MikeSharp01

Chunkiness of the frame often depends on the reveal detail, the more you cover the frame with the reveal, getting better insulation detail, the less chunky it looks. Obviously the opening sashes will be the most chunky so deciding where they appear, inside or out, and how much reveal you can achieve around them are critical decisions. Other factors are the frame colours / contrast with wall finish and just how well insulated you want everything.

Absolutely agree @JSHarris. The only draw back of the Passivhaus institute is the tragedy of the commons problem were we all use the standard but don't support the evolution of the scheme strongly because the cost of certification is high and the value it adds is uncertain in the market, where the market matters to owners. In the end it will probably need government to enforce adherence to the standard which is supported by a levy on builders. Although it will increase up front costs but dramatically reduce energy bills and hence our footprint on this planet. It is heartening to see planners in the UK going down the PH route. If I get a moment I will look to compare nZEB with PH. I know that PH did influence nZEB but not sure to what extent.

Ok Ted I will give it a go, I did try when you first posted but felt I was not able to answer many of the questions in such a way for it to be of value to you. To help you I have some comments on the questions set out below: (Your list does not include all your questions.) 1) What is your job role within your company? (Most of us are not in companies with any direct building involvement - I am a director of two companies and proprietor of another one - none of which are related to building although one of them will do the control systems. This question offers no way out for people who are not in the building industry - so you missed an opportunity to widen your respondents pool at the get go although they can put self builder in the 'other' category! Also because many here are both building professionals and self builders the nuances of this cannot be encoded in your question other than in the free text 'other' answer.) 2) How long have you been involved in the Construction Industry including any time spent studying? (This is a poorly defined question if we are not directly above and it depends what you mean. EG I was one of the 'Sons' in the family firm who built my parents home - I was 5 years old, does that mean I have been involved for 50+ years? Alternatively if I was in the business for 2 years in 1980s and have been self building now for two does that make 4? Those of the in the professional aspects of construction can answer for their professional time, the rest of us will perhaps only include time from the minute they decided to think about self building.) 3)What sector of the construction industry are you most involved in? (For many here this answer will be self build, but for some it will be both professional and self build. This will duplicate data in question 1 above. -Great for triangulation but frustrating for your respondents.) 4)In your own words, define what you believe constitutes a self-build home. (Interesting question and free text so you will get some interesting answers.) 5)What do you consider to be the main benefits of self-build homes? (Good selection of options so you should get some good answers.) 6)Do you believe that self-build homes are more likely to be effective at delivering nearly zero-energy homes than traditional procurement methods? (Most, if not all, here will strongly agree.) 7)Please justify your above answer. (Justify in what sense? Most will say that it's because they can address the details and control quality much better as they have a direct investment in making the home in line with their intentions.) 8)Have you considered 2020 nZEB proposals for any self-build projects? (Most will say no, it is not even high profile in the mainstream house builders minds so why would the self build community be interested.) 9)Have you included any renewable energies within your projects? (Most will say yes, it is quite hard these days to get a decent SAP rating without at least some PV so there will be at least that I suspect and many will have ASHP as well.) You also have a number of other questions, many of which assume the respondent has built many homes, I have tried to answer as best I can. I have to make two final points: nZEB won't happen in the UK unless young people like yourself can sustain the passion for it, or something like it in the BREXIT context, and win the hearts and minds of the big housebuilders. Although many here think of passive house standard as a guide others don't - self builders are a broad church! Given this I am sure that all of us here would want to support your emergence into the profession as a champion of low energy and sustainable homes. I am sure we all wish you all the best for the future. I have completed your questionnaire.

Hi Ted. Having supervised enough dissertations in my time I appreciate that the comments from my colleagues on here won't at first site look helpful. I guess you don't have time to do a major refocus, as @Ferdinand describes but you could speak to your supervisor and see if you could add a section which looks at your dissertation's specification reflected in the self build community, which this site is a very good example. If you can see your way to looking at it like this you can drill a rich seam here with a simple targetted questionnaire for the members. HMG wants to / is promoting self build as a means to close the housing gap but the nZEB is, as my colleagues have said above, probably not for us and perhaps not the wider UK building fraternity and there is some rumblings that it may not even get a head of steam in the EU itself. As @JSHarris says his, and probably most of the self builders on here are stretching every physical, financial and intellectual muscle to build energy efficient homes in their own way. In the age of free speech you could also, again subject to a discussion with your tutor - who I hope is not the one expounding the virtues of nZEB Code, set about concluding that the code is not going to hit the self builders, most of whom here are well ahead of the main building industry curve so it is even more unlikely there. You will be aware that the present government dropped the higher specification requirements out of building control legislation following pressure from the building industry around the cost of achieving it and in order to speed up the flow of houses. All of these aspects of the soft system that controls how we set about stepping more lightly on the planets resources create a quite a heady mix you can write about in your dissertation.

