Thorfun

just as an update, we decided to take @Russell griffiths and @JohnMo's advice and went for the Siberian Larch to save ££££! what swung it for us is a local self-builder has vertical thermowood cladding with WRC shingles above and they've both weathered to the same silver. so, as Russell said, why spend the extra money when they end up the same colour! Their Thermowood is pine which is a lot more knotty than the Siberian Larch and we thought it looked lovely. so we are going to be very happy with the Siberian Larch. But, we did go for the 120mm boards. still saved a lot of money when compared to the WRC. ?

we decided not to bother and are going with a cladding profile that doesn't leave a gap! that way, no painting of battens is required. lazy or wise? I'll let you decide. ?

there are lots of structural engineers out there and you don't have to use one recommended by your architect. so put a few feelers out for recommendations from other self-builders/builders etc. yes, this is a possibility and chicken and egg situations seem common in self-building. if you change build materials from block and brick to timber frame then, yes, you'll likely have to go back to the SE to ask the question but as TF is lighter than B&B the loads may be less and so changes may not be required, but that's for the SE to decide.

I used TSD for my basement and foundations. we supplied them with the geo report and the TF company supplied the point loads from the TF and they did the rest. reasonable price and they specialise in the insulated slab that we were after. all done remotely. very happy with them and their service.

this is exactly what I am planning to do this week! :-) I don't see why not. when I do it this week I'll report back and let you know.

well, the boards are a little more expensive but you need many more of the narrower boards so total cost is substantially cheaper for the wider boards. I think it's decision made although part of me is still with @Russell griffiths in that maybe we should just use the Siberian Larch and put the money saved towards something else!

we have 195m2 of the WRC to fit. it's a large area so I'm not really concerned that the 145mm boards will look too big for the space. in fact after a quick email to the architect who agreed with me that the 20mm difference of cover between the 145mm and 120mm boards won't really be noticeable and so I'm inclined to agree with @ToughButterCup that it's not worth worrying about and also with @JohnMo that I'm overthinking it! stupid brain of mine. thanks for the photos showing the silvered WRC though, it is a beautiful colour.

yeah, I've seen your cladding before. looks very nice but your picture shows it at sunset/sunrise so the larch has a reddish tint to it that isn't there normally. ?

looks fabulous now though! and I know it'll silver like any other timber but there are much fewer knots in WRC so should look better as it ages, at least that's how I'm justifying it to myself. what widths are those boards?

another choice on our long list of things to decide is the width of boards for our timber cladding. and this one really is doing my head in! first, some background. I have ordered 145mm Deep Char charred Siberian Larch boards in a shadow gap profile https://permachar.co.uk/product/charred-timber-cladding-deep-char/ (this gives 130mm cover including a 10mm shadow gap). so that's ordered and decision made. this is going to cover the main house. We also have a double garage and a garden room protrusion at the back of the house and the inside of the 'porch' at the front door which we want to do in contrasting wood. We want Western Red Cedar and have managed to find the cash to stretch to them but now we have to make a decision as to which width of board to go for. I've found it really hard to find pictures comparing 145mm and 120mm boards side by side and I'm worried that the wider board might look like a barn whereas the 120mm board will look more modern. but, it is a big area and so believe it can take the 145mm boards. Plus, we need more 120mm boards to cover the area so the cost just keeps going up if we choose those! but then if the 120mm boards do look better we could go down to the less expensive Siberian Larch and use 120mm boards. does anyone have any pictures of 145mm and 120mm Western Red Cedar vertical timber cladding? or has anyone been through this dilemma themselves? if thinking with the head it's a no-brainer and the savings by going 145mm is enough to not spend any more time on the question. but it seems that as I get older I tend to listen to the heart a bit more and the voices in the back of my head pop up with things like 'what if it looks s**t?' and 'what if you regret not going for the narrower boards?' and then the other voices say 'but think of the money you'll save' and 'it'll look good either way'. etc. so, I'm basically torn!

oh I agree! but it was more that they have to test every house now rather than a select few. but, the cynical me say, who's going to enforce it and check it?

this seems an interesting change (assuming it's enforced that is!). https://www.c80solutions.co.uk/upcoming-changes-to-air-testing/ might mean that the big players can't get away with making a few houses to standards and ignoring the rest.

so, similar to the way that CPUs are binned according to their speed and so you can 'get lucky' and buy a cheaper CPU that has the potential to overclock to a higher speed? if so, I didn't realise that was the same for Solar PV panels and maybe I should've gone for the cheaper ones. but, it's too late now, the money has been spent and I've no doubt I'll be happy with the LG panels.

