NSS

Got ours through Jewson's as a good mate of mine worked there and sorted a very favourable discount. One of the big issues is that virtually nobody stocks it in the UK (or at least didn't two years ago) and Eternit will only ship in full pallets (144 planks) so needs careful planning to ensure you don't end up having to buy 100+ more than you need. As ours is a mix of timber cladding and Cedral Click we adjusted the areas of each to suit the most economic purchase. PS. Covers also sell it and but for discount I got they'd have been cheaper than Jewsons.

I'll take your word for that as I have no intention of testing the theory ?

LOL. We have two low level shower trays downstairs so, in theory, that couldn't happen, and most will have a loo downstairs so difficult to see water level rising above 15 inches or so indoors.

Well, let's hope the technology in this article - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47638586 - works.

Sorry, we use II for our building and contents insurance on the finished house. We used selfbuildzone for site and structural insurance.

It seems pretty clear that the EPCs for my property (and for those adjoining it) were either issued against the 'as designed' spec or that the year was entered incorrectly when issued. The developer built the same design on an earlier phase of the development so I suspect they just had EPCs issued for all the houses of that design when the first ones were finished. Doesn't help me of course as I now have to pay for a new one before I can sell the property. I know they're not expensive, but it's the principle of the matter and just another example of big builders getting away with stuff that us self-builders would have no chance of avoiding.

Apparently the answer is yes. We're about to sell the house we bought to live in while we built the new one. It was first sold in June 2009 along with the other three houses in the terrace of four. We assumed the original EPC would still be valid, but to our surprise it has in fact expired (didn't even realise EPCs were only valid for 10 years), having been issued in June 2008 - before the developer had even started building it! Now there was me thinking you needed an as built SAP before you can get an EPC, so how the hell can the EPC be dated from when it was still a field?

If I read and understand that correctly, it's a bit like phone batteries in that they tend to last longer if near fully discharged before recharging they last longer.

Never mind a Sunamp (or Tesla Powerwall for that matter), just stick a Renault Zoe in you plant room (or garage) - https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/renault-scheme-transforms-evs-energy-storage-units

Mrs NSS and I send our love Moira. Fantastic achievement but so sad your husband won't be able to share your pride. I'm sure his presence is indelibly imprinted in the place and will always be there with you though.

No, but I believe he got the land for a very reasonable cost compared to similar plots in the area.

It's a bit like asking how long is a piece of string, but I suspect the days of a one third profit are, in all but a very few cases, long gone and 20% is much more realistic. I know a small developer who built a pair of 3-bed semis and a 4-bed detached, sold them collectively for £1.23 million and made a gross profit of little over £200k.

Can't recall the percentages but with our TF company the contract amount was paid into ESCROW and only released to them as each agreed milestone was achieved. Effectively this meant they only got paid for materials and labour as and when it had been provided, not front loaded. Minimal risk for both parties.

Really thought this thread was going to be about a fish paté recipe.

Not necessarily Dave, as the time he'd have spent installing it is time that he could have spent getting paid to do other jobs that he was maybe more comfortable doing.

Surely, the point is that not everyone has the time, inclination or knowledge to do the install themselves, and if you're going to get someone else to install it then the extra cost for that to be done by an MCS approved installer is, in most cases, more than covered by the RHI payment. In your case Jeremy, that may not have been so, but we don't all have room for 6.25Kw of solar panels and the impact that has on the EPC score and hence the RHI payments.

We'll receive circa £3.2k over 7 years. 165m2 and EPC of 96. As @Roundtuit says, we also view it as a bonus but the MCS install certainly didn't cost as much as we'll receive, and with no gas we also saved the cost of having that installed (plus the ongoing standing charges of course).

Ours has the MVHR unit, PV inverter, SageGlass control panel, consumer unit and meters, and the UFH manifold and associated pipework coming in from the ASHP. Gets quite warm in there but not excessively. Our DHW cylinder is in an airing cupboard the other side of the wall from the plant room.

Our plant room is within the footprint of the house but only accessible from the garage. This meant the walls between it and the living accommodation could be well insulated acoustically but also form an additional vapour seal as almost all penetrations to/from the outside world come in/out of the plant room.

Yep, we resorted to roller blinds on the bedroom windows for this reason, but the glass is the mutt's nuts ?

Perhaps they' be better filling them with snake oil ? Sorry, I'll get my coat!

We have 14 x 280 panels split over 3 roof areas (east, south and west) and also suffer some slight shading. We have SolarEdge inverter and it is noticeable how some panels on the part-shaded sections perform far better than others. If we had not gone for SE then I estimate energy generation could be down by as much as 10% on some days.

We've only used 98 m3 in our new house in the past year. By comparison, they've 'used' 111 m3 in the last 6 months!

Don't know, but plan is to replace the stopcock altogether as it's so difficult to get at we don't want to risk it starting to leak again.

Thanks Peter, definitely worth a try ?