Alex C

I built an mbc timber frame timber clad house and think I would do it the same again. What I would definately do the same having lived in the house now for 2 years now is to build another airtight super insulated house whatever the construction method was. The value added to quality of life by living in a warm dry house with fresh air and constant temperature far outweighs any savings in energy costs.

400l is a lot of water, are you running a b&b. I have the telford 300l tempest plus which has extra insulation although I can't see this on the website now. We have never run out of hot water. The standing loss is going to be higher than you think and whilst not costing much financially in lost heat, it may end up heating a well insulated house up more than you would want it to. I have thick insulation around all the associated pipework but the cupboard the cylinder is in still gets pretty hot. Also be aware that most pv diverters only run 1, 3kw immersion at a time so it will take an age to heat 400l of water from cold just using pv.

When I spoke to Peter Warm, a Passivehause certifier he said not to worry about rooflights if they are in a communal area such as a hall as they are treated differently than if in your bedroom. He didn't have any problem with the two massive triple glazed automated Velux ones that I specified on my build. The Passivehause certified ones only come in smaller sizes, I guess because of the weight. The Velux rooflight didn't cause any issue on the airtest either.

Dont do it. You will feel like you are living in the stationery cupboard of a large office. I have some of those exact pull handles on a couple of 2.4m high cupboard doors. There is no way I would want them on a door I was opening all the time.

How well insulated and airtight is your house? If it is really well insulated it wont need much heating anyway. You are also not going to be generating from the pv at the time of year you need to heat your house so no point linking to ufh. We have similar no bedrooms and bathrooms with passive type build and have 300l super insulated unvented cylinder and a small gas boiler that moderates from 9 to 3 kw. Heating is wet ufh on ground only and not had that come on since january. We have wet towel rads in bathrooms and these come on for half hour a day and that is enough to heat the house along with normal day to day activities and solar gain. With a 5.5 kw pv system we started heating all of our hot water last week as we had sunny days and will pretty much continue to do so until October. Dont underestimate how low pv generation is in the winter. 5.5kw system will generate well under 1kwh on a dark grey winter day but has been doing over 30kwh for the last few days.

Buildzone did my site insurance and no problem with timber frame timber clad. They may well have changed their policy as this was a couple of years ago now

Some contractors just refuse to believe the situation on zero rating whatever you do to try and convince them. I was very careful to check this in advance of having any work done and just didn't use the contractors who said they would refuse to zero rate. I had one landscaper quote for the patio and he even confirmed with his accountant father that he had to charge VAT. Most small companies will just be being advised by their book keeper who may well not know and not be interested in finding out the full situation. Good luck with getting another invoice issued. You may find that refusal to pay more than the non VAT amount does the trick.

door swing width + 400. Just seen that is at bottom of stair. Not sure about at top of stair

I am pretty sure you cant have a door at the top of a step. Anything less than a normal step height (minimum 150) is going to just be a trip hazard. why not google search the building regs

I totally agree with @JSHarris on this. There is no such thing as a bargain plot as there are so many self builders and developers queueing up to buy them. I would suggest getting an accurate price for the build you have had drawn up. As far as a lender is concerned saying that it wont cost much as you are doing the work yourself wont cut it. A friend just built 2 houses and had to use a private equity firm to borrow from as no-one else was interested. They were forced to use an approved builder and kept on a very short leash by the lender and had to pay for a quantity surveyor for the lender.

You would normally need to own either all of or a large chunk of the land to get a lender to lend for a build. Most lenders will not lend for the land purchase, only for the build. Are you also sure about the final property value. 400k build cost dosnt sound much for a 1.2 million house. I don't know where you are in the country but in most areas where people can pay 1.2 for a house there is no way a decent plot with house would sell for 400k.

I assume this it timber framed house. You could have a liquid screed to the upper floor. The cheapest and very effective option is resilient bar and double slab plasterboard on ground floor ceiling with rockwool fitted in the void. Make sure the deck on the first floor is glued and screwed in place not just nailed. Carpet upstairs is also your friend. Check out the Robust detail handbook. It covers everything you will need to know.

