Pete

Thanks once again guys

How much did the 3 day training course cost Jack?

Thanks for the responses on mains drainage concerning MBC

These refer to the slate length in inches. A row of 18" slates followed by a row of 16" slates, that is your diminishing courses as specified. Larger ones at the bottom!

Who does the mains drainage? Been having a look at our MBC quote and it mentions passive foundation drainage pipes are laid to approx 1 metre from house for others to connect to. I think this to ensure the stone base is kept adequately drained and is not referring to mains drainage? Any advice would be great as I am in the very early stages of dealing with MBC.

Please let me know how you get on with the suppliers/fitters please. They do look a quality product but they are not cheap! My architect told me one of his client's was a farmer who managed to knock £30,000 of his original Internorm quote, just shows you what mark up there is. May see if he is available to barter for me!

Are you using Internorm windows?

Hopefully this will be us next year. I have already been doing a lot of the site preparation over the last year but seeing your build get under way has made me very envious. Keep up with the blog as I am sure it will help me and other's when we get to build our own houses.

Great looking house. As Barney said, looking forward to following your build.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqKl2MK73lw hope this helps I think.

2" or 4" inch but use a lump hammer

Just good old hard graft using hammer and bolster or chisel action on drill. it normally comes off with a bit of perseverance and sweat!

Make sure you at least keep it watertight, you do not want the frame getting soaked as the wood will warp and twist. I know somebody who left their Timber Frame exposed for 3 months and is still paying the price of cracks and screw heads popping the plasterboard months after they had the house completed.

With the chance to buy bare tools now it makes it a lot cheaper to consider adding new to what you already have. The Bosch warranty is really good on the professional side of their tools. When I visit my brother in America I buy my Bosch tools which are cheaper over there. I think Dewalt and Makita are good tools but prefer the look and quality of Bosch. Just to add I have a Dewalt 705 Chop saw that is over 20 years old and is still going strong.

Bosch all the way

Thanks Ian

We used road planings and it has worked a treat. You do not get so much dust so it is really permeable and has compacted down with the traffic really well. We put ours on Terram membrane as the price of the road planings was £5.00 a ton!

Hi Terry I am not sure what your answer would be concerning protection of the fabric of the building. You mention stopping fire escaping out of a sealed room which really depends which way you look at it. Firstly we would always say close the door to a room on fire to limit smoke travel to aid people trapped in the building to travel to a place of safety in a smoke free atmosphere. When you do this this accelerates the ferocity of the fire as the room heats up very quickly and thus all items inside that room reach their critical temperature to spontaneously ignite.From your point of view it would be better to leave the door open (assuming everybody out of the building) to give more time for the Fire Service to arrive (more smoke damage) and the fire would not be at such a critical stage but this is not an exact science and there are so many different factors that are out of your control. Apart from fitting fire resisting plasterboard or even doubling up and being really thorough at fire stopping which would give you well over an hour of protection and then concentrate on early detection with a link to you via a mobile to inform you of a fire. What about installing some sort of cctv that could relay pictures of the rooms in your house if you are away or even temperature sensors in the ceilings to enable as early detection as possible. All of these are relying on home automation of some description and my knowledge of such systems is better left to other people on this forum. The other possibility is fitting a misting system which works out at about £2000 for an average 3 bedroom house. The only problem with this is they usually only cover the escape corridor to enable people to get out where as you would probably want whole house protection which could work out quite expensive. This price is for one pump and mister, tank and battery back up in case of mains power failure. The only other option is to build as fire safety conscious as you seem to be doing and hope you never experience the horrors of a fire in your home. Get as good an insurance policy as you can and let the insurance company re-build your house.

i have read with interest all of the thoughts on fire in buildings, with or without MVHR and how people seem to want to overcome this issue. Basically I can assure you that all you need to worry about is early detection and getting out of the building. People have mentioned using fire blankets and extinguishers as a means to preventing the fire getting worse and giving more time to evacuate. All I can say is that unless you have been trained to use either the blanket or extinguisher you are not only putting yourself at risk but can create a rescue situation when there would not have been one if you had just left the building. I am a retired Firefighter and if I had a penny for the amount of people who assured me they could use a fire blanket and when I asked them to show me they would have ended up in hospital with severe burns to their hands, Same goes for using an extinguisher, even with the best will in the world you can turn a small fire that could be contained by just shutting the door if you can safely and getting out of the building or seriously spreading the fire by mis direction/application of the extinguisher. The UK Fire service now use a portable fan to fight fires in buildings but the precautions they have to undertake to ensure that the fire is not spread around the building is quite an an art form. Basically they seal the doorway with a large fan placed externally and wait until a team of firefighters go inside to ascertain the room that contains the fire, close all doorways to other rooms, open the door to the room with the fire and create an opening usually by breaking a window in that room They must ensure they have a jet on the exterior of the building to stop fire spread up the outside of the building and then once all that is done they turn the fan on which dramatically reduces the heat in the building and pushes all the hot gases and smoke out of the window. The reason they do this is to make their working environment easier and aid any trapped people who might still be inside the building. As far as I can see what would be beneficial is for some sort of damper/ shutter that closed in the ceiling/wall vents so in the event of fire the MVHR trunking does not allow smoke/fire to travel to other rooms/floors and turn the MVHR off as you would not believe how fast a fire can travel if the only source of oxygen is coming from the MVHR unit, especially in a Passive house. I still think early detection is what you need to ensure to enable you to get out and always have a plan as to what you are going to do as a family in case of fire in the house.It is imperative that if you have young children then you understand who is getting the children from their bedroom (fires predominantly at night), who is calling the fire service and if you cannot get out what room you need to go to to enable you to maybe escape out of the window or make it easier for the fire service to rescue you. .

Hi Ian and Pauline, I have PM you again in response to your questions over the building plot and arranging to come and view the site. Regards Pete

Hi Ian Pauline, Do not know what happened to the personal e-mail I sent you. We bought the site approximately three years ago, totally renovated the Creamery which is a converted barn on the main road but was in a terrible state and moved in October last year so we are now on site. Whilst this was going on we applied for Planning permission for two building plots, one at the bottom of the large garden that came with the Creamery and the other plot in the adjacent orchard . We are hoping to start our build next year when we have everything ready, our build will be built to Passive standard but not certificated. Burton itself is a lovely village with a Pub, General store and Post Office,butchers and it also has a bowling green and tennis courts. The M6 access is only 3 miles away, it is on the main bus route from Lancaster and Kendal, the nearest main line railway station is about 4 miles away. If you would like anymore details or want to come and have a look round give me a call Regards Pete and Karrie

Hi Lakeland Folk We have also private messaged you but see you haven't been back on the site yet. Here's a link to our building plot for sale in Burton in Kendal, 20 minutes South of Kendal and less than 5 minutes from M6 Kind regards Pete and Karrie http://www.rightmove.co.uk/commercial-property-for-sale/find.html?searchType=SALE&locationIdentifier=POSTCODE^457970&insId=1&radius=0.0&minPrice=&maxPrice=&minBedrooms=&maxBedrooms=&displayPropertyType=land&maxDaysSinceAdded=&_includeSSTC=on&sortByPriceDescending=&primaryDisplayPropertyType=&secondaryDisplayPropertyType=&oldDisplayPropertyType=&oldPrimaryDisplayPropertyType=&newHome=&auction=false