PeterW

What have they specified exactly as I'm slightly lost on their logic ! Do they mean a low loss header..??

And that's for walls and ceilings..? Whereabouts are you in the country..?

I use Paul Sellers technique as it seems to work for me ! And he even advocates the Aldi chisel set if you don't have a lot of money - I've got a cheap set of diamond plates and Irwin Jack chisels as I'm more Ikea than Chippendale furniture...

Was this 10mm & 12.5mm fermacell..? What sort of quantities..?

But the developers don't care !! Current place had no soakaways on one side of the house - NHBC Warranty but interestingly NHBC building control too. Found the problem when building the extension on the opposite side of the house. Ended up with an engineers report, and the builder (David Wilson) was invited to site, and then invited to comment. They did neither .... NHBC paid up to the tune of £7k for new soakaways and pipe work along with a brand new Tarmac driveway. Surveyor reckoned it would alter their premium (which is how builders pay for NHBC) by no more than £1-200. Compare that to the cost of doing it properly, then multiply it by the 350 houses on the estate ! Savings are huge for cutting corners ..! I think some sort of lectures (podcasts..??) would be great ! Cover the basics and make people think..! I offer a "free" snagging service to friends who buy new houses as it's amazing what the volume box builders try and get away with ..!

For anyone who is looking - less than £14 sqm http://www.buildbase.co.uk/buildbase-natural-sandstone-100008683-2826725

Mineral wall batt and Frametherm are the same thing ... Just get them to confirm the density

+1 on Nu-Heat who wanted to sell me MVHR on top of UFH despite me saying I already had the kit. Planning system wasn't great either as loops were unequal (they wanted to know why I was worried about that...) and external French doors were missing ...

On face value I've found Wunda cheaper than Boulder - Circa £640 vs £560 for a 4 port with pipe, clips, manifold and pumps etc That is before any discussion on pricing taking the Welshmans name in vain..

Which DPM are we talking about..? the one that sits inside the EPS..? I would be inclined to cut it back and bond it to the front of the remaining slab using a decent liquid DPM product and not worry about it.

We have a rubber ramp on ours and it does stop some rain but it does struggle sometimes like at the weekend when we had 30mm inside around 90 minutes ..! Was this I think http://www.garagedoorseals.co.uk/p-black_rubber_garage_threshold_seal.htm I would grind off the first 40/50mm as a slope to give the door a chance first though and remove the EPS and replace with a linear drain. That does create a thermal break of sorts too

Just finalising some roof details and come across an odd one that I can't seem to get a consistent answer on. Proposed roof build up is warm roof, insulation TBC but most likely a full fill plus PIR under for a foil VCL. To give the roof some strength (and because I've got a cheap pallet load...) there is an OSB3 sarking layer. On top I was expecting the breather membrane held down with counter battens and then tile batten and tile. Talking to a roofer he has said he would drape the membrane over the counter battens as the membrane doesn't need to touch the OSB but that doesn't seem right to me ..? My expectation is that it's the same for the dormer cheeks as it is for the roof and the membrane goes tight up against the OSB..? help !!

A what...????! I'm not sure whether to google that or not ..!

I've heard he's making his own compound curved tiles next .....

Applied for outline planning in a village and it went to Parish Council and I went along. First comment - " it's not in keeping with the village...." D&A statement had 12 photos of buildings in the village that showed how it matched. So I advised it did, and that it was actually a copy of the barn conversion at the other end of the village ... The killer comment - " you can't just go around the village copying other people's houses, it's not right !!" Suffice to say I withdrew the application !

I think there is a healthy balance on here on all topics - the energy efficiency / low energy / passiv(e) stuff always has polar views though ! UK building regs are appalling - full stop ! They are a minimum standard and don't encourage anything. Add to that the well known reports that volume house builders are cutting corners even with the minimum standards then it's not surprising the masses don't understand. Take this as an argument - "Yes Mr Smith, our Balmoral new build has lots of energy saving features with uValues 10% better than most modern houses , annual bills 15% lower than the average property..." So Joe Public (aka Mr Smith) thinks that's fab.! But it's not what it "could" be ..! Average energy bill for a 4 bed, let's say £1800 pa. This new house is only £1530. What if you said to Mr Smith that for £2k more insulation you could have 40% lower ..? Payback of 3-4 years ..?? You are then talking in numbers people understand, yet the masses sometimes don't get that anyway. The Green Deal is a classic example of this - saving energy just isn't exciting ! There are comparatively few parts of this forum that cover energy - it's got a lot of contributors who have a lot of experience on all areas, some have completed builds, some are building and some are yet to start. There are no daft or stupid questions - what some understand as they live and breath it daily is completely alien to others. One thing this forum (and ebuild) taught me was to ask the questions as it's certainly stopped me making mistakes that could have cost substantial amounts ! My next project can't be as efficiently built as we want as it has an existing structure - it won't stop me trying, but when cost is a factor too (like a lot of self builders) then there is compromise. I would much prefer to take an informed view by talking it through on here and learning from that, than bowling into the deep end and hoping ...!! We can all help each other - it's about healthy debate and understanding !

Some people have had the luck of just ringing BT and asking for a new line - straight in with no issues as long as you've got a proper PAF address with Royal Mail

That looks remarkably like SBR Latex with some filler/binder and fibres in it. You can do something similar with SBR and cement or an SBR floor levelling compound such as this http://www.builderdepot.co.uk/latexplan-25kg-trade-2-part-floor-leveller-1-to-10mm-powder-liquid-5kg.html?gclid=Cj0KEQjws_m6BRCv37WbtNmJs-IBEiQAWKKt0MUqR_mNJsoZLcUVt4n9JYYSkjqrMZEpG2htEI2CLKYaApA28P8HAQ

One of the benefits I always saw with ICF was the ability to easily form channels in the EPS and then do a bonding/top coat plaster finish. Is that not an option..?

But if you take the LABC warranty they do...

Yes it increases the risk so most have a Legionella cycle every week / fortnight to use the tank immersion to heat the whole tank overnight to 65c

Some use a 4 way valve to defrost using the heat in the refrigerant - no idea how it works but it means it doesn't draw warm water back to use as a defrost cycle. What is interesting is whether you would want to use an inline heater pre or post UVC - many of the ASHPs now have an "external" heater controller that could easily heat water from 40-50c with a willis style immersion given the flow rates.

I do know a couple of mortgage companies (MMBC for one) that require a warranty to be in place for self build mortgages. That may be a factor for some people.

Watch out for drying the screed too quickly with UFH as it is the moisture that creates the cure in some and is a vital component. How much are you looking to trim off the manufacturers time..?

I'm not convinced that a moisture sensor will be much use on screed - the manufacturers normally state a drying time based on depth. There is a for sale / wanted at the bottom of the main board if you want to put anything there