HerbJ

Interesting. I have just quickly read my Policy (dated 2014) which I attached to an earlier post and there was no requirement for intruder alarms to be fitted. Neither is it detailed on my Insurance Schedule. It may be a new requirement. Where did you find this small print? My build is complete and the cover lapsed last February 2017, so no longer of any importance for me. However, it is something for other self builders to check carefully when comparing policies.

We used Assent Building Control on the recommendation of a builder/developer contact. My BCO was based in Dorset but seemed to work all over the southern counties. He was good and I was able to communicate with him regularly by email and photos of progress. Strangely enough and after we completed, i noticed there was an Assent Office in Sunninghill, just a couple of miles away from my build. I have no idea if that office would have been easier or more efficient???

I believe "Denby Dale passive house" or " Golcar passive house" are houses constructed by the Green Building Store - https://www.greenbuildingstore.co.uk/. Their website is very informative and includes blogs on these builds

I arranged my insurance through Self Build Insurance. My premium was £1853 for 18 months, Insured Value was £650,000. Like many others on BH I ended up having to extend the period by 3 months twice, was expensive. So think carefully about the build period..... http://www.selfbuild.uk.com/

i had a Zurich Policy - it's called a Construction Combined Policy - see attachment. Construction_Combined_2014 Policy Doc.pdf

@ProDave makes good points, particularly regarding the hot water tank. Space management is a critical factor when you are designing a house and this needs to carefully considered alongside the layout and requirements of all the various systems that are required at the earliest stage of deisgn.. I have developed my layouts around a plant room, which is accessed via the garage. The plant room is located so that it close to all of the main users, except the Master Ensuite. It is a very comfortable size of 3450 x 1800 approx and was always a part of the house design. It has space for adding future equipment as required, such as buffer or acccumulator tanks - in fact they were part of the orIginal sizing requirement together with a thermal store but not fitted as the heating/HW design evolved. The plant room contains the main electrical distribution and including meters, MVHR, condensing gas boiler and controls, UVC, water softener and an old belfast sink (the only item saved from the demolition of the original house). The MVHR plenums are located in a separate service cupboard above the plant room and more central to the house. These are the services for a 336m2 house, excludIng garage.

+1 We did the same, including the Primary School opposite our site. We had alreday planned forr the most disruptive activities to be excuted during school holidays and routinely advised delivery companies to avoid clashing with school drop and collect peak times, wherever possible. It worked well in general, though one of the next door neighbours was always looking to be "disturbed" and it caused him more stress than it needed. He complained about the site hours and MBC had to cut back their normal 12 hour, 7 days a week schedule to local work site hours, prescribed by Local Council schemes for "Good Contractors". MBC worked it well has they had another site close by and simply moved my team to work on that site most weekends and evenings.

Depends what's the contract states..... It should be something that is expressly agreed. One of my contractors tried to make me responsible for a telehandler to offload materials and I simply pointed to the contract which was silent on offloading - so supply and install had to be interpreted to include everything necessary to achieve the installation, including the offloading and placing the materials in place for installation

+1 @Russell griffiths We visited Cliveden House, which is a big National Trust property, and they were using this method for huge areas of landscaping as parrt of the renovation of the original gardens around the house ( which is now a very exclusive hotel). I thought at the time it was a very practical and clever idea

They don't look to be in ball park, depending on house size and Insured Value. My BCO costs were £750 +VAT = £900 My Structural Defects Warranty Insurance cost £2968 My house is a 360m2 MBC timberframe . Insured Value £700,000

pm me and I will send you some other documents to give you some better idea of the landscape design drawings. They were't very detailed but enough to incorporate directly onto then plot plans and elevatton. We then prepared drawings for the groundwork contractor, using a building design technician and SE for the retaining walls Use the time, if you can manage it. Time spent planning at this stage will save you £1000's in execution and potentially give you a more usable garden space. You may be able to make a "substantial start to construction" to make your existing Planning Approval extant and then you have lots of time to do what you need to do. This is what we did with similar timeframe to you after we bought a house with Planning Approval. We completed the purchase of hour plot at the end of July 2014 and the Approval was due to lapse at the beginning of November 2014. We submitted a complete new planning application for a new house design without any concern for the original approval lapsing. We demolished the existing house using the original Approval in February/March 2015 and started our ground works on 24 July 2015, after getting Approval for the new design.

