Moira Niedzwiecka

We have a closed panel timber frame system that includes the roof structure, specification as below: 300mm Ibeams external sheathing 9mm OSB external membrane Proclima Solitex plus lapped & taped with Tescon Vana 25x 50mm treated battens 300mm warmcell internal sheathing & racking 12.5mm smartply taped at joints with Tescon vana internal service zone 45x47mm battens to internal face. Gives approx 0.15w/m2k The roof covering is a sarking membrane with 25x50mm counter battens & a natural slate covering. Question is should we add further internal insulation between the battens of the service zone before the plasterboard? The roof is part vaulted & part with ceilings. I was thinking 50mm of rockwool or similar. Any thoughts/suggestions welcome

They are starting our rendering tomorrow. I really hope the weather holds out. Cedar cladding & stonework in a couple of weeks. We are in a conservation area so had to conform to the vernacular. We would have loved something really sharp & contemporary like yours.

My husband always says you can tell who is in the process of building their own house. They are the ones at the self build shows sitting on the floor outside the cafeteria with a packed lunch & flask because they don't have any money left. Tee hee!

Hi Lizzie, Fantastic! The larch cladding will look so good.

Thank you everyone for your kindness & good wishes. I am overwhelmed by your support & comments. Nick, I had the welsh mafia here last week fitting the windows. My timber frame supplier is PYC from Welshpool. They are great lads & always lift my spirits. Lizzie, keep smiling & dreaming of your fantastic kitchen. It will soon be a reality. xx

Jeremy, Thank you. My husband too has advanced lung cancer. The treatment options these days are so much more than was available just a few years ago. Although sometimes difficult, the house is giving us both something else to focus on. My initial reaction was to forget about the house, without him it was meaningless. However, he said that we had fought so hard to get the opportunity to be able to build & every choice we had made & every decision we had taken we had done together & no matter what happened it would still be OUR house. Challenges come in all forms. Just look at what Ian has had to face. I am not depressed, yet, but like most people on here get stressed about delays & bad workmanship. As I said the roofers have not been great, not turning up when they said they would & it has taken so long. Also I get frustrated because I cannot be on site because of work & get home to find shoddy work. I have had to ask the roofers to remove & refit some of the slates on the rear elevation as it was a crap job. I am keeping everything crossed that the window installation goes well on Monday.

Frankly, the neighbours are people whose opinions hold no value for me & I now couldn't care less. We are keeping positive & just getting on with things. It is a very steep learning curve for me but it is great that I have someone to ask when I don't understand things. Only last week Jeremy supplied me with some information to take to building control that I wouldn't have had a clue about & it produced a really good outcome. I just want to get the external finishes done, the utilities connected & the scaffolding down & then take a bit of a break over Christmas. We have run out of money then anyway. I have just spent the last of my pension that I cashed in a couple of months ago. We had sold our present house & were going to move to a caravan on site but had to pull out of the sale. Can't really go through treatment living in a caravan with no proper bathroom facilities. Hopefully we will be in a position to put it on the market in the new year. It will be lovely when it is finished.

At the moment I have done stress & am now advancing rapidly on to full nervous breakdown Having suffered nearly 2 years of hostility & harassment from some of our neighbours who we had previously counted among our friends, we commenced our build last January. Just as we had finished the ground works my husband was diagnosed with cancer, inoperable & incurable but he has had some really intensive treatment & we are waiting now to find out if it has been effective and what the next step is. This has meant that I have needed to continue working full time as it is our only income. Along with dealing with illness, financial pressures, a demanding full time job and trying to manage a self build, when I don't really know what I am doing half the time, I am spread pretty thin at the moment. Still, it has given us both something to focus on. However, we have had to adapt and changed our method of building to a closed panel timber frame system. The timber frame company PYC have been great. They pulled our project in really quickly and have been so supportive. My husband really wanted to see the house built & as we may be short of time & I cannot thank them enough. The roofing contractor has not been great & has caused me a lot of sleepless nights over the last couple of weeks. Also the neighbours reported us to planning enforcement saying we had not built to the permission & had built in the wrong place, extended the footprint & built too high. Enforcement were very surprised how accurate our measurements were & wrote back to them saying 'The development as constructed is in accordance with the plans as approved.' I think we are now back on track. The windows arrive on Monday & PYC are coming to fit them & finish the airtightness detailing & a few bits of insulation that could not be completed until watertight. I think I will then be able to breathe again. I think the camaraderie & support on build hub is so helpful. It is stressful & there are times when you just want it all to go away. But there is also excitement & sense of achievement and knowing that lots of you have said it is all worth it in the end. Good luck to everyone!

