Benpointer

Checked - it's as I thought, they are going to fix a strip of the ash to the cross batten, they have already done this on the tall window (photo looks a bit odd due to it being an angled reveal + the camera perspective). We are not going to worry about weep holes because: ventilated cavity, small gaps between the half lap boards, and its a relatively sheltered east facing wall. The window itself is set back from the cladding and very well sealed.

We registered our address with the council in June and they said they notify Royal Mail amongst others but our address is still not appearing on the Royal Mail Postcode Finder. So I tried the Postcode Finder: Report an incorrect or missing address facility but it only accepts the new address if you have moved in or are moving in within the next two weeks. Which is a real pain because we have people wanting to deliver to the address regularly, MCS certificates and warranties needing to be registered to the address, etc. etc. I've told them via the facility that we've moved in even though we haven't - I'm now hoping Royal Mail don't tell* the council or else they'll be on our case for council tax! * Since RM don't seem to able to tell themselves about our address I doubt they'll be telling anyone else. Immediately after submitting the 'missing address' request via RM's online form I get an undeliverable email notice: "Delivery has failed to these recipients or groups: postcode.enquiry@royalmail.com" but also another email from RM stating: "Thank you for sending us your updated address request. We're currently experiencing higher-than-usual volumes, so it may take a little longer to reply than usual. If you've already been in touch, please be assured we'll respond as soon as possible." I don't hold out much hope of progress! Hey-ho.

No we haven't rendered that top reveal - too fiddly. There's a cross batten behind the vertical cladding and I think they have added, or are going to add, a strip of ash to cover that batten but that strip will only be visible from below - the vertical cladding comes down further. I need to check tomorrow. Also I am now unsure how any water that gets behind the cladding will drain, so I need to check that too but I'd be surprised if the chippies haven't already considered and addressed it. (There's a ventilated cavity behind the cladding of course.) I'll report back.

Hah, yes, I spotted that in the photo too but you just don't notice the nail holes from ground unless you look for them. They are doing them by eye rather than marking out every hole and there are some slight variances - I'll forgive them that because we want the cladding done asap. The cables are indeed mainly cat 5/6 - for CCTV. The outside lights are all in the soffits, and obviously have power cables running up behind the cladding from the plant room to service those. There are just a couple of outside power sockets but not on these walls pictured. We have used British cedar before on previous projects and rated it highly. We bought it green from a local sawmill and was very heavy - I almost expected it to drip like a sponge. But once it was up it dried quickly and weathered very well. I might well use it when we re-clad the workshop, next year hopefully - no zinc to run on to so no issues with using cedar there.

Yes it's Brimstone Ash from Vastern timber. Expensive but really excellent quality - straight as a dye, virtually no knots, and it came really well packed. It cuts cleanly and we haven't experienced any splitting, despite Vastern warning that it can be brittle. We originally intended using western red cedar but discovered that cedar reacts with zinc and we have some high cladding above our zinc roof. The Brimstone Ash is inert (so we are told!). It's about the same price as Canadian cedar but has the benefit of going silver quicker, and it's British, so lower transport CO2 costs. Stainless nails are an absolute must. We're using Timco FirmaHold 16G 50mm Stainless 2nd fix nails through the face - very hard to see. Regarding the edge above the windows. Although it doesn't really show in the photo all the bottom edges are cut at a 30 degree angle to leave a drip point at the outside edge. This was recommended by Vastern. The same for any joins in long verticals, though incredibly I think we have only needed 2 or 3 due to lots of long lengths being supplied and careful selection by our carpenters. For the bottom edges they have fixed them slightly over sized then run a rail saw. Anyway we feel the angled cut at the bottom should stop water pooling on those bottom edges. Further progress on the cladding today:

We bought everything through them: design, kit, commissioning, and installed it ourselves. I am sure we could have done the design ourselves but we had too many other things going on. You would have to give Patrick Chester a call or email patrick@heatspaceandlight.com to see if they would just commission.

