jack

Unless the original poster is monitoring this thread, they won't see your reply. To flag someone, you can type the @ sign, start typing the member's name (no space after the @), then select from the drop-down menu: @frankmcs65

Welcome. For "Utility connection – specifically Drainage/Waste water", we don't have a sub-forum for the utility connection side of waste water, so please post in https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/forum/130-waste-sewerage/

I can't help with your question, but I've moved it to the ASHP sub-forum and mentioned that it's an ASHP in the title (I would generally assume a "boiler" is gas or oil fired).

The massive crack circled in yellow would have me concerned: Even with a drip edge along the underside of the coping stones, there's a discontinuity at each join that could let water track away from the edge. The one at the yellow arrow seems particularly bad. Could you temporarily cover the render on your neighbour's side with some plastic sheet that goes right up under the coping stone overhang, ideally with a continuous bead of silicone to make sure water can't track through? That might let you at least rule out the neighbour's render.

I'm not surprised. The one we snaffled over 10 years ago had already had a long history of being hired out to builders, who you can be sure didn't treat it with any respect.

Almost EXACTLY my experience. Wife used new Dyson to vacuum up a tiny amount of concrete dust, it developed a loud squeal, and was never the same again, even after sending it in for a service to address the issue. My inlaws run a plant hire company and hire out Henrys. They last forever. After our experience with the Dyson, we got hold of an ex-hire Henry. It vacuumed up everything we threw at it during the build, including concrete and plaster dust, and is still going strong a decade later. One of the guys onsite during our build had one. Chatting away to him about their reliability, and we learn that he's been running his without a bag, for years, because he didn't know it needed one!

A reinforcing band is usually laid along joints to reinforce them before resin is applied, which can result in a visible line (you can certainly see the joints in the fiberglass on our balconies, but that's probably because I did them!) Crackling noises suggest a lack of adhesion, which could be down to insufficient resin, or the resin they did use not being rolled out enough to ensure full wetting of the glass through to the substrate. However, even if you don't have full adhesion, as long as the resin is continuous, it shouldn't leak. Do you know where the leak is? Are there any obvious pinholes? What about the copings over the parapet walls? We had a leak through a section of aluminium coping over our parapet wall that was not at all obvious due to how far the water tracked before becoming visible. More info needed, but @SteamyTea might have some thoughts.

Welcome. I'm certainly no specialist, but I'd start with the fact that the coping stones don't appear to have any sort of drip edge on them. If so, water will track underneath them to where they join the render. Any cracks/gaps at that joint will let in water. Re "Coping stones have dpc underneath them (protection from water ingress if coping stones were failing)", what does the DPC actually cover? If it's just the top of the wall under the coping stones, the water behind the render will find its way to the brick wall once it gets lower than the bottom of the DPC. Before rendering, the brickwork looked very "gappy". Any water getting though to the brickwork could take any number of paths downwards, including from one side of the wall to the other (e.g., it's possible water getting on on your neighbour's side could track to your side through a gap in the mortar). I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will be along shortly, but having dealt with a serious roof leak in the past, you have my sympathy!

I'm 100% certain I'd have done a much better job than the installer we used, even with zero training and experience. Most of it is It just common sense and a desire to do a good job. Unfortunately, the guy who did 95% of the work was a waste of space. 100% my opinion too.

I assume it's because the installer was incompetent. Unfortunately, I didn't realise how bad a job they were doing until it was too late. I've previously documented some of the issues we had with them, particularly the multiple serious leaks we had within a month of moving in. This was the worst leak: And the extent of the damage arising out of that particular leak: There were plenty of other problems along the way: This is just a small subset. I got them back a couple of times to fix the worst of the issues, but it's still a dog's breakfast. We were so worried about the installation that we demanded the Resitrix rep come out and inspect it, particularly in the areas that ended up being the source of the leaks a few months later. Disappointingly, the rep wrote a report saying that all work was of the "usual high standard" (or words to that effect) expected of their authorised installers. It's a shame, because the Resitrix product itself is clearly very high quality.

