ragg987

My electrcity supply company just told me we only qualify for the "lower" FiT rate of 0.74p per kWh instead of the 4.32p higher rate. They say it is because the EPC is dated after the PV commissioning date. This rule was introduced (I think) in April or May 2016. We installed and commissioned PV 24 March 2016 to integrate into the roof, the as-built EPC was only available 1 weeks ago, we connected to grid in July as that was first time we had electricty in the house. This can't be right - can anyone shed some light on this? How do other new-builds handle integrated PV?

I did some calcs of heat recovery vs install cost a while ago. Marginal in our case (no good with baths, there is a "bath" variant but even more expensive), so did not go ahead. As jack says, it may be good where a lot of showers are taken back to back.

This is one of those grey areas (in my mind). The £100 to £30k applies to a single item purchased under a credit agreement. If the credit card portion is less than £100 would it be covered? Why chance it?

Not sure this would always hold. Block might address the mass aspect (block can also be filled with air and be very light), but sound will also transfer by other means. Stud has the advantage of being 2 separated leaves and this is an important factor in sound attenuation, especially if you create a larger gap and can add fibre insulation in between.

Depends on your objectives for sound insulation - the best would be something that is "studio" grade and can attenuate across the frequency range that you wish to manage. If your noise includes low frequency (e.g. deep bass <40Hz) then your task becomes harder - the UK domestic standards are biased towards mid-range (e.g. speech or TVs). So, the "best" for wide frequency range will be a room-within-a-room. This is generally a floating floor with a fully-sealed structure standing within that. You need to take care of the 3 methods of sound transmission: through air (by sealing all gaps, special care for doors and windows), through vibration (by adding resilience / damping) and through transmission (by adding mass). This is not a trivial undertaking to do properly, you cannot just treat one wall and expect it to be effective. Of course, if your objective is just to select between ICF / block / stud based on best-effort sound reduction then the above does not apply. I would be inclined towards ICF in this case as it provides mass and is fully sealed all round. Here is a good site for some background and specific link to room-within-a-room: http://www.soundproofingcompany.com/soundproofing101/building-a-room-within-a-room/ I have just built a basement room for listening to music and home theatre, happy to share any details it that helps.

Neither am I, just discussed it with my builder and we did it. Boxed in now so nothing to see or check - my primary concern was noise leakage.

We bundled as many of the services as we could into one gap, block removed. SVP, MVHR, heating, electrical etc. This was shuttered prior to screed pour. After, we filled the gaps with foam and boxed it all in. For some localised intrusions (e.g. mains water and electric into house), we drilled holes after screed was poured - simple to do as we have a basement room below the beam and block floor. Just had to keep a zone clear from UFH pipes. My intention is to blow foam into the holes after pipes are in and prior to finish flooring. Do not understand the question about stairwell - are the stairs going down from beam & block level? We had this with basement stairs, shuttering did the trick. In terms of small gaps, prior to puring screed they laid a membrane on floor and part-way up the wall (or shuttering), this was able to seal very effectively.

Have you thought about any low voltage or signal cables - alarms, ethernet, aerials, thermostats? They should not run parallel to 230v mains else signal will suffer. You might get away with passing them through the same hole in the steel but ensuring they are split apart before and after (i.e. minimise the length you have them bundled together). Edit - sorry just re-read your post you have this in hand.

We demolished our 1950s bungalow (approx 100m2) plus concrete garage and 3 outhouses for £3k including breakage of footings and disposal. Asbestos survey and clearance was separate - a bit over £2k. This is in Bucks. We had quotes that went much higher - almost double.

Is your house well insulated or a typically cold and draughty victorian house? If the latter then, in my view, any attempt to keep individual rooms warm and others cold simply makes the whole floor feel uncomfortable and draughty. I would be inclined to treat the floor as a single zone (with programmable thermostat) and rely on radiator TRVs to trim individual rooms. If you want wet UFH in upstairs bathrooms, could you just extend them out from ground floor and leave the rest as radiators in a single zone? A lot depends on how you intend to occupy the house, living patterns, numer and age of occupants etc.

Boilers are crazy prices in UK. When ordering my bathroom stuff from megabad I added a Grohe Red for £320 (ex VAT and including 10% volume discount). Not yet installed so cannot comment on quality.

I used Fakro 3G windows in my build, some factors in my consideration: my project manager had a poor experience with air tightness on Velux, This was a major consideration we were aiming for PH standard 3G for comfort over 2G rather than out-and-out energy savings - inner pane should be warmer lower handle meant we would be able to avoid electric operation I purchased 6 windows from a continental supplier at about 50% of UK price delivered (Euro was weaker than today, mind). I can whisper supplier PM me.

