Nickfromwales

It's a Heat Only boiler . Best to leave it fire every 30 mins, as it's not exactly out of the expected use pattern for a boiler in a less-than-excellent ( thermally ) house. You can get wireless room thermostats, and getting it away from the cold at the front door would be beneficial.

Crack on, lol. My frame is starting to creak so I've opted to pay and observe, ( to make sure nothing gets damaged more like ).

What is your relationship to these works? Is this a question / concern for the builder, owners and council?

Leave as-is. No need to do anything more tbh. Exp foam would be my only suggestion as it is a cold mains so maybe you'd get condensation forming on it. Remove the clip, fill with foam ( behind the pipe ) and hold in place whilst the foam cures. You won't need the clip afterwards, the foam will grip it perfectly well, if not better!

It's a new build, so zero VAT?

Shouldn't we ask about the fabric / standard of the build before suggesting no stats per room? @hbooth Who designed the UFH and what calcs have been done? 1st floor should 100% have stats per room. To rads or UFH? If rads, then you'll have TRV's on each rad to give individual room temp control.

Another use for a small machine, which will pull out the stumps entirely, move a shit-ton of dirt, and yank out the majority of the roots to boot. Get a machine and not a stump grinder! Kill 3 birds with one stone ( cost ).

Legend, lol. I'm delegating, and at £800 a week for hire of a micro + powered ( lifting ) barrow, it's a no-brainer. 25m hike down my garden and through the side > front access alleyway = feck hand-balling. Would cost more than the machine hire. Getting the farmer to drop off his 14 ton trailer @ £150 a load ( inert only ) for muck-away 👌

Are you using a machine? Or doing it the "old fashioned" way?

You would be tar-free, sir, as the above is what is called "recognition and agreeable compromise". Apples for oranges in your above instance

Exactly the nightmare I would run away from. Also completely incorrect. As a contractor, I often get refused better terms when I buy up front ( as I do not want or need credit accounts ) as they see me as one-off business then. I have to basically tell them I'll go elsewhere, and THEN they'll magically give me the same ( better ) terms as account holders. If they'd sell to you directly and cheaper for a one-off vs selling cheaper to the builder, then the builder would tell the merchants not to expect to see any more of their money as they've essentially then undermined the builder. Merchants want life-long relationships vs servicing one-off 'hit & run' custom. For these exact reasons. My favourite is where the client couldn't get what was requested, so they "bought 'this' instead" which is useless, and un suitable. Usually because the client had very limited time to search / find / procure and that lets everything downstream fall to shit. At more cost. The client won't save money doing this, I assure you. Consider VAT, down time, bad taste from the arguments that will follow, losing traction and good people to it, and the fact that the contractors / builders will STILL want a 10% mark-up on the items you took out of their anticipated profit margins. Ask for this at the outset, and most builders will walk, as they know exactly how the rest of the job will go.....babysitting a micromanaging client who's savings schemes end up costing more in time, more in money, and frustrating everyone wanting to get on. Time is irrecoverable for everyone, and once it's gone it's not coming back!

I'd be ( as the contractor ) more worried about why my client couldn't or wouldn't pay monthly, in advance, or agree to stage payments in advance per increment. No way will I ever, again, give a client any form of credit. Been there, got the T-shirt, but not the circa £50-60k ( estimated ) that I'm still owed to date. These disingenuous scrotes of clients are currently using and enjoying the items I purchased, installed personally or worse paid to install, paid hotels and expenses to the subbies etc, fuel and more out of my back pocket. Clients and contractors are equal, IMO, and if an amicable agreement can't be made with my potential ( new ) clients, then it's "adios amigo". There is a huge amount of work out there, and I don't need or want to take the risk, again. Clients can make up any bollocks to sue a contractor but it is very different the other way around, as the courts favour the "poor victims" vs the professional ( who is assumed to have every T crossed and every I dotted ). There can be, the client just needs to recognise this and then justify to themselves that a representative needs appointing to this accordingly, and to whatever else they or the typical general builder won't know, understand or execute with any competency. It's one discipline that keeps me very busy, but clients often either don't see the value of appointing an M&E consultant, or get one in at the 11th hour ( more like 5 mins to bloody midnight ) and then expect miracles. This level of detail and the involvement of somebody appointed to take ownership / responsibility for delivering it needs to be in place well in advance of breaking ground, and then the client can insert this into tenders for the builder to be able to make costs and time allowances for the "additional" work, eg you've then turned an unkown into a known so it can be addressed and quantified, and monitored. Either that, or the self builder needs to get out of the way and go turnkey, a-la MBC's foundation > frame > airtight guaranteed package, which is newbie / idiot proof, but also very safe and simple.

