SuperJohnG

The finance costs is one of them that can creep up. If its a self build mortgage allow for that in your cashflow.

Welcome and you'll put plenty value on doing that loft space! Especially in the west end. I'm just 30 mins down the road in Ayrshire but work in Glasgow ( well my office is still there, but currently still wrong from home!)

The bora ones look good. But they are so rubbish at supplying good information. It's all marketing fancy pictures rather than just writing down in simple words what it does.

I've not much to add here but sounds like you're having a pisser after you've had to sack the builder. Build looks good so far, liking the L shaped skylights I have a few of those on ours too and also I'm in East Ayrshire. Good luck.

I was thinking that. But had thought this was going to the sewage treatment plant. That would make sense (and could be the only logical answer!) That ita a pumped tank.

Yeah thats a lot of flow by the looks of it. I assume its not constantly flowing?

Something just not right if you can't heat the room with your boiler and radiators. Spec of this and size of the radiators would help. I'm inclined to say ditch MVHR. Get trickle vents on new windows, check boiler set up and radiator sizing, then install a fan in bathroom. But even at that just make it a normal extractor fan, but get one that closes when not on to stop heat leaking out. If you anted to do more than that you can start to look at adding insulation.

I do quite a lot of estimating (albeit completely different industry) but @ProDaves approach is how I'd look at it. Work out the number of points and break the hours out from there to what seems reasonable. You will have an efficiency factor and need to allow for them to have some contingency if they are doing it on a fixed price. I have agreed with my Spark that I'll pull all the cables in our build (subject to him agreeing routes) then he will inspect prior to to closing it up after first fix. Then he will come back when needed and do second fix and test. I'm just going to get an account with CEF or similar and we can call off materials or he can get extra stuff if required. He'll just pop by when I need him to do temporary supplies or fit it in to suit both our schedules.. Hes local and a mate from school which helps as I trust him.

Whats your current heating system? Gas or electric? That MVHR system should never have been installed IMO. Its not going to add any value if its not air tight. Secondly...the condensation issue is strange. Are their air bricks and MVHR in the second bedroom? In my opinion. If you have mains gas, make sure heating is working OK and let it ventilate as normal as it should. Albrit you'll be wasting energy you won't resolve the issues without spending a lot of cash. Defo dont install Windows without vents, that will cause more issues. It sound to me like the existing MVHR may be causing most of your problems, likely pumping all your heat out and leaving condensation in bedroom two. Turn it off and see what happens.

As mentioned above. There are different questions being asked. I done first submission 25th August. Got approved BW first week in December. Just over 3 months. Now...that took all the engineering into account and managing two separate engineers (superstructure and foundations) plus the kit supplier and then architect. In reality we were a week for comments back from LA then once we submitted the SER and stuff from his initial comments it took 10 days. So in reality...a tad over two weeks if you submitted the BW with the SER, give another week to close comments. Its defo about being organised. This was East Ayrshire.

Tanners are mainly used on here for insulated foundation design. I can confirm they are fine and I have had them design my foundations, which were recently delivered from KORE (ad have many others on here). For an SE for a timber frame, you can use a remote person but this shouldn't be hard to find locally? 8500 sounds steep too unless that's house and foundations? I wouldn't trust the engineering of my house to upwork and someone not in the UK (or Ireland).

Dunno if that's been missed? In my view. The glulam is there to support whats above. Where is the glulam supported?. You can see there is a direction change of the floor joists so.its a key interface. That glulam.is in bending doing all the work. You could not remove a section in between the floor joists as you remove the ability of the beam to support the UDL. I dont know much about Glulams, but if it was steel beam and JJI you can get a hole schedule for it. But dunno how that works with beams glued together. Disclaimer: I've been drinking so I feel I have read everything above but could have misread your post above

What was/is you chosen floor finishing? If it was tiles, you could consider LVT which is much thinner. Sounds like its sorted now, but always an option if it still becomes an issue.

My architect likes this...apparently a nicer detail. I've yet to figure out how I get lights in the soffit.

This.

I've got 300mm stated on my drawings from architect. Also he's got a note saying boot ends are not allowed.

It amazes me how hard some manufacturers must try to make it difficult. My standard dryer has loads of functions. It takes a while to understand which one just give me low heat. Why can't they just have the three heat settings as per your clothes instructions on the dryer and a time to set it on. Same as my new washing machine... baumatic (never buy one) 99.9% of the time I want 30 degrees with a 1400 spin. That's it...that will do everything. The other 1% I might need a hand wash function. But no...I have to select specific function and then click 4 buttons to get to 30 degrees and 1400 spin. All microwaves should go for 30 seconds when you push 1 button (then keep pressing for more time). Its ridiculous if they don't. We really don't need all these smart options. They aren't smart at all. Things need to go back to being basic. Also just as a point of note...anyone who has a Bluetooth enabled toothbrush should be shot.

Just opening this one up again. Has anyone done anything recently with a direct feed through an insulated slab foundation? Looking for any pics/ advice.

