Bitpipe

Fill the void with EPS, place steps on top and then pour acetone on EPS to dissolve it and let the steps down that way.

I left that to the contractor, not a decision I wanted to be part of. There are usually specs from the render system on the screws required, pull tests etc. In my case looks like the underlying render board has failed also, seems to be a known issue and NHBC have removed cover for MgO boards, none of the render systems recommend them now (but they did when our system was installed). Still working on a resolution.

I have a gym in basement. Running machine, rower and free weights. Used to use the running machine a lot until I transitioned to outside running. Was like Bikram Yoga but I figured it wouldn't do me any harm

My suggestion is to pay the £400 for pipe now and only spend on the manifold, pump later when you decide to commission it in first fix. Very easy to over spend at this stage of the build, you may want that £400 later on

Our 120m2 basement has no heating at all. Slab is 300mm thick and sits on 300mm EPS 200. Walls are 200mm thick with 200mm EPS. The gas boiler, UVC and MVHR are in the plant room, a couple of fridges are in the hall and the kids have TVs, consoles and some musical kit in their dens. Always a comfortable 20oc down there, year round. If £800 buys you peace of mind for future proofing then fine - if it were me, I'd only commit to the in-floor pipe for now, bring it up to the manifold location and leave the rest of the kit until your general first fix. What you really need is a pipe de-coiler as UFH pipe is impossible to lay without one. Look to borrow or hire one. Are you having heating in the floor above also?

Like most government announcements, it's prime objective is likely some PR and headlines and being seen to do 'something' to refer back to while campaigning. I see a recent scheme to deliver 250,000 post covid youth employment places delivered ... 500. Or this... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50296672

Admirable intent but surely the issue here is the land, unless they're planning to release more self build plots like the Gravenhill development? https://www.itv.com/news/2021-04-23/minister-unveils-scheme-to-make-self-build-homes-an-affordable-option Minister unveils scheme to make self-build homes ‘an affordable option’ for all Saturday 24 April 2021, 7:14am A self-build home revolution is to be kickstarted in England, the government hopes, with a scheme to make the process more affordable. The Help to Build scheme, supported by more than £150 million in government funding, aims to make it easier for people to build their own homes or have them made to order. The government estimates that self and custom building could deliver 30,000 to 40,000 new homes a year. Made-to-order homes allow people to customise a property to fit their needs. This could include more office space for home workers, or another particular design to support a family’s requirements, including layouts which suit the needs of disabled or older people. The government said lower deposit mortgages would also make it easier for people to get on the housing ladder. The scheme will provide an equity loan on the completed home, similar to the Help to Buy scheme. Further details will be confirmed on the criteria and how to apply later in the spring. Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick said: “Building your own home shouldn’t be the preserve of a small number of people, but a mainstream, realistic and affordable option for people across the country. “That’s why we are making it easier and more affordable – backed by over £150 million new funding from the government. The scheme we have launched today will help the thousands of people who’d like to build their own home but who’ve not yet considered it or previously ruled it out. “Our plans will help get more people on to the housing ladder, ensure homes suit people’s needs like home working or caring for relatives, whilst providing an important boost to small builders and businesses too.”

I'd say not to bother. We got a passive RK door for our passive new build so it made some sense not to compromise on that when the rest of the house was built to such a high standard but in your case I think the advantages will be negligible.

Unless you can spend considerable time on the build itself and have some applicable skills then you're going to be in the £1500-2000 / m2 range - so worst case your 200m2 build will cost you £400k. If you employ a main contractor then you will definitely hit the upper end of the scale as they will price in project management of your project and their management overhead. If you PM, i.e. directly engage with each contractor in turn then you will save that fee and will also be able to directly influence costs - trades will never be as price sensitive as you. You can do all that without lifting a finger on site, however the more you are involved - even tidying up every evening, the more efficient things will be. Also consider living on site in a caravan, you can buy one and sell it on for more or less what you pay, same for site containers. If you have young children then it's not too much of a burden - ours quite enjoyed it. Being on site saves accommodation costs and takes the time pressure off you somewhat, especially if trades are busy and there are gaps between stages. Also means you are closer to the build process and things tend to go more smoothy and faster when the boss is around! Timber kits can be more expensive than traditional blocks etc but have the advantage of going up fairly rapidly and get you through the most critical structural phase with one contractor. We went from frame erection to scaffolding down (I.e. doors & windows in, roof slated, rendered walls - a complete house from the exterior, shell on the inside) in about 8 weeks. Took another 7 months to finish off the interior though and then a year before we tackled the landscaping.

