Moira Niedzwiecka

TBH I am not at all precious about being called things like girl, darling, love etc. The same people would probably call a chap mate or something like that. But, hey, I was a designer in the footwear industry in the eighties & nineties and a regular visitor to the Lancashire shoe mills. I think that was where my sensitive, feminist nerve was cauterised for all time. A different time on a different planet. What really irks me is when 'girl' or similar is taken to equate to stupid. I am a novice at this self building lark & I love to learn & get free advice. I am quite capable of understanding things and even sometimes asking intelligent questions. I just hate being talked down to.

We live in a small rural village surrounded by a large industrial arable farming estate. Hate to think of all the c**p we breathe in when they are spraying the fields. One reason why an airtight house with MVHR is appealing. I am sensitive to all this stuff as my OH has lung cancer.

There are several of our neighbours who have wbs. I know when I wipe down our exterior paintwork it is covering in black spots that are hard like little bits of clinker. We live in dip at the bottom of a hill & when the wind blows down the hill it can get quite smokey outside & in. The seeps in through the xpelair in the bathroom especially.

We were looking at installing a wbs but our architect advised against it because of overheating & disruption to the airtight envelope. We did allow for the direct air feed in the foundation but have now blocked it off. We also didn't fancy making a big hole in our closed panel roof for the flue. I also don't think we had appreciated how potentially polluting they are. We decided it would be a very expensive & quite messy white elephant in the corner of the room that would only be used very occasionally & we could spend the money better elsewhere. I do understand the attraction though. We currently have a cast iron oil burning stove that looks just like a wbs. Great bit of kit. We installed it 20years ago. Cheap to run, heats all the hot water when lit during winter months, no mess & as it is a pot burner we get a constant temperature.

Due to a change in our personal circumstances our build has been a bit chaotic. We have renovated several period properties over the years, but, this in no way prepared us for a complete new build. However, we were delighted & excited that an opportunity arose. We were intending to be true self builders & take on a lot of the work ourselves. We had to go down the route of a very sustainable build to outweigh the planning restriction that we were in an unsustainable location. We worked with an architect who was experienced in this area & chose a build method that would allow us to take on a lot of the work ourselves. Henry retired, closed his business & sold the stock, I was going to give up work for a year or so & it was going to be a big lifetime adventure. Unfortunately, just as we finished the ground works & foundations Henry became ill & we had to halt our build until we knew the outcome. It became clear that we would not be able to proceed as planned, but we were past the point of no return. We decided that the most expedient way to proceed would be to have the structure of the house built in a factory & erected on site. Speed was also important as Henry's prognosis was life shortening and he very much wanted to see the house go up. We contacted several timber frame companies. We decided to go with PYC construction from Wales. Sam & Ben visited us almost straight away as coincidently they were also doing a build not far from us in Leicestershire. They spent a lot of time assessing how they could adapt the system to our already existing foundations, trench fill with beam & block. We will still have the originally proposed 20mm of celotex with a 6cm flo screed. This has worked well & luckily our foundations were accurate to within the 5mm tolerance necessary all round & just needed some adaptations. We have a closed panel, I joist timber frame with 300mm of cellulose insulation & metal webjoist with caberbeck intermediate floor. It took 4 days to erect the main structure & several more visits for the internal stud walls & additional battening for service channels. The lads from PYC worked so hard with long days on site. As they were a long way from home they stayed in the local pub during the construction. They were always on site by 7.30am & worked until at least 6pm everyday. I have only good things to say about them. PYC also installed the velux windows & the vertical battens on the roof & the timber overhangs to front & rear ready to be slated. It is all perfect? No it is not. The soleplate was installed in the wrong place & had to be altered as it would have caused a problem with our stonework. This happened while I was at work & I noticed the next day. PYC corrected it . However, had I not noticed it could have been a disaster. The window openings were not correct for the glazing we had specified & had to be adapted. Some of the panels are out as has been pointed out to us by the chap doing our cedar cladding where he has had to pack out some of the battens. It is 20mm out of level over a 9m run on the front elevation as noticed by our stonemasons. This is the panels, not the foundations. Some of the panels do not meet exactly at the apex & daylight was showing. This has been rectified, made watertight & airtight & an additional false ceiling of OSB has been installed with an additional 300mm of cellulose as a belt & braces job. Again PYC corrected this but, again I noticed this & worked with PYC to find a solution. The left hand side roof panel on the dormer is not sitting properly along its whole length on the wall panel. This will have to be sorted out with battening before we can plasterboard. There are some other small.gaps where the closed panels do not meet, I have stuffed these with rockwool & made the airtight with tape. These were at the angled junctions where the dormer walls meet the slope of the main roof & the first floor. Difficult to get exact. Before boarding out I am going to install some additional internal structural bracing straps where the panels meet so I am absolutely sure there will not be any movement. I am probably just being over cautious but it is a simple & inexpensive job to do at this stage to be absolutely sure. I cannot praise Sam the architectural technician at PYC highly enough. He was always responsive to any issues and PYC addressed any problems quickly & free of charge. On the whole we are happy with PYC & would recommend them with the caveat that, as with any contractor, checking as the construction goes along is vital.

Like Jeremy we have the GSE in roof system & is counter battened.

Thank you. I'll look now.

