Bitpipe

Nice, we used to have a ACH leaderboard on the go somewhere - I think you're at the top of the list! (we got 0.56 I think - not bad for 400m2 with a basement)

+1

Out of curiosity, why would you not use soft water in WC. We have one internal tap that is hard (Nordic Qooker) and everything else is soft.

I've done a 120m2 basement in Berkshire, we're on clay/gravel/chalk. Was a knock down and rebuild SE recommended 10m dynamic probing (10 locations) and 3x 5m cores - first pass was inconclusive so we did it again and doubled the number of probes / holes - got more certainty that way. Big concern where we are is chalk solution features (big voids) and made ground. Luckilly we did not encounter either but still needed a big slab (300mm thick, lots of rebar). Quotes for GE varied wildly, the firm I ended up using (recommended by SE) did not have a great engineer on the job initially, they did a better job on the second pass but of course I had to pay twice. 20m does sound deep but depends what you're sitting on and what they're worried about (London clay?) I'm a firm believer that you need to know what's down there before a spade goes into the ground as if you discover something unpleasant then it will be more expensive to remedy as you've started the job. What's your proposed excavation & basement build strategy?

Funny - the gate guys left some sawdust on the resin when fitting boards to the external gates - I went out and hoovered it up. You can walk on it in socks as its perfectly flat, weather permitting...

My landscaper did the groundworks, sub base and edging and I used a Reading firm for the resin. Will PM you details of both - what area are you in?

Obviously not the majority of the build but have done a few entire elements myself (and I had very little experience) such as all the trenching for the leccy redirection, insulation of basement, MVHR install and some of the latter stages of landscaping while I wait for the contractor to have time to come back. Even a small job takes ages but there is great satisfaction in doing something yourself vs throwing money at someone to do it, even if it is something of a false economy when you're still working !

We actually got it here http://cmsdoors.co.uk/ as they're an approved reseller (all made to order from the same factory). I found them much more responsive than the RK UK team who I suspect were a bit snowed under when I was buying.

We had a few chips, scratches and cracks of stoneware and veneered doors, flooring etc. These things happen and even if they own up, it's difficult to get anyone to pay out. We used a Magic Man (repair franchise) who came to site and fixed all of these issues (you would never know that they'd ever happened) for a fixed fee - about £250.

Pretty much... We have a large (and expensive) Siemens recirculating filter which is there to process the smells, wick away cooking steam, provide task light over the hob and generally look good. I put a MVHR extract about 1m in front of it (in addition to a general kitchen extract) which hopefully removes the stale damp air that leaves the recirculation unit. Depending on the MVHR unit / cooker hood, you can have the hood activate the boost setting on MVHR, although this can also be achieved through sensing current draw on the cooker hood supply and/or humidity sensor in the MVHR unit. Cooker hood ventilation units are VAT free as they are considered part of your ventilation solution and not an appliance (even if they don't vent outside) - if your kitchen is a supply & fit job inc. appliances, best to get them to just zero rate it but should be OK to claim back also. Question for you is how far away is the extractor exhaust from the ceiling (where the MVHR extract likely would be).

What about tanking, insulating etc?

I also have a screwfix gun - did jam up after a period of storage (with the foam on). I was able to strip it down and clean with isopropyl alcohol and a bit of poking about with a paperclip / nail - if you're using PU foam you should invest in a litre bottle of this as it's the only thing I've found will clean wet and dry foam from hands, clothes and other surfaces.

Welcome, agree with Jack on RWH - good for garden but not for house. I built one with recycled IBCs (search BH for the thread) others have buried appropriate tanks but the ROI is not there and there are potential health issues using RW internally.

We used Resort Deck for the external balconies and a 3x4m mezzanine deck on exit from basement. Not cheap but nice choice of colours (bit more subtle compared to the samples I got from BMs) and grain etc was a bit more realistic. Also better fixings as they have a groove along the length and use a special hidden fixing between the planks vs driving a screw through the face of the plank.

We also have a RK door and it's very plain (by choice) - just a flat slab of cherry wood foil effect aluminium with a single vertical bar handle and a fingerprint reader with a narrow vertical window to side. We got the passive version as the rest of the build was to that spec. Ditto on the pricey but was best we could find and we looked at a lot, inc. Gaulhoffer (who did our windows) and Internorm etc. We bought through a RK reseller who also did our Hormann garage doors and installed both - not much difference on price but better customer service as at that time RK seemed very busy and were not that responsive. Had it now for a few years now and still really happy with it.