Thanks @Geordie. Not far away at all then, Ayrshire is definitely an expensive place for land up here, but have a read through my posts. This was the 8th bit of land I'd tracked down and tried for so keep at that dreaming. Everything eventually falls into place.

Following with interest. Id been thinking abouy this as seems a good idea for vaulted areas. Not feeling the downlighters in a big vaulted space.

Thanks. Its funny actually out of all the plots I found, the 4 acre plot was the cheapest (less than a third of others). It was by chance a owned by a previous self builder who built a passivhaus, who sold it to me for the very reason he wanted a self builder to have it, could have went for 3 times the price. A very nice man.

@LA3222 Yes mate, just done the first blog post! In typical fashion...I asked them to confirm last week about delivery, hadn't heard on Friday - called and they said it left Thursday would arrive Monday/Tuesday but they would call beforehand. I got 20 minutes notice, it would be there at 0730 this morning. All fine though, I offloaded the EPS 100 by hand with the driver and then my mate turned up to offload the pallets of the side profiles with his digger and forks for me. All good and now tied down at his place, very glad I now made the decision to do this as obviously everything has turned to mayhem today with the UK being cut off. So it's here and groundworkers lined up for January!

I've finally got around to starting this blog. I'm hoping that it'll be easily updated and I'll provide lots of good pictures and info...we'll see how that goes. I'm at the point now where we have just taken our first big delivery, which is our insulated foundation system from Kore, this morning. So albeit, this process of building a house has been ongoing for some time, it has just become real that we are at the beginning of the build phase, which is very exciting. Some light background info - I've always wanted to build a house for the last 5-10 years, but it was a distant dream and wasn't quite sure how feasible it would be. I grew up in a rural house, my parents bought in 1983, modernised and updated over the years. It was a great childhood and spent many hours in the fields and in our garden, even just cutting the grass was fun (1 acre and a ride on mower). We sold that when I was 21 and ever since I've wanted to return to that life. I have two young kids of my own now and hence the want to return to the countryside to give them what I had was strong. I was always keen on building, swmbo, wasn't as such. So we searched and searched, but mostly the houses we could find that suited our needs were out of league (price!) and even if they were to be in our league there were things we would change or in the end it would be expensive to run. And hence that search helped my other half make the realisation that self build was our only option. My dad died in 2017 after a long illness with Dementia, a relief for him and for everyone else involved. We were very close and I took care of him day in and out, until he was in care. He was an engineer and had owned his own business since I was a child, albeit he lived a pretty simple life and was happy being at home in the garden he made and house he had renovated. Riding around on the ride on mower enjoying a quiet life...and now I guess that's exactly where I want to be. His passing left us with a little inheritance which has allowed this dream of self building to become a reality, I'm very thankful for this. I know it is something he would have been very excited to be part of and watch us do. So after messing around since 2017 and not being able to negotiate a plot or find one that was suitable (there's a lengthy thread on this!) I'd finally identified 4 acres in July 2019. It took a bit of time ( I had to confirm services and remove an Agricultural tie) but completed purchase in Jan 2020. I'll not cover the planning process in detail, but the plot had legacy planning permission which was 24 years old, but at that time the development had commenced and hence it was a straightforward change and submission of our designs. Building warrant was granted a week ago, with very little hassle really. I joined Buildhub in September 2019 or thereabouts. It's been a wealth of information that has helped me shape the design of the house and provided no end of guidance which I am very thankful for. It has allowed me to validate my opinions and approaches and learn from others to ensure i am following the right path. I started out prior to buildhub wanting a SIPS house, in fact googling that may have made me find my way here. Quickly I decided I wanted an insulated foundation too, I went around in circles a little bit with both of these decisions and reading others opinions on here. I even thought at one point they would both be too expensive for me , however I sit here writing this first post having taken delivery of my insulated foundation today and my SIPS kit is on order and due sometime in February. I don't actually need the insulated foundation till mid-late January but made a decision to get it in the country before Brexit issues occur and tariffs are possibly applied in January (rumoured at 6%). I'm very glad I made that decision as today our new strain of COVID has caused everyone to close the doors to us here in the UK, another couple of days and god knows when I would have gotten it. There is lots of other decisions and stuff has gone on in the background with planning and mortgages and budgets to get here, but that is mostly done and hence I feel this is the end of the beginning and now we can enter the start of the middle.... I'm very pleased and excited for the road ahead. I like pictures in blogs....here's a few of the Insulated foundation delivery today. Stored at a friends farm for the time being. It's being stored outside, has a few tractor tyres on it now to stop it blowing away and the main pallets are all strapped down. That's me standing on top.......

The long and short of this IMO is that, albeit you can try lots of the helpful advice here and might get a fix. You're not going to have the confidence regardless that its all ok, or worse still you don't notice something that gets changed or adjusted during this process and it causes a leak and damages something during the night or similar. For your own peace of mind, find a good plumber (not from any of these online places!). Get someone reliable from local word of mouth and see how you go.

Must have been a good journey.