Benpointer

Yes I was looking at that switch too - Looks like you can just wire one in the back of a convenient switch box. Does anyone have experience of the Sonoff?

Thanks all, especially Nick for those video links - I will watch when I get chance.

Being a lazy sod I like the idea of telling Siri to switch the lights on or off. We are going to have a number of multi-way light circuits in the new house. I presume there are smart switches that could sit in these circuits either as a two-way at the end of circuit or an intermediate? I'm struggling to identify one that is bound to work (with Apple Homekit). I am no doubt being dim but... any suggestions? Thanks

Generally a much less stressful week than last week with lots of great progress but all is not perfect - see below. Heating Last week's drama getting the UFH pipes laid just in time for the screed pour seems like a distant memory but as there had not been time for Ken to fit the manifold and pressure test, he came on site on Sunday evening (roping in his Dad as a helper) to get that done. Thanks Ken - and Ken's dad! A neat job completed... ... just in time for Paul and Shaun from Air2Heat who arrived on Monday to install and commission our Panasonic ASHP and cylinder - kit which also arrived on Monday. It's almost like it was planned! We have opted for a 7kW Panasonic Aquarea L-series Bi-Bloc with a 300 litre Panasonic cylinder and 50L buffer tank. We're really impressed by the speed and neatness of the install: it's almost a shame the pipework has to be hidden behind the insulation. The external unit looks great and seems incredibly quiet - even when heating up that 300L cylinder from scratch. Although the heat pump is working we can't use it in anger at the moment as we have to have a slow temperature ramp up to prevent the screed from drying too rapidly. The screed itself does seem to be drying out nicely with no issues. None of the zone stats are fitted yet so the UFH is operating in open loop mode but in reality there is no demand anyway. I would thoroughly recommend Paul Thorney at Air2Heat as an MCS ASHP supplier and installer. He has been super-helpful throughout our heating journey. Initially he was just going to provide an MCS commissioning umbrella service but his price for supply of the kit was good and in the end we asked him to do the install as well - and we're very happy with the result. Rendering Although the weather has been 'iffy' at best John Wheeler from Caesar Spray-Rend managed to find a window to prime our base coat and then spray the Ecorend Thin Coat topcoat in 'Scotch Stone'. Again, we're very pleased with the result. Once the timber cladding goes on the other sections (later, later!) we think the two finishes will work really well together. Before topcoat And after: John also put a sand and cement render round the block-work below DPC to tidy that up... Although Troy seems more interested in the stray soil-pipe bung than the render: Electric 1st fix ...has started! Unfortunately 1st fix electrics is not particularly photogenic but here are the sparkies Nick and Darren pretending to be hard at work to prove it's underway. More on electrics to follow in the weeks ahead, I am sure. Decision time So, good progress on a number of fronts but it's not all been plain-sailing. I have had to pull the plug on the team who were supposed to fit out additional wall and ceiling insulation. They were supposed to complete in two weeks back in early August but the work didn't progress as well as they'd hoped we agreed they'd need to come back for a week with a bigger crew to finish off. They were due back last week but had to postpone by a week. Then today, I find they can't make tomorrow and there's a lack of clarity about when and if they'd be in next week. Unfortunately, we cannot afford to be chasing a slipping milestone because the ceiling insulation has dependencies: 1st fix electrics and then the plastering, both of which are on the critical path. So I had to let them know that we weren't continuing with them. They took it quite well to be fair; I suspect it may have been a relief. We are now going to switch to Plan B... just as soon as I have worked out a Plan B. Seriously: always have a plan B. Actually we have a plan B and a plan C, either of which will protect our schedule - we just need to decide which is the more palatable because they both have some downsides: either through higher costs or by reducing our planned insulation levels (which may be a bit OTT anyway). In summary, Plan B - get the plasterers to fit insulated plasterboard; Plan C skip the additional roof insulation and let the u-value for that element increase from 0.09 to 0.152. The latter of course still satisfies building regs and has a surprisingly small impact on heating requirements according to the Build Hub heat loss spreadie. Conversations with our architect and SAP man next week to help decide. Watch this space for further updates. Overall though, we both feel the we have made the right decision, and usually in these situations the danger is 'going with the flow' when the flow is really drift. And finally For the eagle-eyed amongst you who spotted that some plasterboard has magically appeared in the plant room... Have the plasterers started already? No - they don't start until after 1st fix, of course, but the plant room presents a 1st fix v plasterboard conundrum - so who did we manage to rope in for some impromptu 'boarding out'? Why, none other than Mrs P! Seen here in action: Great job Mrs P. - good to see you wearing the Benpointer team hoodie! Dashboard: Contractor days on site this week: 15 (I'm not counting Mrs P!) Contractor days on site since build start: 264 Budget: No change. Plan: Still on track to move in by Easter 2026. Issues and worries closed this week: Worries about the ceiling insulation crew's ability to keep to the schedule. Current top issues and worries: Replanning the approach to ceiling insulation. Plan B or plan C?

