curlewhouse

Airbricks are every 1800mm as per architect plans/regs, but its more that massive all-round gap (200-300mm all along on the front & back elevations of the house) that concerned me really. On their own the air bricks are not an issue and it was that massive all round gap ensuring far more than the gentle air movement required to stop damp/moisture build up which meant we'd be wicking off heat constantly, albeit on the far side of the insulation, which concerned me (not to mention all the beasties which would be living in the cavity of course) . I don't know anyone else whose doing timber frame or sips with a stone/brick/block outer to know if this big and all round a gap is normal or if its yet another of my BCO/Warranty Inspectors own special rules.

Good point PeterW, and there are cavity socks all over, round all the openings etc. Unfortunately the gap is too small to fit anything much in now. I guess something more compressable than the fascia & soffit board will be the thing (I suppose I could stuff it with rockwool and maybe close the front of the rockwool off to keep it dry with silicone, all tucked well back so it's not visible so doesn't look odd. Our mason also pointed out (quite rightly) that we'd have the worlds supply of wasps nests, bats etc in our walls with that gap left as it is.

... actually, she HAS suggested that! . When we first got it she says "oh, once the house is built we could keep it and maybe have the odd weekend away with it" - 2 weeks later she's fantasising ways to blow it up! I think it's safe to say we won't be keeping it

Yes it was on butane when we got the caravan, but I changed over to propane once the temperature dropped. As for insulating the outside pipes etc.I really did not want to spend time working on the caravan as I've got so much ahead of me in the house to do. I'd had to replace a tap, loo pump and sort the hot water system out soon after getting it and really have no spare time or spare cash to spend either on the caravan, hence abandoning it and moving into the house. Next move will be my wife giving it (the caravan) a good clean up in the spring and we'll sell it on. Unfortunately we'd also had to move it from a sheltered position on hard standing on the site (when more stone and sand was delivered) to a muddy hole and broadside on to the prevailing wind, so it was far from optimal. It has served it's purpose though.

That's absolutely fantastic! As you can see, you've got a lot of people here rooting for you. That moral support here has carried us through at times too. Yes, the costs to get to that point are amazing aren't they? I must admit, the costs even before a spade went in the ground were a real surprise to us too, and seem never to be properly covered in the T.V programmes. If it's any consolation, we have found what I call the "real people", i.e builders, electric, water people and so on, though not always without their issues of course, have been far easier to deal with than the mandarins and place fillers you have to get past to start. So the adventure really beings now! Best wishes to you both.

