Mikey_1980

The Polyx oil isn’t recommended for use on wood veneer doors as there is a small chance it could cause delaminating. We used the Osmo door oil, applied with a cloth, 3 coats on each of our 22 doors, it took a while but the finish looks great, and just as good as our kitchen worktops which were sprayed.

We used ESP for our MBC TF build, I agree that they did try and push us to the larger size ASHP for our house but after talking to them over the course of a few months they realised it wouldn’t be required. We have a Varimax ASHP, Ecocent for DHW and their MVHR, all installed and designed by them and can’t fault any of it. They have been great from beginning to end, and unless things have changed would have no issues recommending them for anyone to use. In hindsight we probably should have installed a fan coil raditaor or something upstairs we have one very large master bedroom upstairs with 4 large velux’s and a 3 meter high glazed gable and it can get a bit cooler in the depths of winter, but 5 minutes with a 1.5kw fan heater it is fine. Although we only got round to putting up the curtains in the summer and I expect that will have a big impact as it’s not cold in the morning when you have slept in there. We applied for RHI after the ESP install we currently get around £400 a year and our heating bills all electric for a 300 m2 house is around £900 a year. We have no solar either.

The House Plan.pdf is what our architect came up with (Sketch) for the layout based on the shape that we had to work to and for comparison the final drawings show we completely redesigned the internal layout.

A traditional locksmith can’t help with the Winkhuas locks that come fitted on Internorm doors, I tried.

Just thought I would post this idea, for those buying foreign made doors think about buying a spare set of locks for the doors if they aren't something readily available in the UK. Internorm use 115mm euro cylinders which can take up to 1-3 weeks to get hold of and the existing locks can't be re-keyed by a locksmith. If you ever get broken into and find a spare set of keys has been stolen and you want to replace your locks quickly in case they decide to come back then its very difficult to sort it out quickly. Unfortunately I am speaking from experience, and the cost of around £60 per additional lock is probably worth the piece of mind should the worst happen.

I lined our plant room wall with 25mm Exterior Ply, with loads of additional of additional studs, painted the ply with fireproof paint as I had a free tin that was sent in error when I ordered paint for our steels, this was then covered with Plasterboard and skimmed. It was overkill, not sure why I went so over the top, probably becuase there was little else for me to get on with at the time as we had trades in but felt I wanted to be doing something.

+1 for Inteligent Insurance, it's who we have used for our Clad MBC house.

Our ASHP is right outside our Playroom window, by the main hallway to our house and you can't hear it running when in the room or hallway with the windows shut.

I painted the steels in our house myself, I think it was rawlins paints I used for the paint, I worked out the M2 coverage required, painted it and then applied to the MFR for the certificate to show that we had used the recomended amount and our BCO was fine with it. They pointed out which bits needed to be painted, and which didn't, I ended up doing alot more than what was required, just for piece of mind. The paint is thick, and it does take alot longer to apply, and to get a good finish if it is going to be on display in any places.

Yep another unhappy customer here, the fitters we had from the company were fantastic I can't fault them. They went above and beyond all the time. One day being given the wrong part to fix a broken unsecured door, not being able to do it and then finding the right part on a door that was being returned when they got back to yard stripping it down and returning back to us at 7pm on a Friday on their own time just to help try and get all the issues resolved. But the customer service was shocking, only actually getting notice taken when I contacted the CEO of the window company, making them aware of the failings of their partner. Things were resolved amicably in the end and the person handling our project no longer works there because of other complaints but the whole window process was a nightmare. The first window supplier who we worked with for 6 months on design decided to tell us when we were about to place the order they wouldn't warranty what we were doing, cue a mad scramble and additional costs to pack 6 months worth of design and measuring into 2 weeks to avoid a massive delay.

We have the range master 110cm Induction Nexus and it is great for cooking with, we have always had dual fuel but I now much prefer cooking with Induction hob. Roasts/Cakes etc turn out great. we brought it through Quidco, got £150 cashback and a free set of high quality pans from the vendor who were alos the cheapest. The only issue we had was we had a deliery slot of 6-8pm, and they hadn't shown by 8 we couldn't contact them to find out where they were, then a lorry turned up at 10:30pm with our cooker, they had been doing deliveries around Wimbledon this time last year so got majorly delayed.

