Bitpipe

Just had the surveyor round for the valuation and we hit our target which is a relief. He asked if we had a warranty (not needed to show it yet) and no mention of BC so will see if that comes up again. This is the first independent valuation we've had since building so nice to know that we're pretty much sitting on what we paid for the plot plus the build spend. Our LTV is only 30% so are in a good lending position - have decided on a 2 year fix at 1.09% with very low arrangement costs. Cheapest 5 year was 1.8% but even taking another set of arrangement fees into consideration, rates would need to go up by a fair bit to justify the additional spend over the 5 years. I'd expect that when all the external works are complete and the whole plot looks 'prettier' we'd command more of a premium, market depending. However no plans to sell so that's a moot point

No problem, I'm no ICF expert so my joins comment was just a supposition. Waterproofing strategy does depends on the local conditions, we were ok to use B only. Our slab was poured with a 100mm kicker for the walls and the waterstop strip was laid on top on this (a groove was precast to receive it) - thats what you can see in the second picture above. Our whole concrete & water stop system was from Sika and came with a warranty with regular inspections. They even provided an expanding rubber washer to plug the holes through the formwork where the rods holding either side of the formwork ran.

We have a free standing bath that came with a very flimsy and quite narrow bore flexi waste. Plumber took one look at it and laughed. Because there was not much clearance under the bath, we needed to cut a square out of the newly tiled floor to allow a proper u trap to be installed. Still had a bit of flexi to meet the main waste but post trap. Looked at HepVo but he did not like the idea of this sitting horizontally as it could easily clog open (hair) and then let smells back.

Agree - we are Ecology customers and at application just had to show how we were planning to achieve the required standard. During the build you are on their standard rate, discounts are only applied once you can demonstrate (with EPC) that you have achieved the standard. I used the FSAP tool to model the house and generate a target EPC, Jeremy wrote some guidelines on this in his blog I believe. You can play with u values for the fabric (walls, windows) plus add PV and system details (heating, MVHR etc). Given our house was designed to near passive standards we qualified easily enough, Ecology did not dig into it at all. We actually achieved 91 on the EPC which was enough to trigger a modest rate discount. Agree that they are great to deal with, very personal service. Also, for us, we had full freedom on how to draw down the loan amount - whether the full sum from outset or chunks as we needed them. No surveys or questions asked, a simple email from us released the funds.

I priced Eclisse but went with a cheaper alternative that was about half the price from Haefler. Can't say I have any issues in performance but you do seem to get a more substantial frame from Eclisse. Challenge I had was that as MBC had used CLS timber throughout and we'd gone for metric door frame sizes, the standard Eclisse range did not fit (was too narrow). Also check that your chosen door comes in the appropriate width - my system was limited to 40mm (you could go wider with additional spacers etc). We used Eclisse ironmongry for the doors though, really nice and solid kit. Got those from www.mb-locks.co.uk along with a lot of Karcher handles, hinges, latches etc. Cheapest I could find online at that time.

Can only sympathise Ian, makes small beer of our speed bump with Tesco bank (who too 16 weeks to tell us that we couldn't do the rebuild while under their mortgage and then kept changing their mind). I can recommend the caravan on site option. Stay optimistic, there's always a way forward. p.s. don't be tempted to drink cheap whisky to save money, that's definitely a false economy.

We also have an open plan kitchen / diner / living area, think of it as 3 quadrants of a 10mx10m square. BPC recommended two extracts in the kitchen, one in the corner and one between the hob (which has an overhead recirculating extractor) and oven wall. All my extracts have double runs of duct, the combined kitchen extract rate at boost is over 30l/s. While this sounds excessive, looks like I needed the additional capacity if only to balance the supply - this was my main challenge in tuning the system last week (we have extracts in each bathroom and utility, but lots of single duct supply vents in all other rooms, inc basement). I was doing some griddle cooking at the weekend and things got a touch smokey, even with the MVHR is boost, it was not clearing quick enough so I resorted to opening a few windows - which goes to prove that MVHR is designed for background ventilation rather than heavy duty extraction.

i got one (Zurich) from the outset as it's needed if you ever take a mortgage on the property once complete. Was one of of the first things the broker asked for when looking at the market, I'm coming off the ecology self build now that the 2 year redemption period is up. However their value as 'insurance' is questionable - I know NHBC has a terrible reputation for resolving issues.