It has been a cold few weeks here at Todcroft, with -13c at one point, which saw us flee from the caravan when all water, toilet and even the LPG froze and no longer worked. So we set up in the house even though we only have temporary polythene windows. But this bad weather (to be expected of course) combined with lack of windows and just (triple glazed ) polythene in place of glass, has meant running fan heaters pretty much 24/7 to even keep slightly warm, though that's a misnomer as your never actually "warm" just ever so slightly less cold....... we just got our resulting £500 electricity bill! Even with three 2kW fans running, you need thermal underwear, a couple of fleece jumpers and often a warm hat on! To be honest, I've felt quite bad for my wife at times, and there have been tears when sometimes it seems as if there is no end in sight, exacerbated by the attitude of the building warranty people just throwing barrier after barrier in our way to stop us making progress. I work out doors, and grew up in the Northumberland countryside, so am pretty hardened to the cold, but even I have found it very cold and pretty miserable. But, even without us mentioning how bad it has been, we've been offered spare bedrooms by several friends and neighbours, and one work colleague even offered us their entire house over Christmas as they would be away! There really are some lovely people out there. We invested in an electric blanket, which is great - though now you don't want to get out of bed into the cold . Your body is warm, but your head and nose is frozen! Anyway one of the many issues our BCO/Warranty Inspector has with SIPs is that he is convinced they shrink massively. One of the numerous enquiries he made me do with the different companies for him was to find out the shrinkage (yes, I know, I too pointed out to him that OSB has, as the name would suggest "oriented" strands, which by going in different directions, largely mitigate against this when compared to standard timber) from Kingspan - as around this time I'd had enough and told him that as a BCO he was more likely to get a comprehensive answer than I was when he kept making me go back time after time to the suppliers, challenging their methods and suitability of the materials (even the BBA markings on each SIPs panel were not enough for him to believe them to be an "approved" building material in his view!) . So he contacted Kingspan who gave him a figure (I forget now, but it was absolutely tiny). So he spoke to our mason and made him leave a whopping great gap around the entire house between the stonework and the fascia/soffit to allow for the SIPs shrinking. Now on one level I get his thinking, that if the soffit was hard against the stone, then if the SIPs did shrink to any appreciable degree, it would presumably force the soffit out of place or crack it. But this massive gap all the way around makes for fantastic and constant convection from the air bricks at the bottom, and none of us are convinced the shrinkage will be anything like he fears, if it happens at all. Yes, the cavity definitely needs to be ventilated to stay dry, but this big a gap all round will set up a constant and quite massive convective flow in my mind - and we are trying to build a low energy house! OK, so the cold air will be rising against the outer OSB, behind which is all the SIPS insulation, but it's still going to be a constant and high flow situation (I used some smoke on the one still day we've had and there is a clear constant convection going on, even with the tiny amount of heat we have inside right now) drawing heat off. So my thought is to use foam or similar compressive material to close most of this gap up. Though I think I'll insert something like wire mesh in places to allow some air flow still for obvious reasons, but I think it surely doesn't need to be a raging flow 24/7 around the entire perimeter. The trouble is, if I were to ask the warranty guy what material he'd recommend, he'll either insist we allow the place to lose heat and do nothing, leaving this gap all around, or he'll make me contact the SIPs manufacturer/foam manufacturer/builder et al to "ask if its a suitable material to use with SIPs" (as that's the answer I get to everything from him if I ask - making me seem a pest as I keep having to go back to these companies and pass on his often silly questions). On a more positive note, we now have some movement on the windows. Being unable to afford the likes of Internorm or their ilk, we've had to look at the usual mass double glazing suppliers. In the end we chose one of the 3 big national firms, and all seemed OK. They took our deposit, the salesman wasn't pushy, and all seemed fine. Then no one came to measure up. Eventually, after me chasing them, someone came 3 weeks later to measure up - and promptly refused! The stonework is all done with the exception of the sides and tops of the first floor windows. But that's OK as the inner is SIPS, where the windows will be mounted of course, and so the sizes are already set. So he said he'd get the ground floor ones going for now so at least we'd have those in. Then when he got back to the office changed his mind and they simply refused to continue until the whole thing was complete, and only then would he come back and measure, and even then, we'd have to wait "6 to 8" weeks for them to install. So this takes us into possibly April with no windows - and them holding our deposit meantime! I pointed out that how come I myself had managed to fit a far more complicated (cabrio type) window on the first floor already but they were saying they couldn't even start making them, least of all fit them?) So we were stuck, we'd signed the contract, they had our money and were going to do nothing more for weeks despite us literally freezing in here. Then there was a break. We got a letter from them saying as a new build our house was "unsuitable for their product" - now since they'd already strung us along well over a month, I rang and challenged this asking why waste so much of our time. Turns out it referred only to the French doors and they were sending us a new contract for only the windows. But, they'd sent us a letter nullifying the whole contract. Meantime, on visiting a retired builder friends house and admiring his windows I discovered they were made and fitted by a local firm, and I was surprised when he told me the very reasonable price given the clear quality. So I got them to come out, and their attitude could not be more different. So I used the other firms (Anglian) cancellation letter, wrote to them telling them we accepted thier cancelation of the contract (as I'd feared they'd try and keep our deposit if we cancelled) and please refund our deposit, which they have agreed to. So for less money we are getting a better U value, triple glazing (yes, for less than Anglian were charging us for double glazing) and they are fitting the French doors this Monday and measuring up for the rest on Wednesday, and on realising how cold we are promised us that it will be 4 weeks at the very latest! Plus I've seen the quality and it is excellent. (this is actually my friends house on their web site https://hawthornswindows.co.uk/portfolio/view/ ) We can't wait to be warm!

I must admit I didn't follow the demise of EB and thought it was around someone naming a company and the forum owner then getting lots of grief from the firm. Anyway, I suspect we don't want to revisit that subject . Well, once I've reached end of line with this company I'll name them (though God knows, they are very clear already of my opinion of them) and give a fair and objective update of their behaviour since I "had it out" with them. I have in fact already warned the SIPs providers/erectors we used to try and save any future customers the same grief if they are ever in a position to advise them about choice of BC services, and I have also suggested to Buildstore they advise the lender too - though I'm also going to do that directly once we no longer have to deal with the lender via Buildstore (though once we got the mortgage, I've found the department you deal with after that to be far, far better) - I feel slightly guilty that this firm only got on the lenders approved list because we used them!

I'd love to but I think that was an issue which helped cause the demise of the previous forum. I'm happy to give details by pm of course.

As I said a couple of posts ago, I thought I'd put video updates on to save time. This one is without much detail, just a quick update on where the build is and a whirlwind tour of the house on a snowy Northumberland day.

Not quite the same, but we have some of the internal oak doors fitted before plastering (as we've had to move in) so I've fitted them but left the polythene covers on. I'd probably look at wrapping it all and using masking tape where its against the wall. Its definitely worth paying more for masking tape and getting brand name as there is a big difference I have found. A bit of a faff but I'd think well worth the effort if you've ever tried to get plaster splash out of woodgrain (I have it was a complete pain).