Personally I would be reluctant to spend thousands of pounds on a solution unless I KNEW there was a problem. Random google search shows this calculator (not used and no affiliation). http://www.cchrc.org/solar-heat-gain-through-windows-calculator

Does not make sense to me. The amount of solar energy that falls on the outside of the pane will be fixed based on surface area, angle, cloud, shade etc conditions. The amount that subsequently enters into the room will depend on other factors e.g. emmissivity, reflectivity, U-value. The factors that affect how warm your room will become are separate again and include external temperature, internal temperature, ventilation, U-value and probably a host of others. Over-heating is not likely to be black and white. In cold winter months, autumn and spring you probably welcome the solar gain, but in summer you do not. So perhaps a solution would be external shading (which you already mention - leafy trees or bushes might work well) or increase ventilation when at risk of overheating (open the windows!). I have only seen reflective windows in commercial buildings. Mobile and wi-fi signals both suffer. Only you can decide if this is a good thing or not! Question - is yours a generic concern about solar gain or is there anything to support? Might be useful to get a more objective view, e.g. PHPP provides an estimate of days of over-heating.

My architect is a fan of MDF vs real wood if painting the boards. Have just ordered pre-primed window boards, architraves and skirting in HDF, which is claimed to be moisture resistant. The samples looked good. I must admit I came to this process with a prejudice against MDF, but was convinced otherwise on costs, stability and straightness grounds.

Been running for 2 weeks so nothing conclusive yet. I am running it to promote drying internally e.g. plastering and screed, system is unbalanced and running at a higher fan-speed than I would once we move in. So far I see no issues with water ingress (there have been some big rains in that period, though no strong wind AND rain as you might expect in winter).

I kept ours at approx 2m above internal and external floor level. Combination of reasons, including that our MVHR has upwards-facing supply and extract (i.e. I avoided having extra bends which increase resistance, pressure and hence fan speed would need to be higher for a given airflow), plus also did not want the external ducts too near ground level as that would increase ingress of dirt / leaves plus be tempting for little fingers. Someone made a point that the they kept ducts low to prevent water flowing into the MVHR. Not sure how important this would be. We have a stainless steel cowl like the domed one posted earlier, I am hoping this will prevent water ingress.

Selfbuildzone, combined BC and Warranty

On our build we stated both home and garage in the application to BC, however we submitted the house detail initially then the garage a few months later. The inspector did not query this. Build and inspections on both were aligned apart from the garage slab which started after main house slab was complete.

I also specified a 300l cylinder based system, then looked at Sunamp quite late in the day, but decided (with input from Sunamp) not to go with the Sunamp. Also, the cost / benefit is marginal. The 4-cell Sunamp costs £1,000 more than a 300l cylinder. If the difference in standing losses between Sunamp and cylinder is 1kWh per day, would take over 20 years to break even (simple straight line calculation without the cost of the capital included - would be longer than 20 years if included). If you have a separate cupboard for the cylinder, why not lag it all round so that heat loss is reduced? After all, the primary difference between the Sunamp and a cylinder (from heat loss perspective) is quality of insulation. I intend giving this a go. One other factor, if you intend to use a ASHP to fulfill your DHW needs, you will need a high temperature unit to active the PCM in the Sunamp (I think Andrew said >60 deg C). This is going to hit your COP and potentially have a higher capital cost. So the case is not so straightforward to my mind.

We ended up with 180mm steel duct through the timberframe and external render system. I had already specified the MVHR at this point. I suspect the diameter is a function of unit and house size. We used a Airflow DV145 from BPC, the unit itself has 200mm dia outlet / inlets and we needed an adaptor ring. One caution, our MVHR is mounted next to an external wall and the extract run from the unit to the outside is very short - approx 1m long with a 90deg bend. This means that the fan noise goes straight outside, it is quite loud and I fear it will annoy our neighbours in the summer. I will try to add a bit of insulation inside the bend to see if it can be reduced. The inlet run is much longer - about 2.5m and with 2x 90deg bends - and the noise level from that is a lot lower.

It is worrying about reliance on third parties for this type of service - I have fully embraced google's vision of "in the cloud" and keep all my emails, contacts, photos, documents etc (including my self build project documents) with them. So if they were to suddenly stop the service where would it leave me...

Just found this out when trying to obtain a VAT receipt from them. From website: "It is with great sadness that we must announce the impending closure of 4eco Limited and consequent immediate cease of trading" Wonder what this might mean to the website that monitors and logs the energy diverted by the immersun device - disadvantage of third-party hosted websites is that the service relies on that party.

I think MBC stored some of it in the welfare hut, but mostly just carted it away.

I take the view that these guys are working hard and it is important to provide the facility to warm up, make a brew etc (esp in winter). So I hired a 20' cabin with kitchenette one end and plugged it into the temporary builders electircal supply. Plus kettle, fridge, microwave, first-aid kit, fire extinguisher, table, chairs, most of this I had lying around rest I picked up some cheap stuff with intention of eBaying once done. Now that house is watertight and we have moved electric supply we use the house and the mobile hut got picked up today. For storage, it will depend on risk you are willing to take - i.e. value of materials, area etc. For the MBC portion of our build, we stored outside - low value and high weight / volume to nick, but once our garage was available we used that for higher value stuff like bathroom fittings. Our area is fairly quiet and peaceful, not sure I would do the same in a busy town.