Bitpipe

I will also be there. Having a house that's apparently modelled on a RUC station in Belfast circa 1988 (sarky comment from a visiting NI friend) won't hurt either.

Contraction of building industry may free up more contractors for the self builders but may it also risk more of those contractors going to the wall - especially if they are not optimised for that market? For example, the plumbing contractor I used was honest that his bread and butter was jobs from developers (not volume builders but bespoke units) and that a one off job like mine got slotted in as and when so I had to be somewhat patient with his team's availability. He was not going to let down a regular source of income to satisfy a one off job. While this was frustrating, start dates sliding etc, I approached smaller plumbers but they were put off by the scale of the job - they were more sized to in and out jobs like a bathroom fitting etc. I hear our contractor has now wound up his business and moved away as the development income was dwindling as the investors behind such schemes were sitting on the money for now, theres not enough volume in self build and he didn't want to chase the small job market. Acknowledge that the plural of anecdote is not data but I think market contraction can cut both ways in labour availability.

We also looked at Corian and then discounted it. Used Silestone, a composite, and it's weathered fine over 3 years. Ours is a mushroom colour so will show a tea / wine stain if left but the HG range of cleaners do a great job of restoring it to new. Few small chips but nothing noticeable.

Don't be silly. He digs a hole and buries it. Then he puts the spoil from the hole in the special trousers.

I drank a LOT of wine when building the house...:)

Not a wine snob / expert at all but have never understood the fuss on French wine - all down to personal taste obviously - but I prefer an Italian montepluciano or South African pinotage. Find the north / south american reds a bit over powering. That said I never spend more than £10 on a bottle (in a shop) so maybe that's why

We went for fairly cheap ones, Haeffle - Eclisse didn't have any available that fitted our wall width (CLS) and the Haeffle ones were less than half the cost. There is really just a head rail that the door hangs off, a single support for the wall side and some guide runners for the door where it meets the ground. Did not bother with brushes. We ordered 45mm solid doors. We used blue plasterboard (soundblock) on exterior and green (moisture) on interior, plus tiles in bathroom. Walls are very solid - slight rattle from the doors occasionally but very happy with the overall performance.

I worked with a SE (based in Bath) who was highly competent in ICF - in the end we only used them for basement (shuttered concrete) and garage raft calcs but they don't need to be anywhere near you logistically to do what you need.

Genau richtig.

Various ground workers I had all used petrol saws with a solid disc and did it by eye, used the flat side of the disc to do the champfer. Given the pipe slips inside the fitting and the seal is at the collar, I don't think you need to get it mm perfect.

We looked at a bio ethanol burner for internal flames and even built a faux fireplace to accommodate it - however even the smallest unit kicks out a lot of heat - 2-3kw which would make our living space unpleasantly hot. In the end I got an app for the TV and will get an ethanol burner for the patio some day. As @jack says, even if you build to BR airtightness and insulation standards, you'll likely overheat in summer with too much glazing. As many here have discovered - airtightness and insulation can help keep a house cool as much as keep it warm and use of ASHP to cool a slab can help even more. I got a lot of timber frame quotes and was surprised at the variation in what was actually supplied - some included only floors and structural walls (other room framing was not included) and they expected cranes, safety systems etc to be provided. Other's did a more complete solution with practically all first fix timber included and few options in between. Made it tricky to do like for like comparison as it meant getting joinery, crane quotes etc. from others. Pretty much all of them will require you to provide your own scaffolding. I went with MBC based on reputation from others here, a turnkey passive standard package and price. Note I built the frame over a basement so did not get the additional foundation system delivery advantage. Also agree that this idea that passive houses are soulless hermetically sealed boxes is pervasive - ours has doors and windows open on all but the warmest and coolest days - kids & animals come and go. However with use of exterior window blinds, thoughtful window placement and some cheap shading, plus stack ventilation, it never gets that hot in summer and requires little heat in winter - 400m2 and we spend about £1 a day on electric and same on gas over the year.

Our house layout is square and on the 1st floor there is an equally sized bedroom in each corner, stairs/atrium in centre of floor. Architect had originally suggested back to back ensuites for all 4 bedrooms, however we changed this to give ourselves a dressing / wardrobe area and then the ensuite - stealing the ensuite space from the guest bedroom. We made the kids bathrooms open to the hall, not their rooms, so they are available to guests (one has a shower, one has a bath). Pocket sliding doors to all bathrooms which maximises the space in each. Works really well - we have a PIR proximity sensor in each bathroom which triggers the MVHR boost and DHW return loop pump - could have triggered the light also but we have low level LED lighting in the hall so felt unnecessary. The MVHR boost fan noise is only barely perceptible and goes off after 10 mins anyway. Didn't I read that the German building regs insist on a corridor (i.e. two doors) between any habitable space and a toilet? We seem to have achieved that by accident rather than intent. Anyway, bottom line is build what you want but probably give some thought to resell - if it's too quirky then you may struggle. One compromise is to terminate some first fix services (fouls and water supply) to an area that could be converted in future, such as a dressing room or corner of a bedroom and decide later. We did this to our rooms in roof, potential to have a shower room up there if we wanted. Also, we put the downstairs WC next to our study, with a view to converting this area to a bedroom / shower room should mobility ever become an issue for an occupant.

