Bitpipe

Why are you not having a pressure reducing valve as the supply comes in or just in front of the softener?

When I did it, fees were set by National Grid, council don't get involved. Hole required is quite small so did not need closure etc. They literally just put a seal (gunk and metal cap) on where the supply pipe meets your boundary. Reconnection may be more involved as they need to connect from the main which may be on other side of road etc - may be able to use the stub from before but probably no guarantees. If unsure on whether you want to reconnect, running the yellow duct from A to B would not be that expensive. Looks like the DNO is responsible now (changed in 2018) so figure out what area you are in ... https://www.energynetworks.org/operating-the-networks/whos-my-network-operator

Based on our experience, if you are demolishing then the gas needs disconnected by the DNO (gas) at the property boundary. Your local Gas Safe engineer can isolate /remove your supply post meter and the DNO guys will disconnect the meter, excavate at boundary and permanently cap off. Your supplier (i.e. whoever bills you) will collect the meter to close your account. It is not safe to do it any other way as during works, a machine could easily hit your live gas pipe (on your property) and you'd have some explaining to to at best or a serious incident at worst. Any decent contractor will insist on it as a pre-commencement condition. It's not cheap, we paid £1500 back in 2015 and they were here for about 2 hours but it is what it is. Reconnection is subsidised and we took advantage of that with a Warmstar gas boiler for our DHW and UFH. That came into the new property in a completely different location so we laid the required yellow perforated duct in as straight a line as possible from boundary to edge of plant room and the guys were here for a whole day making the connection. Included a new meter & box (we went for in ground). That was about £300 in 2016. Now, you may get people willing to do a 'cash in hand' disconnection - some are chancers and some may be moonlighting network engineers but it is illegal for all concerned and probably not worth the grief.

Beautiful.

As we used to say in Derry in the 80's - Buy Now While Shops Last! Would love natural wood but going to start by baselining a composite plank and then seeing what the cost difference is. Also the fire retardant rating of the composite planks is attractive from an insurance purpose.

Bit left field but we're having to replace our failed render system (carrier board issue) and are thinking of a timber style finish as an alternative. I'm considering Hardie plank - it's a cellulose fibre / cement product and the samples I have look decent. We're thinking of a vertical application but it works in a shiplap horizontal style also.

Listen to @HerbJ. We built our houses at the same time with the same TF and many of the same trades. I did not specify steel penetrations and only managed to get my MVHR ducts routed by the skin of my teeth and pure luck that a few gaps were available - even I needed to go the long way round for a few routes which was less than optimal. Also had to use some very creative thinking on 110mm fouls and bath/shower wastes. Wider bore water pipes, especially insulated runs will need similar consideration. Cables should be fine as you will likely have a small service void between the steel and plasterboard beneath.

In my experience joins are taped before skim and that fills the gaps. If they are particular large you could use LE foam and trim flush before taping (which seems to have happened in the bottom pic).

Welcome. I remember when we lived in a second from end terrace our front room was always cold as the neighbours used their front room as an art studio in the daytime only and spent evenings in the kitchen / diner which had a woodturner and was always cosy. How is the flat ventilated at present - i.e. trickle vents in windows, externally vented extractor fans in bathroom / kitchen etc? Unless your ventilation system is dependent on that void then I can't see the issue in ventilating it. Are there services in the void (fouls, water, power)? Do you have recessed lighting (spots)? How is the void created / ceiling suspended? You could use rigid insulation such as XPS which will give good results for that thickness but may be tricky to fit around obstacles - you could strip back the entire ceiling and bond the insulation to the concrete ceiling with foam. Or you could use rockwool which maybe easier to fit around existing structures and services.

I tried and failed. Render system issue (carrier board cracking) but as defects were noticed in first two years (even though root cause was not clear) they 'declined' to help.

Nope.

Not sure what you mean by pump. An appropriately sized MVHR unit should be more or less silent (i.e. noticeable noise at the room vents) on normal operation (30% fan speed) and only noticeable, but not annoying, on boost (50%). The MVHR unit itself will make some noise so if located in the loft etc then you may need to isolate it using rubber feet etc to prevent vibrational noise to the room below. MVHR units tend to be classified by sqm of the area they are servicing but there are other metrics you can use to size one appropriately such that 30% fan speed or thereabouts meets your minimum BR requirement. Makes sense to locate your unit as centrally as possible in the house to even out the duct runs and to make balancing easier but mine is in the plant room on one corner of the house and it works fine. WRT external intake / extract location - the air temp will be broadly the same but for balance you want both vents on same side of house and a min 1m apart Our ducting runs horizontally through the web joists and through 75mm floor deck holes in a few places. Given it's all behind plasterboard, not sure where the noise transmission is happening?

Looks AMAZING. Great attention to detail everywhere. Makes such a difference when you have a dry enclosed space.

