Gone West

I already had a water meter installed for the bungalow before I started my new build so all I did was to extend the existing supply to the new house. Southern Water were not involved. The BCO was not really interested in the mains supply to the house and all I did was tell him what I had fitted and he was quite happy.

Hi Jason, welcome to Buildhub. Friends of ours converted their bungalow into a house which ended up being very large. They were lucky they didn't need to alter the foundations and they had the whole building sheeted so the conversion was unaffected by the weather, Good luck with the project.

Do all the landscaping and driveway and generally take it a bit easier than last year.

We have built a house using a PH raft foundation with timber I-beam walls and roof. Am I correct in thinking you are stick building on site with the I-beams or are you having the frame made off site then erected.

Always viewed from the front so just swap the flexis over.

Here's hoping, well I'm only three years younger than his parents.

Can we have one please?

Sorry I should have said. We used BuildZone for the site insurance and we use Aviva for the buildings insurance.

Ours is timber frame with all timber cladding except for a brick slip plinth and we didn't have any problems getting site insurance or buildings insurance.

This will show you where there's radon. https://www.ukradon.org/information/ukmaps

I used my PHPP instead of my 'as designed' SAP, which the BCO was happy with, and had my 'as built' SAP and EPC done by a chap in Medway without any queries. He was the first person I went to, I may just have been lucky.

Our walls and roof U value is 0.1 and our main heating is supplied by electric towel rails in the bathrooms and a small area of electric UFH in the kitchen. This is so that the rooms with a ventilation extract are always warm. We are lucky because our ventilation unit has an EASHP built into it so the supply air to the living rooms is never below room temperature. I would have thought that an electric post heater would be a good idea. When designing our house, before I had found the Genvex Combi, I had looked into using an electric post heater to ensure the ventilation supply air was always warm.

Hi and welcome to the forum. Sounds like you're a good match for another member @Onoff.

+1 to 3M Command Strips, we use them all the time, much easier than anything else unless it's really heavy. You can get the hooks in clear plastic now I believe.

We designed our house with all the water supply and waste in one quarter of it. That included a downstairs wet room which in theory should help with any possible flooding as we also had level thresholds for downstairs internal doors.

@joe90 This table shows what I used to set up our ventilation and may be of some help as a starting point. MVHR Calculation.pdf

We're lucky because our MVHR has a built in EASHP and the supply air temperature is never below room temperature. It also automatically turns off the supply fan if it is unable to deliver air at or above room temperature.

Our upstairs temperature is around 22C and downstairs around 23C, if it wasn't there would be complaints. 16C maybe toasty to an Innuit.

Our olive tree which we've had nearly two years now had a dozen or so large olives and near to fifty pea sized ones. I was really surprised to see the blackbird in the tree eating them the other day, he's obviously got exotic tastes. So much for a partridge in a pear tree.

I found our intake vent got very dirty over the summer. We live out in the sticks and there's a lot of muck thrown up when harvesting. I will keep an eye on it over the winter. It's a good reason for having the vents in an easily accessible place.

@recoveringacademic The strongbacks used on my joists were 4" x 2". You could just rip down some of your 4" x 4".

I've just looked at his video and it looks the same. I've used two layers of Compriband and Soudal low expansion foam on the inside. Soudal do their own window installation system. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74HnLT9S3io

We had our Rehau Geneo windows installed by the manufacturers. They were fitted into a timber frame construction. The frames come with a central groove all the way round the outside which was fitted with Compiband expanding foam tape. It is important to use the correct thickness of tape for the gap between the frame and the opening. They then fitted the windows to the openings with straps. That gave a draught proof fitting. I then went around each window installing another layer of Compriband tape on the outside edge of the frame. I then foamed the gap between the frame and reveal on the inside and then foamed behind the plasterboard on the reveal. I installed the Internorm entrance doors myself using a similar method.

I don't think you've missed anything. There is a lot of difference between Rockwool rolls and Rockwool slabs. It isn't possible to stuff RWA slabs into small areas as they are rigid. I fitted a lot of RWA6 slabs without wearing any protection and without any problems. https://www.ribaproductselector.com/Product.aspx?ci=6375&pr=Rockwool-ROCKWOOLInsulationSlabsRWA45RW3-RW4-RW5-RW6

Hi Robert, welcome to the forum. Friends of ours had a low energy Touchwood house built several years ago and are very happy with it. We designed and built our own house to PH standards using the PHPP. As others have said make sure you have the internal layout as you want it, as you will have to live with it.