Well that's very kind. There are several things to say: Firstly, we have been lucky. What's the most important attribute of a successful project manager? Answer: Be lucky! Secondly, the blog no doubt gives a slightly rose-tinted view for a couple of reasons: I have not majored on the couple of trades who have been more 'difficult', primarily because it's not fair to trash them when they have no way of replying. Also, I am mindful that where we have had issues that might be down to me - lack of clarity of instructions, clash of styles etc. None have been fraudulent or dangerous. In terms of the process of finding good trades, it's largely down to previous contact and personal recommendation. Those trades we did not already know were mostly recommended by those we did know. Notably the few we have been less enamoured with were people I sought out directly through the internet, adverts etc. but equally that method did throw up some excellent teams (e.g. the plasterers, and indeed the main timber frame company Turners). For national suppliers/trades (e.g. our ASHP team Air2Heat and the MVHR guys Heat, Space and Light) a trawl of BuildHub has been very useful, and reliable. I thought about asking for reference sites but in truth I don't think these are at all reliable; ask any trade for a reference and if they want the job they'll provide one (and often those good trades that don't need the work won't be bothering to provide referees because the whole thing is a bit of hassle for a job you might not get). And has anyone ever followed up a reference and got bad feedback? So I didn't bother with that. The other big thing is communication. I spent quite a lot of time lining people up as early as possible, and talked to them - a lot. By which I mean I kept in regular contact every fortnight or so to confirm we were still on schedule, and check they were still lined up. Some people I just On a couple of trades I got cold feet due to difficulties getting hold of them or lack of confidence they could make our dates, so I switched to alternatives, giving them plenty of notice we were going elsewhere. I have tried to keep the communication up through their work for us too - everyone likes to be told what a great job they are doing and it costs nothing. Build up a stock of that and if you need to call out issues, change things, or beg some favours it lands much better. We have really worked hard to keep people on site happy too - tea and coffee making, free snacks, a well-stocked fridge - several contractors have commented that ours has been a great site to work at. It costs next to nothing and reaps lots of good will. Also boosting good will is paying invoices immediately - I mean the same day, within a couple of hours. We have the cash to fund the project so it does much better for us in keeping trades happy than sat in our account earning nothing in real terms.

