AliG

Keep it quiet - But when my wife moved here she may have tried to boil milk in the kettle to make hot chocolate. In a way I can see why she thought it would work. My American mother in law has a stove top kettle. I haven't seen one in the UK in years. Quooker is where its at. This is genius if you think about it, for saving a few minutes a day we are prepared to buy what is basically a fancy kettle for 40x the price.

The thing about instructions for guests is amusing. My wife is American and we have people from the States staying all the time. The general attitude is that if things don't work the same way as in America then they are wrong. The induction hob they actually seem fine with. I don't know how much simpler it could be. You put on the pan and set the power level.Initially people do seem skeptical that it is switched on. But front loading washing machines, 5 point door locks, water based central heating, kettles, separating out recycling and 240v power all seem to be a mystery to them. I constantly threaten to write up a manul or put post it notes on everything so stuff doesn't get broken.

We are now on our third induction hob. They respond very quickly to the controls. They are massively easier to clean than gas hobs. You can use it as a stand for hot dishes from the oven. Pans just need to have a magnetic base. We mainly use non stick pans with a stainless steel base. They can scratch. Plenty of them have larger rings, they are just a bit more expensive. They switch themselves off when you take the pan off them. No one has mentioned that they are considerably more efficient than gas hobs. The energy almost entirely goes into the pan. As mains gas is cheaper than electricity though, a gas hob is still cheaper to run. A bottled gas hob would be very expensive to run. Gas hobs are cheaper but you will have the cost of a gas safe installation. I wouldn't consider anything other than an induction hob.

I think as you say @jamiehamy the bracing is in case they apply sideways pressure and bring down a wall. @ProDave the floor is 200mm thick concrete slabs plus insulation and screed on top. So I'm sure the electrician will have no problem drilling through it . The ceiling is dropped down 100m below this for cabling and there is a corridor where the floor is only 100mm thick so that there will be a main route for pipework, mvhr pipework etc. I believe that the architect has allowed for pre cut holes where the cabling will go upstairs. Last night the email came through from the architect with the latest costs. There is indeed more steel than expected to the point of it being 4x the expected cost

We have one neighbour who never wants to get involved in anything, always with the answer that it hasn't affected them or laughably they can't afford the cost whilst spending money like water on home improvements, cars etc.

Yes the alarms were installed by the builder when the houses were built. I think that maybe makes things too easy for the criminals as every house has the same kind of alarm and they are all installed in the understair cupboard so no looking around to find how to disable them. I went to look at garage and front doors today. Struggling to get a garage door to match the windows, may have to do something more contrasting. The more I think about it, simple physical security is likely to work best. I was going to get a quote for a solid panelled door from the window company, but I see that a flat steel security door can be had for less than £200. So instead of spending thousands on cctv etc. 1. Sectional insulated steel garage door - perhaps with extra bolts on the sides to prevent it being forced up. 2. Steel security door between house and garage. 3. Maybe steel security door to the plant room so no one can mess with the alarm, electrics etc. 4. secure key storage. The extra costs for this would only be a few hundred pounds and it seems pretty foolproof assuming they don't turn up and cut through the garage door. I don't know if neighbours had a tracker. The car is a new Lexus SUV. Their angular appearance makes them one of the most noticeable cars on the road. Maybe someone just spotted it.

We have a wireless system but don't take the fobs out of the house. It makes it easier to set the alarm when you go to bed. Astonishingly neighbour's car already recovered by police and sitting back in their driveway. Two neighbours had alarms upgraded today. Apparently they can be disabled by ripping unit off the wall. I thought that would set them off, but supposedly that requires a higher level of alarm. Good to know to specify new one.

I was finally up on the scaffolding to see how things look from first floor level. I was still probably 450mm below the finished floor level but it gives and idea. The concrete people have insisted that the walls are braced before they put the first floor slab on on Monday. There's a lot more steel than I expected when we started.

I went up today and had a good look around at the insulation. The vast majority is tight up against the wall and looks pretty neat. The main issue seems to be on outside corners and at the ends of runs and I have asked them to seal these off. I think this looks tight enough?