Just watched the post launch deployment video here Fair to say that there will be a few squeaky bums at mission control while all those steps are carried out, a bit far away to call out the repair team as they did for Hubble. https://youtu.be/bTxLAGchWnA

We were also pretty generous with the Cat 6 cables - we have twin coax and cat patch panels (i.e. two of each) to every bedroom, basement room, more in the living room and loads in the study and media room. They terminate in the loft to a patch panel and I have a 40 port ethernet switch there - only using about 20% of the connections at present (I don't like TVs in bedrooms, they are there for future sale etc) but it's good to have some redundancy in case of failures rather than rely upon one cable and a mux at each end. Only place I forgot to cable was the kitchen/dining area - don't want a TV here but did get a nice Revo internet radio so a wired socket would have been useful. WiFi connection seems to work ok though. Just checked the sparks quote and for 19 dual and 5 quad cat 6 (which makes 58) he charged £2350, so about £40 each which includes all h/w, cable and labour to run and terminate at both ends. Data rack and switch were extra to that.

Before we went down the timber frame route we considered doing basement and house in ICF, however for our design it proved more expensive than a traditional shutter pour basement and TF house on top. We did look into these guys quite deeply and visited a very impressive build they had done - interesting system in that it has floor and roof elements as part of the system. http://thermohouse.co.uk/passive-house/

Enforcement guy came, all very reasonable. As Stones says, we're past the substantially completed stage so it needs to move or go. We've agreed 28 days initially, will stick on Ebay / Gumtree this weekend. Alternative agreement is to move to the side of the house (where there is room) and as long as it sits just behind the build line it qualifies as PD. When empty, they are not that difficult to drag about with a machine so may get the landscaper to do that when he's back on site in a few weeks if there's been no interest. Can't say the neighbour on that side will be happy, but then again I suspect he's the one who complained.....

Given that these missions (Philae et all) take decades to come to fruition from concept to actual data, we seem to be living through a mini space exploration golden age. Must check and see what's coming up over the next few years of a similar ilk.

Hope so. Sometimes when the wind catches the container door it slams shut and can jam, takes a while to get open again. Would be terrible to be inside when that happens

Coming in the morning, I suspect they want to ensure that I'm not using it to store my own stuff - just cleared it out this afternoon and as soon as I get some decent photos will stick it on eBay.

We have an interesting solution. Our house was largely completed last summer and we moved in once all services were live, we continue to do bits and pieces internally but the majority of the outstanding work is external landscaping, which has commenced but has a few months left to run. At the start of the build process, we situated a 15ft shipping container - site office combo at the front of our property. It sits behind a large hedge and is not visible from the street apart from when approaching our house (where you can see the doors). We live in a cul-de-sac so no passing traffic but we do have pedestrians and cyclists. We did not explicitly request PP for that (or the caravan that we lived in). Anyway, I've been working up to getting shot of it now as it's essentially empty and I had agreed a sale with another self builder but unfortunately that has just fallen through. A neighbour has obviously complained to the LA as I received a letter back in June from planning enforcement 'encouraging' me to get rid of it as works were complete. I wrote back saying that we still had outstanding work to complete (landscaping) and that it was still in use for storage of build materials & contractor tools plus welfare, setting the expectation that we'd be done by August. There have been some delays and the contractor is not back until start of October. Enforcement have been onto me again, I've updated them on the schedule, and now they're coming out for another look - there are mutterings of needing planning permission for it now, which seems odd to me. In my view, I'm not finished the build so this is still a building site and it's required, but I have no idea of where I stand legally. Honestly, I'm happy to get shot of it and it will be going on eBay / Gumtree asap but I don't want to have to fire-sale it because I have planning breathing down my neck. Any suggestions?

