lizzie

anyone know what you would expect indoor air quality levels for pm2.5 & pm10 to be when mvhr in use with highest level filters...... the same as outside better than outside worse than outside thank you for any input

I so know how you feel. I had the same although we did not use a main contractor but a project manager and trades. PM was in charge of budgets. Costs spiralled out of control and by the time we realised we were too far in to stop a lot of it........I say we I kept it to myself too, nearly caused me a breakdown by the time I eventually did come clean to OH situation was even worse. he was an absolute angel about it all, didn't change the horror of it but at least he didn't blame me. We got there in the end massively over budget and not all from over spending on items a huge amount was waste and mistakes and doing things over again....I didn't know most of what was going on.......like you we are useless at practical things and health does not permit either. He never wanted to build the house it was all me. Its a very hard lesson and I came out of it feeling broken by the experience. No one to blame but me. If you are at a stage you can pull back on some things then look closely, I was afraid of PM due to my ignorance, don't be afraid to confront your builder, I should have done it...and sacked him. Take back control you will feel better for it lots of helpful people to support you here. Good luck.

Thank you all I'm off to find the spirit level!

It is just the MVHR trap. I have been taking the ubend bit off and filling it with water and then screwing it back on, not easy doing that in the small space under the unit..... there is no where obvious on the mvhr unit to pour water would I have to unscrew the front cover? Sorry I'm really thick with these things LOL

Thank you. I am no plumber and cant immediately see how I would fix this to my waste....will have to ask a plumber I think unless anyone can advise.... this is my current waste its just a ubend and there is a little plastic ball in there, seems to float. .

Yes we get that too Moira. Was quite a shock when I first saw it back in the spring. I'm told its nothing to worry about, something to do with air temp and glass temp. All our south and west windows had it this morning.

@JSHarris that makes a lot of sense thank you. I think I need the installer back. I had no smells overnight with the mvhr turned off and windows open on tilt for ventilation so thats ok as a temp measure

Yes I am! They are talking about having to do some check on meter in case its faulty. I only have usual kitchen appliances, pc, Tv on standby, and mvhr not a lot else bar lighting which is all led. Energy efficient house a lot more expensive to run than my old house LOL

@PeterW I will have to get someone in to help me do that pipes are now all neatly boxed in where they go through the ceiling, will have to get all that ply boxing off.........I dont recall any labels saying which pipe was which but guess there must be some sort of label somewhere. Thank you.

I have not paid an electricity bill for this house yet. Got a regular meter. The Electricity provider have refused to accpet my readinga s they say its way too high. I am having to take readings daily and ring them again next week (been trying to get this sorted for 2months now). I only found out 2 days ago that we have an immersion heater and that has been switched on since god knows when certainly before we moved in as I have never touched any switches in the plant room...nothing is labelled and I dont know what they are. I have now switched off immersion heater and consumption has slowed.....maybe thats it! Bill so far is over £800 for 4 months.

Oh please no......it was my huge fear about having mvhr. I spent eons of time looking at this. I have a lung condition and the air quality is very important, bugs could kill me. The ducts/pipes are totally inacessible up in the roof, we do not have any accessible roof space (flat roof) there is no way to get at anything other than taking down ceilings and the huge amount of pumped insulation above the vapour barrier. Any idea how I can find out if its in the inaccessible ducts?

Reviving this thread as looking for some help please. I seem to be getting drain smells around the house......found one source under the kitchen sink where the rubber cover over the big pipe going into the ground was not properly sealed and letting smells out. Seealed that a week ago and smells less obvious but still evident ow and then. My office is a small room and often has a faint aroma of drains. I am noticing it in our TV snug room too. The bigger open plan spaces dont seem to be getting it but it may be that it just disperses in the bigger space. I think it may be coming via MVHR as I cant see how else it would be occuring. The unit makes a lot of gurgling and glugging noises and often sounds like there is water sloshing around inside. The condensate trap seems to dry out quickly and I have to put water in...and its really difficult as its a u bend under the unit with not much clearance between unit and floor to get under it. We are getting headaches and sore throats in certain rooms in the evenings, I have been opening windows in the day so problem not occuring then. I have now turned off mvhr to try and see if that helps. Any ideas? Should I get MVHR engineer out? thanks for any pointers you can give me.

Thank you. I'm pleased with the way its coming together.

My nephew is a fully qualified tree surgeon....aborist or whatever the technical term is. He has been qualifed for a few years now and is very experienced, he has worked all over the world. He did the equivalent of a degree course at Sparsholt College.... three years. He works in dangerous situations every day, he wears a go pro camera on his helmet and sends us scary videos! He also works ln the development of new rope safety techniques and getting the same certified for use. He has ongoing training and cpd. He works with the emergency services at accidents. There is a huge amount more to this profession than just hacking at a tree with a chainsaw. He still finds time to come and do my little jobs for me bless him.