I don't like the idea of welding a membrane onto a trim where the slope is away from the trim towards the membrane. We have a Resitrix membrane and I've been really unhappy with how it was done. The detail over the outside edge of our parapet wall looks like this: It's theoretically fine as long as the welds (they're modified bitumen based) hold. The problem is that the trims are aluminium, so there are joins at least every 3 metres. As the trims expand and contract with temperature, the welds near the joints are put under quite a bit of lateral stress. In our case, many of them have failed for a couple of inches either side of the joins. I don't doubt that water getting into the space and freezing makes it worse over time. Also, water tends to pool along the welded edge due to the direction of the slope, making it very easy for water to get into the failed joins. It would've mattered a lot less of the weld had failed but the slope were in the other direction. In summary, if I'd known then what I know now, there's no way I would have accepted this design. Assume that welds, joins, glue, etc. will always fail over time. The design needs to be such that, if that happens, water is still largely shed in the correct direction without having a route into the structure through the failed join.

Feels like the majority of discussions around finance on Grand Designs. I remember that one on the Isle of Wight where they built an absolutely massive house with half basement and high quality finishes. They budgeted less than £1000/sqm, with them doing literally no actual building themselves. By the time the windows arrived from Switzerland, they were already out of money. The guy was running around trying to scrape together enough cash to allow the windows to be unloaded. Apparently they built that big because the plot deserved it.

A mate of mine got some guys in to clear the moss off his roof. Turns out it's in really bad condition - felt is leaking in several areas, battens are in poor condition, and various other issues. Some of the rafters are wet but there's no rot yet. It needs to be taken off and redone. It's a medium-sized four bed semi with a simple double-pitched gable roof. I won't tell you the price the guys doing the moss quoted him, but any thoughts on a rough cost for this sort of work (basically remove and replace everything from the rafters up)? Tiles are clay if that helps. Thanks.

Unless your business is building your house, you need to keep it completely separate from your build.

As a self-builder, you don't reclaim VAT in the same way a business would. Instead, you claim back on materials, generally after the build is complete: https://www.gov.uk/vat-building-new-home Any invoice including labour should be zero-rated by the invoice issuer. If you're accidentally or wrongly charged VAT by, e.g., a plumber, you won't be able to claim it back through the scheme above, so it's worth getting it right as you go along. Worth reading up on it all, as it's slightly complex, and you could miss out on a lot of money if you get it wrong! Start with the VAT reclaim sub-forum (next level down from the one you've posted this in). The pinned post has an overview, but please note that the early part of the first post (about claim guidelines) might be out of date. The general consensus is that HMRC updated its internal guidance a couple of years ago, because suddenly HMRC's rejections for being too late suddenly dried up. If you can't see that forum, post another couple of times, as it might have a minimum post count (maybe 20 posts?) before you can see it.

Welcome to BuildHub. I think most builders feel overwhelmed at one point or another. When you're just starting up, everything is new and you're having to learn everything from scratch. You could start by posting about your current challenges in the relevant forum. If you haven't done so already, do some research about CIL - what it is, whether your council charges it, and how it might apply to your circumstances given you have approval for two properties. The reason for pointing this out is that, if you make a mistake at this point, you could be in the hook for tens of thousands of quid. There's a pinned post in the relevent sub-forum for people who've been affected. Do you have power, water, etc. on-site? If not, then there are often ways to reduce costs there, so visit the relevent sub-forums for advice. Good luck.

Can't help with your actual question, sorry. I have a suspicion that you might highlight every little imperfection in your drawer and cupboard door alignment, but I might be overthinking it!

I can't tell you how utterly removed this is from my own experience. I don't change a single setting on my UFH, irrespective of whether it's in heating or cooling mode. I'm sure some of the control tweaks I've set up in my home automation system help (particularly with costs), but I'm pretty confident I could get similar results in terms of house comfort with a thermostat or two and a timer. I do think that high levels of insulation and heating the structural slab makes a big difference.

Southeast, 200 mm centres (MBC passive slab). What would you expect for maintenance costs? Except for replacing a failed control board on the ASHP about three years in, I haven't spent a penny on anything other than electricity. I've recently been thinking about seeing whether I ought to replace the water/glycol in the system. I assume it has a life expectancy.

Pinned for visibility.

