit frustrating. But you can see that its easy for the BS as it means they do not need self build experts themselves on their staff, for a relatively small (compared to the amount seeking mortgages for mass built square boxes on housing estates) section of customers. Interesting that Ecology now say EPC A is acceptable too (puts them back at the top of my list). I wonder if they realised there were only so many Architects building houses so 1 passivhaus a year wasn't going to cut the mustard ! As for ourselves, meeting EPC A is well within our design.

"I think that we should encourage all Planning etc costs to be included, as otherwise it is possible for heaps of bureaucracy to be piled on top and to pretend that it is not a real cost." That is a good point Ferdinand - the biggest surprise (shock?) to us by far was the sheer cost of paying for the shiny bottomed trouser brigade to sit on their *rses in offices and look for objections and ways to squeeze cash out of you before we even put a spade in the ground - you expect the planning charges, but things like extra copies of the plans for the "Dark Skies Officer" (oh, no, I kid you not! - a special joy of National park building) are just one example, exploitation by solicitors and so on - mostly of the surprise costs are utterly pointless (like insistence we pay an archaeologist to watch every bit of digging for a site that's actually had a proper dig archaeological done on it 5 years ago and found absolutely nil) , but all these extra whims have to be paid for by the self builder and add up to a not insubstantial 4 figure cost that is certainly not mentioned in the magazines and books and I am sure will have choked many a would-be project off before where money was tight.

Following on from the rich seam of this on eBuild, I today contacted 2 building societies that people had reported good dealing with over self build mortgages - the Melton and the Monmouthshire (Ecological having withdrawn financing all self build except certified Passiv Haus for the time being- so disqualifying 99+% of the SB market apparently). However, both the Melton and the Monmouthshire have come back quickly to me saying they no longer do self build mortgages! It seems we are being steadily painted into a corner that we can ONLY use Buildstore. Now if people feel their commission charges are high before, imagine what they will be once they have a monopoly (if they have not already) ?

I donned a respirator and disposable overalls and did our old house myself when I discovered it had woodworm in the past and there were new timbers in place here and there, but the sellers had not mentioned it (unsurprisingly I suppose) so I was unsure if it had been treated. So in fact, I actually did it all twice over to be certain! Our own surveyor had not picked it up. I then did what Gimp says above and also covered the old floorboards with hardboard as they'd been badly laid anyway and were a bit uneven, this made a nice flat floor for our new carpets and flooring. I checked for fresh sawdust reasonably regularly for the years we were in that house and it showed no recurrence.

Cost will rise even if it's just using Brexit as an excuse. I remember a short time into Gulf War I when I was buying largish amounts of vegetable oil and the price suddenly shot up. The excuse I was given from the company was "oil prices have gone up with it coming from the Gulf" .... I kid you not!