LA3222

@J1mboPretty sure that is the drum I keep banging. The naysayers on here for PV always seem to shy away from the unknown variable which is energy prices. As we can see, they can be wild and like most things, they will continue an inevitable march upwards whilst never returning to previous levels. The question I ponder now is do I buy all my panels and leave them on a pallet against the risk of everyone going PV mad and prices shooting up? Thoughts anyone?

I've just taken out a house insurance policy, not finished yet but all my work is now tiling/decorating related so nothing major. The minute you say you don't have a completion certificate though most doors will close irrespective of how finished the house is. Adrian Flux came through for me, I got that name from this forum. Not sure how much of a factor the 'completeness' of my house was in enabling me to switch to a normal policy?‍♂️

It was a means to an end and it can be OK, I built a wooden lean to which housed a lot of stuff so wasn't cramped. Would I do it again, nope, but then I wouldn't build a house again either! Been there, got the t-shirt, onto the next project which will involve learning how to lay bricks coz I've just about run out of money for my garage, gym and retaining wall?

I've just moved out of a van - there was me the missus, 8yr old and 7yr old and two cats when we started. That was 3yrs ago - we reckon living on site has saved us 15k plus. It's one of those things that sounds horrendous on paper but is actually OK. I liken it to a small flat once you make it comfortable. In a way, moving the house has some downsides in that everyone drifts off to different rooms so we are less cohesive - have to make an effort to get everyone chilling together as a family now!

Last time I went there they had two stands similar names, kitchens4diy and kitchensfordiy iirc - avoid kitchensfor diy!

30p...absolutely...long term Electric costs are going to rise sharpish. Its one thing I could never understand on this forum, all the naysayers for PV couldn't make it work financially - that's true if you work under the mental assumption that prices would remain static. I always said they will inevitably rise so think holistically about long term implications. I never thought they'd rise this quick though - I'm at 19p per kWh - I reckon that will.be closer to 25p in a year or two. If Russia kick off then it will be 25p a lot quicker than anyone wants or thinks!

Not sure why people advocate not bothering with heating upstairs - smacks off a my house is mega, it doesnt need it. Not sure why you would bother other than bragging rights. If you can supply heat over Double the footprint then you are halving the amount of work required per m2 and make it easier to heat up the house consistently. I put my pipes down on the first floor over the deck in a pug mix. Then put a new floor deck over the top. Another reason I wanted it upstairs is that I heat the bathrooms using floor probes so the tiles are always warm to stand on. No getting out of a shower and feeling like you are stood on cold tiles.

Yeah pretty much, it adds time and cost and cutting PIR is deffo a ball ache but once its done its done and you'll be happier for having done it. I just see electric going up a hell of a lot over the next couple of decades and it will pay for itself. Likewise I intend to smash solar at some point, anything to bring my future bills down. I'm all Electric so this transition to renewables is going to have a significant impact on my house energy costs. Such is life?‍♂️ As for the extra costs, happens to us all I think. I'm fast running out of cash, should get the house finished, probably nothing left to do the garden/garden room/garage/landscaping other than the VAT reclaim. Never gonna get all that done so will just do it as and when and learn to lay bricks myself?‍♂️

Suck it up and get it done bud. I put 70mm on my walls and 75mm on the Ceilings just to get the 0.11 figures quoted by Kingspan Tek for SIP. Electric is only going to get higher. If you're in this house for good, what will the Unit price of electric be in 30/40yrs time vs your outlay now? I also put the insulation inside as it will cover the studs/thick timbers within the wall and therefore reduce the bridging at these areas.

I had an airtest with a rationel door...not sure why there is an issue?

Just overlap it with a good run off membrane?‍♂️

All good advice, would have saved me a lot of pain...that and making the stubs over long rather than ridiculously short (tbf, when I laid them I thought I'd done plenty - how wrong was I!)

Do it first if you can. I did mine once house was up and scaff was down. Was a right pita 1. To find the stubs I left in an 'obvious' place! 2. Digging through the compacted hardcore surrounding the slab to put the drainage in.

I'm with @PeterWon this. I'm seeing the same crap that I saw the last time this came up, I would love to see what happens when the self builder doing a single home and managing the subcontracting asks the jobbing brickie for his RAMS before he starts on site. The reality is most trades will get back in their wagon and do one. Big sites, lots of trades, lot of concurrent activity and deliveries etc yeah I get it. There needs to be control IOT maintain a safe site. A lone self builder who has a 2 and 1 gang of brickies on site for 12wks. Nope. You leave the brickies to it and just make sure they have what they need in terms of materials and welfare. This is 'self' building, not Estate building. Just read the old threads, this is an exact rehash of old arguments.

