jack

The school my son went to had a strict "no coats or jackets inside" policy. Teachers would stand at the door from the outside making children take their coats off before they entered, even though the halls weren't that much warmer than outside. Even during Covid when it was cold and they had the windows open, a couple of miserable fvckers still refused to allow coats or even an additional jumper inside. Of course, the teachers doing this were were standing at the front of the class in a puffy coat over a thick jumper. In one class when the weather was particularly cold there was nearly a riot - some of the kids were shivering and a couple had blue lips. It took a surprising amount of parental backlash to get the school to relent even temporarily.

Funny you say that. Research is being done into using mycelium (the substrate that supports mushrooms) for all sorts of things, including insulation panels.

Jeremy hasn't been around for years, unfortunately.

To add: I've found the case, and this is what HMRC's current guidance is: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/revenue-and-customs-brief-8-2022-single-diy-claim-first-tier-tribunal-andrew-ellis-and-jane-bromley/revenue-and-customs-brief-8-2022-single-diy-claim-first-tier-tribunal-andrew-ellis-and-jane-bromley In summary, it sounds like it was a lot more complex than just submitting a second claim. Still possibly worth a read of the original case if there's a lot of money involved.

Couldn't agree more with this. It's difficult to access the surfaces of the fans on our unit. Partly that's due to where/how we've installed it, but easily removable components would make me far more likely to stay on top of keeping the unit clean. I've noticed our making a bit more noise over the last few months (7.5 years after installation) and suspect I might have a bearing on the way out. I'm not looking forward to that job!

There is some evidence (including a Tribunal case) to suggest that a second claim ought to be accepted. Look back through this thread - pretty sure it's mentioned, maybe in one of my posts summarising a list of Tribunal cases? Perhaps worth a shot given there's no fee for submitting the form.

I'm not sure whether it's a common feature of thermostats, but if you can get one with normally open and normally closed outputs, you could easily wire a summer/winter switch so that the right output is controlling cooling/heating.

Interesting. We installed a Fakro roof light with electric opener during construction in 2015. It worked with the supplied remote control when first installed, but as soon as we tried to get the hardwired Z-wave module to work with it (and our home automation system), everything including the remote control stopped working. We put it to the side and I've never actually gotten around to sorting it out. As a result, it's never been opened since we moved in!

There's no www, and in any event you only need the domain (i.e., "site:buildhub.org.uk" without quotes) to use Google with a site limitation. That said, @saveasteading is right: adding "buildhub" to the search term is all that's needed. Very similar to our situation. Found a hideous 90 m2 bungalow that hadn't been looked at since it was built in the 1950s. Started negotiating, and then a developer came in with the asking price and we lost it. Several months later it appeared again - developer got cold feet due to the number of trees. We started negotiating again, and then a different developer came in at full price. This time it was only a few weeks before it appeared for sale again with a different agent. We ended up paying the asking price, although by then there were the beginnings of the property market bottom being in (late 2012), so we weren't too concerned. We'd planned to rent it out for up to a year while we sorted out plans etc. Unfortunately, we discovered too late that our mortgage company wouldn't allow even a brief rental under any circumstances. So we moved into this tiny 2-bed bungalow with two young kids. It was actually brilliant in a way. Both kids cried when we moved out. It ended up taking us over 2 years to get planning and start the build. Worth it though. I'll be following your build with interest!

I don't know and I don't want to advise you in case I'm wrong. I get the impression that HMRC is relying on public records and what you tell them is the date you moved in (the form asks you about this). If the habitation certificate isn't public, HMRC isn't going to know about it to be able to rely on it. However, unless you want to lie on the form where they ask you about the moving in date, the safest thing would be to assume that the earlier of your moving in date and the habitation certificate date is going to start the three month period. One thing you could do is use the habitation certificate as the basis for your claim and submit within three months of that (optional: buy as much stuff for the build as you can before submission). You could then either accept that you can't claim for anything bought after that, or try doing what OP did and add a second claim later while the first claim is still pending. It sounds like you'd potentially have months to do that given the current backlog. Yours is a good example of where seeking help from someone like Andrew makes sense.

As you probably know, the main issue (discussed at length in many other threads in this sub-forum) is that HMRC's own guidance is dangerously misleading. The notes accompanying the form say that they generally expect a completion certificate as evidence of completion, but that they will accept a couple of of other documents at the applicant's choice. What they don't say is that if there's any evidence at all that you moved in prior to completion, or even that the house was finished even if you didn't move in, they'll argue that the three months runs from that date, not the date of the completion certificate. Given the amount of money that could be involved (over £20k for us), it's critical that people are aware of HMRC's tricks. ... and that's why I get on my high horse every time someone says "don't worry, it's easy" in this sub-forum.