I believe that some Building Warranty providers stipulate inspection set points and administrative procedures, as part of their Policy Requirements. So, it is best to check these requirements, though in such cases it is likely that the BCO services and the Building Warranty are part of an overall package procured by the builder .

I replaced about 45 low Voltage GU10 in downlighters in 2014. One went almost immediately and was replaced by the supplier. None have gone since.

0ur site was not as challenging as yours appears to be but our plot does rise over 3m from the front boundary to the rear and slopes from right to left, looking up from the front. We had a lot of existing shrubs, trees and hedges that we wanted to retain from the existing house and the landscaping had to deal with this and the slope. We could not get our head around a decent design and engaged a landscape designer to produce a design. The landscape design wasn't cheap but my OH (who is the garden expert) insisted on it. In the event it was money well spent for the following reasons: As @JSHarris recommends, it allowed us to incorporate the landscape design in the Planning Application, though it was never included as a Condition in the Approval. All the work was VAT exempt from our contractor It allowed us to get good cost estimates and manage the work, with the groundwork contractor responsible for the ground clearance, hard landscaping, underground services and base for the passive foundation,. It allowed us to plan all the critical ground clearance and landscaping work that had to be completed with the heavy equipment before the foundation and underground scope was started. There was no way that we could have attempted this work after the house was built, as we could not any big equipment onto the site, except a small digger and it would been a long and laborious job. It minimised the amount of material that had to be taken off the site and eased the lorry movements (we had 69 lorry movements for this part of the project), which was important to us as we are opposite a school on a busy road and we wanted to have minimum impact from our build on the neighbours, including the school. In fact, we planned the major groundworks, including all the hard landscaping, except finishing the terrace and drive with paving slabs and Suds blocks, to be be executed in the school summer holidays. It was 4 weeks for the groundwork contractor and another week for MBC to install the passive slab. It allowed my OH to plant the garden before the house was finished, though the lawn elements were left until later. I believe that key for you is to get some ideas on landscaping including the retaining walls/terracing that meets your needs, incorporate the landscape design in your Planning Application/Approval and then it will give you a good starting point to execute it in the most effective manner as part of an overall plan for your project.

HI @Russell griffiths No problem - your post generated a lot of useful responses, which hopefully will give you (and others) food for thought on the design, supply and construction of your Insulated Foundation(passive slab). As you will realise there are various alternatives and designs, all with differing propietary materials and variation of designs, to follow-up and think about. As @IanR points out, your ideas and questions are not stupid and you have been given two examples of designs/builds which do not involve a "complicated" design and use more concrete as you proposed. As with all construction projects, you have to bring your ideas to a specific project considering all the relevant aspects - location, ground conditions, ease of access, closeness to supply chain (concrete plant for instance), house build type (timber frame, conventional, etc), contracting strategy ( managing contractor, self manage with subcontractors, self build), budget, planning constraints & requirements.... At the end of the process, your project like most others will probably be a series of compromises resulting from all of the above and mores Best of luck and keep posting. I am sure that you will get lots of support

Great job -this is a very well considered detail and I wish I had seen it a couple of years ago when I was building my MBC house. I did ask around at the time and received various ideas. In the end I developed my own approach as follows: I installed an 300mm alumium flashing, it was actually the black powder coated aluminium roll used for seamless gutters but rolled as straight pieces with a seam rolled seam for strength. It seems to have worked out well - it is screwed and stuck to the EPS It was installed to form a flashing from underneath the external rendered finish , going across the soles plate and over the EPS to well below the nominal DPC level at which the extermal paving is installed. See the phot os attached, which should give you an idea. I had this flashiing made by the company that supplied and installed my seamless gutters, but they seem to be no longer installing seamless gutters and are concentrating on aluminium pressings , etc. I had some special aluminium flashings, coated to match the window frames, made for below the french windows/doors, ariund the garage doors etc. I attach some photos, during construction (though it at that stage still covered/protected by the blue external wrapping sheath used by MBC to keep render and other rubbish off the coating the flashing) and some taken today, to show the finished look. T