Hi Steamy, 'eco house' is their term not mine. Sustainable dwelling is the term our architect used on the D&A. We had to outweigh the policy that our village is classed as an unsustainable location. Another of the main protagonists when we were going through planning was a tenant, a real Nazi bully boy, who has thankfully moved on. Also one of the others has now sold & is moving soon but it hasn't stopped him trying to cause us as much grief as possible. I never would have thought that people could be so spiteful & nasty. We had objections from as far away as Fareham in Hampshire & Tamworth in the West Mids & all over the place to our application in Leicestershire. The rest of the village is appalled. They all got interested in our build when they had an anonymous email about our planning application saying that they needed to object to 'protect the village' circulated from the list of contacts on the neighbourhood watch. Some of them tried to reply & ask who had sent it but it was a dead letterbox. Someone had opened an email account, sent the email & immediately closed it down. The village then got behind us, wrote in support of our application & bless them over 20 turned up to support us at the planning committee meeting. They like what we are doing & think it adds value to the village. We have lived in the village for over 20 years & were born & raised locally anyway so have a lot of support.

Hi Ian, Your neighbours sound like ours. Actually, it is only 3 of them, the rest of the village are really supportive. Our electricity connection is happening on 20th Nov. I am just waiting for the onslaught. We too have to cross a single track carriageway & duct along the highway verge. They recently reported us to planning enforcement saying we had built the house too tall, in the wrong place & a larger footprint than we had permission for. Also, they complained that as we had connected to the main village combined sewer instead of installing a klargester it was no longer an 'eco house' and therefore our planning permission was void & we should have to demolish the house. You couldn't make it up. As you can imagine, I had been meticulous about position & measurements fully expecting complaints. Enforcement were amazed at the accuracy of our build and wrote a curt reply saying 'The development as constructed is in full accordance with the plans as approved.' They also said that the mains sewer connection was made on the advice of Building Control & was an improvement on the original proposal. Happy days.

Jeremy, I owe you a huge thank you. I passed on the information you supplied about the SVP & today had this from Building Control: Dear Moira, Thanks for the comments, The interpretations are mostly correct and I can accept your argument. I would have some reservations in the event of a blockage; you may get flooding but this should be evident at a low level vent before the building becomes affected. Can I suggest that you carefully consider where you intend to put the vent, (bearing in mind it needs to be at least 3m away from any opening into a building) with respect to boundaries, neighbours and passers-by who may become aware of its location. You may need to run this past your warranty provider. Regards John John Brammall MCIOB CBuildE MCABE Principal Building Control Surveyor

Jeremy, I just wanted to say how much I appreciate the information with regard to the SVP & building control. I have spoken to head of building control this morning & he is going to look into further for us. I will let you know what happens. Thank you. Moira

Thanks Russell. I think I had answered my own question as soon as I had posted it. I am just wondering what is the best thing to use. A preformed cavity tray similar to the Manthorpe one or taping some DPC to the timber frame under the membrane. How would a plastic one be attached? Would that be taped to the frame so water couldn't get behind it, or with some other fixing?

Please can anyone offer some advice on where the cavity tray should be fixed? External wall of the timber frame is OSB covered with membrane. We will then have a 50mm cavity before the external ironstone. Should the cavity tray be fixed behind the membrane and the membrane then overlapping the cavity tray so any moisture between the OSB & membrane is ducted outwards?