Yes, there’s a lot going on right now. It’s been a mixture of challenges and progress this past fortnight. Floor tiling The original plan was for the floor tiling to be done during the first two weeks of November but the screed not being quite dry enough delayed that. Contractor sickness and the need for the tilers to try to juggle their other booked work around ours have led to us being about 3 1/2 weeks behind now and still not quite finished (a few tiles still to lay and about half the house to grout). The overall impact on our plan is not to severe though as we managed to schedule the decorating in early to gain a week back and overlap the tiling with second fix plumbing. A big plus is that the quality of the tiling is excellent. In years to come, we won’t remember the delays but we’ll be constantly reminded of the quality job the tilers have done. Tilers: Lee and Steve Kitchen floor down - kitchen units arriving! Bathrooms Speaking of quality, we have a first rate plumber working on our bathrooms, namely: my brother Chris. He came over from East Sussex for a couple of weeks to do the work and the logistics meant he came ‘sight unseen’ which added to the challenge. We are trying to maximise the space by fitting a generous master ensuite, a family shower room, and a guest ensuite into a relatively compact area of the overall house footprint. This means a lot of plumbing has to go into the wall between the master ensuite and the other two bathrooms. The soil pipes, whose location we had decided on during groundworks, proved not to be in the ideal place, but Chris managed to find a way to make it all fit. We dropped one wall hung WC in favour of a back-to-wall, floor-standing model with a concealed cistern because there was simply no way to fit a wall frame into the studwork and line the soil pipe up. Chris has made great progress so far and we are particularly pleased with the mural wall panels that he’s fitted to the two showers. He’s also sorted out half a dozen minor jobs in the plant room, and set up the supplies and waste for the kitchen and utility rooms. Great work Bro! In the master ensuite we have now got some boxing-in to do which will hopefully double up as built-in storage, then Chris will be back in the New Year to fit toilets, wash basins, shower screens etc. Cladding Alan and Chris, our two chippies who have been with us throughout the build have been progressing the Brimstone Ash cladding. They’ve made a great job of it too. All the high work is now done and so our scaffolding should be coming down within the next week or so, with luck. It would be nice to get the house clear of scaffolding with the cladding complete before Christmas. We’re delighted with how the cladding looks. We won’t be treating it in any way though as we are happy to let it fade to silver naturally. Chris and Alan our carpenters: Between cladding, they found time to fit the 'real' front door back on (Norrsken tip was to replace it with a temporary door while the 'messy' trades were in and out of the house.) The door looks great - but I am not sure the pipe insulation on the handle adds much to the aesthetics. On the subject of doors, we went for 'slam shut', requiring a key to turn the latch from the outside, even on an unlocked door. This may well be a recipe for locking ourselves out of the house repeatedly. I am having second thoughts but Mrs P. is more relaxed. I asked Norrsken is there is anything we could do to change that at this stage but they haven't been able to offer any solutions, so I guess we are stuck with slam shut doors. MVHR commissioning Patrick Chester from Heat, Space and Light came along to commission our MVHR system. He confirmed that we appeared to have connected all the supply and extract valves correctly(!) and the commissioning and balancing was very straightforward. We've had great service from Heat, Space and Light for a competitive price - highly recommended! We have a Zehnder Q350 ComfoAir unit and Patrick took me through the basics. Compared to our previous MVHR the Zehnder seems incredibly quiet. In normal operation it’s using just 20W. Patrick also showed me the heat recovery stats. On the day of the commissioning the outside air temperature was 2° C and the inside air was 15° C. After passing through the heat exchanger, the incoming air was registering 14.5° C, so that’s a pretty impressive exchange of the heat from the air going out to the air coming in. Patrick balancing the ventilation system Electric second fix… …is also under way. More on that next time… Focus for the next two weeks Floor tiling - finish off. Cladding - hopefully complete in the next fortnight. Joinery - make a start on the door linings and doors. Second fix electrics - should be progressing, batteries due to be installed next week. Kitchen/utility/pantry - make a start on fitting the units. Dashboard: Contractor days on site this fortnight: 45.5 Contractor days on site since build start: 441.5 Budget: No change - over budget but within contingency. Plan: Still on track to move in by Easter 2026. Issues and worries closed this fortnight: None Current top issues and worries: Will we have the kitchen units ready for worktop templating w/c 5th January?

Sorry if I missed this earlier but have you posted any info / plans etc. on your intended build?

I am now convinced our issues arose from the floor surface getting damp again from the plastering. The house humidity went up to 98% in the few weeks the plasterers were skimming, despite open windows and the MVHR and UFH both running. It's now back to 40%. I can't criticise the tiler for not proceeding though - we have had floor tiles laid on a too wet floor before and many of them 'popped' over the following years - a nightmare to fix, so best avoided.

They are 3980mm x 580mm for a 4000x600 opening.

Checked with our decorator, he says you can do either but in our case it was a further coat applied with the roller.

