lizzie

Can anyone tell me if to get their build completion sign off they have had to provide a cert from plumber or someone for Part G water regs. I saw in our BC submission there was reference to caluclations at no more than 125l, I have never seen any detail on these calculations but in an old e-mail from around the the time the architect was suggesting flow limiters on taps and shower to achieve this. As far as I know we have not installed any flow limiters (but guess if we need them they can be retro fitted?) I am not clear who should give me the cert for building control......we had one plumber to do plant room and hot and cold feeds to supply points per drawings then a completely different plumber to do a first fix from the supply feeds ready for second fix. He did second fix plumbing as well. So two questions please...do I need a cert and if so who does it.

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@newhome thanks. I got a quote from Hiscox. Perfectly acceptable construction standard policy. Much better price too.

@Hecateh you will need SAP for your ‘as built’ EPC you cannot get building control sign off without it. Its easy to fail even if you are not bothered about your rating. You can get your BC stuff in without a sap at the start but you would be wise to be thinking about it and making sure your builder is able to provide any required drawing of what has been done for SAP. ACD they are called. They are not your construction drawings but are relevant to them. You might be as well to get some advice from someone who can run you a Predicted Energy Assessment so at least you have some idea what you will need at the end especially if you might part company with your builder. Someone needs to sign things off for the ACD it could be you as the ‘builder’ but it would be wise if you had some understanding. I was completely ignorant left it to the professionals and somehow errors were made and no one picked it up. I did not even see my BC and Sap submission until a few days ago and it went in more than a year ago. I never thought to ask to look at it. Everyone makes mistakes and thats life it wasnt intentional what was important is that thankfully this was retreivable without too many consequences beyond a lot of stress. My problem was the ‘ as designed’ SAP that went in to building control was for a completely different house...I am single storey with an angled membrane roof what went in was for two storey house with a metal roof..... when we started to do the ‘as built’ for the completed house it was coming back as nonsense and also failing.....I couldnt understand how the assessor was getting the detail of the house so wrong, it wasnt just different boiler, the glazing didnt match etc. It took a few days to establish what had happened then we had to start from scratch. I was so worried in case the drawings that had gone in with the initial BC submission were for a different house too. Thankfully they were at least our drawings but its taken some untangling and I am massively relieved, the thought of having built a house without any BC approved drawings was very stressful.

I think if I had all my junctions done properly for thermal bridging I would have been a bit higher, not sure how much, they said cost and time not worth it just take what is being offered so I did. I have lost the will to live with it, it has been a tortuous week trying to sort it all out. I just wanted an end, the stress of it all has made me ill. If doing again I would make sure I saw the sap info at design stage and that it was right and related to my build then at least when you get to 'as built' it is just a simple exercise not the marathon of confusion I have waded through to get an end and a certificate. There are lessons for people in my tale. You did brilliantly well @PeterStarck you should be very proud of your achievement. I am disappointed with the B, I had hopes of better after all the effort with the build but I am relieved to get an end that is passable after everything the last few days.

Air test was very good .6 Yes the whole thing is skewed in favour of renewables, a nonsense really.

Thank you I have found out what the problem was. My as designed sap was not my house, I guess mistakes happen and I didnt see the report to BC until a few days ago when I saw spec was wrong. Never seen sap but they have got to the bottom of it now. Think I am finally there after a tortuous few days. Looking like a B85 because I dont have any renewables. I will settle for that I am completely exhausted by the whole thing. Thank you for your help, that link was really useful.

I want a resin drive but its megabucks. I have to put in 70 metre long tarmac road (its a bridleway that we have permission to tarmac) that is just to get as far as my personal drive where I want the resin. Tarmac road is v v expensive (its 300 sq m) but I am legally bound to do it to the final surface so that is going down this week but inside my boundary on my personal drive (circa 100sqm) I am just having the binder course (on top of hardcore put down by my ground workers). We are allowing 20mm at the edging to take the resin when ready so I will live with perfectly serviceable but not pretty base layer until I can afford the resin. I was advised by several tarmac companies not to waste my money on black top finish if I was having resin as the resin can go straight on to base coat.

I have no detail of the design SAP, I did not see it, I will try to find out thank you.