Think there are business options that allow / offer this with handsets and a server somewhere in the cloud connected to the PSTN so you can have a land line number. Domestic types end up using something like BT SmartTalk, there is a TalkTalk equivalent I think.

Does it have a timer, I recall that when I looked the basic range did not have timers?

At which outlet do you get building the dream with a side order of lunch?

Looks like several of the usual suspects in the list of likes!

Yes, but when you add the 20kN (Live) and then imagine 6 big bags of ballast teetering on a 3m post 160mm square it just feels wrong!

Can't get hold of our SE so thought I would ask here. On our structural drawings the SE has annotated the loads on our slab using the form, for instance, of 10/5 kN/m for wall runs and just plain 38.6/20.6 for point loads. I had assumed, perhaps wrongly but dimly recall this might be right, that the first number was the dead load and the second was the live (imposed) load. However looking around on the WWW there seems to be no definitive answer and a possibility that the first is the gravity load and the second is the lateral load. Anybody know what is what here? Not sure why I even want to know I guess the slab designer will understand it but I don't like to pass on things I am not clear about myself. In places the numbers are eye watering 38 kN (Dead) + 20.6 kN (Live) [If I have it right] on a 135 x 135 C24 Column - column must be up to it I guess - just feels wrong.

( @recoveringacademic I refer here to using it in the new pad - the old one is another matter as you are selling it..) Don't get me started on LPG - oh you did so sorry about the missive below.... LPG is great but expensive and is, frankly, a contract nightmare. Essentially we have to change suppliers every two years to keep the price even slightly keen, you cannot switch when ever you like and managing the top ups is an art. EG they won't top you up when you feel you need it only when they think you need it as they want to see a mighty low reading so they can fill it up. So even if you want a little bit now and again they won't do it. The tank location is also an issue, not under trees, near power lines or roadways, if close to paths you will need a stone / blockwork wall to prevent fires on the path, you see them everyday don't you, warming up the tank. When you switch suppliers they have to 'accept' the old tank or, if they won't accept it, you install another one, with associated ground works, and have the old supplier remove the old tank. (I speak from personal experience) When you do the maths you find that, if the LPG price is high enough - as it often is, the cost of using electric heating, leveraging things like ASHP, or LPG are about the same and if you get a good electric deal you might just beat it. Even here, millstone manor, 18 months back we existed without LPG for OCT / NOV & DEC because I was so annoyed with our then supplier I would not buy any more from them and ran the immersion (E7) for DHW, the log burners and some electric heaters without too much inconvenience or expense. Would have stayed like that but the price from the new supplier beat the electric price so we went with them. In 6 months the contract will be up for renewal and we will have to switch back to the people, there are only two suppliers here, we were with when I said I would never buy from them again! I think that is the very definition of a racket! And relax...

Not sure of the protocol about asking such questions on buildhub but I met DAKO at ecobuild two weeks back and sent them our window spec for a quote. It came back on Monday looking very competitive especially as it's an all Aluminium system with insulation in the voids and all but one window - where the frame percentage to glass area means we don't quite make it, to passive house standard. They have also met all the challenges we have in one range rather than 2 for most of the others. Has anybody used them or know anything about them? Please PM if you don't wish to say anything in public - I will understand.

Only got two - well three if you count the garage, (Metal machining & Fabrication and Carpentry) workshops now, biggest problem is planning the tool moves or duplication! Did a load of work a few years back, out in the garden here under a GALA tent 10m x 6m (£300 IIRC) building the boat house (what we call the boat house because its got a jetty and sits beside our pond). Was great provided I put all the tools away in the main workshop each night but the space was fantastic spent the first week just making benches and trestles from old reclaimed timbers and once set up it was great - just looked and that was 6 years ago this week!