Depends if it's a demolish and rebuild or a green field development. We did the former and sited the caravan at the rear of the house in the garden in the summer, good year ahead of the build starting (was an opportunistic purchase). Took another 8 months to get it connected to services (power, fouls, electricity) and we moved into it the next Easter. Works did not start until July that year. At the point where we deregistered the existing house for CT, we registered the caravan. No issues, however once the house was up and occupied the LA were round like a shot to get it on the CT register and we only got a 50% reduction on the caravan until such times it was removed from site. The planning enforcement did get fussy over the container that was to the front of the property as it had no PP and was visible from street. We managed to get it shifted within the month so it never went further than an initial letter.

A few thoughts... 1) MVHR uses ceiling vents as you want to maximise cross flow of air and reduce 'dead zones'. You extract from warm 'wet' rooms (kitchen, bathroom, WC) and supply to habitable rooms (beds, living, dining etc). Doors need a 7600mm2 gap at the bottom (10mm on a standard 760mm door) and the idea is that the airflow goes from the supply to the extract with the maximum room coverage, under the doors etc. Risk of your system is that it just moves at floor level in the supply rooms and does not ventilate the upper parts of the room. Your extraction locations will also not work to clear 'wet' rooms of stale air, so they will still need through wall ventilation which will render your MVHR system somewhat useless. 2) MVHR is for ventilation and not heat transfer as the airflow is quite low. The ventilation is energy efficient as the heat from the extracted air is used to warm the incoming air so losses are minimised. However it is not an effective heating or cooling system unless you house meets very high insulation and airtightness standards - i.e. a passive new build. 3) A renovated 70's build is unlikely to meet the airtightness requirements (< 2 m3/hr/m2) for the heat recovery element of a MVHR to be effective. Even a bog standard new build only needs to meet 10 m3/hr/m2. Passive houses would be well below 1 m3/hr/m2. As a ventilation system it could work ok but only if your vents are in the correct locations. 4) If the unit is in a cold space then all the ducting between it and the house needs insulated. I think it's a nice idea but you're probably better off to remove the heating ducts and start again with MVHR manifolds, ducting and vents that are designed for that purpose. Are you looking to improve airtightness? You should be able to improve your current performance but will hit a practicable limit due to the construction design of the house - the most common loss zones are at joist and roof level where the timbers pass through the wall.

The system we had was 110v and had a commando plug at the end for a transformer box. Bulbs were fragile and we lost a few but they were easily replaced. They only really get knocked about when you're moving them. I believe that the reason they are 110v is for site safety.

Well, no he doesn't. The UK renewables (wind, water, wood, sun) generation share for electricity is now on par with gas & coal (41% each) with nuclear making up the rest. Will only increase as coal and then gas plants are decommissioned and they are not building new ones. You can sign up for plans that are renewable only electricity (Octopus etc). Even when electricity is generated by fossil fuel, the pollution is centralised.

Our local amenity site (fancy name for tip) takes them - I also had two to get rid of once the caravan was no longer required and was surprised at how relaxed the supplier was about ever getting them back. Eventually they disappeared off site, no idea if it was them or someone else .

Planners can only reject for reasons that comply with planning policy, which they will refer to in the letter. 'Community comments' are often just a list of personal gripes and if so are rejected by the planners as 'immaterial'. The volume of rejections may force the decision to go to committee but that is about it. See if you can address some, if not all, of the planners objections and re-submit - you normally get a 'free go' You can then appeal both rejections if you feel you have grounds. We won on the second attempt so don't give up at this stage.

