RandAbuild

We had two manifolds in our build. Copper supply to the manifold, then single continuous plastic to each appliance or radiator.

This is my Kallax IKEA hack. It's a 4x1 Kallax shelf, cut down to 3x1 (more difficult than it sounds), and then 90mm cut off the back to make it fit in the void in our sloping roof. Works very well - 5 years daily use and it's still as fresh as a daisy. The small round thing on the left hand side is not a camera (!) but a light sensor for our LED floor flood light. For night time visits...

Not quite the same issue but we have 2 Velux Integra Solar-powered 3G GGL MK06 windows on our landing. They were put in during our build in 2017. One of the batteries has just packed up. Although some fitters can replace just the battery, I decided to change the entire 'kitset' comprising, battery, motor, solar panel and rain monitor - at £214 a pop. I've decided to add a solar blind at the same time. I was hoping they would last longer than they have. I'm regretting not putting in a 240v power supply as that would have been less prone to problems. The other issue we had was finding a contractor (I'm too old now to shimmy up ladders...). I called/emailed 8 firms from the Velux certified fitter list. Only 2 replied. One said they weren't quoting for new work, and the other wanted 2k to do the lot! Going to get the original roofer back to do it. Great windows but not cheap to keep them going!

Note how most NIMBYs are adequately housed. Trying to stop those who aren't.

After nearly 5 years, we've never had any condensation on the inside of our triple glazed windows, anywhere. I think this is entirely down to the MVHR

I think you are right about maximising cross-flow and mixing. It's important to leave a 10-15mm gap under doors to allow this. I attach plans of our self-install. You'll see some of the pipework is doubled up on longer runs or those where you want higher flow. It's good you are inside the insulation envelope but how good is your airtightness? the better it is, the better the MVHR will work.

Haven't tried a lasagne (or a hunters chicken - sounds delicious) yet but I can't see why it wouldn't work. It does have other settings beyond air frying but the important thing with gloopy dishes would be to put them in a container in just the same would you would a conventional oven. It does limit the size of dish but one thing that impressed me was how evenly it cooked and in some ways it's like having a non-fierce grill inside an oven. Needs more experimenting...

Hi Terry - just picked this up - an interesting read! (as usual) I've been monitoring our heating since the prices went up. As you know, we have a conventional gas system boiler rated at 18kW. The heat loss calcs undertaken during the build showed we needed 10kWh for DHW and around 5.7kWh for total heating losses. 15% overhead was allowed in the boiler sizing, giving 18kW. Our house isn't as well insulated as yours - our energy rating is at the top of B at 89 (we could only get into A with by adding some renewables, or ironically going all electric). We also have 2 large (7.5m2 and 8.3m2) triple glazed doors and windows, with a U value of 0.88 W/m2K and another 24m2 other doors, but overall I think an 18kW boiler is pretty good for a 224m2 house. We have GF rooms with UFH set at slightly different temperatures, between 21 and 23 deg. Upstairs we only heat the bedrooms we use regularly (2) and one bathroom. The landing gets borrowed heat from the UFH. Our daily gas consumption for both heating and DHW is typically around 80-100kWh during this cold spell, when outside temperatures have been below zero. So I think your 28 + 17.5kWh is excellent for a 3 storey house, where there must be some distribution losses to get the heat to where its needed. The big difference in terms of cost of course is gas is 'only' 10.24p/kWh while your electricity is over 3x as much at 38p/kWh. We are spending around £8-10 a day during this cold spell, purely because of the difference in energy source. Interesting to hear about your daughter's 1990s house. Our GF slab takes over a day to noticably cool down. The GF rooms only lose a couple of degrees overnight after the heating has gone off at 10.30. The upstairs rooms lose more as we are mostly in the roof. I'm going to experiment to see if it's worth keeping the boiler running 24/7 to do as you are doing - maintaining everything at a constant temperature.

We bought a Ninja (single drawer) 3 months ago and it's fantastic. Cooks almost anything you would put in the oven. Warms up in 3 minutes (against 10 for our main oven), 1500 watts against 3000 and cooks in less than half the time. Easy to clean. Good for 2 people - would struggle to feed more. We use very little oil, so it's not really a fryer. It's reheats too, but a good tip is to protect the top of quiches or crumbles as the fan-driven hot air can burn if you're not careful

Not sure about innovative features. We have 3 Siemens ovens - one conventional fan, a steam oven and a microwave. They all have slightly different menu structures - changing the time as the clocks change or after a power cut is laborious, as they all do it slightly differntly (one involves scrolling through the time by the minute!). One our our daughters refurbed her kitchen and bought an oven and a microwave - both Bosch. The clocks on these are always synchronised - possibly OTA?

