PNAmble

They are in a cold poorly insulated part of the house which is also the kitchen so quite a humid environment.

I’ll get a picture of the slider today and a couple of the tilt and turns. They’ve mostly got the white protection tape on at the moment.

There are a few about but the problem is they aren’t ’easy plots’ we and our builder underestimated our ground works which included a 3 meter retaining wall and 5m above sea level and on a significant slope, but we shared the risk based on the SI report, so apart from a 4-6 week delay due to weather we are progressing well.

We went Alu-clad uPVC (internorm) - I had to get over ‘they’ll look like plastic issue’. They don’t and are foil anthracite inside. Very good, thermal and u-value and airtightness (u-values is only part of the performance). We have previously gone aluminium sliders, windows and doors in a previous project 5 years ago and although documented performance was good, the real performance of the frames was shocking with condensation.

Probably not very helpful but we air-tested pre boarding at 0.4 ACH. We then built a service cavity frame on the walls attached to the ceiling and floor with 600 centres not piercing the airtightness barrier and boarded on that. noggins only added where specifically needed. We also used a metal suspended ceiling system on both floors to provide a service void for MVHR, pipe work etc.

We're currently building up near the Coast in Northumberland .. great area!

Interesting discussion. I’m currently confirming spec of my PV panels. We’ve built a flat roof in Northumberland so limited to 15degrees due to wind, but they will be pointing due south. Roof size and shape meant we are at 3 rows of 4,5 or 6. At 4.5/5.4/6.5 kWp. Difference was approx £200 per panel (fitted) We used PVGIS to look at generation, we are also speccing at 9.5kW battery; My decision is based upon the shoulder months production not peak. Payback to max out at 18 panels is about 3 years more than the 12 panels. We don’t intend to export, we have a battery, solar boost (hw) and EV. In my opinion building a business case around export costs is a fools game, scope what you need and use to understand payback.

We are going glue down LVT through the house - Karndean. (Laid in about 4 weeks) Our decision was based on , we have dogs so lots of wet and sand around, no underfloor heating (we are passive level heat loss but upside down house) so wanted something which felt warm, we didn’t want any thresholds across any doors, and we wanted to keep our palette limited and we had a budget. Hopefully it will achieve what we need.

When we looked at Rationale vs Velfac vs Internorm we decided on Internorm as they made the sliding doors we needed, integrated blinds, u values and airtightness. So it’s a bit horses for courses.

We went that way as it seemed the best balance between u-values, airtightness, quality and price. They also provide integrated blinds which we needed for Part O. And we needed a 5m lift and slide patio door. Fitting went well and just had a pre board air test which landed at 0.42 ACH.

We had to register with the council who then approved the address (no street numbers just a house name). Once approved, They then released that information to post office, emergency services, etc etc.

Easiest would be to rename the EE Wi-Fi and password to the BT Wi-Fi name and password. Then when your other WiFi comes back you don’t need to change again.

We have a 3m slope building an upside down house with 5m doors on a floating patio at the rear. We originally thought about building a first floor overhanging by digging into the slope but with a timber frame it’s as cost effective to extend the foot print. We had to float the patio to allow airflow around the building. our architect told us that it would be really expensive and said a cantilever would be cheaper but dealing directly with the SE and TF company we got to a cheap solution (including sacking the architect). So what I’m saying is don’t assume you can’t cheaply build on a tricky site. Engage a good SE.

I had to have my SE do the calcs as I was trying to avoid a piling solution; a bespoke built timber frame solution was calculated with dead and live loads including the raft totalling 18Kn / m2. For a two story/flat roof house with a slab 170m2.

mine has this .. we hadn’t decided on a hot water cylinder when we got it done.

Ours said 231.1% with a flow temp of 55. Based on our 5kw Ecodan. Which is probably true. What does your report say the flow temp is ? We are intending to run our radiators at 35 so when we do as built I’ll make sure this is corrected. Our design also stated 35 but I couldn’t be bothered to argue as it was still an A95.

Our as designed EPC was A95 - they also got the flow temperature wrong so we expect to beat that when we do the as built. Has a 4kw solar array. we got the full calculation sheets and they can be followed to a sense. The defaults are based upon an old fashioned view of heating systems ie zoned, timed, stepped back and people in and out of the house etc. The default thermal bridging values were also used as apparently using the approved details and Psi values is no longer allowed.

I’m with protek for both only because I needed SW and SI for my mortgage and they were the cheapest. Warranty inspector is a strange character and seems to try to prove he’s better than the LABC BCO, has zero knowledge of timber frame builds 🤷🏻‍♂️. The warranty isn’t really a warranty in my mind as they insist on seeing all the other insurances and structural insurances including having to purchase a separate Insurance Backed Guarantee for my flat roof. I suspect IF I had to claim they’d just push it on to someone else’s insurance. If I hadn’t needed a mortgage I wouldn’t have either apart from public liability insurance.

I went with Harpenden via Mayflower for my self build mortgage. Total cost of all solicitors, searches, land registry, payment fees. was £2000 inc vat. Solicitor acted for me and Harpenden. If I’d gone with my solicitor is would have cost me an extra 2k

We did some thermal modelling on three options. And Once you hit a level of u values airtightness is more important.

We've used EasyEPC for our interim Air Test, they effectively broker appointments across different testers in England; cost was approx £380 plus vat. If it fails, you have to fix the problems and re-test. Given the regs your house has to be pretty leaky to fail.

My dad built a timber frame house about 30 years ago. Doing most work himself including the copper pipe work. Over the last few years he’s had a quite a few leaking via pin holes. Last year he changed his kitchen and found that some of the pipe work had been leaking for quite a few years. His investigation about why this was happening came up with that about 30 years ago the Chinese started providing copper pipes to the UK but they were of inferior smoothness internally which created eddys which eventually created the pin holes.

If the timber frame internal walls are 100mm is it best to leave an air gap and fill with rock wool at 75mmm or no air gap ? where we need extra sound insulation (for example against plant roof wall) we’ll be double plaster boarding one side.

I have a SIP built Home Office in the very windy Northumberland, which is built in my back garden on screw piles (12 of them x 1.75 meters long). They were installed in less than a day, before the Home Office was built. It's not moved, or blown away including during Storm Arwin a couple of years ago which caused a lot of damage throughout the region.

I’ve had a fisherpaykal for 7 years. Cold filtered water and automatic ice in the freezer. Fridge doors not impacted in terms of space. For me works brilliantly and for our current new build will have another. The ability to have lots of ice for cooking is critical for me.