Indeed they do and I apologise if I gave the impression otherwise. But they guarantee just over 80% performance after 25 years whereas the LG Neon panels are more like 90% after 25 years. They cost quite a lot more but I’ll be reaping more rewards for longer. but everyone has their own requirements and the JA Solar panels will do the job they’re intended for! Our M&E proposed them initially but after more research I opted for the high-range panels.

@Raju Singh you will also need to consider ventilation requirements for the humidity of the pool. @AliG built a swimming pool in his house (although it was above ground) and, iirc, has lots of knowledge (and had lots of obstacles to overcome) to do with it all. I wonder if it's even more complicated with a pool in the basement?

LG are at the top end of panels so they weren't cheap but they degrade slower than something like the JA Solar panels and have guaranteed performance after a certain number of years. (sorry I forget the actual figures!)

GSE trays and the panels are LG 375W Mono NeonH Black E6. the supplier is a little bit of a sore point as we used Enhabit for our M&E design and they supplied the components for our Solar PV, MVHR and ASHP/DHW. But they have recently been bought out by/merged with Green Building Store and no longer offer ASHP or Solar PV so I have been left with incomplete installations. But that's life I guess and I can find someone else to finish the job.

ok, then I'd say it is on the expensive side! as those things not included will be quite a hefty chunk of cash. we hired a local groundworks company who did the digging and insulation under the slab and they then subcontracted the basement build to another company who came in and put up the formwork, steel, waterproofing membrane and poured the waterproof concrete. then when they left the groundworkers built the internal walls and put on the block and beam top. it worked out a very cost effective way of doing it. you can view how we did it on our blog: glad to hear it. and we love photos on here as they speak a 1000 words or so the saying goes.

welcome. sounds like an amazing space. there are a few on here that have basements and I'm sure @Bitpipe will add his experience in due course. I've just gotten to watertight stage with our build and we have a basement and, tbh, I don't think £500k is far off the mark for a 400m2 basement when digging down 4.5m! we have 3m ceilings and 120m2 and, if I subtract what I think the foundations without the basement would've been, I estimate it cost us about £1200 - £1250/m2. so £500k seems about right to me although I guess it all depends on what that includes. if it's all internal walls, watertight with 2 forms of waterproofing and all the light wells and dealing with the water etc then I'd say it sounds reasonable. I've heard stories of £1000's a week just on pumps to keep sites dry. good luck and I look forward to following your progress should you choose to post about it! ?

there are consultants for anything you could want and PHPP is among them. this might be a good place to start. https://passivhaustrust.org.uk/members/map/

I can only presume so. Like @SuperJohnG I paid using Paypal so can only confirm that but I see no reason why a CC should be any different. I just checked my PayPal history and it took 3 days for the refund to come through, but then I ordered on Christmas Eve so that delay could've been due to the Christmas period. but I definitely didn't request the refund, it did just happen.

it's not taken off at point of order. they will have sent a PayPal refund for the VAT.

yeah. they did for me. I got a refund for that EU VAT very promptly from Latzel. DPD then send you a payment request for the import duty before they'll deliver the goods.

ended up doing this room flush to the windows. tbh it wasn't a conscious decision I just realised that by the time I'd finished it I'd forgotten that I could've put battens! sorry @pocster. think I'll just do the same throughout now. save me a lot of time and faff adding extra battens especially as the majority of my windows are 2.1m high.

I presume that Travis Perkins and Toolstation are part of the same company then?