Dave Jones

the way that is detailed will fail building regs, the roof insulation needs to be brought down over the internal wall insulation to make a continues barrier. your wall plate is now a massive cold bridge. I wouldn't have bothered with PIR and instead stuffed as much rockwool into the eaves (after fitting the eaves ventilation trays). You will get a better U value for much less money and its easier to do. Warm roofs have their place where the room has to be habitable but are expensive and labour intensive to get right with correct vapour barriers etc.

and looks crap on a pitched roof. Not acceptable for a lot of builds in conservation areas.

that U value fails building regs need more insulation.

edpm is not hard to do but there is a skill to do it so it looks good (no creases, wrinkles, pigs ear corners done properly etc). Unless you want to use the roof as a balcony dont bother with a top deck and use glass fibre faced insulation which you can bond directly onto (it will take foot traffic to install). Also rubber is bloody heavy and you will need another pair of hands. An alternative edpm solution that is much easier to install on your own is resitrix. It comes in rolls and goes down exactly the same way but is easier to handle and depending on the roof size/shape you get much less waste. The main moneysaving job we all can do as long as you can do math and are reasonably fit is is the groundworks/drainage/footings. A man in a digger is peanuts to hire and he will have a laser. He also probably has a couple mates who would come for the day to help concrete.

yup total madness. the electricity you are being robbed for will be the tip of the iceberg.

slide a couple scaff planks under the b and b to sit the acro's on. will be fine.

if the acro are sitting over the wall the b and b is bearing on then no problem, if the acro is on the span take up some blocks from he b and b and let the acro sit on the floor underneath.

get a grinder and cut it out, looks totally pointless.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/mcalpine-push-fit-drain-blanking-cap-black-110mm/4331v Weird they dont fit for you, push a short length of 110 pipe into the socket then stop that.

you appear to have a tree in the hall ?

architect cert more expensive, 10 year more hassle.

from my experience of both over many self builds, I now never bother with either. When it comes to sell and if no warranty is a deal breaker for the buyer i take out an indemnity policy. Last one was £750

ahh its a outline only plot. You could still comment but the council would likely enforce against you.

putting the insulation under the conc was a mistake. you should have put it on top of it and made it 300mm EPS but you are where you are. get the pipes stapled to the conc somehow (trays ?) and screed over.

Dig a single wall in have it inspected. or roll the dice on a planning refusal once it expires, £4k will seem a pittance then.

25% is too low to be realistic.

megastick. make sure the timber your fitting in the web is a tight (hammer it in tight) fit and plenty of megastick.

very intersting, we are in the process of planning our own mvhr and your post has answered many questions. We are looking at the Zehnder Q350, UV and hepa filtration with Comfopost CW6 air chiller for ASHP cold feed in the summer. Did you look at alternatives before choosing the titon unit ? Any pro's cons ?

Bit worrying they don't even know the correct term for passivhaus retro-fit, its Enerphit and has a complete spec and phpp sheet. Ask them to show you a completed one they have already done and visit a property they have converted.

yup EPS all the way!

Conor is correct regarding both items, in my area building control are only insured for foundations unto 1.5m deep. Deeper than this requires another firms indemnity policy to cover it, e.g. Structural Engineer.

With the new changes making it very difficult to obtain an A rating at a reasonable cost, has anyone come across a worksheet to work out what is possible ? The ability to gameplan improvements against benefits v costs to see best bang for the spend. A lot of this will be catching the unaware out. For example the person constructing the house is responsible for providing photographic evidence at all stages of important SAP features. Failure to do so could result in an even lower EPC rating. Would mean self builders would need to be on site a lot more to document these before they are covered over, unless you want to rely/pay the builder etc. Large bag of worms.

wrong. 100mm celotex is WORSE than 300mm EPS. the numbers for a 10mx10m room 100mm celotex = 0.177 300mm EPS = 0.116

you want to wrap the full perimiter of the door with 100mm celotex type insulation and then fit the majority of the door into this insulated frame.

you can hire ground protections mats (steel cored). dont bother with anything else a fully loaded artic will rip them to bits. cheapest by far is stoning up with recycled and compacted hardcore.