I don't think there is any one way to do this but any lender will be expecting you to have some funds to put towards the purchase (deposit) and / or project. My own experience was that a high st lender was happy to offer a mortgage to buy the original property but was not comfortable in allowing it to be demolished and rebuilt (using our own funds) as they felt they had lost their security - even though the plot value alone was in excess of what we had borrowed from them. So we paid off the mortgage with the build funds and then got a self build mortgage from Ecology for the build itself. Maybe others here have managed to borrow the whole lot (purchase and build) from one lender.

@joe90 you have competition!

I have timber web joists throughout with standard plasterboard & skim under and 18mm OSB deck on top plus whatever the floor finish is. On my GF (which sits over basement) the UFH is in spreader plates between the joists so under teh OSB. There is then a sandwich of 12mm and 9mm ply on top of which is about 10mm of resin floor system (rubber mat and resin itself). I remember when considering ICF that the proposed hollow core flooring necessary for the spans plus screed on top, plus services void under would have given me too deep a build up on each floor. With the web joists, services run through the webs - 110mm fouls being the largest and 75mm MVHR next biggest - this is only really an issue for your first floor as it will impinge on the ceiling height in the floor below. For UFH you will need to allow for insulation etc. My basement slab is a passive raft so insulated underneath (it sits on 300mm EPS) and has no UFH, perfectly comfortable without it.

We progressively reduced the ceiling height across floors as we could not exceed the ridge height of the house we were demolishing. Basement is 2700mm, first floor 2400mm, second floor 2300mm and room in roof fills what's left but usable as bedrooms. Minimising the floor buildup was key, GF was to be 2450mm original but we needed extra ply on floor for resin and additional battens in ceiling due to steel snafu so lost 50mm in the process. However it looks and feels fine.

We were demolishing a 1950's house that was the original dwelling on that land, being agricultural previously and got the self same condition, almost word for word. In the distant past (1900s) there had been gravel extraction a few 100m away and that had been infilled so maybe it was that. You don't know what you don't know, especially at the start of a project. We forgot to ask for the GI to be zero rated for VAT, which is permissible - the bits that require 'tools' anyway and were not able to recover it subsequently.

Welcome, bought our original unreformed 1950's detached house in 2011, knocked down in 2015 and moved into the new one 2016. Unless the property is listed or otherwise protected, it's your financial decision to demolish. The only party who may have an issue is your mortgage provider if you used one for the purchase (happened to us). We had to use the build fund to redeem the mortgage and then borrow anew for a self build mortgage using the plot as the security. TBH, that's where 90% of the value was as the house itself was knackered but it gave the original high st lender the willies so they would not agree. We did consider doing it without telling them (and have friends who did major 'reduce it to two walls' refurbs on the QT) but the consequences would have been severe and given we'd had a bumpy ride getting planning, I would not have put it past a neighbour to cause trouble. Good luck!

We had similar episode. They called out the DNO to do emergency repair (after calling me in a panic) - was fixed same day and no idea who got the bill in the end but it was not me.

TBH, 50m of blue 32mm MPDE is not expensive (under £100 inc VAT) so that should get you from boundary to inside your plant room in one run, even if it needs to take a long way round. Do you have outside taps? Are they fed off the house supply or from the mains run to the house. Not a big deal to T off the 32mm to a smaller bore for these as long as you fit a non return valve at the tap itself.

Had a similar planning requirement when excavating for our basement. Our ground investigation did specific soil analysis / tests for contamination (none found) and that was documented in the final report we submitted to address the planning condition. We also got a WAC testing cert to confirm the soil was inert for the muck away contractor. Desk survey also done Not to be pedantic but on what basis have the SI company reported 'no signs of contamination'. Have they done chemical tests of soil samples etc? Something indisputable you can put under the LA's nose? Unfortunately what you're finding out the hard way is that there's always a risk involved in obtaining evidence piecemeal vs in one hit. Obviously there is a cost saving in only paying for work in bits and pieces as you need it vs a comprehensive report which may contain things you paid for but were not explicitly asked for. Trade off is the delay should the LA ask for more proof. Hopefully you have what you need in hand and the LA are just being obstinate.

When we demolished and rebuilt we put in new blue 32mm MDPE from our side of the main stop to the plant room in our case. From there it transitions to copper and after an isolator goes into a pressure reducing valve and then into the general plumbing circuit. Where you bring it into the house is a discussion for you and your plumber but if you have a plant room then that would make make sense. Space under sink will be limited also.

Correct, we have a whole house latent defects warranty, a mortgage from a major High St lender (re-mortgaged at end of last year and new lender sent a surveyor etc.) and buildings insurance from a brand name insurer. On the latter, I did get written confirmation that the wall construction method of rendered cement board on timber frame was OK as it was not one of their drop down options in the quote form. Now, we do have problems with the render system itself as the cement board used has started to warp & crack and will need replaced at some point.

I've asked Banksy to come put something on mine, add a few hundred grand to the value of the house...