Hello Ian, What camera did you get & where from? I think it will be a useful thing to have. Thanks Moira

Thanks Peter, There shouldn't be any moisture getting in really. I was thinking of something like the weep vent below fitted horizontely, one at the top of each area of stonework with the rest of the gap filled with lime mortar. This would make one vent for about a meter of stonework.

This thread has made me think about my build. I do not have an architect on board so am learning as I go along. I have a small 10 -12mm gap from the top of my stonework to the underside of the cedar clad overhangs. I was going to have this pointed up to close the gap. I have a closed panel timber frame with a 50mm cavity & ironstone cladding. This is only for relatively small areas on the front & rear elevations. There are weep vents at the base of the stonework. Your thread makes me think I will need some air vents at the top. The gap is so small I may have a problem finding something. Would manthorpe weep vents spaced & placed horizontally be suitable with the lime mortar pointing in between? Any ideas gratefully received. The cedar cladding is going to continue either side of the glazed front door & sidelights on the right of the photo.

@Luckylad Sorry not to respond before. I have not had a chance to look into this further yet. Lots of other more urgent stuff going on. BPC have always been helpful in the past.

Wow Peter, Your house looks very smart. What timber cladding have you used? Have you treated it with anything? What dry verge trim have you used on the roof? Sorry to ask so many questions. Moira

New vehicle entrance to our site is over a grass verge belonging to the local farming estate. However, even though the Estate owns the verge County Council Highways have adopted it. We did a highways search to confirm this. Highways still refer to this as a dropped kerb. I had to apply for a licence to work in the highway. Their engineers specified what the construction , including the width & angles & the edging had to be. They sent a quote for the work but indicated that I could use my own contractor if preferred. I had to supply a copy of the public liability insurance (min £2million) from my contractors. They will come & inspect the work before it is completed. I have just extended the licence again for another 6 months as way behind on the build. It is not worth doing the access until all of the heavy construction traffic has ceased.

Phew! Thank you. I too have telescopic vents to ventilate under the beam & block. I have a problem with gaps around one window & the patio doors where the stonework doesn't quite close the cavity. Trying to figure out a solution at the moment.

I haven't got any airbricks in my stonework. I am worried now that I should have. I didn't see any on @TerryE stone work. I have a closed panel timber frame. I have 1.5 m of stonework on the rear, either side of the 6m of glazing, & 1m & 5m on the front, to the underside of the roof overhangs. Single Storey. 50mm cavity.

Hello @Visti Have you had any response from BC or your warranty supplier about using EPS beads to fill the void under the beam & block? I would consider doing the same if it seems possible.

Hi @DenkiJidousha Try Ideal combi. Not sure if they can do that size though.

@matt-shrops@PlumbersmateukI have ideal combi windows & doors. Alu clad timber, all triple glazed. Cost about £12k. 6m glazing at the rear with 2 fixed panels & 2 centrally opening sliders with a solar protection coating. 2 fixed panels on the dormer with a centre sliding panel. 3/4 glazed back door. Fully glazed front door with 2 fixed side lights. 2 1800w x 600h top hung windows & 2 smaller top hung windows. They look great & really smooth operation of the sliders. I am so pleased with the windows themselves but had a disaster on the initial installation. A complete bodge job. I had to have them all removed & installed properly by another firm. Ideal combi were really helpful & the firm they recommended have done a great job. Even though the installation is not completely finished the windows have been totally watertight. I had expected with all the wind & driving rain some water may have got in but happily no problems at all & we are elevated & quite exposed. I spent about 18 months finalising the glazing & had quotes from rationel, internorm, velfac, Olsen UK, Munster.

I forgot to add that our foundations were already in place. We were building using a different construction originally, but had to switch.

Hello Matt, welcome. We have a closed panel timber frame I joist build from PYC in Welshpool. 300mm warmcell.They are not far from you. I had quotes from MBC & Touchwood and a couple of others. I think PYC were able to be more competitive because they are the UK distributors for Warmcell. They were not the cheapest quote we had but I was happy with what we were getting for the money.

Oh Barney, I am so sorry. We have the same system from GSE. I have been at work since first light , so haven't managed to check ours. I will get up there with a torch this evening when I get home. Worried now. The wind was really strong last night. Not as bad as last week but I suppose it depends on the direction. The slating on our roof isn't finished yet on the edges as waiting for the render to go on before the dry verge can be fixed. We are quite elevated & exposed. Was it the flashing or the trays?

Our soil sample analysis was £200. The total cost with plotting of percolation test, design of soak away, report on structural stability of site, trial holes & analysis of foundation depths from tree survey was £1107 inc VAT This cost included the soil analysis test from the lab.

Hi Liz, The cladding looks great. Things are really progressing fast now. I am so pleased for you after all the delays.

I am thinking for a bio-ethanol stove from imagine fires. Looks like a Scandinavian wood burner. Max 3 KW but sounds as if it is controllable by how much fuel is put in the burner. I was a bit concerned about odour but I see they have a more refined fuel that is supposed to be odourless.

@le-cerveau Thank you for your reply. It is just me by myself. I will go back & question BPC a bit more. They are my preferred option. I will ask them to put me in touch with an installer. Does anyone have any other ideas for a supply & fit?