Meeting the whole house rate is my challenge - with a relatively large internal floor area of 343m2, I needed to crank the supply fan to 40% today which feels very high. Once I get the correct measurements, I'm going to reduce it back to 30% in a few weeks to see if theres a noticeable difference in air quality. Question - for rooms in roof, can the effective floor area be reduced due to the reduced room volume? This would help the numbers somewhat. As luck would have it, the only room that ever feels stuffy is our study where we both work (and have laptops, printers etc). I'm getting the lowest readings from this vent - it is on the opposite side to the house to the MVHR but on the GF so not the longest run but must have the most bends in the run compared to others. On our distribution box, 10 ducts terminate at the front side and four at the rear, these rear ones introduce an additional sharpish bend to the duct. I didn't pay too much attention as to which duct went where but now wising that I'd checked to put the shorter runs to the rear where the additional bend would not make much difference. Something I could possibly change in the future if needs be. Next challenge is balancing the extract which initially was about 20% less than supply at normal speed. Just to ensure that my maths are correct, I'm using a vane type anemometer and the cone I've constructed completely covers the measuring head. Do I use the internal area of the measuring tool (dia is 57mm) or the internal area of the cone where it meets the tool (dia about 65mm)?

Was just about to start my second round of testing and stumbled on this thread - thanks @JSHarris as ever One question, we fitted two extracts to our kitchen, one equidistant between the hob and ovens (which are opposite each other) and one in the corner - this was advised by BPC so I went with it. As it is, both are giving me just over 14l/s at boost (50% fan speed).

Interesting thread - I'm just about to remortgage off an Ecology self build plan and deciding between 2, 3 or 5 year fix. Did you approach Ecology? Not sure what their self employed cirteria are and there's the issue as to whether your build meets their requirements. Variable for me is that as of Jan I will likely be a freelance contractor also so a) I need to get the remortgage settled before that happens and b) I need to ensure that when I remortgage again I have enough history behind me not to make it troublesome. 3 years seems to be the standard ask.

A block of ICF may be waterproof (ish) but it's the joins between blocks where you'd have issues. Waterproofing strategy really depends on your ground conditions. if you're well above the water table then waterproof concrete alone should be enough - this is what we used (warrantied by Sika). There is an admix in the concrete and waterbar at all the pour junctions. They come and inspect a few pours or ask for photos of the preparations pre-pour (depends how much they trust your crew). The admix forms a 'self healing' defence in the concrete itself and the bar prevents leakage at the horizontal and vertical joins (plus around any penetrations such as ducts etc. External membranes are only as good as the quality of the application, can be a useful belt and braces but would be wary of relying on it alone. External land drain (just below slab) is always best practice - back fill with 1m wide free draining clean stone also, not muck - this should prevent any water pooling against the walls. Only makes sense if you're above the water table though as it will need to drain to a soakaway above the water table. If you're 'under water' then a leaky basement (regular concrete) with internal membrane, sump and pump will keep you dry but care needs to be taken to avoid ever puncturing the membrane and maintaining the pump (power cuts etc..). We have local friends near the Thames who did the full Glatthar waterproof basement system - it uses precast insulated concrete walls with additional wp/ concrete inside and a super heavy duty membrane - fully guaranteed but quite expensive. Their basement was designed to stop it floating out of the ground (massive, toed slab) as the hydrostatic pressure was so high.

Just to give more detail, he was a bit slow in invoicing me for the earlier work as it was only a few hundred pounds and we had the bigger job coming once the house was up. So by the time I got sight of the first invoice it was too late for him to change it. I recall his saying that it was much of a muchness to be on either scheme financially, more of a convenience issue.

Our electrician had the same issue, he did some pre-demo site work and had to re-issue the VAT receipt after contacting HMRC to change his scheme - IIRC he had to swallow some of the VAT as I could not claim it back and he had already submitted his VAT payments for that period.

No idea but this is where the expertise of the crew is key - our guys vibrated a lot, both dropping the poker into the mix and running it up and down the formwork, especially internal corners - we had window formers for light wells and these needed extra attention to make sure the concrete flowed around them well and didn't leave any air pockets. When the formwork was struck, you could see the quality of the pour - virtually no 'marshmallow/popcorn' effect anywhere on the internal or external faces. For me one of the few downsides of ICF is not being able to see the resultant quality of the pour. They also had two pokers on the go, both to speed things up but also for redundancy in case one failed.

We looked at these guys for the basement and potentially the house when we were considering the whole build with ICF. http://thermohouse.co.uk/

Our concrete guys used pliers to manually twist and cut the steel wire ties but moved at an incredible pace - I guess when you do it all day long you get fast