Thorfun

@Adsibob. have you thought about guests? the managed switches give you the ability to configure a guest wifi VLAN so that when people come to visit you don't have to give your private network wifi password and give them a guest password that you can then easily limit bandwidth for and it also keeps them separate from your private network for security. it's little things like that that are often overlooked when going for the cheaper/simpler options.

Our scaffolders were the same. A small local family run business who were extremely helpful and pleasant to have on-site.

there are quite a few on here. stick around for a while and you'll get to know them. 🙂

why pay when I can host it for free? plus, it's only for the 4 golf majors each year. so a total of 16 days. 😉

well, as an example, my brother wanted to back up some of his data from his graphic novel he's writing and so I setup a VPN on my NAS and added firewall rules to the Ubiquiti setup to allow this to happen and now he's backing up remotely to my NAS. another tinker was when I was hosting a live leaderboard for a golf sweepstake with my mates. so, again, configured the web server on a VM hosted on the NAS, configured a firewall and port forwarding rule on the Ubiquiti and it all just works. so I only really need to tinker when I want to add something. but I am a geek. 🤓 in most normal circumstances the things I do won't be necessary. so once you've setup your wifi networks (private and guest) everything else is excess and won't, generally, be necessary. but I love the fact that it's there if I want to. e.g. configuring a separate VLAN for home automation, or CCTV devices to talk on. Ubiquiti gives me that power if I want it. but if you don't need it then as @joth says, it might be best to look at something less expensive and easier to use.

welcome and best of luck with the rebuild. we love seeing photos and watching peoples journeys on here so feel free to update us and ask questions along the way.

at least it didn't take that from the grid and you can replenish the PW2 from the Solar PV.

I find my Ubiquiti setup very much fit and forget, right up to the point I need to make a change it all just works very well indeed and then post change I can just forget about it and it just works until the next time I need to tinker. obviously, tinkering is voluntary so is very much a fit and forget solution. in my opinion that is. I am very technically minded though so might not be everyone's cup of tea.

and does the price include scaffolding to get to the roof or are you expected to pay for that yourself? if scaffolding is included I'd say it's reasonable to be fair. it does seem from other posts on here that prices have gone up recently most likely due to the demand for solar pv due to the rise in electricity prices.

yeah. us too. luckily we will be able close the balcony slider and admire from the safety of the filtered MVHR house. 😁

the sedum roof is looking particularly lovely at the moment with the different colours

we have the Zehnder Q600 (not commissioned yet though but it is installed) and our designers configured it for 92mm ducts to give a larger flow rate to ensure we had the correct ventilation levels in our house which is quite large! couldn't have done it with the single unit with the smaller ducts and I really didn't want to buy, install, maintain 2 x separate units.

yep. it certainly is. I've had my PV panels on the roof since late last year. I still don't have an electricity meter or the consumer unit installed so don't have the inverter connected up yet. so I've basically wasted 8 months of potential SEG payments. and on a 10.5kWp array that could've been quite a bit. but these things happen and life's too short to beat yourself up about it.

In a couple of months when the sun has stopped shining maybe other 'not so potentially dodgy' PV companies might not be as busy and then you'll get one of them and know you've made the right choice! FOMO is a killer and is really hard not to give in to it but you have to try hard. something better is often just around the corner. 😉

I argued this with the GI company we used and they were adamant that we couldn't zero rate the ground investigation. in the end I gave up arguing and just paid it as I couldn't be bothered to go searching for another company.

I would suggest that they add nothing especially for the cost of £5k!! just go direct, if you're both in employment then it should be pretty straight forward. the reason for the extra interest rate and fees is due to the risk the lender is taking on a new build as if it all goes wrong they'll be left with a partially finished house. when I was researching I found buildstore really expensive on the fees side and ended up having Handlesbanken referred to me by a friend who self-built and they've been great. Ecology were also on our list.

yes, I believe it is. you can also get crushed concrete 'cobbles' at some places https://robinsofherstmonceux.co.uk/supplies/aggregates/

we used virgin type 3 for our driveway sub-base to make it permeable. bloody expensive! if I knew then what I know now I would've used crushed concrete with reduced fines. still permeable (afaik and the groundworkers used it as backfill around our basement so I hope it is!) but a lot cheaper.

we DIYd our basement UFH and will do the same with our GF UFH. it is definitely a good one to DIY as you'll save a small fortune.

I was going to DIY our MVHR install but then the supplying company offered me an install for £1200 and I thought it was too good to turn down as I already had plenty else to do. if the quote to install was £4-£5k that you're being quoted then I would've done it myself.

yes we really do! it's like overlooking a wildflower meadow. I've been informed that over the years as more flowers take hold the number of grasses should reduce so it won't look so grass-heavy.

might be a bit itchy

our Siberian Larch vertical cladding T&G style shadow gap cladding was tongue fixed using tongue-tite SS screws. the joiner said that with the interlocking T&G and a screw in the tongue they aren't going anywhere. our cladding is vertical though so I don't know if it's different for horizontal. I happen to have loads left over to sell if you do decide to go down that route as I originally bought enough to face fix but now don't need anywhere near as many as I bought!

our roofer used Alwitra VSK single-ply. I was told by two different roofers that for our timber frame and due to the potential movement of it GRP was not a good solution.

the roof is full on now! bees are buzzing around and it gives great privacy in our bedroom from the neighbours house to the south as well.