We didn't use manual boost switches but got the sparky to wire up the MVHR to the same trigger (bathroom PIRs / light switches) that activate the hot return pump. Works quite well - the Sentinel Kinetic has a variety of ways to trigger boost electrically as well as it's own internal humidity sensor. It also has a control /display panel that can be wall mounted away from the unit (wired connection) so we have that in the utility and can trigger a manual boost or purge from there. We did look into incorporating the boost for cooker hood but the only way would have been to put a current detecting clamp on the hood feed so we decided to live with it and have never bothered.

It's a similar situation with timber frame companies. At some point they need to commit design resources to your project and then reserve a production slot in their factory, plus secure materials etc. I don't believe you can insure but if you pay at least £100 on a credit card then the card company are jointly liable for the goods. This saved my bacon when the balustrade company I was dealing with went bust. Have you explored other build methods and suppliers? I found SIPs more expensive than alternative timber frame methods back in 2015 but maybe it's different now. With SIPs, you also need to pay attention to the cold bridge risk at the soleplate level.

I have a house that meets and exceeds the PH standard but never bothered with certification as I could not see the value. I have no doubt they are high quality MVHR units but I still wonder what they do above and beyond a standard MVHR unit that commands the premium - is it greater efficiency, low power usage?

If you have a specific filtering requirement, may it be worth investigating a pre-filtering stage to your requirements and then a cheaper, non PH certified MVHR? I'm still not clear on the reason for the price premium of the PH certified units. I went with a Sentinel Kinetic + and have had no issues.

Agree Dave but the hourly / day rate is also tricky as any time estimate is just that. We had a joiner and landscaper on day rates - mostly because the work to be done was somewhat open ended and we were supplying materials. A few times, for each we felt that not very much had been achieved on a given day and that the job was being stretched out a bit. However other times they worked their socks off and got lots done. As the customer it can be hard to understand why going is slow and sometimes awkward to ask without the implicit - 'I think you're taking the pi!$$' vibe. I had to take things in the round and try to establish what would be achieved on a weekly basis, and take stock at the end of the week. Or ask how many days to get X done and then check in mid way to see if they were on target.

Our sparky used a string of festoon lights (which run off a 110v transformer) per floor and slung them around the place, needed moved a few times as ceilings were boarded etc. Worked well. https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Site_Equipment_Index/Site_Lighting_1/index.html?ad_position=&source=adwords&ad_id=367633981594&placement=&kw=110v festoon lighting&network=g&matchtype=e&ad_type=&product_id=&product_partition_id=&campaign=ROAS_Lighting_External&version=finalurl_v3&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIuYD7xfru7wIVibbtCh23aQq9EAAYASAAEgJCZfD_BwE

When the Daily Mail asks a question in a headline e.g. "Is this the new blah.." the answer is always no.

Where in UK are you & did you get the usual 3 quotes before choosing? How did the 50sqm / 39sqm issue paving difference arise, that's almost a 20% over measurement. Did you measure it out originally? Unfortunately, unless you agree a day rate (which has its own challenges) the number of days / men is irrelevant.

I only have experience with Velux Integra windows, which I have been very happy with. Velux sell external motorised blinds that run off the same controller. Only drawback for you is that Velux have a min 15o roof pitch requirement, however that could work in your favour as it would address any drainage issues and other potential problems that come with completely flat roofs. @jack had leak issues but did not use GRP. We have two flat roof sections, each about 3m x 2m. One has peeling top coat which has been replaced once (and peeled again) and the other does not have enough fall so has a permanent puddle on it. No leak issues though. @Weebles may be able to help as they have a flat roof with large light, they also had a nasty window related leak (eventually resolved).

Also what's your shading strategy for that large skylight and can it be opened to facilitate stack ventilation?