jack

Great stuff - fantastic feeling isn't it?

We have a 5kW Panasonic Aquarea for our close-to-Passive-House-standard 289m2 house. As I've mentioned elsewhere, we have quite a bit of shading and nothing like Jeremy's warm microclimate, so the ASHP spent a lot of winter ticking over gently keeping the insulated slab at around 21-22 degrees. As for DHW, over winter we have the ASHP heat the tank to 55 degrees between 4 and 6 o'clock each morning. Looking at the temperature plots, that seemed to be about the maximum time it took to get the whole 250L tank up to temperature (and it did get to pretty-well bang on 55 degrees, despite the ASHP being located 9 or 10m away from the tank). The top 30% of the tank is then heated to 85 degrees by the upper immersion heater that switches on at 6am. I don't believe we've ever run out of water with our family of four. Also, we have 8.5kW of PV. It occurred to me the other day that the ASHP probably hasn't had cause to turn on for several months due to the amount of energy being pumped into the tank every day. I wonder whether not being used in this way could negatively impact longevity?

In our case, MBC didn't go much beyond the position of the actual house with the blinding layer. Certainly they didn't cover anything like the full surrounding metre of recycled railway ballast that we used as the base layer. But agreed, external markers are desirable for sure. We also had a height marker for FFL put in, which they appreciated.

Terry, I think he means groundworks in the sense of the stuff that happens before MBC arrives. Is there an MBC start date?

Wow that came around quickly! Great feeling, isn't it? We were just discussing in the car on the way home that we need to set a date for completing everything and getting it signed off. As the conversation went on, we realised that we're now in September, and moved in just before Christmas last, meaning even if we really get our skates on we're going to be pushing it to finish before this Christmas. Still, it's a good deadline and will hopefully give us the push we need. Vijay, it gets so much easier once things actually start happening. You'll still have stress and tiredness and all the rest of it, but when you can see the ongoing fruits of your labour (compromises and all), it's so much easier to keep plodding on. It does end!

Yes to both of those. Also, consider sizing the room to match a standard shower tray (with extra for boarding, tiles etc). I was told that the outward opening regulation is at least partly to ensure the door can be opened easily if someone falls off a wheelchair while the door is closed.

Never a truer word said. We got a tape measure and double-checked everything because we were convinced they'd made it 20% too small!

Do look into it further. Not all services are off limits for zero rating. For example, plumbing is a service and is clearly zero-rated for a new build. I don't know the answer in this case, but suspect it may depend on how closely associated with the building of the house it is. Muckaway following digging of foundations would be closer to that than reshaping a nearby bank for landscaping purposes, for example. Hopefully @Temp will be along to give some more guidance in the near future!

Realistically the MVHR should go on the outside wall, meaning you'll have to squeeze past the TS/UVC to get to it. I suppose you won't need to get past it very often, but what happens in the worst case scenario of the MVHR failing and you having to get it out past the TS/UVC? I don't know what the realistic minimum footprint is for installing a TS/UVC. Perhaps start with that and see how much room there really is? If it does work, and TS/UVC + MVHR is all that's in there, then you can always use the space just inside the door for storage and clothes drying (assuming there's ventilation in the plant room).

I don't think our ASHP has turned on for several months. We get a full 250L of 80 deg C water every day from our 8.5kW solar + immersun. Shame they've stopped trading as their kit is really quite good. Sometimes by mid morning the whole tank is done and it just sits there sending several kW back into the grid! I've seriously been eyeing up a small plug-in car to replace our current runabout. I imagine there'd be almost no recharging costs for a good 4+ months of the year.

Mmm, pinkeye!

Someone's told her :-(

We got ours serviced weekly. I think it was £20 a go on a long term contract (might have been a minimum of two months or something). £20-£25 seemed to be bog (ha!) standard around here (Surrey/Hampshire borders). That was usually often enough, but there were a few busy weeks where frankly it was pretty grim by the time the week was up. We rarely had more than about 5 or 6 people onsite at any one time. That's part of the reason I wouldn't have gotten involved with the caravan toilet situation. I imagine it would need emptying every day or maybe two. I don't know how much the chemicals cost, but even if they were free, £20 a week seemed a decent price to pay to have it completely taken care of by someone else.

Was it something to do with allowing ventilation for drying?

