Conor

I wouldn't be surprised if the window company cocked up. Our did and we've been waiting three months now for them to replace clear units with obscured as per our order. We are in the same situation as your neighbour, they are specified on the plans so technically we're in breach until they are replaced.

Similar here in NI with my ICF wall. Asked if I can recess the box in the EPS and run the conduit through a channel. Never got a response. Just going to have to wing it and hope they connect me up.

Our roofers put felt over the ridge, fixed a batten down, slated right up to the two top battens, and then we fitted a dry ridge system- flexible flashing all along the ridge followed by the clay ridge tiles (this is what the ridge batten was for). From memory the top battens were pretty much tight at the top of the ridge so there was only 25mm or so at the top with no slate coverage. Ridge flashing and tiles sorts this.

We covered all bits of timber and steel with either render board or EPS. I bought a bail of 25mm and 50mm EPS for this purpose. If that steel needs to be insulated, do the full depth in Eps. Normally it's better to fix a timber batten first, but of you don't have the depth, fix directly with stainless steel fixings and expanding foam (low expansion ewi foam).

Use a laser level and just transfer your measured heights through each doorway, corridor etc. You can then set a benchmark in every part of the house to take all measurements from.

We got three cheapy 2kw fan heaters form B&Q last week and just two of them have raised the house temp to 14-15c. The screeders have just turned them all off as they say the screed will dry too quickly on the warmth. The taping and joining stuff dries out in just a couple days of you leave the windows open.

Fairly sure it's halfway between Newcastle and Glasdrumman. Know that road too well! Welcome. Tbh, you'll not do it for less than a grand a m² these days. We're building with amvic ICF. Two story plus basement , 300m² is coming in at £1300/m². Wish it was closer to my original budget of £850!!! I think your budget of £300k for £220m² is spot on. Assuming you're not going crazy on kitchens and bathrooms. There are three or four ICF contractors in NI. Johnny ballantine, Fox Bros, Thermal shell construction (Gordon Cowan) and Passive Structures (Patrick McKenna). There may be more but that's who I know. Drop the oil boiler and get an ashp. We're not nearly finished ours yet and have a single 2kW fan heater keeping the house at 14-15c at the minute for drying out. A modern air tight ICF house takes nothing to heat. (Modeled peak heat load for the house is 3.5kW so we're not far off hitting that) I've done a PV install and the payback is looking like 9 years. But with electric prices only going one direction, it's only going to be less. Also, it's a small investment (5k) amongst a much bigger budget and you'll hardly notice the mortgage payments....

You'll need to install attenuators on the supply and extract ducts. This not only reduces fan noise but also external noise. With semi rigid ducting, insulated exhaust/inlet ducts, I don't see it being an issue. We have our external ducts in place in our new build but no mvhr yet, and I can't hear anything coming in through them.

Last time I checked we were at £1350/m² but I'm sure it will be nearer £1500/m² by the time we finish. It's not just materials, I'm struggling to get any trade in for less than £200 a day. You may find that of you reduce the size of the footprint, your costs won't go down that much. The bigger the build, the cheaper the m² becomes. You'd need to be losing rooms or making it much small to save significant amounts. I can't see prices coming down any time soon so keep on pushing.

@luz624 it's still in its box for another week or two.

Get all the clearing done over the winter. No worries over bird nesting plus the vegetation is a lot lighter and easier to deal with. Pile it all up, let it dry a bit before dragging to the recycling centre. Or hire a chipper for a weekend. I have the Screwfix chainsaw plus a helmet and face guard if you want to borrow it? Quote easy to use and not scary. Won't need it anytime soon. I'm in Holywood.

Ahh. I have a few offcuts of A142 mesh that would do the job brilliantly.

We bought the duct out version of the hob... I'm now rethinking that and will investigate the recirculating option. We do have an MVHR and have a double flow rate extract in the kitchen. I think I might get the kitchen finished and get MVHR up and running before doing anything drastic like cut through floors. Wooden floor wont be going down for 2-3 months anyway. Plenty of time to see how much we need the extract.

I'm now thinking going down through the slab is the better option, and probably less work. I can reroute the two MVHR ducts and remove a section of the electrical caging and go straight out with the ducts provided. Really dont like the idea of the duct below the screed - agree with Mark that best option would be to build over withe bit of ply. but at that, 10mm ply isn't great.

My Elica hob has just arrived. The duct out kit that comes with it has 220x90mm duct. Our floor build up is 150mm precast slabs with 100mm screed (50mm TLA, 50mm liquid) and finally 18mm hardwood floor. This means the duct will be within the depth of the screed floor but with only 10mm on top to the underside of the wooden floor. The duct will be installed after the screeding is finished. Can I just pour 10mm of self leveller over the duct and then lay the wooden floor? Will the PVC duct be OK?! I'm worried about the duct collapsing and floor moving. I'm thinking I might need to build some sort of ply channel to protect the duct and forgo the self leveller on top. I could go down through the precast slab to the basement ceiling void but it's a nightmare of electrc cable cages and more than one MVHR duct blocking the exit route. Would mean a duct run of at least 8m which is not ideal.