We're in exactly the same place as you. We were on AVRO's Simple & Super12M fixed price deal until April 2022. Electricity 14.99p kWh and Gas 2.546p. Seems unreal rates now and I was sure they couldn't make it viable. We were paying £95 a month for G&E, now likely to go up to £140/month. As far as Octopus's tarrifs are concerned, this is what I've discovered: Occupier Flexible Octopus September 2021 v1 Eco 7 Electricity Day unit rate: 20.39 p/kWh Night unit rate: 12.67 p/kWh Standing charge: 23.85 p/day Electricity Unit rate: 18.48 p/kWh Standing charge: 23.76 p/day Gas Unit rate: 3.24 p/kWh Standing charge: 23.85 p/day Occupier Flexible Octopus October 2021 v2 Eco 7 Electricity Day unit rate: 21.76 p/kWh Night unit rate: 15.02 p/kWh Standing charge: 23.85 p/day Electricity Unit rate: 20.12 p/kWh Standing charge: 23.76 p/day Gas Unit rate: 3.94 p/kWh Standing charge: 26.11 p/day

Could try CT1 https://www.toolstation.com/ct1-sealant-adhesive/p96154?store=N3&utm_source=googleshopping&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=googleshoppingfeed&mkwid=s_dc&pcrid=515847200315&pkw=&pmt=&gclid=CjwKCAjw-ZCKBhBkEiwAM4qfF_nGOZ7ALi4-9s-HcRVftsvGR_gcGTxmsczdEjoBAd4wIUtzS2oXThoCSKYQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

We made the mistake of concentrating on insulating for winter rather than summer. Having a SSE facing rear has contributed to high levels of solar gain in the summer months. Our large hall and landing window is non-opening and can easily raise the inside temperature to 32deg. We have now finished installing an electric pergola for the kitchen and electric solar blind for the hall. These both operate from the Somfi app and coupled with the Velux have made things much more controllable.

Interesting the rates you are paying are quite a bit higher than ours. A good reason to stick with them. Sorry, it's not the App I was using, it is their website portal. Logged in OK but when I try to add readings it says ‘An unexpected error has occurred’. Been like that from day 1. Tried a different browser - same. After numerous emails, it was escalated to their Development Team over 2 weeks ago - heard nothing since.

We were with Bulb but switched before the last price increase, which would have added 13% to the price we were paying. We moved to AVRO Energy and their Simple and Super12M 12 months fixed tariff: Electricity Standing Charge - 19.95p per day Unit Rate - 14.989p/kWh Gas Standing Charge - 19.95p per day Unit Rate - 2.546p/kWh We had a smart meter fitted during our build, but its a SMETS1 version and hasn't worked at all. On the whole, Bulb were pretty good. AVRO are turning out to be hopeless. I couldn't record the first meter reading on their App as it wasn't working, so did it by email. Despite numerous calls and emails, they just don't respond. I spend 15 minutes on their Emergency only helpline (anything else has to be by email or looking online). The App still doesn't work, so I've put them on notice I won't be sending any further readings until they sort it out.

I have to confess we went with a Siematic kitchen. Even though it cost maybe a 1/3 more than a good quality UK supplied one, you can see the difference. The most obvious ones are the cupboards have a noise seal along the entire perimeter of the carcass, the shelf supports are very robust (I think I could probably stand on them) and the doors have fittings to take a range of accessories (which are eye-wateringly expensive). Having a good fitter also helped. We didn't buy it to make the house easier to sell though. 3 years on, it still looks like new, despite the best efforts of our grandson. ☺️

Completely agree. The planners should hang their heads in shame. The condition should have been appealed, but I suspect the GD timetable put them off doing this. Just another example of a profession that's comepletely lost the plot (no pun intended). If it had been a 200 year-old barn with historical interest, it may have justified "leaving the structure standing", but a 35 year old agricultural building? PAH! Despite this, a fantastic outcome and one they should be immensely proud of.

Here's ours:

Agree it was a remarkable achievement by a determined and very sweet couple. I hope they have a long and happy life together. I still cannot see why they weren't allowed to demolish and rebuild, using as much of the original materials as possible. Would have made underpinning unnecessary, the build safer and the structure more stable. And saved them a big pot of money. The end result would have looked exactly the same. Some obstacles seem so counter-productive and just plain stupid.

Check the inlet pipe into the Vent Axia from the outside vent is very well insulated. We have the same model and I hadn't insulated the plastic spigot into the unit well enough. Warm air in the house was condensing on this small area and created a lot of water over a few cold days.

One of the problems with building your own house Ian is that self-builders work to such fine tolerances... Our washing machine slot is the same - although we have a bit more than 1mm. What I did was tie some cord around the 2 back legs which hide under the machine until I need to get it out. This gives a bit more leverage. But I accept it will still be tricky with only 6 consenting fingers.

That image you've posted has nothing to do with a new boiler. If the installer is getting heavy, look them up in the Gas Safe Register. If they're not registered, that tells you everything; if they are, you can report his unwillingness to come up with any documentation to the Register and leave it with them.

Having had laminate, granite and quartz kitchens, I would go with quartz every time. Laminate is cheap, cheerful and durable, but you can't have underhung sinks (unless it's solid laminate, which might be worth looking into. The edges can also be difficilt to deal with if you have curves. Granite looks fantastic, but it does need regular cleaning to show its best and it is prone to chipping around sinks etc. Quartz is pretty bulletproof; it's impervious, hard wearing and easy to clean (no regular buffing up - depending on what colour you have...)

You need to provide details of the door and window positions

Here's our guy spraying a mist coat in the bedroom. Byt the time the top coat went on, it was like a white-out - I couldn't focus my eyes becuase there was nothing to focus on.