We used a horrible small broken down old caravan that we won for something like £180 locally on ebay. The deal was similar to yours @Grosey - it had to be delivered (this thing seriously didn't look like it would make it!) We had it onsite over winter and it was great, actually. It was so small and flimsy that a small column heater would get it quite comfortable within an hour even on a cold day. It was falling apart so we didn't fuss about the inevitable knocks and filth due to muddy-booted builders coming and going. Once we had windows and doors in the house, we were able to move inside and stop using the caravan. In the end, we had to chop it up and get rid of it, which I think cost another £100. Still not a bad deal overall. Given the way builders tend to treat these things, I'd be reticent to assume it'll be good for anything but scrap once you've finished with it, so factor that into your sums. Re: a portaloo, having to regularly empty a chemical toilet used by builders is a false economy in my opinion. I'm not squeamish but I had better things to do onsite than deal with this every other day. I'd pay the fee to get one onsite, serviced weekly, and use the time not spent emptying it to do something more productive.

We used CAT6. Yes it was more expensive, but in the scheme of things not such a big expense. If doing it again, I'd probably put in more CAT6 to places where any form of AV equipment was going, as it seems just about everything comes with a network cable. I'd probably use cheaper CAT5e for light switches (we have a home automation system). Missing out wiring a front doorbell seems common - I have two friends who both managed to do it and ended up having cheap plastic battery powered wireless doorbells stuck outside their lovely new doors. I'd actually run two cables to the door: one for the doorbell switch, and the other in case you ever want to install an intercom (possibly including a camera). Plan for external PIR sensors, in case you want to do more than just use PIR security lights. We have a couple of places where the PIR is wired back to our home automation system, so we can do more than just have a light come on when a PIR is triggered. Ditto for possible security cameras, as mentioned above.

Yep, although the difficult bit may be working out the individual run lengths to start with. There'll be bends, perhaps not of constant radius, plus the map is not the territory and you may find yourself losing/gaining when you actually go to install the stuff. I had real psychological difficulty committing to the first few cuts!

Our plumber handled this by installing a 1.5 bar PRV on the way into the house. The idea was that it'd be easier to do that and replace it with a 3 bar one after sign-off than to individually modify taps etc. Shower pressure is lower than I'd like, and it can be frustrating trying to fill a sink up, but day to day it's surprisingly okay (as long as you don't try to use two showers at once!) One day we'll get the damned house signed off so we can up the pressure! I agree about the regs being insane. Usually when you turn a tap on you're trying to fill something or rinse something. If you want to fill something, flow rate is irrelevant, because you use the same amount of water whatever the flow rate. If you want to rinse something, then as you say, a higher flow rate is a lot more effective so the tap is on for a lot less time. Don't even start me on calculations that involve baths. We have a bath in our ensuite that's been used twice in 8 months, and another in the main bathroom that's been used maybe once a month, but there was a lot of sucking of teeth from the plumber when he saw there were two baths in the house.

+1 on the above. I did exactly the same. With that and a couple of minor tweaks to manifold positioning, I managed to get down from 4 rolls to 3 as well, which was a non-trivial saving (we stupidly went a more expensive route).

I've tried very hard to reduce energy and materials consumption in all aspects of my life, but I will not relinquish a nice shower. I tell myself that the shower waste water heat recovery system we've installed justifies an extra three minutes' thinking time in the shower every day!

@Ferdinand, take a look at the 30/30 squat challenge: http://placeofpersistence.com/30-30-squat-challenge-by-ido-portal/ The idea is to accumulate 30 mins across the course of a day, rather than trying to work towards a single 30 minute squat. I've been on the facebook page for a while and the feedback is universally good.

Can be quite difficult if you're not trade. Unlikely to get one by saying you're a self builder. Some have reported success by turning up looking scruffy and builder-like and just bluffing it.

Absolutely, and absolutely. I believe Mark Brinkly says as much in the book.

This might be to do with what I think is called brick "factoring" in Mark Brinkley's The Housebuilder's Bible. Apparently once you've contacted one source for a quote, no-one else is allowed to supply you the same bricks. Apparently the trick is not to give anyone your address until you're sure you can get what you need. Have you tried ordering from the other branch directly? Maybe get your wife (or a mate - let's face it, the building trade is a bit sexist!) to order?

20m from the road? He's taking the mick, surely.