Don't pay for that shite. Search for CDM regulations on here, it is a topic that has been done to death and is a very grey area. You can ask three people and get three different interpretations. You will find that most on here didn't have a designated principle designor etc. they just cracked on as a self builder and did their best to ensure the site was safe, facilities provided such as a portaloo etc. If you pay someone it will likely become very expensive for little tangible output/effect on your build.

Not sure why this thread is now 5 pages long other than stubbornness. Get an industrial dehumidifier and spend 2 or 3 weeks drying the house. It will cost 60 quid and give you a baseline. Next, turn that off and observe. If the humidity goes right back up again then you have proven the issue lies elsewhere. At the minute it's all finger in the air speculation of it might be this or that. I am baffled at the determination to ignore all suggestions relating to getting a dehumidifier in. It's only 60 quid?‍♂️

My experience - albeit from a single build is that the house was out of control with excess humidity. My build.is 280m2, 2.5m Ceiling downstairs, 2.7m upstairs so there was a hell.of a lot of plastering going on. God alone knows how many of them massive tubs got filled with litres and litres of water everytime a room got skimmed. There was a hell of a lot of water went in. I also did a pug screed upstairs for the UFH, more water. Then whatever moisture is knocking around in the timber that goes in etc, it will all add up. When the humidity were 70% and below I weren't too fussed, it started climbing and was sat at 90%plus day on day over Xmas 2021 so the only way I could gwt it under control was to get a dehumidifier. Two times during the build I had dehumidifiers, once when the pug screed went down and then after plasterer had been long gone. First was a couple of weeks, second was three weeks. I was emptying it twice a day for the duration, can't recall how much it held but I bet I got rid of the best part of 1500l of water. Absolutely no issues now but last Xmas the windows were drenched to the point I had to go around with tea towels morning and evening to dry them as much as I could. The air test for my house was 0.24m3/m2/hr so it doesn't breathe on its own at all. The MVHR is the vent axia plus, fine for day to day but to purge all that excess moisture - no chance and I weren't leaving windows open in December. Using a good sized dehumidifier worked a treat and I would reccomend doing so to others. Why waste forever and a day trying to purge a little bit at a time, get the big boy in and get it done then you can move onto the next issue.

I keep coming back to it, get an Industrial dehumidifier, dry the house then see what happens from there. I had major issues with moisture as already said. My MVHR was on full and it didn't touch the sides so to speak. I thought the MVHR could dry the house. It can't. Once I dried it out there have been no issues since and the humidity steadily dropped from around 65% (after drying) to circa 45% now. My MVHR is on, always has been, at 35% not balanced. I havent touched it other than to turn it on. I dont see how balancing it will solve your issue.

If you are convinced it is the MVHR - turn it off?‍♂️ Then monitor what happens to the RH.

Get yourself to a plant hire place and get a proper dehumidifier. You are going to be at this for months if you continue. I got a big one in from plant hire, was about 30quid a week iirc. I was emptying that every 12 hours and it held 20 odd litres I think. This went on for a few weeks. Taking 6l a day out piecemeal is going to be endless!

Not sure of your house size but if it is big, having a little one is no use to man nor beast. My 280m2 build was rampant with humidity Dec 2020, I was practically mopping the windows down daily. It took about three weeks of running a massive dehumidifier to get it controllable down to around 70%. Fast forward a year later and its knocking around 45% with the MVHR running at 35%.

I had a Fleming quote for a 270m2 build in 2020 and it came in at around £75k including insulation and erection and I have a fairly complicated roof too. I liked Fleming but ultimately went with SIP - amazing how much the prices have inflated since then. Doesn't really help you knowing this, unfortunately this is the mess that self builders now need to work with.

Your windows are sat well forward then, so younhave the cavity open to the interior, I suppose there are two options, bring the windows back or insulate/seal the cavity off. Surely the cavity should have been sealed/insulated with cavity closures etc before the windows went in?

Can't quite make out what's going on in that pic. My build is SIP, 50mm cavity then rendered block. I installed timber pinch battens all around the openings and lined them with some insulation so that the windows weren't in direct contact with cold wood in the cavity. I got the window installers to put the windows in so they protruded effectively approx 20mm beyond the pinch battens so they lined up with the sto e cills. Can't recall the frame depth off top of my head but if I have 70mm sat beyond the SIP frame there is probably at least 70mm again sat in the SIP frame. Another thing to consider is your house may be drying out still. I had bad condensation issues last Xmas and had to wipe the windows daily. The MVHR wasn't on then and because the house was so airtight it was a PITA and I had to get a dehumidifier in to bring the humidity down.

Seems simple to me. First manifold is next to boiler and the pump in that's pushes the flow around those loops. Next manifold, the pump has to pish the water 18m before it then has to also pish it around the loops. A lot of work. Pump a pump in to do the leg work for that manifold. I have two manifolds, both have their own pumps. I have a third pump which pulls from the buffer tank/pushes it to the manifolds. No issues with flow.