I never got warranty documents as I refused to pay the final instalment. To be honest I think the warranty would be worthless judging by the terrible service by both ecoHause Internorm and also the lack of input from Internorm themselves. They are great windows but I would not recommend anyone to use Internorm or ecoHause Internorm.

You are not alone on terrible internorm installations. I had a drama that lasted over a year. A builder I was working for once said to me that if windows dont go in right first time with no damage, they will never be sorted properly. He was dead right, the problem being the installers are not able to solve problems or rectify issues as they are simply not skilled enough. I had four Magic Man and Plastic Surgeon repair teams and only one individual had the skill to fix damage, the others just made it worse.

If the reveals wander off level they must be packed out when installing plasterboard as you need to get the reveals square to the windows (which should be bang on level) otherwise it will be really obvious. You cant just follow the line of the mbc openings as they will not always be square or centered on the windows.

I would be having a word with the installer. It looks like an MBC build and as you say hardly the first taping job they have done. They should not have gone more than 10mm onto the frame. I have the same build and same windows. As a word of warning those windows ding really easily with the corner of a plasterers trowel. I would advise covering the frames as much as possible, brief the plasterers properly and keep a really careful eye on whats going on.

How about removing the plasterboard and packing out behind it with a sheet of 6mm ply then putting plasterboard back. That looks like it would cover the tape and still leave clearance on the windows.Who was it that taped the windows as it is a pretty basic error to over tape the windows.

We have now lived in our passive house for 2 years and are extremely happy with the air quality. I never use boost on the mvhr. We have unoccupied and levels 1,2,3. I leave it on level 1 pretty much all of the time and maybe put it on 2 if it is a sunny winter day like the ones we have been having recently when the house has warmed up a little too much, or if the house is full of people. My house humidity is nearly always between 42 and 50% but will drop to the 30's if left on level 2 for long. The bathrooms clear very quickly even on level 1 as the humidity level is so low. I had read somewhere that humidity below about 35% can cause irritation and is made worse if there is dust in the air. The factory settings on the mvhr that we haven't changed are level 1 - 100m3 per hour, level 2- 200m3 per hour. The house is approx 650 m3 but there are only 4 of us in it so quite low occupancy for the volume. I think in general if you have a passive house you can run the air flow volumes quite low and much lower than any building regs values may state.

Have you picked up the phone and spoken to them about it?

Its not a silly question. The answer is yes maybe. I installed 5.5 kw mainly as I was doing some game playing to score 100 for my SAP so I could use a particular lender. The extra cost of the pv was more than offset by the cheaper fee and lack of broker fee by going with my lender. I decided I would much rather spend the cash on something tangiable like pv than on someones fee. Also 5.5 kw fits well on my roof and 4kw would have proportionally looked a bit odd. For most days 4kw would have been more than enough for my needs, but as has been mentioned on a more cloudy day I still produce more with 5.5kw than I would with 4kw. If I could plug in an electric car it would be a complete game changer in terms of using what I produce, and I think for a lot of people that isnt too far away.

I have a 5.5kw system and even though I work from home and put on appliances during the day I would say there is no way we consume as much as 50% even with the excess dumped into the hot water. on recent clear days we have been generating 20kwh and during the summer that is well over 30kwh. I think the turning point for me will be either cheap batteries or an electric car. As I am at home most of the day a car could charge for free for at least 7 months of the year. When doing your sums just make sure you are realistic on what you will actually be able to consume from whats generated.

I got the aluminium top hat profile channel and diffuser cheap from my local electrical wholesaler. Much better light with the diffuser (white not clear) and essential if the led are near a reflective surface such as tiles or glass splashback.

I never really understand why self builders are happy to spend a fortune on a new build, but cut short on things like professional design advice that can have a huge impact on the build. There were clearly some fundamental issues with the layout, some of which have been partially addressed, but it is not really possible to review a design scheme fully without even having some elevations and also maybe a section to look at.

I have the dewalt track saw and have found it to be the most useful tool I have ever bought. I am not sure why you would pay extra for the festool one unless you were using it every day.

A good architect is worth their weight in gold.