CADjockey

The only thing I found was that getting a 3P qualified installer was the delay in the system. In fact Octopus told me to get my pre-existing supplier EDF to do the work because they couldn't get an installer for 8 weeks last autumn. So I did and switched to Octopus on the day we moved in. Dealing with National Grid or whatever name they go by was actually a breeze to get the 1P to 3P upgrade. The install was interesting as they seem to have a man to dig a hole a man to swing some cable, a man to connect the cable to our purpose built cabinet and another connect to the old 1P meter. I'm sure we had about 10 individuals come over four days to actually do the upgrade.

I'm on Octopus Cosy with three rates depending on the time of day. The standing charge is a scandal mind you. However I'm charging our battery storage twice a day which really means we are running near 100% on the lowest rate in the summer and about 65% at the lowest rate in the winter. I'm sure it could be even more optimised but that's the limit of the software at the moment.

Builders are generically colourblind imho. Maybe that should be genetically colourblind. In my experience they can't see anything that's green. Coming to the end of our build, some post and rail fencing going in near some obvious but not huge pre-existing plants. When I say near I mean one rail was passing nearby. Builder, out loud, "shall I just snap it off?!". I'll leave to to imagine my response. This was not a first offense.

Got my insurance a couple of weeks ago. Is there any building work ongoing, no. Are we signed off, no. Did they ask, no. But seeing as we've been moved in since Christmas, I thought It might be a plan to actually insure it all now all the heavy lifting is done. All we need is a bit of tarmac.

Love my Creality Ender 5-S1. When the plumbers fitted the shower tray traps it was a godsend to be able to design and print some custom parts for the air/water trap that I am damn sure they just chucked out because they didn't fit! Am sure it's ancient now though!

Our garden is mainly intact after the rebuild, I jokingly said it was the best kept building site in the country because we came over every weekend to mow, weed and maintain the garden during the build. That's our mental health component, but we may seek to build a small gym, we have future planned for it in how the house and garage are sited, as well as over speccing the GSHP for an additional room supply and header ready to connect. I said one of us may have been under the patio, I really meant in the compost heap 🤣

'Detrimental', yes that's the other great fall back. The head of planning even said to a councillor who spoke to them for us... "but they might move", like that is in anyway relevant to the job they are there to do! They just didn't want us to build it for whatever reason or precedent it might set. Too much power and not enough sense. I could make a criterion based flowchart that would do a better job of making planning descisions frankly.

I so agree with this, we have one point where we could have had slots cut in the steels and reinforced to allow for the air-out ducting that I'm almost not irritated by now. But You kind of need to understand every aspect of every element of the build structure to avoid these things or pay an architect (who probably won't understand it anyway) an exorbitant amount for over detailed drawings. This is the first and maybe only build I'll ever do, but the stuff I know now would have been really handy 24months ago! I also had that webbed floor joist system put in to make it easier to route the ducts, only to discover that that in the end the ducting ran parallel to where a standard timber joist would have laid anyway. Hey ho, it's only money!

Bizarrely we were not allowed to build down. They have you over a barrel with actual footprint, then actual volume, then deemed detriment to the greenbelt even though there was a house here already! They just wouldn't allow a cellar which is invisble! Utter madness... but it's ok Kier Starmer says he can fix planning! Good luck with that Mr Starmer 🤣

Haven't been on the forum for a while, been living the dream! 😆 Anyway, we were not convinced by having MVHR, but did put it in in the end. Yes ours is a new build so thermally better than older property but I did it mainly for the air quality and because It irked me to install trickle vents in otherwise perfectly good and 'sealed' windows. I changed the filters for the first time last week (6months) and it was a revalation what we are avoiding breathing in. It's good for common dust allergies. No heating on and MVHR running on Cool, air in and out at about 20.5 degrees.

