Moira Niedzwiecka

Our guttering finished today. Really pleased with it. Now waiting for some rain to test it out & hopefully wash off the baked on pigeon poo on the roof.

You only need the postcode to look up an EPC on the Landmark Trust Register. They are a load of nonsense.

Good luck with the sale Jeremy. It must be a great feeling to be moving on permanently to the new house.

An Estate Agent would have the property listed on the net, mailed out & prospective buyers called within 48 hours, more likely 24 hours. You do not need the EPC to market the property. It has to be available within 28 days of going on the market.

In current house oil. I use about 1200 litres a year. In new house upstairs a couple of electric towel rails. I have wired for a couple of small panel heaters but will not install unless really needed. Ground floor wet UFH & will run it off the UVC as & when needed. I may also have a bio ethanol stove. We will have MVHR of course but I am not expecting it to account for heating. We have large glazed south facing patio doors & should benefit from some solar gain in winter when the sun is low. Although maybe not as much as I had originally thought. If the triple glazed patio doors are closed the screed remains quite cool. Solar coating doing its job. The house was surprisingly warm over the winter even though we did not have any floor insulation in, just the beam & block. I am pleased to find that it has remained really quite cool over the last couple of weeks. The insulation doing its job well keeping heat out. Should hopefully keep the heat as well in during the winter.

Electricity. I have the PV to offset some of the cost. I am all electric for cooking & hot water at the moment & use an immersion heater. I currently pay £41pcm for my electric on a standard tariff. Used to have E7 but really wasn't worth it.

@Triassic Thank you. I am not altogether sure I would understand the technicalities if it meant a firing squad, but, at least I could show it to someone who would. There is really no information on the website other than generalities. What about water pressure for showers? Too many questions & too little information for me, teamed with my limited understanding I think counts it out as an option. I am a bit wary as my current heating system is a bit 'alternative' & although it has served me very well for 20 years the company no longer produces or supports it & I can't find anyone to service or repair it. Still works but the switch has gone & I know have to light it by hand. Ok but just a pain. Also, if I ever have to sell the new build it may cause an issue.

It looks like the offer is over now anyway. I couldn't find any info on prices of the PCM58eDuels on the Sunamp website.. Doesn't seem to be a search option on the website to look at these. Think I'll have to go with plan A, the UVC.

Hi Nick, Thank you for your advice. So, if I had the 6kw eDuel PCM58's would I still need any sort of a cylinder or IBoost? I would not be able to increase the PV array as no further room on the roof & nowhere else to install. I have attached the initial SAP worksheet. We have built out of a different construction than originally planned when this was produced but values are largely the same, improved on in some areas. We haven't had an airtightness test done yet but I am expecting well to be below 0.6. Sorry to be so dim but not really sure what I am doing in this area & not sure I fully understand the SAP figures. Sap Worksheet - Pickwell.pdf

I have a 4kw PV array & under floor heating installed on the ground floor only, about 90 sq mtrs. No tank installed at the moment for DWH & underfloor heating. What sunamp would I need if I went down this route & would I still require a cylinder of some sort. I have an Iboost to connect but it is still in the box & could be returned if not needed. There will be only 2 people living in the house.

We have spent £215k so far. This includes buying our neighbours garden, all fees, ie legal, planning, warranty, site insurance, scaffold, utility connections and large wooden garage/workshop. Exterior finished apart from guttering which is already purchased & will go on next week. Internally screed & UFH in. First fix plumbing & wiring about done. 4kwPV & some internal fittings, ie lights & sanitaryware. Estimate about another £60/70k to finish, including landscaping. We will probably be about £60k over original budget due to a change in personal circumstances whish meant we were not able to do as much ourselves as planned. Also cost of drainage & electricity connections more than estimated.

Lizzie that looks fabulous. I love your colours.

IMHO it takes as just as long to do a bad job as a good one. A good job actually saves time as you don't have to beggar about making things right before you can proceed with the next stage. If you are doing the follow on work yourself it has saved time & made life easier. If you are paying someone else to do the next stage it saves time and money as they can get on with the job they are meant to be doing straightaway.

I asked our building control inspector to come out a couple of weeks ago just to make sure he was happy with the way we were doing the DPM, floor insulation & the acoustic insulation. He said he wished he had bought his camera & taken lots of photos so he could show the ''professional'' builders how it should be done. The chap from the company that laid our floor screed last Friday said it was a faultless job & normally he has to do loads of remedial preparation before he will lay the screed. He said he finds that nearly all self-builders work to a far higher standard than usual. I suppose it is just the difference between building to live in & building for profit.

@zoothorn I am so sorry to hear of your problems. I have found that if you go out of your way to try & explain & be reasonable it is just regarded as weakness. My advice is be polite but firm & take comfort in the knowledge that you will always behave better than them.

We have MVHR and a window adjacent. It just seems mad to spend so much on something I may not use that often.

I do mean a canopy hood. We would have to have a recirculating one anyway. I thought it may just be the distance from the hob to the extractor & how powerful they are. We will be having a drop ceiling above the kitchen island. It seems that a for the sale of 1/2 mtr it will cost about £1000 more.

We had the same thing. Our neighbours, who we had been close friends of for about 14 years, turned on us when we applied for PP. This was in spite of the fact they had extended against a covenant we have over the property & partially across our right of way. At the time we thought what the hell, they're friends & although it cut off a view from the rear of our house it didn't impact to much. We are kind of live & let live people. They have now sold & moved on but not before making our lives hell for a while.

No doubt I am being dim here & the answer may be blindingly obvious. However, what is the difference between a ceiling mounted cooker hood, for example, in a drop ceiling above an island and an integrated cooker hood flat mounted in between cupboards above a hob. The only thing I can think of is distance.

We did ours a few weeks ago. Quite easy once you get the mix right. One of us mixing & pouring & one brushing. I went over the floor the next day with a wallpaper scraper to remove any small lumps so it was smooth for the DPM.

I will have a couple of water butts off the garage for the garden. I have my car washed every 2 weeks for £5. It means I can leave the car with the Albanian lads while I do my shopping & don't have to pay to park. No brainer for me.

Yep, doesn't work for me. A bathing snug sounds lovely. I could happily while away hours quaffing wine with a good book & lots of bubbles.

Thanks @lizzie. I'll have a look at that.

I used a double sided bitumen tape to stick our DPM to the DPC. Make was Novia. Worked a treat.

Thanks for the tip, but, this bath will be too heavy to move. Hands & knees job but I should have room to clean behind it.