We had a static in the rear garden for about a year before we started the build - we had it rigged to power, water and fouls but had not moved in - no council tax paid on it, however this was probably because it was off the radar. We then got the demo permit for the old house and moved into the caravan - this allowed us to stop paying CT on the house (band D) and start paying it on the van (band A). Fast forward a year and we move into the new house and disconnect the van from services. Council still charging us on the van at unoccupied rate (Band A) and said it was irrelevant that it had no power or water. They would only stop charging us when it was gone. As it happened, we got shot of it very shortly after - I sent photos of it leaving to council - so didn't bother to fight the decision.

I bought some cut to size from here a few years back for the bathroom windows (which we did not specify as obscured). Bit of a faff but worked well abodewindowfilms.co.uk

Mine too - like to have the bathrooms extracted (no opening windows there) and the basement ventilated.

Agree that the ultimate exchange rate per se is not the core issue (within reason) - a slow drift in either direction can be accommodated over time for the steep swings can act as economic shocks - ditto oil & commodity prices - and make economic planning for both govts, businesses and individuals more difficult. Can you imagine the impact to us MBC clients paying in Euros back on 2014/15 if the pound had dropped 15% against the euro overnight (or the impact to MBC if it had gone the opposite direction)?

Also need to factor the EU based labour. We had Irish crew working on the frame, and Romanian crews on the steel/concrete for basement and the render. All very high quality trades people, and not supplied at any cost advantage to me - speaking to the contractors, the issue was skills, availability & work ethic - not cost. I guess as the £ weakens and freedom of movement ends (plus a potential feeling of being less welcome) they're less likely to want to work in UK, especially if there is a decline in construction sector overall.

Our house had.. - Irish timber frame & insulation (+ Labour) no idea where their timber is sourced - Scandinavia or Canada? - Austrian windows - Spanish internal doors - Canadian slate roof - German kitchen and appliances - German sanitary ware - Dutch flooring (Sika) & Skia chemicals in the concrete basement - plus Parex external render (also a Sika company) - German lightwells - German front door - Polish staircases - Danish Rooflights (Velux) - Finnish pendant lights Guessing majority of first fix plumbing and electrics were UK, MK sockets used also. Plasterboard, plaster, EPS and concrete all UK I'd guess. Not sure on wood flooring & tiles. All of these purchasing decisions were made on quality, style and price - most through UK suppliers and resellers but some items (frame, bathroom fittings, lightwells) direct from supplier and paid in Euros. Ex rate was 1.4€/£ for most of the build (2015) so made sense.

I don't disagree about overvaluation (and happy to be corrected on impact on exports) but I do think a sudden correction to the norm (with an inevitable undershoot) vs a gradual rebalancing is not good for the economy or individuals.

We just have a basic 19" 24 port ethernet switch and a larger RJ45 patch panel into the rear of which all the hardwired ethernet sockets are terminated, sits in a 2U rack in the loft space (where we thought the BT master socket may have been located). As it turned out we managed to get the connection underground to the pole so avoided a drop wire - master socket is in basement and it is extended to the ground floor study where I keep the BT Smart hub on my desk. Local devices (NAS, laptop dock etc) plug into that directly and then I've patched the hub into the switch over the home Cat 6 wiring. I've tested the performance impact of hub in study vs master socket and there's no difference - the shonky street wiring from ours to the local fibre cabinet is the main performance drag.

The reporting I saw a few weeks ago did not see any substantial rise in exports with the post 2008 and 2016 drop in the pound. This was explained due to the need to import materials and elements of the finished product, therefore diminishing the ability to discount. https://www.ft.com/content/0ee55f40-b2c9-11e9-8cb2-799a3a8cf37b A lower pound increases inflation as prices of imported goods rise and UK runs a significant trade deficit - as interest rates are at a historic low to keep the economy from stalling, the BoE has little scope to boost them to reign it back in or to cut further if recession looms. Also the relatively low UK productivity (essentially a lack of investment in skills and technology) is a factor. The current high employment rate (and the recent wage growth) is believed to be a reflection of this - easy to invest in low skilled additional workforce for the short term (boost wages to obtain/retain staff) and lay them off or cut wages when revenue falls, vs a longer term investment in skills and technology which needs to be paid for over many years, whether revenues keep up or not. But heh, I 'm sure all of this can be resolved with a positive mindset and some cheery optimism!

I know a few of us had to crank up the main fan to hit the whole house ventilation requirement (40% for me) but then dialled it back down to 30% or so to reduce fan noise.

I normally use snopes.com or fullfact.org to get some semblance of unbiased claims and sometimes to correct my own assumptions.

The problem is that news is not a simple presentation of agreed facts (with some editorial overview of what's relevant, and maybe some opinion or interpretation) but a commercially driven presentation of content, in competition with other news providers. The 'story' is what gets attention, the underlying facts less so. It's always been like this but is now amplified by the huge increase in channels, including social media, you tube etc. People will always gravitate to the version of the facts that fits and reinforces their world view.

Mine asked for it along with a bunch of other stuff (water usage calcs etc) so no idea if he ever really looked at it. But your @PeterStarck 's experience makes the case for DIY commissioning even stronger Did either of you notice any difference when balanced or, like me, was it more of a peace of mind exercise?