I think plaster needs a while to dry out before decorating depending on the weather, I will keep everything crossed for you to get in on schedule.

yep a tree topped by someone who does not know what they are doing is not a pretty sight.......or a lollipop bay tree trimmed by me, ends up looking like something by Picasso. Thank goodness for a nephew who is a professional!

There was me thinking you were building a wee house just for you......sounds like an Arab mansion at that many weeks LOL If its any guide my house is circa 2000sqft not sure how many sqm of plastering it was but it cost about £6500 plus materials and took about 4 weeks. It cost more than quote and took longer because I used special plasterboard and they got in a right mess with it, were too know it all to read the instructions on how to cut it etc, The boarding was not great but his skimming was perfect so as a finished job its a good one and Im happy with it. I had left over plasterboard so decided to board the garage. Its bigger than a single garage but smaller than a double. I paid a couple of lads £600 ex materials to board and tape walls and ceiling and they did it all in one long day. Excellent job too they worked fast and well, used to working on big developments so almost price work and it showed in the speed they worked at.

@JSHarris I have sent you a pm. This is a public forum and I think enough has been said here.

Not quite right, it did end up costing me money as it cost more than the sum agreed with MBC to sort the slab but a price was agreed and that was that I did not go back to ask for more. MBC then put the frame up lopsided on the slab before it was rectified, the frame remains lopsided. We have had to fund all sorts of extra work to compensate for this lop sided out of square frame. MBC have not paid a penny towards this. The slab being wrong has impacted the whole build all that was done by way of rectification was that the floor was made 'flat' in order to tile circa 140 bags of levelling compound into the dips.........I am interested that MBC and project manager were aware of shortcomings in their subcontractor. My project manager refused to accept there was anything wrong with the slab despite me pointing out lakes of water after it had gone down and before the frame went up. The only reason MBC got involved is that they read my desperate pleas for help on this forum and I have no complaint with the way they responded to that. As far as I knew they were unaware of the problems until then but it is a surprise that their frame erectors did not mention gaps under the TF floor timbers that you could put your hand under they did not even pack these gaps just left them and so they remained until levelling compound went underneath. That did not deal with the dips in the roof directly above the worst areas nor did it deal with the frame not being square...it is 40m out on one corner......I could go on......... We have had to sort all that out at our own expense. Do you know my former project manager?

No-one has ever told me this about the concrete floor sub-contractor...................

I never meant to imply that project management is the TF company responsibility - if I thought that I would not have paid best part of £50k to a project manager. What I meant was that MBC are now too big to have that intimate personal contact with every customer, I doubt very much what happened with you would happen today, they are not as personally connected. They have employed a person who is now their 'troubleshooter' sorting problems and doing the customer hand holding.......I know this person very well...............this person started the job with MBC while my build was in progress. @vivienzApart from really liking the Internorm windows I was told by MBC (via PM) and Internorm that they had a lot of experience of working together...................that was also a factor in my choice of window provider. I think my Internorm supplier was hopeless but the windows themselves are lovely. The manager got the sack part way through only found that out when we tried to confirm a delivery date and was told no order on books......they did however have a big chunk of money from me that had been sitting in their bank for months they just didnt know what it was for! We had to start the whole thing again and I think thats where everything went awry.

I think you were 'lucky' in several ways Jeremy.....you did not have a 'professional' overseeing things for you and you were capable of doing this yourself. Always best if your are competent but I was not so I had to put my trust in a professional third party. MBC were different then too I think they have changed a bit since your day, the bigger a company grows the less hands on and personal it becomes although I was kept at arms length from MBC mostly. I had a numbered window schedule all signed off - that all the sizes were wrong is where the problem arises. Was it the frame supplier or the window supplier who got it wrong......having searched through I found the answers and it appears the person who was paid to co-ordinate this whole thing did not seem to notice where things were awry. Thank god for my trusty carpenter to make the adjustments required.

No its away from the house but still within our plot. ............public forum so not putting location here. pm you.

I have installed a key safe, its well hidden you would have to go some to find it. Must get round to putting a key in it!

Sounds about right, buck stops with you.......that will be the case all the way through the build! I had mbc frame internorm windows and alumasc render. I would say the render is least of worries thats easily sorted on site. The window openings are another. I thought that mbc and Internorm suppliers were singing from the same song sheet and PM was overseeing the whole thing but when windows came apertures were wrong. My carpenter was on site at the time and made adjustments filling in where gaps were too big and adjusting where too small. Thankfully most openings were too big as that is a whole lot easier to adjust.