@jamiehamy I am surprised that they just kept going in an occupied house. As I always understood it the risk of being identified/caught is much higher and I would think the penalties are much more severe hence they prefer an easier job. I think choosing stealing as a career suggests a lack of wanting to work hard at stuff. As previously discussed I am having laminated windows which should make it a lot harder to get into the house. Maybe I am worrying unnecessarily. The new place will have gates and the garden is surrounded by 10ft high hedges. I just got onto the architect as one side the hedge is poor and has no fence behind it. There is one point where I can just push my way through it. I am looking to get an amendment to our planning permission so that I can put a new security fence up then plant a new neater hedge in front of this. It will massively improve how the site looks anyway as the ropey hedge is letting it down a bit from the front. I could as someone has said just put a chain round the gate when I am away, maybe that is a simple visible deterrent. I am having a sliding gate so you can't push it open and it is 2.4m high so you can't easily jump it. The broken in neighbours, they got in through their conservatory doors. Their back garden has a wall/fence around it, but it is the standard 6ft high. The 2m planning restriction on fences is somewhat odd as just a little higher would make them much harder to climb over. On my current house I am probably going to get a Ring doorbell. I am suspicious that the criminals often ring your bell to see if anyone is home. It is easy enough just to run off if a light comes on/someone answers. My parents, who live on the other side of town were burgled a couple of years ago, by simply smashing their patio doors. They said that they think just before hand someone rang the bell but there was no one there. I think it would be very interesting to see how many people come to the door. We have an enclosed porch area that you would have no business being in if you didn't have a delivery. According to the blurb installing these considerably reduces break ins. Irrespective its quite a nice bell and it lets you speak to people at the door without going to the door. Sadly there has been such a spate of burglaries in Edinburgh that my wife is getting very nervous and struggling to sleep. It doesn't help that I work away. Couple that with a couple of expensive cars and I have to take the issue seriously. Until a couple of years ago Edinburgh had one of the lower break in rates in the country and we never worried but it has soared in the last few years.

It would be a bit of a pain. I am particularly thinking about it for when on holiday. I have racked my brain but I can't think of an emergency where I have ever had to get out that quickly. I suppose when I am late for something it might be a nuisance to stop and put it down.

I don't believe that is an issue as long as they had to break into house. Sadly @jamiehamy I already have the slab down. Some of these posts are beasts so I couldn't put it inside the garage. However, to @JSHarris point, deterrence is partly the key. Especially as they will make a mess trying to get in, find keys etc. I wonder then if the solution isn't to have a very obvious post either outside the garage door, or in my case behind the gate to the street. I could have it concreted in. I think they probably just wouldn't bother in this case as it would be pretty obvious they couldn't physically move the car.

Ooh Jamie. Now you're talking I'm on the Bollardsdirect website already

Electric doors, no handle. I am probably going to get a Hormann door as their electric openers physically lock in place so you cannot force the door up. I was considering a wooden door as it might look nicer, although I didn't fancy the maintenance. But I had already decided steel insulated double skinned as it seems to me you could reasonably easily break through a wooden door.

Poor neighbours are away on a cruise. I went back over a week of CCTV but couldn't find anyone scoping out the house to see it was empty.

No window I hope! I guess they normally have a window for light, but how often are people inside their garage with all the doors closed! Easy enough to put the light on anyway.

My wife called me at 11 last night to say she thought the neighbours were being broken into. I told her to call 999. I then went to check our CCTV camera that points out to the street just to the side of their house. I watched one guy come from the house and a car pull up and five guys get out. They were slight and looked like they were probably teenagers. Too far away and dark to get any useful information. They all went into the house and set off the alarm. This is when my wife looked out the window and saw them. They came mob handed so that they could go through the house quickly and get the keys before anyone reacted to the alarm. It was 4 minutes from them getting out of the car to driving off. The alarm was probably going for only two minutes. I was just investigating what to get at the new place yesterday before this as to CCTV and other security. One thing it made me think, why not take you car keys with you when you go on holiday. Also why not park you car in the garage. We put both cars in the garage all the time now. After an attempted break in I got a skip and cleared out the garage. I found I was juts keeping the vast majority of stuff in there just in case and never touched it. Indeed the stuff I kept I still basically don't touch, like spare tiles and paint. Wife is a bit shaken so I am going home a day early. I have done so much reading on security. I am going to call my architect as he wanted us to just have an inside door between the house and garage but I want a more secure outside door. Apparently a large number of break in come via internal garages. I already removed the garage back door from the design. We didn't need it and it seems silly to put an insecure part glass door in a garage. Vast majority of break in nowadays are for car keys. Then computers and jewellery. When you think about it a nice car is likely to be worth 20+x the next most expensive movable item in you house.

