Gone West

@Vijay It's a tough lesson I learnt early on in my build. It doesn't matter whether it's C16, C24, regularised or sawn, it's all crap. The amount I sent back was incredible. Sometimes they didn't even bother to collect it. If I had to use cut timber then I didn't buy it until the day it was going to be used and then fitted it straight away. Engineered timber is so much better.

We bought an Ego self propelled lawnmower, strimmer and hedgecutter recently. The lawnmower came with a 5Ah battery which I use in the others. No complaints yet and charges quite quickly. May consider getting a 2Ah battery for the hedgecutter as I'm getting weak in my old age or maybe eat some more spinach.

When I was considering a ground coupled heat exchanger all the ducting was anti-bacterial and the coating was a form of silver.

The overall U value is 0.10

We did most of the build ourselves. I did the circuit design, first and second fix electrics and had it checked at each stage and finally signed off by a friend of my son in law. I also did all the design and first and second fix plumbing although we don't have central heating. I also designed and did all the fixing for the MVHR system.

We have build to better than PH standards, U = 0.09 air tightness = 0.47 and don't have UFH and heat the house to 23C with towel rails as the main source of heating. If you are happy with 20C or less then it would be easy to heat without UFH depending on where you are in the country. There might be a problem convincing a buyer if you wish to sell the house though. We wouldn't be happy with a cool house.

We have a single storey gable end on our sitting room which is just over 4m high. We decided to have it 3/4 glazed to have it look a little different to the normal fully glazed gable. It also reduces heat loss as the corner of the gable faces North. The biggest installation consideration is the weight of the glazing which in our case was 6mm triple units. The installers broke one of the units carrying it from the front to the back of the house. IIRC it weighed 150kg and was unsupported.

I've been using rainfall data from my local Met. station to compare groundwater levels and rainfall for the last few years. https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/pub/data/weather/uk/climate/stationdata/manstondata.txt

Using an old type onion cesspit would be better than a septic tank because septic tanks usually have baffles or separators built into them which would make using them as a water storage tank more difficult. The old type ceespits were just a simple tank which had to be emptied when full as there is no outflow, as there is with a septic tank.

In my previous Victorian farmworkers cottage we had the original rainwater harvesting system which the early occupants used as their water supply. There a bit more about it in an earlier thread.

@Balraj Appadu Welcome to the forum and good luck with your project. Touchwood Homes will do everything from groundworks up. Some friends of ours used them nine years ago and have been very happy with the build. https://www.touchwoodhomes.co.uk/build-method/ https://www.touchwoodhomes.co.uk/foundation-systems/

My BCO insisted that all external softwood be treated, even behind cedar cladding.

That's right, although some friends who built a self build also renovated an old outbuilding on the site and had 100mm Icynene sprayed onto the inside of the walls as IWI and draughtproofing. The only problem was it was done in the winter and apparently Icynene doesn't stick that well to cold surfaces and it pulled back slightly in places which had to be rectified but other than that it worked well. It was done about nine years ago and the building used as a artists studio.

We used 350mm Icynene to insulate our house (PH) and got an airtightness of 0.47ACH without any membranes or tapes. According to the manufacturers 100mm is supposed to be enough for good airtightness.

I see, I hadn't appreciated the basement and retaining walls aspect.

That's quite surprising. What types of EPS are you talking about.

I never said it was.

Watch this weeks Building the Dream programme which is about an ICF build where as usual they run out of money.

In your situation I would use gas with skirting radiators. UFH only works well with a very well insulated floor and even then is less efficient than radiators. There is also the potential problem of finding repair/maintenance companies for ASHP. ASHP supply and fit companies seem to spring up and then disappear but finding a service company for gas appliances is easy.

I used Sennocke Insurance and got an unoccupied buildings policy.

We used Lindab steel guttering which has been up for eight years and no problems at all. Doesn't creak like plastic. Lindab has a different way of fitting downpipes to plastic and all cuts have to be done by hand.

Downstairs is kept at 23C and upstairs is usually 22C. Wendy would be quite happy if it was 25C all the time but we came to a compromise.

We had a planning condition that said the first 6m of our drive had to be 'properly consolidated material, not loose gravel'. We went for resin bound on permeable tarmac near the road and then self binding gravel. They just didn't want loose material being pulled onto the road. Complete joke here because the lane is covered in muck off the fields all winter.

If our bedroom ever dropped below 21C I'd be toast.

We have 3g tilt and turn windows and french doors and most of the time they're open on tilt only. As others have said easy to clean upstairs. Only disadvantage we found was curtains in dormers.