Thank you Temp, this is so helpful. Just one last question. This may be silly but does the TV aerial have to be mounted on the house? Does the length of the cable have any bearing on the signal reception? If not & the internal aerial does not work could we mount an aerial on the garage? We are in open countryside and in an elevated position. If this is a possibility we could put an aerial cable through some existing service ducting that is entering the house through the foundation and coming up through the insulated floor. We have yet to lay the 200mm of floor insulation which will have a 6mm self levelling top screed.

Gosh Temp, That is some information. I had no idea. Thank you. We do not have a chimney. We really wanted to have an interior aerial in the roof space so as not to break the thermal envelope of the house. Do you think this is possible with the 'loft box' amplifier you mentioned before? Our roof build up is natural slate on 25mm horizontal battens, sarking membrane, 25mm vertical battens, Solitex membrane, OSB, 300mm warmcell blown cellulose insulation, Smartply vapour control board. We will definitely not be in by March next year. I wish. Regards Moira

Thank you Peter, I am going to speak to building control next week. We need to finalise how we are doing this before the roof & render go on. I am going to get the firm of structural engineers & designers that did out foundation & drainage plans to try & sort it out.

Hello Liz, We are using K&M from Melton Mowbray, Jon Lawrence. They are Alumasc trained & registered installers. We have been to see their work on other projects & we like the fact we get a 10 guarantee. Our site is quite exposed & our gable ends are large so we wanted something with virtually no maintenance. It is really good to know that you are pleased with your render. I am waiting with bated breath that our windows will be the correct sizes. We specified Ideal Combi for all our glazing & there is a lot of it. Our timber frame company PYC are coming back to put them in on a supply & fix contract. I have been looking at your posts. I really hope everything goes smoothly for you from now on. Best Wishes Moira

Hi Pete, We have the same problem. I am hoping that the roof will be slated in the next 2 weeks. Our windows are being installed 13th Nov. Hopefully the external rendering on our large gable end walls will be done that week. We are having an Alumasc silicon render system & the contractor said if wet or below 5 degrees will not be able to do the top coat. I am desperate to get this done as the excess scaffolding costs are mounting up. The cedar cladding to our huge dormer on the front elevation can be done with a scissor lift if necessary. The stonework is only to first floor level as ours is a dormer bungalow. Good luck with yours.

Jeremy, I know this is a big ask, but could you let me have a copy of the relevant parts of your letter to Building control? The head of Building Control who I am dealing with is really helpful & very interested in our project as it is new to him as well. I have explained the problem we have in ducting to the outside and the negative effect it would have. He is trying to help and open to suggestions. My problem is I don't understand enough to make any new suggestions.

Our location is approx 6 miles from the Waltham transmitter. It was an analogue TV mast. I am sure if the same mast is now digital. It is north of us and the front elevation of our house points directly at it.The gable ends are east/west. There is nothing between us and the mast , it is clearly visible. I love seeing the red mast lights at night across the valley.

Jeremy, thank you. The drainage has been a problem from the start. We were going to have a mini waste treatment plant to start with. The percolation test was ok for foul & surface soakaway. After a very wet winter both we & BC were not convinced it was the right thing. We managed to get an easement from the farmer to duct through his field & woodland to the main combined sewer for the village. It was 110m away & we hit rock halfway. We are elevated so had to go really deep to start with to get the correct gradient so we did not come out of the ground before we reached the main sewer. You would have thought we were building crossrail!

Thanks Dave. Another problem is that we have quite a few opening roof windows & it is difficult to position the vent the correct distance from any one of these. What a pain. I had hoped all these details would have been considered by the architect but it seems not.

I am worried about the very issues you have highlighted. We asked building control if we could duct out through foundation & locate stack on the side of the garage. They said too far away. I thought that the vent to air had to be above the level of the highest loo. We have a garden area to the side of the house that will be planted up & would happily site the vent there if it could be low level. It would be about 3m from the house.

Jeremy, thank you for your reply. We are going to have to work out how to get the in roof PV cables and the cables for the alarm & external lighting through as well. We also have to vent the soil stack to the outside too as we are the only ones on this sewer run. We didn't really want an external SVP so will have to go out through the gable end wall.