Bitpipe

Rooflights are trickier as gravity will hinder rather than help. On our Velux integra windows we used their external motorised blinds (which can be retro fitted) for the high up windows and their standard internal blinds for the ones easy to reach.

That's what we do - I set mine to come on at sun up and it's done a few hours later.

Beautiful roof windows - do you have blinds for them? Can be a real source of overheating in summer...

We've used that colour extensively and it's really worked. Consider the Purbeck Stone as a darker colour from the same pallete for feature walls etc. Of course, we bought the paint from a local decorator's paint shop who can mix up any F&B paint colour at a fraction of the price.

Yes, we went for Basalt grey (7012) and it's a lovely blue/green grey. Inside we went for a 50% paint finish (a mushroom colour) so the underlying grain shows through - just basic spruce frames. We got all cills and other metal work (guttering, soffits etc..) in the same RAL and even our external gates. The slate roof, black solar panels and grey GRP all sit well with it also.

Me too - can we think what the common factor was there

Mine would say ' this 6 bed, 400m2 house with full footprint basement costs under £2.50/day for electric and gas'.

Best UFH for bathrooms are the single wire heating mats that are not very expensive at all and can be laid by your tiler and installed by your electrician. I got mine here http://warm-star.co.uk/

A level threshold from inside to outside, no step down to get out or step up to get in. All I have is the few mm 'bump' of the sliding door rail. Looks nice too and meets part P for disabled access should that ever be important in the future.

I'm not sure Sika warranty ICF pours as the final pour quality can't be seen, but maybe they do - should not be hard to find out. They provide the waterbar (goes between pours) the mastic that holds the water bar in place and the admix for the concrete, plus they come and supervise the works. NHBC and the like will ask for 2 waterproofing methods from the three available a) external membrane, b) WP concrete, 3) internal membrane, sump & pump. Your contractor may also issue you with an insurance backed warranty but ultimately there will be something from the likes of Sika or Kryten backing it all up. If it's an insurance backed warranty then you have some chance but they are notoriously hard to claim on. ICF just gives you walls, you need a flooring system (pozi joists or hollowcore flooring) and a roof system. Steels to span open stretches of glazing etc. Then add internal stud walls, airtightness detail around windows & doors etc. With the TF package from MBC I got all of that in one shot which made life a lot easier - not to say you can't do it just as well the other way but you will need to pull in different trades. Groundworkers dig holes and fill them back in, required in all circumstances It was about a 30% difference in cost - but keep in mind the frame itself is only around 20% of the overall build cost.

Yup - we have a nice high level 'slot' window above our bed - about 2m long and 600 high I think. Without fail the rain battering off the cill wakes me up.

We considered ICF for the whole house and went as far as visiting builds, shortlisting contractors and getting detailed quotes. However the economics drove us back to a cast in situ (aka formwork) basement (insulated below and to the sides) and the MBC frame above - we just got more for our money that way. I wouldn't say ICF is risky but you have to 'trust' the pour as you can never see it. We were relying on waterproof concrete only as the conditions were good so wanted to ensure that was independently warrantied and so used a Sika system. Also found that many local groundworkers were able to sub out to experienced concrete crews, not so ICF - but that was 5 years ago. We also visited a Thermohouse build, looked to be a high quality system and the owners were very happy with it. As above, primarily cost as we got two fixed price contracts for each and the MBC package left us with a guaranteed airtight shell, battened roof, internal stud walls, floor decks and even temp stairs within a few weeks. Windows were ordered in advance off plan (as the frame is factory made we had high confidence in the apertures being accurate) and timed to arrive as soon as the frame was erected. Roofing and render followed close behind. In all we demolished at end of July 2015, basement was excavated, cast, insulated and backfilled by October (that included services too) and frame erection started Friday Nov13th and the scaff came down mid Jan 2016 - so about 8 weeks to get what looked like a finished house from the outside. Internal framing, insulating and airtightness took another few weeks and then we were ready to start 1st fix. Moved in August 2016, just over a year from starting works. As first timers and relative novices, that's what we needed to build confidence. However, cast or ICF does not make a material difference to the basement structural design so it's a detail you can contemplate once you have planning, a sound understanding of your ground conditions and a SE design of the structure.

Welcome. Plenty of experience with both your suggested build methods here and each has their strengths. If you're using one of those energy efficient methods, you should consider Ecology for the self build mortgage as they have a great reputation and are easy to deal with. Given your location, land values and possible constraints on how much you're allowed to grow the footprint, have you considered doing a basement as part of the build for extra space? Planners tend not to pay them too much attention and if you're doing a demolish and rebuild, they are not mega expensive to build and deliver a decent ROI for the additional space delivered. Our approach was to get planning for the above ground bit first and see how much pushback there was. Once achieved, we then put in a new app with just the basement added (big square box with basement on it, no details) and it passed with no issues. We then spent a bit extra on the ground investigation (which you'll need for any foundation system) and got quotes to build the basement vs standard foundations / slabs and only then committed to build it, with the plan to leave it an empty box for a while if the budget got too tight. At each stage of the build (first fix, plastering, second fix, flooring decorating etc..) we made sure we could afford to include the basement vs the must have parts of the house but it chugged along ok and it's been a great asset.