My Construction Policy ( a Zurich Construction Combined Policy, copy attached ) had Goods in Transit coverage - see Section D, page 16 and your policy may have something similar. Now whilst the cover for Goods in Transit cover may not cover storage, as you are specifically requiring, it may be worth a telephone call to your broker to see if they will add the limited cover extension you require to your Construction Policy. This may be the cheapest way of obtaining this cover... On a similar thought (and you may have already tried this without success), request the window supplier to hold the windows in their facility or in a storage facility that they usually use. Again, this may the cheapest option, even if you have to pay additional storage costs, including insurance, Construction_Combined_2014 Policy Doc.pdf

@jackis correct. The foundation system, including the slab has to be designed to take account of the loads imposed by the house structure and the soil conditions. +1 @JSHarrisand@Alex C Well @Russell griffiths, that's telling me. about my capabilities and approach..... Actually, I am not sure that your strong assertion is correct and you have made wild assumptions about what my criteria were or how I executed my project. The foundation slab was supplied, designed and installed lump sum by MBC, who were bidding competitively against other suppliers.Just like @JSHarris I did a lot of competitive bid evalution and they were extremely competitive and I knew I had negotiated the best deal for me at that time (including exchange rates and other project risks). In addition MBC took responsibility for the integration of the slab and the timberframe design and installation. MBC supply and build dozens of these slab every year and, believe it or not, they operate a very successful busines and have their microscopes on the costs and labour required complete their projects. If there is a better and cheaper way o execute installation of these slabs, then I believe MBC will have worked it out and used it on the next project - as they have done with many other aspects of construction. I didn't offer my input as the answer to your very specific requirements but only to give you some input to a specific question. For you, the challenge is to find YOUR most effective and economic execution plan taking your site and requirements into consideration all the relevant factors, including budget. Hopefully, you will share your experience for others to benefit from when you have completed your project. There is nothing wrong with your thinking but it's the result has to work for you and your project.

I believe my slab is a fairly standard design for a MBC foundation, which are usually designed by a very practical and experienced SE with a long track record. I am sure that he woudl have designed the most effective technical solution, taking cost into account. My house is quite large ( I think the slab area is 214m2, including large double garage) and I suspect having thicker slab would not have been cheaper and may have caused other technical complexities. A smaller slab may yield a different solution and discussion withna SE would be helpful for you. From memory, the slab was constructed by MBC in about 5 days.

This may help - it's the construction drawing for the MBC foundation on my build , which details all the elements and dimensions. 1528-01 Foundation Plan- REV A.pdf

+1 to @JSHarris We also reclaimed the VAT on a Grohe Blue integrated hot/cold and bolling water tap

. + yes the same for us

Brilliant - this also solves a problem I was facing in the future with getting an Internet connection to the gate, as I forgot to include a data cable along with the power cable that is already waiting for connection when I install electric gate operators.

It's just low level planter to give a bit if interest to the terrace. These are a few photos I have to hand, one from the Master Bredroom ( shown in the earlier photo) and a couple the Family Room immediately below. We had a fairly large hard landscaping job to complete, which was not obvious from the overgrown garden that we bought - the site rises nearly 4m from the road to the back fence and drops about 0.5m (at the front) to 1m (at the back) right to left as you look up the garden. Topographic survey was invaluable for planning and design, as we had a lot of very nice specimen trees, shrubs and established hedges that we wanted to retain and the garden was planned around them. My wife, Yvonne, is the gardener, and planted the garden mostly with cuttings and shrubs from our old house and this house ( taken before the plot was cleared for landscaping and groundworks). The garden was almost completely planted whilst the house was being built and the little bit of lawn was completed after completion. The house and landscaping were set out with the house, using GPS coordinates.

Great result and thanks for sharing it. We have a Novus 450 and F7 Filters . Fortunately neither my wife or I suffer from any kind of breathing difficulties but we do notice the improved air quality and the almost complete lack of dust in the house. We have changed the inlet filters regularly (every 100 days or so), as we live near a main road. The inlet filters get very dirty, though the extract filters are usually very clean and look as if they will not replacing for full year. The replacement filters are expensive - where are you sourcing your filters? We have tried PAUL Scotland who are competitive in the UK but recently sourced from Holland - TOPS Filters, at a more competitive price when buying multiple filters. We had some issues with one of the filters but TOPS sent replaced all the order, without any hassle.