It’s now six months since we broke ground and it's fair to say we’re very pleased with the progress since we began. We have of course been very lucky with the contractors we’ve had working on the project, right from the start with the great groundworks team and that’s continued pretty much throughout. And we’ve largely avoided unexpected surprises and delays. That was until a couple of weeks ago when we found that our screed was not dry enough to start laying the floor tiles https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/blogs/entry/1122-week-24-juggling-with-the-plan/ Never mind, our decorator Steve Brady rescheduled some other work and came in a a week early. Decorating It took Steve and his son Tom just three days to mask and spray throughout - and what a transformation! If you are willing to have one colour throughout this has to be the quickest way to go. Our thinking is that we will no doubt repaint rooms or individual wall in a range of colours in time but to allow us to move in as soon as possible we were happy to stick to one colour. Steve and Tom sprayed a mist coat of diluted Armstead trade white straight on to the plaster followed by another coat of Armstead, then two coats of Dulux Diamond Matt, mixed to ‘Dimity’. He then rollered over the walls which should help if we need to touch any paint up in the future (touching up spray finished paint by roller or brush doesn’t really work apparently). The results look great and we feel that it gives us a really solid paint job. Spraying does use a lot of paint though, especially with our vaulted ceilings and high walls: 80 litres of the Armstead and then 80 litres of the Dulux. Steve and Tom our decorators: The final rollering: Tiling Finally, by Thursday this week the screed reached a level where our floor tiler Steve Hillyard felt it was safe to start laying. The relatively drier weather we had last week has no doubt helped, and with the MVHR system running and the UFH on low the air humidity in the house dropped below 40% (the day the plasterers finished it was 98%). Our delays have no doubt disrupted Steve’s schedule and he’s worked through this weekend to catch-up, which we really appreciate. The first tiles are looking great. They are 900mm x 600mm Italian porcelain tiles from Pietra Wood and Stone near Bath. Focus for the next two weeks Floor tiling Bathrooms - my brother is with us for two weeks to make a start on out bathrooms. Cladding - the scaffolding we need the high cladding is now in place. Deliveries - bathroom, kitchen, appliances, door casings… all planned for delivery in the next couple of weeks. 2nd fix electrics - should start in the next two weeks. Dashboard: Contractor days on site this fortnight: 14 Contractor days on site since build start: 396 Budget: No change - still a bit over budget but within contingency. Plan: Still on track to move in by Easter 2026. Issues and worries closed this fortnight: The screed is dry! Current top issues and worries: Nothing too concerning, which nice.

Apols for bumping this one - still pondering whether to paint the sand and cement render that is below DPC, and if so with what? If anyone has any experience or suggestions they would be gratefully received. Thanks!

Good steer John. We used Cosy this way in our previous house and it worked well. Just to conclude though - no need for the Heatmiser Neo Hub?

We are about to enter 2nd fix when all our 7 wired room stats and 2 dew-point floor sensors will be connected via our two 8-port Heatmiser wiring hubs to control 16 loops (most rooms have two or more loops). Today's dumb question: Do we also need a Heatmiser Neo Hub, and what would it give us? If it's simply smart home capability, I wonder if we actually need that. In our last house we set the room stats to a comfortable level and ran the UFH 24x7 52 weeks per year (it was never demanded during the warmer months at all). That worked fine. I guess with solar and batteries, plus an Octopus agile tariff, we might want to control the UFH with respect to battery charge, solar output and variable tariff rates but we could probably do that through the Panasonic HP app if needed. Any thoughts? Thanks

Why do I wish we'd put the insulation on top? It would have simplified the build (easier to lay insulation over the top than fix from below) and left us with the open web joists to run services (especially MVHR ducts) through. Tbf ours our pitched roofs not flat so may not be relevant to you.

No, but I wish we had put additional insulation on top, instead of underneath our roof. We did the latter because of concerns about roof thickness aesthetics but with hindsight and a bit of careful design we could have addressed that.

Can you not raise a money claim against them?

We've had this debate on another thread John. We're note zoning, at least not from a heat pump perspective. We do have room stats controlling loops to specific rooms because we want some rooms (bedrooms, pantry) to be cooler than others (bathrooms). (If you consider that zoning then ok.) I believe your view is that we could control this be setting loop flow rates at the manifold but frankly, I can't be arsed with that 'tweaking' - I'd rather just use a room stat. The 'buffer' is really a volumiser, it's recommended by Panasonic: Volumiser: in the open primary circuit (when all heating – cooling circuits are closed) it is recommended a minimum water volume of at least 30 litres is included.