Yeah, we took 4 years to battle with planning just to replace one house with another that's virtually similar. Take a deep breath and keep on going. Lots of milestones of joy to come 😆

Hybrid with what? And for what purpose? We thought about it but it made no real sense but it did take a lot of thought to decide what we did want. We were on oil and electric before we demolished, ouch! We are now on full 3P Electric, GSHP, MVHR & Solar with 10kW battery storage.

My wife and I joked beforehand that we had catered for that eventuality in our build budget. Somehow we seem to have made it through in one piece, but now it's paid for she may have other plans... 🫣

I didn't fit any HDMI, just 1xCAT6, 1xCoAx, 6xPower in two corners of the living room. 1xCat6, 1xCoAx, 2xPower in the Kitchen. 3x IP Access Points in the house and 1x IP Access Point in the Garage. The kids only stream to mobile devices of various sorts. The hardwired is all back to the server stack in the garage plant room. Everything else is WiFi anyway!

You could do worse than to get a Brinno TLC200 off ebay, I did and timelapsed the whole build give or take. You can sent the intervals and period of recording, it's quite power efficient rather than continuous feed. Mine was only set for five minute intervals between 8am and 4pm. TLC00015_MAY22_ 26.mp4

We have a 7500L tank under the patio, a pump within that is called to fill a header tank in the loft to feed the toilets and washing machine. So as long as you have the space to dig a hole anything is feasible. I caveat that whole statement with the fact that we haven't fully comissioned it yet... We are currenlty turned to mains supply in the control panel proving that if we can get the water into the header everything downstream works perfectly. I will say that it still feels like a good plan if it finally works. The header tank was not well manufactured and sprang a small leak, the controller pcb was a dud and had to be replaced, and I am yet to be brave enough to turn it on in ernest! That is literally my next and almost final job on this build.

In my case the answer to this is "Only if one or other of you want's to end up under the patio!" We rented a small house nearby and filled it to bursting for 20months during the main demolition and build, even that was ever-so confining, especially as eldest came up to doing her GCSEs this summer. Good luck if camping appeals to you! Seriously though lots of people do it... but with the criminal justice sytem as it is they may not have made it to court yet... 😆

Yup get that, I just wanted to understand how it works and it gives me some peace of mind to feel it's not just a load of smoke. I will be requesting a full calcs sheet in any event.

I'm sure they can, but thanks.

Hi, further to recent post on window combined U values, I've investigated the maths to make my own calculations and it's reasonably comprehensible. I followed a short YouTube video and now have an easy to complete spreadsheet that will do the heavy lifting. The only hole I have is an understanding of how to calculate the Thermal Bridge Coefficient for the final multiplication for which they used a 0.3 value... If anyone has a guide or can tell me if 0.3 is a usable figure it would be most helpful. I'm sure the window manufacturers/suppliers can and have done all this but the fitter seems less knowledgable and as I need to be able to provide the evidence to the SAP guy in th end I thought a little knowledge would not be a bad thing. Many Thanks.

In this room specifically, north facing and tree shaded, never gets overheated on this side of the house. Apart from that we are adding in a 'reverse' function to the GSHP to push excess heat back into the ground in the summer months if required, especially if the summers are going to get warmer in future!

I might add at this point that we are replacing a house that was entirely of wooden construction (1950s), 150mm thick (empty) walls with no insulation, single glazing and even cedar shingle roof tiles. So in some ways, what we are building will be at least twice+ as insulated. If the GSHP, UFH and MVHR do their jobs we will be more likely to be complaining about solar gain from the south facing bifolds 😅 That said I am looking into better as I type...

Yeah, point taken. But they don't advertise them as shed windows do they?

They are frame profiles from ALUK, local supplier. I may change the tiny window to a fixed unit and reduce the frame profile by half. MVHR will mean we don't need to open the window really anyway.

I've put the order on hold until I get some sense. It seems slightly incomprehensible how they can potentially manufacture and sell something that is not to the required legal spec. Projected EPC is a high level B, but that was with windows that only the Scandanavians can make as far as I can tell.