Bitpipe

Damage to fittings and finish is definitely the most irritating part of the build process - gets worse when the build progresses and you get more 'nice' things installed. I've had MagicMan come to fix a few chips in a composite stone bath (now invisible) and just last week to fix the cracked sink (almost invisible, will come back for a final polish when it's back on the wall by the window). Also fixed a chip to an oak veneered door and a scratch to our faux wood alu front door. Can't fault them but guess there are limits to their capability. We used our window supplier's recommended installer who is an independent local guy with 30 odd years experience, he had pretty bottomless knowledge on fitting and steered us on quite a few related issues. Also helped me out greatly when the render team left some deep scratches to the alu finish on some windows and the roofer spilled a blob of GRP topcoat on a door (which they both agreed to fix). He rustled up a sprayer who works on high end car repair and he pulled off another near perfect repair (using vendor supplied paint). Have a few chips to our render that we hope to get repaired when they come to do the garage and a few mucky patches that I hope will scrub up.. Working from home and living on site definitely helps - the only time things have gone a bit sideways have happened when i've been away. I'll never forget a text from a ground worker just as I was going to bed in Tokyo asking if I had the emergency number for SSE as he had cut through the supply cable....

We had two 500kg 4.4m sliding door units to be installed at rear of house. Installer (quite experienced) used a fairly large 4WD tele handler and straps to get the windows in position. First thing he did was separate the fixed and sliding elements and move them separately. We chopped a slot out of the scaff and made a run of boards to the final position and each element was lined up in the correct orientation. He then had a small bogey that each part was lowered on (fixed element first) to and it was manhandled into position by about 6 big lads, the moving part followed once the first part was secured to the opening. I watched from a distance but it all seemed to go well Separate insurance was not an issue as we paid the window supplier for installation.

We put a 25mm tray in one bathroom and an Impey wetroom former in another (primarily to resolve joist / drain positioning issues). We made a last minute decision to add electric UFH mats to the bathrooms (which have been a big success) so the 6mm backer board plus the mats, latex, adhesive and tiles allowed the tray to sit completely flush, looks great. Wetroom tray also looks great with a nice envelope cut tile vs using the metal angles that Impey provide. Have taken some pics, will upload when I get 5.

We just ordered some custom 8mm glass panels from these guys - price was good. Not arrived yet so yet to comment on the quality. As our rooms are more wetroom like we're using alu or stainless U channel from here (with a wet seal (vs rubber or plastic).

When I say exterior I mean the landscaping and hard surfacing, building itself is finished externally.

Hmm, need to get rid of the caravan, container and get a few handfuls of grass seed first. I plan to catch up on a few tv box sets, starting with The Wire, Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones - that should occupy a few evenings... Space at the bottom of the garden for another one, but not just yet

House is approx 10m square over two floors and a room in roof. Basement adds another 100m2 and the garage another 21m2. Edge of Maidenhead so best of both worlds - rural setting in a Crossrail town, 20 mins from Heathrow and bang on the M4 & M40. Build budget is not far off but I don't think we'd quite hit that valuation - we get the local EEs round once we've completed the landscaping.

I was in the 'van last night getting some things - noticed that without the de-humidifier running how damp and cold it felt. Hard to believe we lasted 18 months in there.

Water is all live so we're using one of the tank immersions on a plug top for now (during the day to maximise PV usage) and boiler should go live early next week.

Still a bit chaotic to be honest, lots of our stuff is still in the caravan and container but it does feel good. Really enjoying the space though, nice not to whack my shins every 2 mins.

We had a milestone weekend, moving in to the (almost) completed house. Promised kids & wife that we'd be in for the return to school. Still a long list of jobs to do (including commissioning the MVHR, boiler & heating) and all the exterior finishing but interior is more or less complete. As a couple with no prior experience, we've pulled off a 400m2 passive (ish) house with basement and garage with relatively few major issues once we got started. More or less stuck to budget (although what's left is rapidly evaporating!) Couldn't have done it without all the advice and support from this forum and its predecessor - so a huge thanks to everyone who has helped one way or another. Somehow we decided to give up booze for September so will need to wait another few weeks before popping the champagne (or climbing into the bath with a bottle of red ). Currently sitting in a furniture shop just outside Copenhagen overseeing delivery of our new dining room to UK, but that's another story...

look at Megabad or Reutershop - even with the weak pound, still way cheaper than UK prices.

Plumbing porn, I get it Will do so Weds - tiler's not been yet so it's all still exposed.

We have a John Lewis partnership card - 0.5% cash back (1% in store) as vouchers - built up a nice pot to treat ourselves to a few bits post completion. Like, for example, a new set of pots and pans after just discovering that the old ones wont work with the new induction hob - physics, eh?

I felt like several times over the last 24 months ago - when the previous mortgage company was refusing to support the project, planning conditions were taking forever to clear, ground investigation was ominous. Moved in yesterday and it's all forgotten (more less).

They are different styles but one is clearly for baths and one for showers. We figured the logic was that for a bath, the filler (primary) will be below the control and the shower (secondary) will be above. For a shower, the primary (shower head) is above and secondary (wand) is below. We have ours plumbed in a row for the bath - looks neat (or will do when the tiles go back on).

Exhausted is closer, excitement will follow

Until you go to buy flooring and realise just how big it is...