I spotted that when I recently went to check whether he did smaller dimmers (eg, 2 to 4 channel) to handle some significant changes we're making to our kitchen lighting. The Whitewing mains dimmer I've been running for the last few years dims even better than the more expensive Thormann KNX dimmer I used for the other half of the house.

True if you're using a controller with a pump output that switches on when there's a call for heat/cool. In my setup, the UFH pump is separately controlled to turn on in various scenarios, including when the heating or cooling is on (with an over-run after it turns off), and when the slab temp is above a certain temp (mainly to distribute heat from floor areas that are in direct sunlight). I've considered that too. My guess is that it would be particularly effective for cooling, because a lot of heat in the summer comes through the ceiling, so preventing that it probably a good option. I have more concerns about condensation in that scenario, but that's largely based on my complete ignorance of how such systems are actually installed. I'm assuming no-one's installing a self-leveling screed or slab in their ceiling!

I've used underfloor cooling for nearly 10 years (didn't use it the first two or three years after we moved in) with great success and zero issues. Panasonic's UK technical team were hugely supportive while I was trying to get the ASHP working efficiently in UFH mode, but they were very cold (pardon the pun) on the idea of underfloor cooling. I think there's just a strong bias in the undustry against it, probably due to a combination of risk-aversion and ignorance. If you're only planning to use it now and again when the heat build-up in the house is getting too much, it literally needs nothing other than a switch, or maybe a timer, connected across the ASHP "cool" terminals. Our system is slightly more complicated, because I control it with our home automation system, but it's still fundamentally just acting as a smart timer. All it does is close two relays when certain conditions are met, one of which puts the ASHP into cooling mode and the other of which turns on the UFH pump. You could do similar with a timer and thermostat. Our UFH is run as a single zone downstairs, with the water temp set at 15 degrees. Never had a moment's problem with this setup. We get a whisp of condensation on the exposed metal parts of the UFH manifold, but that's it. No need for complex controls or subscriptions etc. I can't imagine how it could get any simpler. Fabric-first is important, for sure. We have exterior blinds on most windows that benefit from them, PassivHaus-class insulation and airtightness, and good overhangs on many east-, south-, and west-facing windows. Even with all that, upstairs bedrooms can easily get into the high 20s during long periods of hot weather. That comes down a bit with the downstairs underfloor cooling on. The ground floor can easily be held at a comfortable 20-21 degrees. I obviously don't know what downstairs would be like if we had no underfloor cooling, but I can tell you how lovely it is to walk downstairs in the morning during hot weather. It's like walking into a cave or a cathedral. The cool floor sucks the heat out of your feet, which is a very pleasant way of staying cool. Having spend many years living in a hot country, I really dislike the way aircon dries the air, so for me, underfloor cooling is just a no-brainer. If I were building again, I'd personally consider installing UFH under tiles on a thin screed upstairs and cool that during summer. During winter, I'd put rugs down and maybe run the UFH just enough to keep the chill off if needed during the coldest spells. The only thing I'd add is that all forms of underfloor heating and cooling will be more effective if the floor is made of a thermally conductive material such as tile or concrete. Wood isn't as good, and I guess even low-TOG carpet is worse again.

+1 for Whitewing over Loxone mains dimmers. Also, the DMX extension is useful for other things. DMX relays are cheap. You can buy multi-channel, DMX-controlled, DIN-rail-mountable relay units for a fraction of the cost of the Loxone equivalent. Alternatively (or in addition), you can put indivudal relays or multi-relay boards closer to where they're needed and control them via DMX. In a larger installation you need to consider signal cable length and topology, but other than that, imo DMX is a robust solution to a lot of problems.

Wow, that's a great looking location and project! Absolutely 100% fine. Codes vary across the UK too, so we're used to that. There's an "Ireland" sub-forum (which I've just noticed is embarrassingly under the "UK" heading - sorry about that!) that deals with stuff like local suppliers, building regs, etc. Pretty sure it's used by everyone from the island of Ireland. More generally, unless your questions are specific to your location, the best place for them is usually the relevant subject sub-forum rather than the location-specific one. Looking forward to seeing more about your project as it progresses.