Gone West

Friends of ours tried to do that and it took them ages to get it finally sorted out. From their experience, which was near Deal in Kent, I would change the existing house name first, well before starting the new build. I would then give the new house the old name.

The worst thing about current building regs. is the airtightness requirement. If you aim for a maximum of 1 ACH the rest of the regs. aren't too bad. If you can improve on the insulation levels so much the better.

It was replaced at no cost to us. We had several smaller panes replaced, also at their cost, where the marks were obvious.

We have a 3/4 glazed gable that is 4.1m high made up of three vertical triple glazed panes. We had marks on all three of the panes and we had the two largest of the panes replaced. We still have a small mark on the smallest pane but accepted it as it is virtually impossible to notice.

I wanted to call our cedar clad house 'Shadezagray', but it was vetoed.

It's standard practice for the farmers around here. They do what they want and if there are any complaints they put in for retrospective PP and then ignore any subsequent conditions.

I doubt he has reached outside his own expertise. Netting doesn't work very well.The farmers around here net the cherry orchards but there are always birds inside the netting from blackbird size downwards. All that happens is that when people appear the birds panic and get caught in the netting and usually die.

@lizzie I'm so glad you've got it sorted and are now comfortable in the house. Hope you are as successful with the UFH.

Welcome to the forum and good luck with future projects.

Are there alternatives in your area to having an Openreach line. I got totally pissed off with Openreach after months and months of arguing and them not doing what I wanted so I used a WiMax company. They installed everything within a few days, faster broadband and a landline number using VoIP and cheaper than BT.

Welcome to the forum Simon. Plenty of ICF self builders on here to quiz. Good luck with the project.

There are different types of spray foam. I can only really comment on Icynene which although we had to do a lot of trimming, worked well for us. It is sprayed on very thinly and expands IIRC about 100 times so layers of around 100mm are built up. It sets into a rubbery flexible foam that off-gases quickly and after a couple of days there was no smell. The only disadvantage I have heard about is that it doesn't stick very well to a cold surface so it's not a job for a cold winter. Icynene BBA.pdf Icynene Spec.pdf

If you attach a wide strip of membrane to the I-beams behind the ledger plate before fitting the ledger plate you can tape the membrane to that strip on the first floor and on the ground floor.

Our first floor metal web joists hang from a ledger plate that is attached to the I-beam wall studs. We used 300mm I-beams and extended them to 350mm by adding battens to the inner flanges of the i-beams. The ledger plate is the same thickness as the battens and sits on those battens and is nailed to the I-beam flanges. We don't have any membranes or tapes in our construction as the wall itself with the Icynene insulation is the airtightness layer. We achieved an airtightness result of 0.47ACH.

We paid £200 for a morning with no VAT.

They are exactly the same model by Scheppach .

It's an awful lot cheaper than Screwfix are selling it for.

That looks like Western Red Cedar and the top grade is called "No. 2 clear and better" which is what we used. Ours came without any knots and we have left it to 'silver'. To keep the look that you want will require quite a lot of maintenance.

Good luck.

Not that it makes any difference now but I would have had a supply in the dressing area instead of extract and I would have had a supply in the hall as I have here.

I don't think it is necessary to increase the ventilation level for bathroom use especially when your RH is so low. I would just leave the bathroom door open, any increase in humidity from baths or showers would be beneficial. Our system stays on level 2 all the time. As Jeremy says the system should be silent on level 2 and you should only be able to feel slight air movement next to the vent.

I was comparing skirting heating to radiators in a low energy house.

I can't see a real problem with that setup.

If I needed central heating in a low energy house I would consider skirting heating not conventional radiators.

Where are the intake and extract vents on your house? Are they on the same wall and does that point in the direction of the prevailing wind? Are you far from the sea?