As it happens we found a leak in the en-suite last Saturday - not disastrous but enough to stain the living room ceiling. So off goes the water and out come the plumbers on Tuesday. After a good hunt, we realised that it was behind the vanity unit so that had to come off - previous crew had used the Sikaflex EBT to bond the sink to the cabinet and the cabinet to the wall so it did not want to budge. In the resulting removal, the corner of the double sink got a hairline crack. Everyone amazed at the adhesive properties of that stuff. Then the tiles came off (very cleanly I might add) and the source was found - drywall screw through the cold feed to the loo. Quickly fixed and we're dry again. I got MagicMan out to fix the sink (he'd previously fixed a few chips & scratches in the resin bath) and that's pretty much good as new. He also touched up a few other bits (chip to a veered door and scratch to the front door) - quite the miracle worker, they can repair practically any hard surface from tiles to ceramic to wood to worktop etc... Tile shop still had tiles from same batch in stock and tiler is back next week to make good. So, while we were looking at the chaos, we decided to bite the bullet and take off the tile & plaster that covered the bath mixer - luckily everything was accessible so the plumber swapped the primary and secondary in 30 mins. Plastering boss came out today and is happy to cover the cost of the damage, so in a few days we'll be good as new. Hoping to actually move in tomorrow...

Our WC is bang on 900mm wide and just meets the regs - had to hunt for an appropriately narrow sink - and is about 2.5 (ish) m long. Now that its got a door, lighting and sanitary ware installed it looks fine. We have a plant room in the basement (directly under the utility) and its been extremely useful - gas boiler, MVHR and UVC are there plus all the electrical distribution - it's 3.6m x 1.2m so plenty of space for everything and plenty of working room also. I'd perhaps question having so much storage in a WC, is there somewhere else you could locate it? Not sure I'd want to store coats & shoes in a WC, aside from potential dampness, could lead to some awkward situations

I bought one of these on ebay for £1500 - been a great asset (we have the phone lines terminated here) and will sell it on soon hopefully for what I paid for it.

HerbJ negotiated site stairs as part of his MBC package - I wrangled the same deal. They're a standard set of Jewsons MDF and softwood stairs. We've had to pop them out a few times to facilitate flooring and plastering /painting works and you really feel the difference having to use ladders instead. We will replace them with 'fancy' stairs in due course (just getting final quote now) but even though practically all decorating and other 'dirty' works are complete we wont have them installed until everyone is off site and we have fully moved in.

Plumbers have just made the water system live (major milestone, will allow us to move in very soon) and made a small discovery. We have two Hansgrohe ibox valves in our ensuite - one for shower and one for bath. Both have a primary outlet (shower head, bath filler) and a secondary (pencil shower). Shower works fine but bath is back to front, i.e. the pencil is the primary. Plumber admits that he had done them both the same out of habit and did not look too closely at the valves themselves having never had an issue before. Turns out that this type of HG bath valve, the bottom connection is the primary, opposite to the shower. So, two options (aside from buying a new valve). 1) go to the room next door, hack out the wall, swap it around and make good. 2) buy one of these as suggested by the HansGrohe customer helpline. Effectively make the selector knob sit out by default and it is now pushed in to activate the secondary. £26 for a spring ! We're going for 2) right now but the Mrs is not happy so we reserve the right to ask the plumber to do 1) if needs be. Have to say, the HG helpline is very good and they jumped on the issue immediately, me thinks we're not the first to to have this problem. Anyone else come across this issue?

Good point Terry - in our house (effectively 4 floors as we have basement and room in roof) we also have more stringent fire regs - FD30 doors on every room that opens onto the hall and separate means of escape from basement (external stairs) plus - and this has bemused everyone - dedicated smoke alarms in every hall cupboard. I digress. Our MVHR distribution boxes are in the basement with the individual ducts rising to the first floor via the utility (now completely boxed in and plastered over) and on to the upper floor in a similar fashion. Our BC inspector did not raise any fire issues with this approach. Our of interest, how is it any different to boxed in soil pipes that rise through a building?

I did a longish post in ebuild on this after my first fix with BPC kit - must go look for it and re post. Agree with everything above. My strategy was to have the coil near where the distribution boxes were and pull it from there to the plenum location - essential that you mount it on something otherwise it will kink and tangle - i put it in a doorway on a length of CLS timber and that worked well enough. If possible, get a mate to help as once the pipe goes round a few bends its impossible to pull from the coil and the coil needs to be slackened off and duct occasionally pushed from that end as well as pulled - i make a lasso from poly rope to help pull the duct and also put slips of cardboard over any ridges where the pipe kept catching to help it slide more easily. Would advise locating all your plenums first (good to liase with your electrician to see if they'll be in line with lights etc) and bring the duct to each one. Use WD40 silicone spray ( a big can with a nozzle) to get the duct into the plenum - it is too tight otherwise when the O ring has been fitted. Then leave a generous amount at the distribution box end because, as Terry says, you'll likely be moving them around a bit to get them to sit flat. Last thing I did was cut the ends to the distribution box - I did have to go back and trim a few inches off each one before plaster boarding as they were pushing the box at an angle. It's not a technically difficult job and you'll soon get the hang of it. +1 on the BPC over supply - I have 4off 2m lenghts of 180mm steel radial ducting as we ended up with the distribution boxes much closer to the unit than originally planned as it was the only place they would fit and accept the multitude of ducts (each one is 14 port, every one used!).