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Wow! How did you manage that? I think we're going to have 2-4 weeks gap (not confirmed yet), although I always did plan to get the roof on before the windows went in.

They certainly put in the hours! They were on site early this morning and have just clocked off now - despite working through the p!$$ing rain all day! At least we now have a swimming pool we hadn't planned for

For some reason I'm struggling to get Alex's videos to play properly, either through this site or directly on youtube. Is this just me or does anyone else have this problem?

Apparently there are a few more guys turning up today and Joe is popping down for a visit too. I think the aim now is to get the concrete poured on Monday/Tuesday now, whereas originally it was Friday(-ish). I wasn't aware I had an MBC project manager... Just looking at laser measures on Amazon Prime at the moment!

Thanks @TerryE. Did you check all those dimensions yourself? I haven't seen the slab drawings (with diagonals etc) but might just get a peek tomorrow. I'll also phone the office and see what the plan is regarding resource on-site, so thanks for the advice. In terms of whether everything is done 'properly' I think this is where I'm a bit unsure. I've hired in a well-recommended and experienced company to do the works so there has to be an element of trust that they know what they're doing. In addition, I have no experience! That does beg the question of who to blame if things go wrong though

I'll be honest, that all did cross my mind too when I knew the new factory was opening. However, I treat as I find and I've no reason to expect anything other than what I've seen on other builds so far. I'm sure there will be a glowing report on my blog in the coming weeks

@TerryE - Sorry, I didn't understand much of what you said What's a cassette? VCL? Panel vent? Where are you getting your info from regarding the evolving design? I'm very much learning as I go along and so far they are just fitting the EPS. One problem is that there is only Tom on site plus a young chap on his second site! I'm not sure if this will affect the quality of the install or just the timescale, but it's not what I was expecting tbh.

MBC are on-site! https://selfbuildnoviceblog.wordpress.com A bit of a potential cock-up along the way but hopefully all sorted

The OR guy is great and is doing his best to try and help. He's hoping to get back to me later this week with other options - I'm not holding my breath but I don't have too many choices at the moment. As an aside, we're having the electric connected at the moment. I was told I had to stump up just short of £1k for 3 days of traffic management for a trench on the pavement, 8m long on our side of the road. I popped down this evening and basically there is a guy in a van watching the traffic and if one side gets too busy he switches from auto mode into manual until he can clear it. It's not that busy a road! Anyway, they dug the trench yesterday and put in the duct. Today they filled the trench in. Tomorrow they connect to the pole. 3 days!!!!!!!! I've got to go through all this with the water, gas and OR. The neighbours are going to love us

Do you know if contestable items also apply to Openreach? I've had a £6k+ quote for them to lay a duct 9m across the road and they say that a lot of this is down to traffic management! I got a moving quote (almost £7k!) but I know a chap who has his own TM company so would use him if I could. Openreach aren't exactly helping me find the answers...

I'm getting a design done by EcoLED and should have it later this week. In reality, there is a lot more to it than just where to place lights but whether the cost is justifiable depends on whether you value good design or not. Give Guy a call and have a chat with him

So, here's my thinking so far. Ducting to/from the house is through the MBC slab electric (meter cabinet is by the plot boundary) 2 x 110mm duct from cabinet to plant room (feed and return) 63mm duct from cabinet to garage 63mm duct from cabinet (spare) ???mm from house to garden for lighting and power ???mm to the kitchen island (25mm rigid polyduct?) water 63mm duct from main to house ???mm from ??? to garden - not sure where to route this from. Should it come from the house or can it be teed off before the feed enters the house? ???mm from ??? to garage - not sure where to route this from. Should it come from the house or can it be teed off before the feed enters the house? BT duct 54 to plant room want to also route ethernet from house to garage, but not sure how best to do this without another duct. Are there tee pieces for duct 54? Misc duct ??? for coax cable from aerial at bottom of garden Anyone care to fill in the blanks and suggest areas I've overlooked?

Holy thread resurrection, Batman! Would you not put ducting from the house and through the slab and then feed the pipe through this?

Thanks Hugh - that would be very much appreciated

Would anyone be so kind as to post up a photo showing their MVHR installation? I'm trying to visualise how much space I'll need to allow for the unit, distribution boxes and ducting so that I know how much space I have left over for everything else. Thanks in advance

That's true of most of the good ones. They spend a few hours putting a design together (maybe they're they best kitchen designer in the world) and then you go and hawk it around to get the best price. Our guy was exactly the same (and part of the reason he doesn't bother with most of the high street names) but he has a superb eye for detail. His value add is that he's helping us design the whole space, not just the layout of a few cupboards. He's even helping us design the one-off staircase we're going to have made for us Budget wise I know we are spending more than I wanted/thought but it's less than that and probably a similar size Take a look at https://www.facebook.com/thecheshirekitchencompany/ for inspiration

Thanks - that's certainly going to be on the list of options for how to address it

Ooh, first lot of groundworks finished! More info on the blog https://selfbuildnoviceblog.wordpress.com

What size ducting did you put this through? This document https://www.london.gov.uk/moderngov/documents/s33921/Appendix 1 - BT developers_guide.pdf seems to suggest it should be 90mm but 50mm seems more appropriate

Not a fan of satellite broadband unfortunately - it's well known for being laggy

cheers, unfortunately they're not in our area at the moment

Well, don't lose heart just yet. I'm enquiring about moling and hope to have a price early next week

Well, the latest instalment. Openreach Openreach have been great to deal with so far and have been as prompt as you could hope for with getting me set up. A quick recap... We have a telegraph pole almost directly opposite the plot - probably about 8-10m from the plot boundary They can't go direct from the pole to the house due to an electric cable that runs across the front boundary - there needs to be a minimum clearance which this option doesn't provide They thought they may be able to put a pole on our side of the road, go from the existing pole to the new one and then from there go underground to the house. It turns out that for one reason or another this would have to be a) really tall and b) 4m inside our garden! Even Openreach have knocked this idea on the head. So this leaves the final option Go underground from the pole to the house. This is my preferred option as I hate seeing cables strung around the place And yesterday we got the quote. Oh, how I laughed. Ready?.. Labour £6,417.31 +VAT Materials £70.67 + VAT Total £6,487.98 + VAT On top of that is 'traffic management' at about £1,000. This is to go underground, at most 10m, to the plot boundary. I'd love to see how they come up with the figure. In the words of Peter Kay, at least Dick Turpin had the common decency to wear a mask. So the big question is, am I '£7,500 interested' in having internet (not interested in a landline phone)? What other options are there? Apart from other suppliers working off the back of BT/Openreach there is only the Virgin Media route and they don't cover our address anyway. There's satellite and wireless broadband options but I don't know much about them - what I have read isn't particularly glowing. Hmmm.. what to do? Answers on a postcard

Wow - top job! Wish I had the capability to do that

Well done Hugh!!!