Fair enough - SE specced ours at 10m - you're right though, one pack is never quite enough!

Ours goes out and around at the back and front. Means a few more ICs but with Clarke drain covers you can have them in your drive or patio and never notice. Drain rods come in 10m packs so that should be the distance between ICs on the runs.

We found that most architects would give an initial hour or so to come to site, have an initial chat about what you think you want to achieve and get a feel for the project. Some would do a few thumbnail sketches of options to illustrate their thinking but nothing really usable - indeed, we found some years later and could not even recall what they were trying to say. It was clear that this was a speed date and if there was 'chemistry' then to progress to concept sketches, they would need to be retained and we would be charged for the next stage including acquiring the local survey 'tile' (i.e. the formal to scale drawing of what was currently on site) and overlay this with a few scheme ideas and then choose one to take further to elevations, floor layouts, dimensions etc. The next fee stage was commissioning a proper site survey and moving to a formal cad representation with associated design statements, traffic input etc to conclude with a planning submission. Thereafter is was construction drawings and tender management but at that point we parted company on good terms and did our own PM.

Yup, most latent defect warranty policies have an initial 2 year period where they only cover issues if the trader has ceased trading. If the trader just don't want to fix it then you need to sue them. Thereafter the warranty covers hidden (i.e. latent) defects only, but again if you noticed the issue within the first two years then you're not covered. And I'm sure there's a bunch of other get out of jail cards for them after that

Great, that's a good start. My understanding is that insurance falls into two buckets - insuring during the works and insuring the end result for a period after the works. Site or renovation insurance covers you for all the eventualities during doing major works on site - theft, damage, accidents, 3rd party liability, collapse, fire etc. Structural warranty or latent defects covers the works when complete for the next 10 years or so. Usually required by lenders to mortgage new builds, or requested by purchasers, No idea what the position is for renovations. TBH they are not that useful as they have so many caveats they are hard to claim on but they are a necessary evil. Often tied to some kind of inspection activity. You can also get insurance backed warranty for specific trades or works (e.g. our basement waterproofing has a Sika insurance backed warranty). Hope that helps.

Ok, big red flag warning here - if you have a mortgage you NEED to get their approval in advance otherwise they can force you to redeem the mortgage if they find out as you'll have breached their conditions. I know many people don't do this and just rely on not getting caught but it takes one troublesome neighbour to make a call and you're in hot water. Your regular domestic building insurance will only go so far, again they need to be told. If you're doing a major project then you need build insurance that will cover the site and cover re-build should the whole thing collapse / catch fire the day before you move back in. Also known as site insurance. Only when you have BC sign off and works are considered to have finished can you re-establish domestic buildings insurance.

I installed Velux Integra windows and used their motorised blind as it can take power from the window and can run from the same wireless contoller. For the windows, they are Roma blinds but were factory fitted by Gaulhoffer and just wired into the mains and rocker switches on the wall - they also have wireless options etc.

We don't even have a timer on our heating, it's 'on' 24/7 year round but driven by a stat which is set to 20o. Same for the bathroom under tile mats. We just turn off the towel rads at the controller when summer starts and back on when it gets colder.

Agree - the best decision we made wrt overheating was to spec external motorised blinds for our east and south facing windows (both wall and roof). We noticed how strong the morning sun was when in the caravan on site and mitigating that coming into the house makes a huge difference. Evening west sun is less of an issue and we just have internal voile to reduce that glare. I'd say next biggest culprit is warm air so having MVHR (for ventilation, not injecting cooling) and being able to keep cool evening air in the house the next day when it's warmer outside helps. We have an atrium with velux so can effect a stack ventilation at night to purge the house and then try best to keep the cooler air in.

No, I used a private BCO recommended by the architect who covered our area. Can't recall if he had a warranty product I didn't want or didn't offer one at all but the warranty I did use in the end did not need inspections, just the final sign off certificate. BC covers much more than the frame erection so not surprised that MBC don't want to get involved - in my case our project officially started in March 2015 to get ahead of the new regs coming out and we did some approved drainage work. MBC did not come on site until November. House was finally signed off in 2018 due to delays with landscaping. Full drawings and calcs - MBC provided a great package that satisfied them. We provided similar from our SE for the basement design. The rest was bits and bobs of detail to do with water calculation, mvhr plan etc. Probably the biggest DIY item was the preliminary SAP calc which I did on Stroma using guidance from this forum (there are threads with sample models etc). Was enough to get started and I eventually used a proper consultant later in the build to do the formal as built EPC. Good luck finding an architect who is well versed in it. By luck, our design lent itself well to PH wrt orientation, shading and even glazing but there was no consideration wrt fabric. However, most designs can be built to PH standard. PHPP modelling helps understand how the design will perform - most usefully space heating requirement and risk of overheating, which is a key consideration of passive.

No. Read the guidance, very detailed.

Sounds good - would still advise thicker EPS on basement walls as it can get compressed in places when backfilling and the extra cost of 100mm eps is marginal, plus you can’t retro for Also consider electric ufh for the bathrooms as you’ll use that year round to warm tiles vs the wet ufh running just for the bathrooms.