We got similar if not the same doors from Benchmarx, I think we ended up paying less then £50 a door, so it might be worth giving them a try. Heres the link to them http://www.benchmarxkitchens.co.uk/Suffolk-Oak-(1981-mm-High-Door)/p/480453

The curtains went up today, we have been nervous about how they would look but are really please

I would say its entirely possible if you can get a plot in the right location at the right price, our build is within a 15 minute walk of a directline trainnto london waterloo which takes 55 minutes and 4 stops to get there. Our total build cost including the plot was around £850k, ours is around 300 m2 and we didn't really skimp on anything quality wise we still have lots of painting and tiling left to do but have been living it happily for the past 9 months. Our house is a complicated shape with lots of glazing which ultimately addedd alot to the cost of roofing, plastering and glazing etc.

Our plumber specced a hot return in our house as it is a mixture of bungalow and 2 storeys the pipe runs are long, and I am really glad he did. We have it on a 7 day timer so weekdays its on for an hour in the morning and two hours in the evening, with an extra run on the weekdays around lunchtime, the pipes are well insulated so it means we always have hot water when the taps are turned on. I am not sure if this is correct or not, but if you have a hot water return it has to be done in Copper, you can't use plastic. Originally our house was going to be done in Hep20 or similar but the plumber ended up doing everything in copper because our local plumbers merchant, which is absolutely excellent for advice, advised the reg's stated it needed to be done in copper.

@TriassicIts working really well for us, I know whenever someone or something big is in drive, or approaching from the field, and each sensor or door bell can be set with a different tone so you know exactly where something is. And we don't have any issues with range with our set up, the further sensor is 40 metres away.

@jack no they don't have a website listing that they have for sale I'm afraid, you could give them a call though. https://www.johnlewis.com/our-shops/swindon-outlet

Just coming back to the branded appliances question, we have brought lots of stuff from the John Lewis Clearance Outlet. They have one in Swindon (Not far from the build centre) and I expect they must have others across the UK. They sell customer returns/cosemetically damaged stuff there, stock changes daily but they have all white goods/cookers/hobs/ranges etc. We picked up an AEG Steam washing machine for £300, I think online it was £799, and it the only thing wrong was a small plastic flap that hid the filter was missing which I brought for £20. It came with the fulll 5 year warranty etc. We have also brought Dryers, etc furnitire, cookware from there.

we are installing silent gliss super narrow curtain track, we didn't make allowance for a recess but it allows room for our windows/tilt turn doors to open. They also do a recessed option which they can bend for you if required. I just googled it and found this for a pricing idea. http://www.thecurtainpoleandtrackcompany.com/silent-gliss-6289

We have had some roman blinds made up for a couple of the windows, and some curtains on poles which should be installed in a couple of weeks, so will post a picture. The most fun has been trying to come up with a solution for our massive bedroom glazed gable, we'll see what that looks like in a couple of weeks.

We have Crosswater throught the 4 bathrooms in our house, the quality excellent and the aftersales too, when they were comissioned there was an issue with one of the shower valves and a replacement was couriered for next day delivery by crosswater. All ours came from our local bathroom supplier, they were really helpful in the design and recomending everything for us in the numerouse visits that we made there over the 12 month we visited, and they knew that are budgets were tight so they spent a day trawling through the web to.match the best internet prices they could find on thier quote to us. Over all we spent around £12k on kitting out 4 bathrooms and 1 cloakroom, with a mixture of Imperial, Merlyn, Crosswater, Heritage and Simpsons stuff. Theres a lot to be said for using local over internet, they stored it all for us and delivered it as required so there was nothing expensive sitting onsite for long to be stolen, and we lost a 2 shower drains somehow which I just popped to get replacements which they let me have free of charge.

@jack That was my experience of them as well. I met them at the Swindon Build Centre event, the people there seemed very knowledgeable so I sent off exactly what I wanted, and got something completely different back, I went back to them 3 times with exactly what I wanted and they just didn't respond.

I looked into this for our house but in the end it was cost/benefit prohibitive. I just put two wired network points in everyone room and whole house wireless with a 10 GB Ethernet Switch controlling everything (It was free). Any DVD's I buy you get a free digital download on Amazon so can be easily viewed on a smart TV along with Netflix/I Player/Sky now, they all have built in browsers and along with my phone/tablet I can view our IP CCTV from Anywhere, and at present we have BT TV so IP TV with an extra subscription so can watch Sky channels in our two main rooms, however SKY are launching there IPTV service this year with no dish required so will probably switch to that and use that in more rooms as our kids get older.

You could get a mini washing maching like the below if it is only going to be used for small loads or infrequently. Could easily be stored away in cupboard or Wardrobe. https://www.amazon.co.uk/PORTABLE-WASHING-MACHINE-CARAVAN-MOTORHOMES/dp/B01CR7EQTO/ref=pd_lpo_265_tr_t_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=BQMGXPV6495F7GRGKDKE

Here a pic of our stove