Well rather than repeat everything here, this is the link to the issues we've had with our building warranty inspections. At it's most basic the issue is that our inspector has not dealt with SIPs before and both he and his boss appear to have objections to anything other than brick and block. Those issues have taken up weeks of the time we should have been working on the house. In the end, although his boss claims he's been an inspector over 10 years, his behaviour/knowledge level makes that seem very, very unlikely, and both our mason who has had contact with him, and ourselves are convinced he is actually new to the job. Even if he is, that is still no reason to expect us to complete his education however, or to bring our build to a halt repeatedly. I have advised the SIPs company that they may want to make future clients aware of this firms view of SIPs and hopefully save them the hours and hours of wasted time and stress we've suffered due to it's aversion to SIPs, and will be telling our building society the same - this BCO/Warranty firm was only put on their approved panel for our build, so I think it's the right thing to do that we should inform them for the sake of future customers.

I'm not keen on the sticky pad type traps unless people are willing to check them very regular then humanely deal with the trapped mice/rats (which doesn't mean drowning!), but I just had to photograph these ones when I saw them. It's a bit blurred as the guy in the shop was watching me suspiciously as I got my phone out to photograph them (probably after I burst out laughing pointing them out to my daughter) so I had to snap it quickly in case he objected. As you can see, its a curious sort of "rat" they feature (Rattus GuineaPigus I believe)

Those Goodnature traps are great but expensive. They've recently cleared a version for grey squirrel control (something my work involves a lot of) too. I'd definitely use traps in a house rather than poison as one dead mouse under the floor can somehow manage to create the stench as if you had an decomposing cow under there, not a tiny little mouse! I once took an electric cooker out of a house for a friend and when I opened the junction box in back of it found a long dried mouse stretched across the terminals. The space it had utilised to get though to get into there was unbelievably small. My father is a retired electrician and he was rewiring a pub once and found in the loft that mice had eaten the entire insulation off some of the old fashioned cloth/rubber insulated wires. It had also perished with age most likely, but the copper also had teeth marks in it. In places the bare copper wires had been reduced to lying side by side along a joist and by sheer chance had not made contact (and this is the days before RCDs). there were a few old mouse skeletons too who presumably did!

We too had to have one as a condition of the mortgage unfortunately. It seemed logical to us to use the same firm as doing our BC inspections even though it was more expensive than others I could have used - and whilst it should have been simpler, in fact it's been a total nightmare which I've posted about elsewhere. I think if we'd built a standard, mass build type brick and block type house it would have been no issue, but this particular firm have made it clear they think SIPs are too alternative (it was very clear our inspector had never seen a SIPs build before as his first issue to question if SIPs are even allowed as a build method! - Despite looking at the BBA stickers on every piece as he said it ) and blame me for using a "non standard method of build"! From this experience no way would I have a warranty if I had any choice in the matter, as from their attitude towards SIPs I suspect that no way would they ever pay out for anything and would simply blame me for using a method they don't know about/like.

Not sure centre distances or use of hangers are necessarily the culprits - ours are at 600 centres, on hangers, and the floor is really rock solid, not an iota of movement. In fact on reading this I've just been testing it by jumping up and down in the centre of the widest span and not a jot of movement or noise (apart from me landing ) could we detect. Our floor is nailed and glued 22mm thick Eggar Protect board on top. Minor thought - do all the holes in the hangers have nails in? My BCO picked up that there were no nails in the lower holes in the hangers and made me do them. I protested at first saying that clearly they are superfluous since the joists aren't about to jump out of the hangers, being nailed also in the upper holes, but his point (probably correctly) was that movement has been encountered when the lower nails have been omitted, resulting in squeaks, (and subsequent complaints) so they like to see every hole in them nailed.

I use the net for some stuff and the BM for others and just tied the socks in with another order from the BM as there's also the convenience of getting it for zero carriage costs. So most purchases are sourced on a calculation of cost/time/urgency - Some stuff it's worth paying a little extra for speed of delivery, and some can wait so then cost wins in the decision. The BM branch manager looks after us pretty well re prices on most things and at a minimum price matches usually, so if they can do that I prefer to get it from them.

I've got loads of rockwool insulation going spare from another project, which is the great irony, as all the fire socks are is rockwool in a long polythene bag! I could probably make my own and with more rockwool in.

I've decided to start shooting video as an easy way and less time consuming (I think).