Thanks for the kind words everyone - much appreciated. I wish I knew why the random pictures appear at the end of the blog entry!

As promised, I spared you a Week 14 blog due to our visit to Yorkshire for a wedding and catch-up with old friends. It was lovely to do something unrelated to the house and it made us realise how all-consuming our build has become. We will definitely try to have some more non-house time through the rest of the build. That said, it’s back to the matter in hand: UFH Two weeks ago the guys were battling through laying the floor insulation in preparation for laying the UFH pipes, ahead of the screed pour which was booked for 3rd September. In the end it was a very close-run thing - the UFH pipes were ready by 13:30 and the screed arrived 10 minutes later. Too close for comfort really: Tight project scheduling is one thing but the stress of 11 cubic metres of unusable liquid screed potentially being dumped on the site was a very uncomfortable feeling. Screed Once started, the screed pour itself (by Williams Walls and Floors) seemed to go very smoothly (hah!) and it looks fantastic. We have had 65mm of Cemfloor Therm liquid screed laid. Still in stressed-out mode I woke up before 4:00am the next day worrying about what would happen if the pipes floated up or the screed was laid too high (they didn’t; it wasn’t). (I helpfully woke Mrs P. too just so that she could share the experience - she seemed not to appreciate it.) We left the house shut up for 24 hours as instructed by the screed man Rob Williams. On Friday morning I went over and opened up to find we had a sauna! All perfectly normal apparently, but the combination of heat from the screed setting reaction, the well-insulated relatively air-tight house and (presumably) 1000’s of gallons of water created an atmosphere that made Singapore seem like a desert. Sadly, I failed to get any photos of the clouds created as the windows were opened and the saturated ‘sauna’ atmosphere hit the September morning. By the afternoon, with all the windows and doors open the inside of the house seemed perfectly normal again. Seeing the screed poured in a few hours and reflecting on how fiddly all the underfloor insulation had been to lay, made me wish there was an option for a poured floor insulation - it would surely have been so much less effort and faster? Edit: There is apparently - https://www.rtu.co.uk/assets/documents/RTU-Ultrabead-Brochure.pdf. I have no idea if it is any good, what the pros and cons are etc, and it is too late for us but if we were doing another build (Mrs P: “We’re not!”), I’d certainly look into it. Render Just to make sure we weren’t missing an opportunity to get some outside work done while the focus was on the floor, we had booked our render team (Caesar Spray-rend and Plastering) to start boarding up the 50% or so of the external walls that are to be rendered (the other 50% will be vertically clad in Brimstone Ash). So on week 14 the STS construction boards were fixed to battens and last week the base coat was sprayed and smoothed out. It already looks a lot better just for some of the shiny breather membrane walls being covered up. We now have to wait a week before the top coat can be applied. We’re using EcoRend Thincoat for anyone who is interested. And finally… Marcus from our super groundworks team came in on Thursday to set all the stainless steel oak post brackets in concrete on top of their support pillars, and also to lay the smoothest, tidiest concrete slab you have ever seen to rest our ASHP on. …Which is just as well because the ASHP arrives on Monday! Dashboard: Contractor days on site this week: 22 Contractor days on site previous week: 16 Contractor days on site since build start: 249 Budget: Getting more challenging tbh - beginning to eat into the contingency - mainly costs I hadn't properly estimated. 😱 Plan: Still on track to move in by Easter 2026. Issues and worries closed this week: UFH pipes laid. Screed down! Current top issues and worries: Insulation - the additional ceiling insulation is still a worry - scheduled for w/c 15th September.

Well, as a novice I am consoled by that thought, although I am sure some on here have said stud walls on screed was fine. Anyway, it's history for our build now - choices made and no going back - so onwards and upwards!