Early in our design process we looked at loads and started to pick up on these. One particular new build show home actually had no internal doors fitted upstairs as they would have got in the way of the furniture they had staged the rooms with - took a few minutes for the penny to drop. I'd also call into a few local estate agents and ask frankly what sells these days - most of our local ones were good for a bit of a chat, especially if they though there was half a chance they'd get to market the end result. And to the comment on self builders being 'unrealistic', as Jeremy says - the main concern for many of us is getting it built properly and then getting some things you want, budget allowing. Many self builds I've seen are perfectly modest, beautifully built, comfortable to live in and will last the test of time vs the developer boxes that may look nice initially but have a host of hidden nasties (I know, I've owned one) - and they aren't particularly cheap either.

I think you're on the right track - suggest you pop down to your nearest new build development and poke around the show houses, or worst case get on right move and look at them there.

I did two NMAs - one to increase front elevation window sizes from 1000mm square to 1200 square (doubt they would have noticed) add to solar PV to rear and tweak rear Velux (debatable if I even needed permission for this). The second was to add Solar PV to the front. Both times I did my own drawings - was quite simple change so I just took a grab of the architect's drawings* from the PDF)and stuck them into a powerpoint where I cut, paste & tweaked the new details - took a bit of fiddling to get the scale correct (original go was rejected for this reason) but got there second go. Fee was close to £200 and that was in 2015. NMA one was accepted, two was rejected as it was not considered 'non material' as it introduced a new element to the street facing elevation. They also noted that PV is covered by PD provided it meets sensible criteria. So, long story short, unless it's a big redesign (in which case debatable it's a NMA) you may be able to hack it together yourself and save any architect fees. *later in the project, I persuaded the architect to give me the DWG (well, I persuaded him so send it to the TF manufacturer and the SE firm, who sent it back to me ) - would have been easy enough to make the changes there using DraftSight (free and reasonably easy to use).

Having a very ropey car and dressing like a tramp also helps - living in an onsite caravan adds to the effect (i.e. - if we had money do you not think we'd be living somewhere nicer...) On the GD theme, I though this week's was refreshing as when they had 1/2 the budget of the admittedly beautiful original design, they went back to drawing board and designed something that actually met their budget - have to admit, I think it still looked great.

Exactly what we did - the final configuration is 32mm mpde from our side of the stopcock to house with a T just after the meter to 20mm mpde for a pair of garden taps - one of these was the original feed for the caravan (which sat at the rear of the house). Blue MPDE is cheap so I wouldn't worry about economising too much there and over complicating your design.

Got it - given the distributed cool air is in the twin walled plastic pipe is the insulation to prevent this warming up or minimising condensing on the outside of the pipe? Quite curious as we obviously only considered the use of MVHR without any additional cooling but if we were to upgrade in the future, wondering if this would be an issue.

Yes, you are correct - brain not fully in gear today!

Agree - can it be remedied ? Best to get it right (or better) at this stage rather than try and work around it. We had a few window openings that needed tweaking but nothing as far off vertical as that. Also, curious about this - A major benefit of stuffing the MVHR ducting into the ceiling section that will be filled with cellulose is that the pipes up there don't need to be insulated, which would normally be the case. The ones for the ground floor are currently getting their NASA-style coats and I'll show some photos of those in the next post. This also means that it's given a reduction on the cost of all the MVHR kit as the insulation for the ducts isn't particularly cheap. We only insulated the short runs of 180mm steel radial ducting (intake and exhaust) from the unit to outside vents - really only the intake needed insulating as it's the one that gets cold and would otherwise drip with condensation but we did both. All internal ducting (from unit to manifold and from manifold to vents - i.e. your green pipe) sits inside the insulated envelope of the house so needs no insulation, unless I'm misunderstanding your install.

Also the title 'Engineer' is protected in Germany, like Doctor here. Narks me when I'm told that 'we'll send an engineer' - always want to ask what type of engineering degree they have...

Me too. Have an electric door at front and manual at back. The pedestrian door is at right angles to the utility door so gets a lot of use. All Hoorman doors so pretty secure.