Old thread I know, but I got my local Jewsons to order the socks in for me as they don't carry them either. However I myself now have a question. We've used all the ones up the mason asked me to get and I find we actually need 11 more. Given that I'll probably end up paying silly postage for such a small number, or waiting ages again, and the fact we are placing them between the outer face of the SIPs panels and rough and uneven stonework, at window and doors, it seems to me that fire rated foam would be a more sensible option (and cheaper) as it will fit into every tiny air gap, whereas the socks, although flexible, don't really do so to the same degree. However, search as I might I can't find anything saying you can use fire rated foam for that specific task (the fire rated foam I'm using for other tasks like sealing round pipe entries and such is fire rated at over 3 hours, so clearly more than sufficient. The firms data covers all that and mentions suitability for sealing around doors and windows but may not mean the same sort of sealing, but rather gap sealing at the perimeters). The obvious thing would be to ask my BCO, but as my own threads show, this is unfortunately a non starter for us. If I can find it is legal to use for that task, then I will do so and sod him if he doesn't like it , but if I ask him first, he'll have me contacting the SIPs manufacturers, the foam manufacturers, the SIPs building firm, probably the source of the stone and anyone else he can think of (its what he does instead of answering himself) and then if it seems a doable, sensible and cheaper answer he'll say "no" on principle. Does anyone know if somewhere it says you can use fore rated foam for such or what the specific wording may be as I doubt it insists on rockwool specifically?

So it's been months since I've updated this blog. This is because things have just been so hectic. These last few months, and probably for the next 12 at least, my life consists of going to work, coming home and working on the house then going to bed - then going to work... and repeat. Pretty much everything else has come to a halt. Very few social calls and even my hair isn't getting cut as often! Masses has happened, but hopefully I'll get time to write it up one day.

Actually I can understand that because once stuff is installed it is invisible, so without either seeing it or having total confidence in the competence of the installer, the issuing electrician would be going out on a limb certifying stuff he/she had not seen. I'm fortunate enough to have 1. a father who is a retired electrician but keeps his copy of the regs updated, 2. I grew up doing electrical work and learning from him and 3. A nephew whose full time job is checking and certifying the electrical work carried out by the electricians employed by his firm, and is kind enough to be overseeing our work and certifying it when he is happy it is correct. He's been happy with everything thus far, no doubt because 1. & 2. means we really should be on the ball (and wouldn't dream of cutting corners anyway, in fact quite the reverse). So inspection and certification are covered - which is another reason the BCO annoyed me with his completely unqualified opinion. He knows less about the subject than me, my father or my nephew! My nephew tells me they come across this from time to time, and unfortunately, even if a part P certificate was to be issued in a property , an awkward BCO can (and have) simply refuse to issue the completion if he/she thinks they know better! So even well qualified electricians end up having to sometimes do unnecessary extras where there is an ego trip going on with the BCO or the poor customer gets stuck between the two!

This has given me food for thought too. I've gone for an external stack for the reasons JSH gives, (though the architect had originally drawn an internal one), but one issue I have is that unless I want to run pipes from the bathroom diagonally some distance across the outside wall to the SVP, (if fitted directly behind the upstairs main bathroom loo, the top of the vented stack would be nearer a bathroom roof window than I'd like for obvious odour reasons, & presumably there is a specified distance anyway). But the idea that I could vent the line out in the garden somewhere instead would solve that nicely, and just add an AAV in above the bathroom somewhere.

I can only relate to our own case where our architect suggested an SE he'd worked with and he liaised with him for us - all the above was done without us having to chase anything, and as like Ferdinand says a lot of it was clearly boilerplate edited to meet each build anyway. Like you, no way would our lender have gone ahead without BR approval first (cant blame them of course, who would lend money for a house which might potentially not happen?) so what your SE is saying sounds nonsense to me. Maybe he's had clients with the cash where it did not matter, but you'd expect anyone to want to ensure they had BR approval anyway before starting to shell out. Seems like you may be seeing a reason perhaps why your SE and the local BCO do not get on if this is what happens with stuff not properly submitted, making more time and work for everyone concerned. Mind equally it's not very impressive if the inspector "rejects" things based on him just not getting on with them. If he's busy then that's tough, we all are, but we get our jobs done .

The wooden window requirements seem so arbitrary. We are in a National Park - not many houses are allowed to be built, but some recent earlier builds were forced to use wooden windows, though everyone and his dog in the village in reality, in old houses have pretty much replaced their old windows with uPVC double glazing and our architect photographed loads of them and used them in his design and access document to evidence that us having uPVC would be "in keeping with the locality". So we are allowed uPVC. Yet a house built a year before wasn't. No way do I want to be repainting windows when I'm in my 70s or 80s. Could it be worth gathering similar evidence and going back to the planners? (assuming wood is not actually your first choice of course) I have pointed out to the planners before, such as when they were querying "are you having electricity and telephone put in" (I kid you not!) that it may be rural, but we don't live in museums and need 21st century comforts and convenience just like they have in their own houses no doubt!