Can anyone give me some pointers on thermal bridging at junctions calcs for an as built epc/sap. I started a few days ago from a position of complete ignorance so please bear with me, its a steep learning curve. The house is ready and I have commissioned the epc/sap document.....that is where the problems start. Many many hours on the internet have brought me to a very worried state. I understand that if default values are used for thermal bridge junctions it can be ‘onerous’ and have the result that the value of our highly insulated walls and roof are halved by the calculation for thermal bridging at junctions being innacurate. We had a building regs submission done by architects that included a specification and sap. I only saw the submission a few days ago for the first time. Our specification was not actually for our house as it was early on and we can get over that by putting in actual items that we have installed. So far so good. The SAP calculation I have no detail. The correct drawings were sent to BC. I know now we have to start again moving from as designed to as built and that is where our problems lie. I had no idea on sap or thermal bridging. I have an MBC house. I have established that MBC do not produce ACD for their frames that is for us to do, they have given us the u values of materials they used so we are OK on u values for slab, frame and roof and I have window list and thanks to some help from @JSHarris I am sorted on that side of things. It is with the thermal bridge detail that the problems lie. We are able to get a junction value for the easy ones...wall/floor and wall/roof from the information from MBC. and do a drawing to back this up. What I am then left with is all the other junctions, corners, windows etc. I have a lot of windows and I have an awful lot of corners, the building is not square it has lots of ins an outs. If as I understand it those junctions are added up at the default value and applied against my u value I will have a very expensive thermally efficient house with a lower epc rating than a mass market builder cardboard house. If that is the case I am not at all happy that our ignorance in accurately calculating technical details of our build will leave us in this position. Hopefully we will get some idea back from assessor later today, if its half decent then I will go with that but if it is marked down then that will need to be addressed. Assuming that my interpretation of the way it works is correct (and please tell me if I am wrong!) if I need to get accurate sap next step is to get paperwork done for junctions to be signed off ‘as built’ to go to the assessor to do the report. I want to get this epc finalised for submission to BC so they can come and sign us off but I am not going to put in a totally incorrect sap and compromise my rating for the sake of speed. Its taken 2 years to get here another few days will not kill us. We will end up moving in next week without sign off as it is but I do want it done asap. It has a knock on effect on all sorts of things being in the hiatus of house built and occupied but not signed off by BC. How do I go about getting someone to do all these junction calculations for me if I have to have them. Does anyone know if there is anywhere on line I can go to and get it turned round quickly if needed? Any help at all very much appreciated.

I had a quote from my local showroom. Quality far superior than Howdens. I didnt go with them in the end as they were limited on their design - they couldnt do what I wanted but that could have been just the particular designer.

I think you need to talk to your local water company and/or the environment agency they are the people who will tell you if you can do that. We had to get an approval for our surface to go into a ditch do the field. I do know you can't discharge your surface into the main sewerage system.

I think they can insist expecially if you are next to a listed building. Our last house that we had built was in a conservation area and between 2 listed buildings and next to a scheduled ancient monument. Every external item and finish had to be apporoved and agreed. If I were you I would get a dialogue going and get some samples to show them.

We had a small sample window to look at when we were researching windows. It was visible to me, not offensive but you knew it was there. Have you got a local showroom you can go and visit?

Wow what a long road! Very well done getting there that is a massive achievement.

@Vijay I’m sure I must have missed it. I’m not clear about the developer situation on your plot. Have you bought a serviced plot on a development site rather than a stand alone plot?

Our back door should have had obscure glass. It came with clear. I pointed it out before it was fitted. They fitted it anyway and said new glass would be ordered and it would be replaced. Of course it never was, rubbish installers never did it despite a lot of reminders and given the extent of the other problems we had it just got lost in the mix. The 10% retention I had just about covered the remedial work but not new glass or the man hours I had paid my builders who kept being given the run around by the installers.....could have been worse!

Yes you do. As long as you dont owe him any money he has no reason to hang on it. Formally request it in writing and I would include a day and time you will be at his office to collect ........say 7 days. If he does not come up with it then get straight on to the Law Society and lodge a complaint.

@newhomeCan you try negotiating with them, through a third party if you have to. Perhaps see if you can get someone out from NR to see how it is on the ground and agree a work around on the route they take and the issues their behaviour cause you. Hopefully an agreed strategy between you and them - if you can get there - would be more beneficial that launching into a legal action against a big company with its own legal dept. No winners in that one. Good luck.

Is it just him or is his firm still going? If not who took over his papers. Files have to be kept for 6 years someone must have responsibility for them. That really is your best route if you can take that as they will have all the original documents. TBH I would not try and resolve something like this from internet links I think you need proper professional legal advice and by the sound of it fairly promptly too.

No I will be paying for magic man myself. That part of it is my builders. Its about the only part of the debacle the rubbish installers were not responsible for.

All ours were Internorm so don't know about Kastrup but I would not accept that glass. I have to get magic man in at the end, have scrapes and dings inside and out. Not installers just building site dings. Thankfully all our sliders are now watertight after more than 6 months of leaks and being given the run around by installers.. Rubbish installers ........when I eventually contacted them direct Internorm were very helpful in getting it sorted out. As PeterW says check them all over for water and air tight too.. I would not pay your installers the full balance, make a retention otherwise you will have a really hard time trying to get them to pay magic man or for anything else needed. Thankfully I made a retention on mine and in the end I used that to pay for the install rectification work specified by Internorm.

@Vijay contact the solicitor who did your plot purchase they will have all the papers and should have advised you about this at the time

What a great looking house and well done on all the clearing. Mammoth task!

Mine is hanging from the wall in the plant room (no roof space in my house). It has only been run for an hour or so pre commissioning but it seems very quiet...........when it was running I heard distant rumbling (I was at the other end of the house) I thought that it was MVHR rumbling and got worried, went to find out about noise and was pointed at the digger working outside LOL Gave them all a good laugh!