The plan for the two weeks just gone was to complete the plastering and start the floor tiling. No issues with the first part, our team of plasterers have done a great job, see below. The floor tiles arrived more or less on schedule, and the tilers Steve and Kev turned up as planned. However, when they checked the floor humidity to confirm it was ready to tile, the meter showed it was slightly over the required level. I am a little unclear of the actual moisture numbers but their meter was showing an amber bar when they really need it to be green to be sure it is safe to tile. The screed has been down for 63 days in an airtight house but that screed was 65mm thick on average so it was perhaps unsurprising it was borderline with the 1 day per mm drying time not quite being met. (I have also seen a suggestion it should be 1 day per mm up to 50mm and 2 days per mm over, which would be 80 days!) Also, of course it has been pretty humid outside throughout that period and the plastering has necessarily added more water inside the house. No doubt that vapour control layer has been doing its job too preventing internal moisture getting into the structure. To mitigate this we have had the UFH heating running very low but the plaster was drying too fast when we tried increasing the UFH temperature. We have also had the windows open a lot of the time and for the past week we’ve been running the MVHR system to ventilate the house. But despite that, the floor is not quite dry enough. Of course, the plan is all very tight and was meant to be: floor tiling last week and next, spray paint w/c 17 November, then 2nd fix electric and plumbing is booked from w/c 24 November. So what to do? Disruptive as it must be for the floor tilers, they were very good about it and suggested seeing if we could get the decorator in a week early and then they’d work long days to try to get the tiling done by the 24th or thereabouts. I called the decorator (another Steve) and after he had made a few calls he confirmed that he could indeed come in next week, Monday to Thursday. So that’s the revised plan. Hopefully by Thursday the floor will be dry enough to start tiling. If not well… that’s a bridge to be crossed later. Plastering Despite the frustration of the (admittedly tight) plan being disrupted, we are taking comfort from the fact that the boarding out and skimming is all complete. Dan, Sam and Brandon, our team of local plasterers have done a brilliant job for us and we’d be really happy to recommend them to anyone needing a plastering team in the Dorset, Wilts, Somerset border area (PM me if you want their details). Brandon, Sam and Dan: Cladding The end of last week also saw the return of our chippies Alan and Chris who made a start on the timber cladding. We’re using Brimstone Ash from Vastern and Alan and Chris made a start with the soffits first. Focus for the next two weeks Spray painting throughout. Floor tiling Cladding (we are going to need some more a scaffolding for the high cladding, so that is hopefully coming next week). Dashboard: Contractor days on site this fortnight: 29 Contractor days on site since build start: 382 Budget: No change - still a bit over budget but within contingency. Plan: Still on track to move in by Easter 2026. Issues and worries closed this fortnight: None Current top issues and worries: Unsurprisingly: Will the floor be dry enough to tile?!

Good point Rick. The steel ducts are actually on the 'warm' side so don't need insulating (though we have popped some acoustic insulation offcuts around them just because we have them. The 'cold' side ducts are Zehnder ComfoPipe 160mm pre-insulated ducts as shown here:

