jonM

Having built / lived in both brick and block and timber frame I would always go timber frame as it is easier to get it well insulated and airtight. It's not impossible with brick and block just more difficult. Your objectives for doing the self build and your personal circumstances may well dictate which route is best for you.

I had a Miele washing machine which came with a 10 year guarantee and lasted 11 years before it needed replacing. I bought a samsung as a replacement which had a 5 year guarantee on the machine and 10 years on the motor. It was 35% the price of the siemens and 7 years on it is still going strong. The samsung machines always do very well in "which" surveys. Efficiency and performance is also improving so quickly that I am not sure that keeping a washing machine going for 20 years makes economic sense.

Can you take advice from the solicitor who drew up the original party wall agreement ?

Yes, we have used it to keep our bedroom at a cooler temperature. The house has a high level of air tightness so drafts aren't a problem.

Very good question and what you say makes sense both in terms of lower flow temps and cooling. I have however been able to keep room temperatures below 25oC all summer by venting the house overnight and my heating bills are already low, so a small increase in COP will not lead to material savings. The house is fully passive but not certified.

Underfloor heating can be hidden, but therein lies the problem. If something does go wrong either with the installation or the operation, the pipework is under screed, difficult to track down and very intrusive fix. In a passive house, you can put the radiators out of the way, mine have rather a nice architectural quality to them, and my floors are not cold because they are well insulated. Controls are more complex on ufh and therefore there are more things to go wrong. As an example, different temperatures in bedrooms is easier to achieve with radiators. I know the overwhelming preference at the moment seems to be for ufh, but we have no regrets over choosing radiators.

All good advice but it is quite possible to use radiators as we do in our passive house. They work fine and are very controllable and easy to use. There are no cold spots, no draughts and even heat throughout the house so you can put the radiators any where in the room. The radiators should however be oversized so that flow temperatures are low to ensure efficient use of the ASHP. Flow temps wont be quite as low as UFH but not far off.

I insulated my steel bath with rockwool. I think it reduces the amount of energy lost heating up the bath tub when running the bath, but once the bath has been run I would imagine that a lot of the heat is lost via surface evaporation and the insulation makes little difference. It is worth doing if you have some insulation left over but I don't think it is a game changer in terms of saving energy.

Change is always difficult and will require current practices to be adopted, but airtight, well insulated houses with mvhr are definitely the way to go. If the changes are planned in advance and training is made available and funded there is no reason why it can't work. My builder was an electrician by trade but focused on building houses to passivhaus standards (including one for himself) because he could see the huge benefit. He was able to adopt to this way of working without too much difficulty. When companies are faced with adapting or going out of business, most will adapt but the longer the change is delayed, the greater the problem with the existing housing stock becomes. The biggest problem is likely to be political and in particular lobbying from the building industry to preserve the status quo. In addition the level of ignorance from so-called "experts" is astounding. I remember going on a training course at the NSBRC and being told by the lecturer that he wouldn't recommend building Passivhaus because you couldn't hear the birds sing in the morning ! Education needs go hand in hand with legislation and some financial support to allow the transition to be made.

Same here. We have radiators upstairs and can make some adjustments to temperature with the trv in each bedroom. If it get too hot in summer, we vent the house overnight to keep it cool. In the winter the bedroom trv will either be half on or fully on. Mechanical ventilation in a passive house is also important and I think it it more likely that poor ventilation in the hotel affected your sleep as much or more than the temperature. Radiators an airtight build and mechanical ventilation gives you options to have individual bedrooms warm or cool throughout the year.

I don't have experience of grohe rapid sl frames, but we used Gerberit Duofix frames / cistern / flush plates and Villeroy & Bosch Subway 2 rimless toilets. Combination works well, easy to clean and no splashing. Looks great.

I did the research and ordering of all material to ensure quality and good prices. I saved a lot of money a long the way but it took a huge amount of time and with a full time job, I was fit to drop by the end of the build. All the onsite day to day management and checking of work was done by the builder and architect as I don't have the expertise to do this. If you like researching on the internet and have the time then that is something you could do but if you don't have expertise of building, I would employ someone to help you.

I have a house facing east - west that was built to passivhaus standards with MVHR. PHPP modelled overheating (temp > 25oC) at 5% and in the first summer we did have a few problems with overheating but when we sorted the venting out it made a huge difference. Key points are: 1) If you can open all the windows you will gain the benefit of cross ventilation which makes a big difference. We tilt and lock the downstairs windows and tilt the upstairs windows. 2) Leave the internal doors open to allow the air to circulate around the house. 3) We have a small skylight in the roof which is left open and allows rising hot air to escape. 4) Open the windows when the external temperature is less than the internal temperature and close the windows when external temperature approaching or higher than the internal temperature. Net result is that this summer the temperature downstairs has not exceeded 25oC and the temperature upstairs has only exceed 25oC on a couple of occasions in spite of the high temperatures we experienced.

New builds are an easy win. Proper airtightness by design (not just a bit of silicon), MVHR and ASHP's would make a big difference to the energy efficiency in addition to improving air quality and addressing condensation issues.

I have downlights in the kitchen and bathrooms, pendant lighting over the breakfast bar and dining room table and wall lighting elsewhere on dimmer switches plus 5A switched sockets in each room if I want to plug in additional lighting. It works well. I put this together with some pointers from the architect after getting a similar quote from a lighting consultant and a plan which consisted of downlights in every room from a lighting shop. The wall lights were hand made but surprisingly cost effective. https://www.colinchetwood.co.uk/locklamps/s8jef1png19lgfflr6k58ry3nk4jsu