Big Neil

No idea what you mean? I was particularly thinking of ICF in this case. I thought it might help my understanding of what is possible, to scale the project down from a whole house, where I understand the practicality and issue of not just forming the outside shape and then cutting into if. This being such a small structure, i culd see the possible speed benefit in just forming the whole cube and then cutting a window and door opening into it.

I've asked a similar question before I know, but having recently watched a fox blocks video where they constructed a small approximately eight or ten foot square building, to be used as a storm shelter, something occurs. Waste levels aside, if all you were building were a 8X8X8 cube where the forms are a foot thick, would it be quick enough to just build the cube, mark out the position of door and maybe window externally, then just have at it with a saw or hot knife?

I've seen pictures of a big oak timber - 4 ish feet high by about 10 inches square i would say, with alternating circles cut out either side and used as a wine rack. If you like the look of a wood burner, it would be quite cool to convert one into a disguised whiskey cabinet.

If you didn't have Vaulted ceiling, i assume the easiest thing to do where it wouldn't 'look' like boxing in, would be to run them up the back to say the airing cupboard into the space above and then just board over so it is a false wall , such that it wasn't obvious?

I get that council tax is a necessity from the point of view of local services, so I don't have an issue with it as such. I think it's the seemingly gross disparity between one house and another which i'm sure we all see, and the seemingly arbitrary application of blanket rules which annoy. My previous rented home - 2 bed terrace with forrific levels of insulation and so on, £110. Middle of a sub-town area in Manchester, terrible roads, loads of traffic and all the rest. Current part owned home - 4 bed semi, albeit only about 150 square feet bigger than the last, nice and warm, new road right outside, tucked away in a relatively low traffic area and with no more occupants - £135. I think there is a decent case to be made for a modular system. Yes i want the police to come quickly if i have a burglar, yes i want my man dirt to be swept away in a nicely maintained set of underground tubes, but there are certain aspects of local services which i don't think are so justifiable for some houses against others. If i were to be able to choose to have a house in the urban sprawl but have no car, have a sewage treatment plant, by own means of power generation, use rainwater collection and associated treatment for drinking water etc etc, maybe there should be a benefit in that respect, or if not a discount system against other optinal services like local buses for example. I agree with you entirely @ProDave.

Nice though it is to live in one and not have to do huge maintenance tasks, I am happy to confirm that new build houses from volume house builders, are a bag of .... The attention to detail is just so poor. I'm never surprised by stories about spalling mortar (ours is fine as it goes), roofs with missing tiles (have seen at least two on our estate post completion) etc.

The internorm people at the Build It show in Mancland last year had the internal blind version (HV350 plus the optional blind if i recall). It looks so neat. Couldn't help but think though, that instead of having an integrated solar panel to recharge the battery, the blinds themselves could just have integrated solar cells. Internorm are the only people i've been able to find who integrate blinds in this fashion - correct me if i'm wrong.

You could have one of these to go along with the shower. I might actually buy one on the basis of saving SWMBO moaning at me for never doing the washing up. I'd never let anyone else near MY sink again.

attention seeker - you're interrupting me from trying to think of a way to make Willy the Pirate sound dirty!!

Just a thought, but as it's a belt and braces approach and anything you use will be under the roof covering anyway, how about the tapes/liquids used for tanking wetrooms?

scluer kerdi board or i think the other one is called Wedi (both basically XPS foam with a cementious outer. Are these like any of the products mentioned above?

No need Sticking away from the pro and con arguements for various construction types, I think the core answer has to be misinformation and misinterpreted economics. If you're brought up your whole life on a farm surrounded only by devout Christians, where the only word is that of the lord and the only book is the bible, you're fairly unlikely to be a Buddhist.

Tease!!! If I've read correctly then a 9.6KWh Sofar system is currently available for just under £2900, so actually double that and you get a good chunk more than PW2, for £5800 where i think Tesla charge £6500. I'm getting a bit of a buzz off this battery cost drop phenomenon. It's a bit like when the car that you lusted after as a kid gets cheap enough for you to afford as an adult. a right buzz...

Actually I suppose if the middle stud on each block had a metal covering/was just metal full stop, this would suffice wouldn't it?

Do tell...

@JSHarris was it Sofar i've seen you mention a bit in previous posts. pound for pound they don't look far off Tesla now.

I hate you - that was my next million pound Idea - how about a wire embedded into the centre of the polypropylene strip near the front? Would something as soft as solder work?

interesting. Can anyone in the know please post a link to a domestic product which might produce the same average power as lets say a 10KwP solar setup as an example. Just so i can look at a real example instead of product surfing

I like branflakes ?. Do windturbines require PP beyond a certain point or are they considered as non permanent structures and exempt for soem reason. Obviously the massive huge ones are a different question. Just thinking of a relevant domestic sized one.

Nudura have a bunch of good instructional videos on their YouTube channel, as do FoxBlocks although the latter is not available over here. I look at them a fair bit to try and understand the method as a whole. It seems to me having wondered this very topic myself and spent hours on here, that the broad answer is that any system can give PH if detailed correctly. Have a read of @JSHarris and @Russell griffiths blogs for good detail on timber frame and ICF respectively. Obviously there are others, but I look at these two a fair amount. Try and think of Speed, Quality and Low Cost. I've always got them floating around my head. remember you can broadly have any two but not a third.

This was in the back of my mind of course. I was just interested to see what solutions the heads came up with.

quality stuff one and all - thanks

Well that was sort of my impression. I sort of thought that if you're building all your walls up anyway and that ICF seems a fairly fast system whilst o site, that whether structural stability is needed or not, might as well throw it up and pour away. Mentioned by name in another thread i think, but something like Cemfree seems an obvious choice. It's a cement substitute. GGBS basically P.S. Bags me first two picks in the annual Buildhub cage fighting championship. I love the passion here!!!

Anyone come across these guys. Seems they produce a EPS based system. Don't have much of a website and never heard of them before. I think they're german.

evening John. It was more of a hypothetical question than anything, but lets say somewhere around OXford in the countryside as opposed to a town, no trees nearby to cause shade issues and that grid would be available but that i didn't want to connect and i wanted it on the roof not the ground.