A principal role of the project manager is surely to deal with the unexpected - for example, when a key team member is ill and out of action. But what happens when the project manager is laid-up? Following an ‘incident’ (all my own fault), I have spent the past week unexpectedly in hospital. That was definitely not in the plan. Fortunately I am home again now but largely ‘confined to barracks’ for the next month or so. At the moment I cannot even visit the plot, although I hope to be able to make the occasional visit over the coming weeks. As you can imagine this is deeply frustrating. Worse still is the realisation that my lack of hands-on project management has made absolutely no difference to the pace of progress (well actually, it may have increased without my involvement, tbh). Curious. The main thrust over the past two weeks has been carpentry, ventilation ducting, boarding-out and plastering. And fortunately we have two excellent chippies and a great team of plasterers in. We really have been very lucky with our trades; here’s hoping it continues through the remainder of the project. Mrs P. has been magnificent during this period too, keeping the show on the road by constantly stocking drinks and snacks, regular runs to Screwfix, keeping the site tidy, as well as fixing all the internal acoustic insulation. Not to forget planting all our new trees! All while running back and forth to the hospital 20 miles away to keep the Project Manager sane and stocked with essentials (edible food mainly). So, great progress has been made despite (or because of) the absent PM, and we continue on plan. Ventilation ducting and caprentry I had some wild idea that Mrs P. and I might fit the MVHR ducting but the least said about that the better. Fortunately, as noted in the previous blog, our chippies Chris and Alan stepped in to run the ducts very neatly to all the rooms. Even though it’s a new build we’ve found it tricky to work out how to run the 14 semi-rigid 75mm ventilation ducts from the MVHR to all the rooms whilst avoiding obvious ‘boxing in’ sections around and across rooms, which would have detracted from our desired clean lines. Partly that’s because it’s single storey and most of the ceilings are vaulted right up to the insulated roof. If we did another build (Mrs P: “We’re not!”), I’d definitely look to use those open web joists to good effect for ducting. But in the event it’s been left to Chris and Alan to ‘magic away’ all the ducting behind invisible false walls, whilst impacting the overall room sizes as little as possible. And a splendid job they have made of it. The ducting plan requires seven supply and seven extract ducts attached radially to two 8-port manifolds close to MVHR unit itself. We chose to site the manifolds 3m away from the MVHR unit in a void above the kitchen alcove which will hold our built-in ovens, connecting the manifolds to the MVHR unit with 160mm rigid steel spiral ducts, which themselves needed to be hidden away behind a false wall in the utility room. Acoustic insulation As noted above, Mrs P. is an absolute whizz at fitting this. I'd like to think that she's enjoyed it but, um, I'm not brave enough to ask. Anyway, it's going in to every stud wall as soon as there's board on one side to fit it against: Boarding-out and plastering The main thrust over the two weeks has been the room by room boarding-out and plaster skimming. 12.5mm board to the walls, and 37.5mm insulated plasterboard to the ceilings. The plastering team - Dan, Sam and Brandon - have been great. Particularly pleasing is that they are alert to problems and think about the finished product, raising any questions or concerns so that they can be resolved rather than simply plastering over them, so to speak. For example, questioning whether a pendant right by a wall rather than centrally in the room was what we wanted (it wasn’t, the cable had been dropped in the wrong place). We are now about 2/3rds of the way through the plastering and it's making an amazing transformation - turning a house frame into something that begins to feel like a home. Tree-planting Remember all those trees delivered in the last blog? Well Mrs P. got them all planted with the help of our landscape man Ashley, and they are really looking great. Focus for the next two weeks ...Will be on completing the plastering and then our floor tiler Steve should be making a start on the 170m2 of porcelain floor tiles. We thought about using engineered wood in some rooms but in the end we decided to have the same limestone effect tile all the way through and will use rugs to provide additional interest. Eight pallets of tiles are due to be delivered next Tuesday. Dashboard: Contractor days on site this fortnight: 42 Contractor days on site since build start: 353 Budget: No real change - still over budget but potentially using a little less of the contingency than previously. The benefit of an absent PM possibly 😉 Plan: Still on track to move in by Easter 2026. Issues and worries closed this fortnight: N/A Current top issues and worries: A fortnight ago I said "Nothing too pressing - it'll be something we haven’t thought of, probably." Well that was prescient! Current top issue: getting myself back fully fit - otherwise, how will the project manage without me?!

We went with Paul Thorney at Air2Heat, who was originally going to provide an umbrella MCS service but for various reasons (mainly to do with the warm feeling we got about his phone and email pre-sales support) we asked him to do the whole supply, install and commission for a price we though was fair, and we got the £7,500 grant back within a couple of weeks. If you're thinking of a DIY instal but fancy the £7,500 grant, speak to Paul about his umbrella MCS service - you'd still be gaining over £5k after allowing for his commissioning and certification costs.

Tbf some of the music choices of our contractors are definitely a H&S risk. Hearing and Sanity that is.