What's that got to do with this thread though?

@nod, did you read the first post? This comment alone should make it clear this was far from a standard reclaim: HMRC has repeatedly refused self-build VAT reclaim applications that are far less outside their usual expectations than this one. In short, the process is "simple" only if your situation meets every one of HMRC's expectations, including several that are not listed in the forms or their own guidance and instructions. While BuildHub is generally non-commercial, there's no problem with long-standing members giving honest reviews of their experiences. I know at least a couple of other members have used Andrew with success.

Sounds interesting and you've clearly thought it through. One question re: the proposed 300 litre thermal store. That capacity would be on the small side for an unvented cylinder (depending on the house size) just doing DHW, and seems potentially very much on the small size for a thermal store where you need to use heat exchangers to extract heat and want to maximise the ability to store heat from, eg, a log burner that might be run intermittently. It's doubly problematic if you're using the same store for central heating. I'm no expert, but I'd guess 500 L would be the minumum you should be thinking about for this sort of thermal store, and maybe more.

Dropped my son to the station this morning and we were discussing the differences in snow cover on the houses. Interestingly, he got it the wrong way around at first, and then immediately corrected himself.

Two showers at once would be extremely unusual in our house, so having two connected to one unit (from memory we have the recoup unit linked above) isn't an issue, especially given the flow rate of each shower is less than 10 L per minute.

I don't believe any domestic waste water heat recovery unit is rated to cope with four showers. The one you linked recommends a maximum of 24 L per minute (total) for system types B and C, and only 16 L per minute (less than one of your showers) for system type A. If you want to "save the planet" as you say, then why not use this opportunity to change your family's usage patterns rather than just replicating the current pattern in the new place? Assuming you have kids who are using at least a couple of these simultaneous showers, then the flow rate is ultimately up to you. A few weeks ago I installed flow restrictors on our kids' showers to limit them to 9 L per minute (down from about 12 or 13 L max per minute beforehand) and the showers work perfectly fine. Not sure the kids have even noticed - I didn't tell them and they haven't mentioned it. Depends very much where you are in the UK. There have been hose pipe bans in the south east more than once in the last decade due to water shortages.

I have a Brink Excellent 400, which is in the same family of closely-related MVHR units. I have a ~290 m2 house with probably higher than average volume. I'll have to dig it out to be sure [which I've now done and corrected the following number], but I believe our calculated base rate was 180 225 m3/hr, which seems low compared to what you're aiming for given your floor area. Either way, I never run it on anything like that. I think it's currently set on 80 m3/hr, and stays like that 24/7 unless I manually boost it when cooking or we have a lot of people over. We never have problems with condensation and the bathrooms dry out fast enough that I don't bother with a humidity-based boost (I'd have set it up, but one of the decorators we had in decided to step on a cardboard box to reach something. It collapsed, which caused him to smash the humidity sensor that was in the box. I was only 80% sure it was him when I found it a couple of days later, so unfortunately I wasn't able to clearly place the blame). Can you adjust the rate away from those manual setting defaults? I believe we were able to do so for ours at a resolution of maybe 5 m3/hr.

I'd never heard of him before, but he makes that series imo.

Agreed. I stopped contributing to the thread when it was suggested that developer margins of 25% net are "pretty standard".

Ah right, I understood "pipes" as being UFH pipes. The hot and cold water pipes are embedded within the insulation, not the slab. That said, the top of the pipes (or at least the coloured conduit they're run in) does seem to be in contact with the slab. The pipework being in contact with the slab is going to make the cold water potentially quite warm when the UFH is on. Maybe that's fine (and perhaps preferable to having it being very cold, which might be the other alternative in Sweden where it looks like this house is being built).

As far as I can tell, most people on BuildHub who have an insulated raft have their UFH pipes zip-tied to the reinforcement mesh as shown in this video. It's certainly how mine was done.

Yes, I've spent many an hour in the past looking at some of the stuff that comes up for sale on eBay with similar discounts. In the end, it just didn't work out for us, but I can see the appeal if you can bring together enough of the right components to suit your layout in a style you're happy with.

Do you have any idea (order of magnitude is fine) of a typical cost to uninstall and move a decent kitchen?

I clicked on several. All of them are in situ and need to be dismantled. On that point they're no different to eBay. Apparently you can talk to them about dismantling and delivery - it'd be interesting to see what sort of costs are involved and who takes on the (significant) risk of damage. And it still doesn't solve the other significant issue of finding the right combo of layout and design.