Gone West

Being signed off wasn't a problem for them, it was the fact that it was unoccupied. When unoccupied the property needs to be checked once a week at least. Fortunately for me me the property is a few metres away from my bungalow and I'm in there everyday.

I no longer required site insurance and arranged a one year 'Unoccupied Buildings and Contents Insurance' policy with Sennocke at a much lower premium. Their telephone number is 01732742102.

Yes I have bought a Genvex Combi 185LS. This is a compact unit which includes a hot water tank, MHRV unit and ASHP which provides warm air heating and hot water with immersion backup. It is PHI certified. Genvex is part of the Nibe group and their products are very well constructed. http://www.genvex.dk/en/products/combinated/combi-185-bp/ https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=da&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sundthus.dk%2Fgenvex-combi-185-l-s%2F

Thanks Erwin. Hopefully it will be just a case of sliding it into position.

The price on the UK website is £8641.

I would like to thank Jeremy @JSHarris as I have now received the Genvex unit from the supplier, in Denmark, that he recommended a while back. The whole purchase went very smoothly with a ten day delivery time. The cost including VAT was over £3100 less than if bought from the UK supplier. Of course the VAT in Denmark is 25% so no doubt it will be interesting doing my VAT reclaim in the next few months. At 210Kg it was quite interesting moving it from the driveway to the back door for an oap and 8st partner. Once we got it there I asked a couple of friendly farm workers in the orchard who lifted it into the house for us. Now I just need to connect it up, that is after I've turfed the front garden!

Yes I've got VoIP in the new house via the WiMAX connection. Won't have a landline in there at all.

You need to consider orientation carefully and it's effects. As Jeremy @JSHarris found digging in could create an unexpected micro-climate which may have a large impact especially with a low energy house.

If it's possible to measure signal strength outside and inside the house wouldn't that be enough to see what effect the house construction was having?

+1 In my case their design was not the best but everything turned when they said it would. It's not the very best of quality but well built and strong.

Very true. That's one part of our build where we were lucky to get good plasterboarders and an excellent plasterer.

It's an interesting point where reception is good outside but poor inside. For instance I don't have any problem at all with mobile reception inside my new house. I can also use my cordless landline phone inside the new house from my bungalow next door. Perhaps we should create a list of new house, wall construction type, along with mobile reception. I could start it off with 50mm high density Rockwool and 350mm Icynene and good reception.

The problem with steel rusting under render is that the steel expands when it corrodes and the render will crack. On my last house someone had fitted a steel bracket in the mortar between bricks. The bracket had broken off and been pointed over and over the years it rusted and pushed the brick out around 1/4".

I bought several rolls from C&A Building Plastics with some polycarbonate sheets. It was very sticky, couldn't get it off once stuck down. It was a few years ago though.

Well done, stunning in every respect.

£25k for an integrated lift might be a bit high. Stiltz quote around £14k which includes all standard site preparation work and all standard installation costs. Don't know exactly what that means though.

It's not only the spacing but also the size of the flange. I have, 122mm flange, metal web joists spanning 5.9m at 400mm centres and there is no deflection at all.

Something has gone wrong there. Can't attribute that to me, it was NSS.

I've never 'lost' any tools from site, but I have gained some and hundreds of nails and screws.

A friend who build her own house used chains which were held in place with rocks over the soil pipe. They work just fine as long as it's not windy.

Yes I do. I have had a preliminary SAP and EPC done but I still waiting for my final airtightness result which should be next Tuesday, then I will have my final SAP and EPC.

My BCO accepted my PHPP results instead of an as designed SAP.

My preliminary SAP was 101 with 2.8Kw PV and airtightness of 0.6ACH. Apparently if I added a wind turbine it would go up to 104. My airtightness is less than 0.6ACH so I don't know if that will impact my final SAP result.

Hi Tom, welcome to the forum. If it's classed as an agricultural building is it possible to apply for Permitted Development Part Q?

Yes it's an Eclisse glass door kit. We bought several from Ironmongery Direct in a sale. Haven't found any problems yet.