Andeh

You're already in the top 0.1% of air tight homes, spending £2,000 (and £2,000 of TF money for use elsewhere...) to enter the 0.01% of homes is not worth it IMO. Future sellers won't care, friends and family won't care and realistically you'd never notice the difference even if you really really tried on a really windy day. The second anyone opens a door you've undone several hours of airtightness anyway. Ours is at 2.7 (no sniggering at the back...) as a hugely volumetric bungalow with several sliders everywhere... And despite wibbling about it for years, and being obsessed with trying to seal everywhere that I could.... Its fine...

That is lovely!

Sorry to hear it OP, these houses can be such a massive emotional and physical heavylift.... But the shitshow will be temporary and the satisfaction and enjoyment is a lifetime. I promise you it is all worth it in the end, but you do need to smile and endure.

We did, is just stick 20mm PIR against the external wall, and ??mm at the bottom of the cavity and then back fill with concrete. That way you've mitigated the worst of the thermal bridging and have a strong support throughout. Wish that's what we'd have done, but I was away with work and due to 2.4 x 8m sliders they backfilled entirely with concrete due to worries about the weight and movement destabilising. It's held firm, but we do have a sizable thermal bridge now.

Natural movements between the two supports would be more of a concern then the raw bridging abilit I think. Slight cracking and debonding on one side could be an issue?

Great write up! On my to do list ia find a way of both buttons doing a full flush, and ensuring the full flush is indeed a FULL one. Young kids means they only press the button once/lightly/at random, and the waste never fully goes.

It's coming together well. Don't forget internal lights and cabling for it. Maybe an armoured cable up and over for vehicle charging point in future? When we built our place we did the garage a similar height, so I could get my land rover in the garage, with a roof box on, and so it could be opened inside the garage for loading before and after holidays. I was worried about how much it would impose on the rest of the house (bungalow), and whilst it probably does a bit.... You forget about it amazingly quickly.

We have a Monarch midi system, which 3 years in... Just works well! Id recommend it

"Proper DIY" did a video on YouTube of it, which looked pretty DIYable for a smallish area! Can't find the link as on phone, but will dig it out later if you don't find it.

Me too, but for a future pre built sips product, they talk about using small bricks pillars for the foundations

That being said, when the work is done...and it's all but memories.... It is all worth it..... Me having a moment in the sun whilst stressed with work (normal people problems!!! 😁)

It's the side they never show you on Grand Designs. For the 3 years of our project everything got put on hold for me mentally, and I remember doing similar. I was fortunate my boss was going through a horrendous divorce which protected my career, and my wife and I just accepted a low period in our marriage. The kids were the hard bit I still feel guilty over. Several hours work needed on site on a Sunday, I had the kids with me as wife was struggling, and having them crying because they are cold, yet I had a team arriving the following morning and i was having to pick my poison between stress levels of build delayed when I was already struggling or the kids needing to accept shitty parenting. More times then I care to remember the kids got the short end of the stick....

Apologies, my previous post have been somewhat of a release for me! I need one every now and then 😁 Good luck OP, we're with you in spirit!!!

I'm sorry to hear that, I remember going through similar. It's a feckless disingenuous deceitful industry at the best of times. I had an electrician flat out tell me what was agreed in writing, and paid for, couldn't be done without ever explaining why fully...always explained couldn't be done, never seen it before, his sparky dad confirmed i was asking something too complicated..... Eventually lost my rag and held back an entire month sum from builder, who called Sparky out in front of me. Turns out the dickhead had simply ran a 3 core by mistake when it needed 4 core (or equivalent) and lied to hide it for months, hoping id just give up. I just wanted a manual override, onto external lights controlled via PIR, which itself could be disabled via a switch. There were dozens of this sort of shit he pulled on us. (expletive deleted)ing twat of a bastard. I'll never forgive him for the piss he took over the time we had to use him. Lieing and bullshiting was his absolute default to everything. If you're going through hell.... Keep going my friend. Edit.... I should add the builder himself and the rest of his team... Chippies, plumbers, grounds, etc were brilliant and barely had a cross word over the few years of it all. Just that (expletive deleted)ing cock of an electrician.... 🤬

Wish we did electric towel rails, so we could warm towels in shoulder seasons when we don't have the heating on. We wired CAT6 everywhere which worked very well. Sockets on walks for wall mounted TV we did which also worked well.