On the day all went well including the power floating that I was not looking forward to. Was right on concrete volume - over ordered by 0.2m3 - nothing on the scale of things.@oranjeboom came over and lent a big hand. The shower tray & wet room former/ mould / pattern worked very well but concrete didn't get fully under it - suspected that was where the excess concrete came from - but removed mould yesterday and only needed 2 buckets of mix to fill the gaps. I learned loads will put that in a blog entry. Images of the main area finished and final power floating of studio space.

For the boundaries the answer is NO. The boundary is only fixed by reference to land registry recorded information and the RED line they draw on the plans when you buy a property are about a meter thick (+/-) and only the notional boundary the land registry holds. Often the LR boundary is based loosely on the OS mapping and as the OS boundary has an error rating based on a level of confidence. So from a 1:1250 OS map a distance will be accurate to within +/- 900mm 99% of the time but 1% of the time they can / will be out by more and they never give a 100% confidence error. (95% confidence is 800mm). When we had our survey done we asked for +/- 2mm accuracy based on the national grid ref system accurate to +/-20mm. So, sorry Jack, the location could be out by 20mm but all measurements from it are with 2mm. (It is only a 15m x 50m area and level change is 5m max) To get the reference point they used a clever GPS and links to all the local 4G masts. We found that the existing house was about 300mm east and 200mm south of where the OS map had it. Even the relative distances between ours and the adjacent property (both built in 1911), and on OS maps since then, differed from the OS measure. We had all the hedge lines and existing fence lines done as well so we could show where everything was. We learned, off the record IIRC, that the latest OS maps just add features rather than redoing the survey because a new survey will move so many things. Put simply, when you add a conservatory for instance, they just connected it to the existing walls rather than try and work out where it actually is. We also found a distance in the land registry title of our neighbours house stating a distance between ours and theirs. This measurement is the only really fixed thing we have.

Welcome and all the best for the build, will look on with interest and help where we can - its a great forum, one day all social networks will be like this one.

I can see Ian's point of view here but the passive house concept is more than just insulation and energy costs its about comfort and to some extent ecology. The obligatory MVHR, recovering as much heat as possible. The drive for air tightness so there are no draughts and the insulation does not have to work against airflows within it allowing the MVHR to be fully effective. In the longer run the effect on the planet must also be a factor. Finally Ian has also used the max energy consumption a passive house can have while many will be well below this thus making a greater difference. In the end its down to your, @Gorlando, balance, hence your post, but I think cost is not really in there as you can build passive very close to non passive costs and the return on investment make up the difference in a few years. PS Not sure why I am such an advocate...

Talk to your local concrete supplier and get them to supply the pump and charge you for concrete at the total cost / m3 of concrete.

Only the materials used in or attached to the house can be claimed. @JSHarris has done a lot more on this than myself but that's the principle I am working on. So in my view, the VAT people will make the final decision, not the muck away, concrete yes, pump no - perhaps get a pumped price per m3 then I suspect you can claim it as you just had expensive concrete! Rebar yes, clayboard yes.

Eh up Jeremy. I think @Gorlando needs to know that while your house has amazing insulation and very cost effective at that, the negative energy aspect is a function of how much Solar you can harvest - and too some extent the fitting of ASHP, its COP coupled to the effectiveness of the various control systems in the home. The size of the solar array - in your case more that the 4Kw of a bog standard, well the most common size out there, system helps you a bit - have you, I wonder, ever worked out how big it would need to be be be a zero energy (not negative) home. Clearly size of the array makes it possible to bring any house into negative energy but the essential point, which you have achieved and pointed out is that the insulation / air tightness engineering is key at the outset and that this should cost no more than a normal home to build - its just attention to detail that makes it possible.

How can there be this much meat in the game with price variations like that!?

Then unless the geometry has been carefully worked out which it may have been if the design was completed in a 3D package (EG Revitt or Archicad) then working to a different few hundredths of a degree (probably not possible on site) will make very little difference to the contractor.

Just for completeness here is the drawing I mentioned above... Garden Room Wet Room.pdf

You may have a planning permission problem more than a construction problem. Angles are tough but once you step either side of 90 seg the problems are the same at all the angles. Although I suspect very acute angles will be the most challenging.

Curiously, that is what this whole topic is a about every-bodies FLOORS and, wasn't Wayne Kerr also known as the galloping gourmet or am I mixing my metaflaws.