Mikey_1980

We have the Velux Passive house windows in our build, they are excellent quality and the Integra Touchscreen control is a brilliant bit of kit to use with them, we have a total of 7 in our build, and as the fact they are solar powered makes installation easy.

No the living roof went to an Asbestos landfill site somewhere in Wales!

The whirly gig is level its the house that out. That was from panic stations last night when we found out they were coming to collect the caravan this morning and there was 25 tonne of railway balast and other things dumped in front of it. I had to barrow by hand all night and this morning to get it out of the way.

Thank you, yes it was getting a bit cramped with a 3 and 5 year old, although when the guy picked up our caravan today he said he once dropped one off to a couple when the lady was 6 months pregnant and the child was 3 when he went back to collect it.

Just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone from Ebuild and Here, the carpets went down yesterday and we spent the first night (on camp beds) in the house last night. The furniture and cooker still needs to be delivered but the caravan went this morning so we are officially living in the new house, there is still some finishing off to do mainly painting internally and the landscaping externally which starts Monday mow the caravan has gone but the end is in sight, 12 months of planning and 7 months of building are nearly at end but it wouldn't if been possible without eveyone help advise and guidance, a special mention to Jeremy as well for taking the time to show us around and talk to us at length about his project and giving us the confidence to become self builders. Here is what it presently looks like and what it looked like at start.

We have two very large glazed openings and these were open to the elements for 6 weeks, and there was a lot of rain and frosts.

We had that decision to make with our build as we missed out original August start due to sales issues, weren't ready to start until Decemeber and it was a case of do we hold off until March when the weather maybe be better or start ASAP, we but the bullit and the MBC slab went down the week before Christmas and the Frame on the 18th Jan, we had no problems with the Weather other than some heavy rain but as there is no insulation in the frame and plenty of air can get to it until it is weather tight than there is little risk of Damage.

Heres a photo, I haven't cleaned it yet though.

We have a polished concrete floor on our passive slab from designs in resin, and it looks great, when I have given it a clean I will post a picture, its approximately 4-5mm thick is troweled on in layers and then polished and sealed and then waxed. It is concrete based so hard wearing it has been down for 8 weeks while people have been doing internal works and aren't very careful but there is no damage sustained.

Yes we had to submite a demolition notice to Building control which was approved in a couple of days and Notify the Firebrigade. I thought it was going to be more difficult than it was as we were removing over 400m2 of Asbestos roofing!

So after the fun the fun of building comes the cleaning, for those of you that have finished already did you just clean it yourselves or has anyone hired in one of these builders cleaning companies and are they worth the money?

So one week in and it is working really well, the house is maintaining a constant temp or 21/22 degrees, we have been running the HW to drain the tank and re heat and are seeing now temperature shifts, the noise from the unit is no existent as well, so definitely a good options for the summer months we will have to see what the winter brings, but so far running the water at 52 degreess seems to work really well. Next week will be the test when we move in.

It's from Earth Save, 50 litres and I think about £190 on their website but they are doing a full install for us so no real idea of the individual cost.

This is what our plant room looms like at present.

Thanks Martin, they switched on all the units today (ASHP, MVHR and the Ecocent) with our electrician today and everything worked fine they are back over the course of the next week to clean the UFH loops and refill with water/glycol, adjust the flow rates on the MVHR and hopefully we will be good to go. We are hoping to be in by 2nd July.

That's crazy we have had no issues with the local BCO from the council nor the surveyors from LABC providing our warranty, who is your local BCO is it West Berks as there another MBC house in Cheivley that MBC built last year.

Some of you may remember my other thread from the old site, we have opted for the ecocent maxi for our DHW needs, well today was the day that they started turning everything on, and I waited for the drop in temperature and the realisation that we had made the wrong decision but I am pleased to say so far it all seems to be working well, I asked when he was going to switch it on as I had been out but he pointed out it was already running, the noise was non existent and the two temperarure sensors that I had never changed from the 20 degrees C that the house is at at present. There is no heating in the house the ASHP and MVHR are all being done over the next week but so far so good as all the comments made be worry about the ecocent.

We have the HWAM electronically controlled stove in our MBC build, we have lit it a couple of times and seems to work well, I am not sure if they would fit with the traditional design requirement though.

I believe there was a thread on the Geothermal MVHR on the old site and a house that had major issues with Mold and Fungus spores causing health issues. It was probably a case of a bad install or the system not being maintained correctly by the users being heavily publicised but it stopped me from looking at potentially someting that could have been a good idea.

This stopped the water ingress into our old garage. http://www.weatherstop.co.uk/

One thing I am now concerned about after looking is can the cable run straight from the pole and in through a duct, I have seen load of stuff online now about external terminations and coming through a wall directly opposite, in my last house it came straight in through the loft and a master socket located up there, in the new house I have laid a duct with a drawstring into the hallway and there is no external wall any where near!

Completely agree Openreach have been a nightmare to try and have any conversations with, there was a thread on the ild site about submitting a questionnaire response to registeter your site I did all that and chased constantly for 3 months to try and speak to someone but zero help, in the end I gave up as there were more pressing issues, as we are near the end of the build I phoned BT, gave them the new address and said it won't be on any systems, I got the computer says no response but then he passed me over to his team leader and BT couldn't have been more helpful they doctored the systems to get me an install, openreach were out within 7 days to discuss the options and are coming back this week to either run it in a duct under the road if Highways say yes or go to the pole currently next to the house down the pole and in through the ducts that I have laid.

I think it is luck of the draw who you get the engineer that cane out to us said if a duct appeared on his next visit he would have no issues pulling the cable through it.

I am in the process of sorting it myself as he said the planning for anything like that can take 4-6 months or longer and we can't wait that long, so it will either be coming under the road in a duct or straight across to the electric pole and then in through a duct depending if we get Highways clearance for the trenchless moling this week.

If you haven't got any other services coming in under the road but want BT to come in that way you could go fot Trenchless moling, the open reach engineer will be more than happy to drop his cable through the duct if he was able to find one easily enough, it will cost around £7-800