Floor The main focus this week has been laying the DPM + 220mm PIR floor insulation + 50mm upstand insulation round all the walls, then the UFH perimeter expansion strips and the vapour separation layer ready for the UFH pipes. It’s proved intricate work. Ken our first fix plumber assisted by local builders Barry and Jordan together have been working hard to complete the task by the end of August so that the liquid screed can go down during the first week in September. Early this week it looked like there was too much to do in the time available which added to everyone’s stress levels but by the end of the week the guys have made good progress and appear to be over half way through. We have a little bit of contingency with the screed team who are happy at this stage to leave the pour date a bit flexible during w/c 1st September, so we are hoping we will be alright. One thing that is particularly pleasing is the meticulous attention to detail being applied by Ken, Barry and Jordan. The PIR boards are being cut and fitted really tightly and the taping of joins and of the DPM is being done with real care. If we were doing this again (Mrs P: “We’re not”), I’d consider building the non load-bearing internal walls later, on top of the screed, which would have saved a lot of effort intricately cutting, fitting and taping DMP and insulation to those internal walls. But no doubt a different series of problems would have ensued. Electricity supply Also this week, SSE came in and moved our electric supply from a meter box which used to cling to the side of a now-demolished wooden garage, inside to the plant room. Two SSE engineers for two hours = 3p change from £700(!) Hey-ho, it’s done now. External battens I reported that these were all done last week but I forgot about the cross-battening required for the vertical timber cladding. Anyway, that was duly completed by Alan and Chris this week and the walls are ready to receive STS construction boards plus Ecorend thin coat render (for the rendered sections), and Brimstone Ash vertical timber cladding on the other areas. I need to arrange delivery of the latter when we have sufficient space (the cladding is bought and being held by Vastern Timber pending delivery). But work on the backing boards for the render starts on Monday - yes I know it’s a bank holiday but the render people are keen, so who am I to stop them? Carpenter Chris also sorted out the ply protection for the front door and here's our lovely temporary door - the real one is safely wrapped up in the workshop. Scaffold Also keen to work the bank holiday weekend (well, ok, after a bit of encouragement) were the scaffolders, who arrived on Saturday morning to remove the scaffold, which they did in a few hours with no dramas. So we can now see the house! although it’s still looking very shiny-silver. The plastic protection is remaining on part of the zinc pending the completion of the vertical cladding of the wall on the left And finally… Remember this rogue beam from last week’s blog? Too close to the window reveal to allow us to fit an external blind… Well, I asked Matt at Turner Timber Frames to check with the engineers whether it and the one at the other end of that roof canopy are structural and it turns out they are not, they are purely 'cosmetic' and can be removed if we wish. However, in the meantime we are wondering if we really need and external blind anyway(!) Also, we need to talk to Alan the carpenter about how we are going to finish the roof in that area, and he’s away until next Wednesday. The soffit will be clad with some of the Brimstone Ash but should the soffits be horizontal or follow the slope of the rafters? Do we need some kind of clad gable at the end? Also, how easy will it be to take that beam out? It’s on joist hangers at the wall end but how is it fixed to the top of the oak posts? At least we have options to consider now though. Dashboard: Contractor days on site this week: 19 Contractor days on site since build start: 211 Budget: No change, running slightly over. Plan: On track to move in by Easter 2026. New measure - Number of bacon baps bought: 8 this week; 41 to date. These are ‘keeping people happy’ baps. Unfortunately there is no entry in the budget for them so I have explained to Mrs P. that they’ll have to come out of the kitchen budget. Kitchen -> food, it’s obvious! (Although as Mrs P. points out: "No kitchen; no food" which is a concern.) At any rate bacon baps from time to time feel like a worthwhile investment to keep everyone happy. Issues and worries closed this week: Scaffold is now down; the renderers can get at the walls! Current top issues and worries: Insulation - the additional ceiling insulation is still a worry - going to need to schedule it in after the screed now. PS We’re at a wedding next weekend so the weekly blog may be delayed or skipped. I imagine you’ll all survive the blow.

Wow! That does look lovely. Do you have a floor plan you can post? Great idea to make use of that beautiful walnut. What did you use to finish it?

It's got a nice ring to it but sadly it's not really fair on those who experience genuine bad luck that no amount of preparation which doesn't involve time-travel would have avoided. I'm thinking of those who bought, and largely paid for, a timber frame from a company that then went bust; those who planned their groundworks for the summer only to find that particular summer is the wettest on record (in contrast to us)... We can all think of plenty of similar examples. However, alongside Gary Player's gem: "The more I practice, the luckier I get", it's a great way to highlight that there's often more to apparent 'good luck' than meets the eye.

Very kind words but I am still expecting that we will hit the rails and run into the smelly stuff at some point, so let's see how we cope with that. In the meantime, the principal attribute of successful project management imo is "Be lucky". Not too big for a first tattoo Nick 😉

Great advice re lift and slide door Nick. We'll lock it shut for now because there's currently a 500mm step up from the back and a 300mm step down inside to get in through that door, so it's not an ideal access anyway. We'll make the ply cover for when the screed is down - early September 🤞