With a Gas Safe Registered installer and certificate?

Welcome to the team. "What doesn't kill you"....... I've done 30 years of this, so suck it up and enjoy.

Lets look at this pragmatically, first! . Please remind me if you have balanced hot and cold supplies to each mixer outlet?

You do not need this with a "balanced DHW and CWS" system. Stand down Red Alert

Apologies, but does this have any direct relevance here? Again, ditto. Please explain what this refers to? And where, when etc?

Having the ring beam separate from the slab would be way overkill, and would typically provoke much thicker wall profiles ( to ensure thermal bridging etc was controlled ). Not sure this would be relevant or warranted with this type of structure / duty / requirement. It would have to be a considerable EPS sub-structure to accept the frame independently. All EPS structures shown previously here have a reliance, in part, for supporting this "frame", but none independently. The skins of the walls would usually be treated 'as one' and the load would be shared or taken significantly by the slab, in most instances.

Trickle rate with dMEV though? Would you / did you consider single room MVHR, even though the heat recovery is crap it is better than sucking in raw freezing cold air? Cost is the con as these units aren't cheap, so needs some thought.

So many ways to over-think this! Can't help coming back to this each time I re-read this. Deliciously simple. Thanks! I was looking at 2x 3x2 stud walls, disconnected by a 2" gap, outer on 75mm EPS upstand ( instead of the 50mm you show ) and the inner simply sat on the slab. So an 8" void, less the sole plate and repeat cold bridging, and filled with 'rockwool' batts / loose stuff or foam where necessary. 9mm OSB3 biscuits will be installed x2 per vertical rise to join the internal stud to the external stud to stiffen things up a little, with near zero bridging. I've already started taking down my beloved rear gazebo so I can get a micro digger and a powered barrow up steel ramps, up two rises of patios, to get to the top of the garden to start digging out for my new "studio" home office, which will then get PV on the roof. A home office has become a no-brainer, so glad I had the winter to rethink all of this before putting PV on the gazebo! ( It will now get rebuilt with a single mono-pitch roof, south-facing for 9 PV panels ( 21 then going on studio roof E/W split )). For simplicity, I am thinking 300mm of EPS under slab to absolutely minimise losses ( cheap as chips tbh ) and an electric in-screed wire for heating the slab "just enough" so it's comfortable in there, plus a cheap as chips AC system for additional heat / cooling, only running that when absolutely necessary. Roof would be pre-insulated powder-coated steel profile sheets, with a second layer of PIR bonded underneath. Easiest for an MCS compliant ( DIY ) PV mounting system. I think that's a solid plan?

It is, however, a little daunting to start off knowing your chosen "old boy" isn't going to aim for airtight / well insulated as his first option, and a lot are old dogs who just don't need to learn any new tricks because for every door that closes, another 2 open atm. The builder would need to be passionate, and would need to be open to having reasons given and consequences understood, should, for eg, their quality of workmanship behind the scenes not be at the same par as what was on show at the end. The builders I worked with on a job in Leicester were very receptive of me 'educating' them about where airtightness membranes / associated products etc went, and how to maximise on the execution of those works. End result was excellent. I had one builder sneaking behind my back to actually try and talk a client out of putting insulation under a heated summer-room screeded floor, saying it was a complete waste of money. Client stuck with me, and we put 200mm of PIR under it. Massive benefits, and they only had to use the UFH for the absolute worst part of the year.

Which is exactly what you want to aim for. Charge the slab during off-peak via ASHP ( CoP of 3-4 ) and then slow release the heat throughout the gaps of peak-rate electricity. Nice smooth hysteresis and super-low flow temps, as discussed above.

Impossible, not 2very difficult". The insulation will need hundreds of holes drilling for the mechanical fixings. Go to triple-glazed doors and windows, get rid of the functioning chimney(s), even if the external stacks still stay for aesthetics, and go for bio-ethanol fireplaces ( if you really need these things alongside gas CH? ). Get a new 'hydrogen-ready' gas boiler and new convector radiators, get the floor up and insulate / draught-proof it well, and super-insulate the roof. Leave the front alone, as with new door and windows, this will be a quite nice-looking house imo.

2 piles of dogshit, then, instead of one.

Folk keep coming up to me on the public exhibition shows, fresh from IR panel sales patter etc, and tell me they want to add solar PV to offset winter heating costs I ask if they have a small football field or similar to install 120 panels in. They say, "No". I say "exactly".