This sounds suspiciously like my old favourite Property Ladder, but without Sarah Beeny

I just watched it too Dave and had exactly the same thoughts. It reminded me of old episode of Property Ladder where it appeared no matter how idiotic people were they still made a profit. They also said they had an architect and main contractor but claimed they were "project managing" The house was alright. I quite liked the black doors and windows. I don't know the area the house is in, but the massive value variations are ridiculous. A very nice self built house is unlikely to be worth more than 10% above the normal valuation in the area, house values are very anchored to price/sq ft plus an allowance for any works needed to bring a place up to scratch. A house can't suddenly be worth 40% more than expected for no reason.

I had no idea until coming on here that you could have private building inspectors in England. The PFI school scandal in Scotland I believe was partly due to the builders being able to self certify their work. My current house we had to get commercial surveyors to write a report before the builders would put right some serious defects. These had not been spotted by council BC and they weren't interested in helping when the issues were pointed out. I believe that they area lot more lenient with large builders. This has made me consider whether it is worth paying for a full structural survey on the completed house to find any defects. Hopefully between me and the architect and the main contractor everything will be kept right. It must be very difficult when people have no interest in construction and just want a house built.

In my case the heating supplier calculated required heat based on generic inputs until they had all the data. Have you given them the insulation values for your house and asked them to calculate how much heat is actually needed?

It does pose an interesting question. The people without heating upstairs, have BC taken on board that heat rising from downstairs will achieve the minimum temperature requirements for habitable rooms. If the house was run through Jeremy's heat loss calculator, I guess you would find it hardly needs any heat input and therefore heat all over the house is not necessary. The response from the UFH people is partly correct in that it mentions the RHI, so if you are using an ASHP, it would not be a good idea to try and run traditional radiators on it upstairs as they run at a much higher temperature the UFH and a temperature that would not be efficient with an ASHP. However, if you calculate the required heat input for your house I suspect you will need either none upstairs, or you could run radiators upstairs at the same temperature as the UFH to provide the necessary heat input. I believe that some people on the site also run oversized radiators so they can run at a cooler temperature with an ASHP. Generally heating companies are just not used to the low heat requirements of a well insulated house and will recommend massively over specified systems today. The first spec I had for my house had a 60kW boiler which would have required me to go to the extra expense of upping the gas supply as well as being oversized and running inefficiently. Once I run the calculations I showed them 30kW was adequate and we settled on 40 as it will allow faster hot water heating.

Haven't had time to watch tonight's, leaving it for tomorrow.

With the insulation values you are working to you have to consider that the heating may hardly ever be on. My wife is insistent on having UFH so that the tiles are warm. But the reality is the heating will hardly ever be on so they won't benefit from it. I may have to run the heating in the ensuite at a higher temperature than the rest of the house just to warm the tiles. If you use electric UFH in just the bathrooms you have the option of warming the tiles even if the heating isn't on whilst also saving all the other expenses. Then you could go for radiators in the other upstairs rooms, although I would guess that heat rising from downstairs means that you don't need any upstairs heating. This depends on the U-valeus of your floors and windows, whether you have MVHR etc, but 0.11 U-vlaue walls suggest you will need very little heating.

I spoke to the builder and he believes that the pieces that appeared proud of the blockwork don't have the clips in place yet. Labourers put on some of the insulation, but they aren't allowed to mess with the bricklayers ties. We agreed on using foam at the corners, around the steel beams and anywhere where the insulation is not hard up against the blockwork. The bricklayers will be off site for the next week while the first floor slab goes on. So I will be able to more closely inspect the insulation when I am off the week after next. He seems to understand the importance of making sure that the air behind the insulation cannot move around.