Very busy again this week - we were probably running at the maximum people we can have on site without contractors getting in each other’s way. On Thursday we had the carpenters, the insulation team, a roofer and the window installation team on site, and it’s not a very big site. Windows and doors The main highlight of the week was the arrival of the windows and external doors on Thursday together with a team of four (from Ukraine, though the windows were made in Estonia). The installation team led by Alex and Val were on-site by 7:30am and the windows arrived at 8:00. All the windows and doors went in smoothly over the next day and a half. Barring a factory error, we knew they were going to fit as Alex and Val had done a pre-installation site visit three weeks ago. There were no factory errors and everything fitted perfectly. There was no fuss about our difficulties with getting all the requested scaffold changes done (we didn’t) - the team worked around the shortcomings. For those interested, the windows are triple-glazed, alu-clad, inward opening tilt and turn, Norrsken P33A units; the doors are S305A alu-clad, composite panels doors and the 4 metre lift and slide, which is also triple-glazed, is Norrsken’s S305A door. The lift and slide door weighs in at 475kg and was moved by hand down a 500mm wide gap between our scaffold and our neighbour’s fence, then lifted manually into place. Here’s the sliding panel coming in first - it was stood to one side then fitted in once the frame and fixed panel were in place. I have to say, we remain very impressed by Norrsken and would recommend both the product and their installation subcontractors. Alex and Val suggested removing the front door, wrapping it and storing it safely, then cladding the frame in ply with a temporary door in place during the remainder of the build. Seemed a sensible suggestion and that is what we aim to do next week. Here's Dima, Alex and Val from the Norrsken window installation team: Having the windows and doors in is obviously a big step forward but we had progress on other fronts too: External wall battens and roof Our carpenters Alan and Chris made a start on (and indeed finished) fixing the 50 x 50mm external ventilation battens and have pretty much finished. (That’s messed up my wallplan - it’s not supposed to be done until next week!). They also boarded out the plant room walls with 18mm ply - it seems sensible given the amount of kit we need to fix to the walls in there. Just in time for the electricity supply, which SSE are coming next Tuesday to move into the plant room from the current external meter box. The slate edged, solar panel roof was finished this week too and now only needs the zinc mono-ridge capping/facia to be fitted (tomorrow) for the roofs to be complete. Insulation The team from Cornwall were back this week for what was supposed to be week two of two, to membrane and insulate the insides of the external walls and the underside of roof (below the blown cellulose layer). Progress has been slow for a number of reasons and the work remains a long way from complete. Still to do is the insulation on a couple of high walls and the whole of the roof. Partly, the job has proved a lot more involved than I or the contractors realised. Also they were delayed this week by other work over-running, sickness, and a funeral. On the one hand, given it’s a fixed price contract, we should not be too worried. But there is a potential impact on the schedule downstream if this work is not complete by about the 3rd week in September. And for the next 3 weeks our focus shifts to the floor: fixing the DPM, insulation and UFH pipes, then pouring the screed. So there is no access inside the house for the wall/roof insulation team until about 8th September. I can see this getting messy but for the moment we are trying to keep to the current plan which leads to the plastering starting on 6th October. It might be time to fire up Steve Jobs’ Reality Distortion Field (well, it worked for him... until it didn’t). Mistakes - I’ve made a few… Here’s a good one: We planned to fit an external blind to the master bedroom window, partly to keep the solar gain down and partly for blackout purposes. The idea was that the blind would be hidden in the timber cladding, out of sight when not in use. But despite poring over drawings and designs endlessly, I failed to spot that the roof canopy has a return beam that comes in 20mm above the window reveal - so there is no way we are going hide a blind cassette in there. I’m not actually sure what that beam is doing given there is no weight hanging off it and surely the roof trusses provide enough of a horizontal tie for the oak post? It’s probably too much effort to challenge or change now though and Mrs P. and I both feel we can live without an external blind there (and fortunately our Part O Overheating assessment did not take the external blind into account but listed it as an optional improvement). Other mistakes are either too minor, or too embarrassing to mention. Stress Yes, I can confirm that running a self-build is pretty stressful - on a par with the stress levels I used to experience running big IT programmes, I’d say. I won’t deny we’ve both had a few sleepless nights worrying about what’s happening tomorrow, or the day after, or next week... Still, every task done is one we (hopefully) no longer have to do. Dashboard: Contractor days on site this week: 26 (that’s our record week!) Contractor days on site since build start: 192 Budget: No change, running slightly over. Plan: On track to move in by Easter 2026. Issues and worries closed this week: The windows are in! Our scaffold issues haven’t held the window installation up (though the scaffold itself did fortunately hold the window installers up!) Current top issues and worries: Insulation - still lots to do, increasing potential for the dealys to impact our overall schedule. Scaffolding - still a worry, although we do now have a provisional date when the scaffolders plan to take the scaffold down, so fingers-crossed that holds. Scheduling future deliveries: insulation, battening, cladding, render boards, MVHR, UFH kit, ASHP, HW cylinder… all due in the next four weeks.

I'd recommend Turner Timber Frames. Their price was about 50% of MBC and several others, albeit it's left us with more work to do subsequently (which we knew).

I shopped around for 100mm Celotex two weeks ago - needed 135 sheets. Tried all the big online places. In the end my local Travis P came up with the best price: £27 per sheet, £32.40 inc VAT. Best bit is they'll keep them at my local store, and deliver them for free as and when I need them! Genuine Celotex GA4100 too.