LnP

For our survey, before the ecologist arrived, I sealed up any nooks or crannies which might have looked appealing to sleepy bats. As hoped, he concluded an emergence survey wasn’t required.

I paid about £700 3 years ago for a roof a little larger than that. As @markc mentioned, you can do it yourself, but read up how to do it safely and how to dispose of the sheets. Especially take care not to break the sheets or cause any dust to be released. According to the HSE, over 5000 people die every year in the UK from asbestos related diseases.

Very helpful thanks!

I'm interested to learn more - what are GGR guidelines and where can I find them? Thanks

@Bramco would you mind sharing what blinds you chose, what were the criteria in your selection, what other ones you considered etc? Thanks

Maybe he meant lower pressure drop. Even though the pressure in a Venturi drops as the velocity increases, once the flow leaves the Venturi, it won't recover to the full upstream pressure, i.e. there's a pressure drop across the Venturi which increases as the flow increases. But I'm curious though, is Bernoulli and Venturies something we need to consider when designing MVHR systems? I've read this thread with interest as I will be installing an MVHR.

There are plenty of timber frame houses with wood siding, plywood sheet roofs with cedar shingles in Canada and the US which are more than 100 years old. There's nothing wrong with this method of construction if it's done properly and maintained, which is true for any building system.

I'm coming into this thread quite late, but this demand calculator might be useful.

I was curious about what an anti-freeze valve is, and found this useful explanation in case anybody else was wondering! The decision on the best way to protect the external unit from freezing seems to be quite complicated. One aspect not much mentioned in this thread is reliability. Dosing the system with anti-freeze is inherently safe and if you want to, you can test it by taking a sample and putting it in the freezer. Anti-freeze valves are an active protection measure so have a probability of failure on demand and can't easily be tested. I've had a few temperature sensing cartridges in shower controls fail and I suppose it's similar technology. What do they do in Norway?!

Is that an extractor to the outside? Does it affect the air tightness? Thanks

I spent my first 11 years in a prefab at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell. My parents moved into it just after the war in the very early days of the AERE. They were very proud of it. The kitchen had a built in fridge and a clothes boiler/mangle contraption. The hot water was heated by a back boiler behind the fire place in the living room as well as an immersion heater. There were built in cupboards and wardrobes throughout (steel doors). Unimaginable luxury for my mother who had been bombed out of the East End of London. My father used to say it had been designed by engineers, but he was an engineer so he would say that. They were manufactured by the Bristol Aeroplane Company and erected by Italian prisoners of war who had decided to stay in the UK after the war. We talk a lot about timber frame on this forum, but shouldn't forget that there have also been unsuccessful attempts to introduce light steel frame construction into the UK residential market. And yet we are still building houses using the technically inferior bricks and mortar system.

What’s the best way to manage removing cooking fumes, smells and steam in an airtight house with MVHR? is there a way to have an extractor vent to outside the house? Is a venting hob the only solution? I assume it’s not a good idea to extract directly into the MVHR? Thanks

The attached article mentions some modular house builders going bust or closing factories. The article is about volume building rather than self-build, but I wonder, are the self-build timber frame companies experiencing similar financial challenges? Should we be any more worried than we were before about a deposit being lost? The companies mentioned are Ilke Homes, House by Urban Splash, Legal & General, Modulous, Lighthouse and TopHat. "the government's approach to modern methods of construction in disarray" ....? Surely not. https://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/view/government-rethinks-volumetric-housing-support

Just curious that Potton don't get a mention in this thread. Any particular reason? I think they might be the biggest self build timber frame supplier.

We refurbished a Victorian coach house which is in our garden to live in when we demolish the main house and do the self build. Since we were creating habitable accommodation from what was a derelict building, we involved building control. The coach house is finished but I haven't got them back yet for the final inspection. We appointed an independent approved inspector and will get a Final Certificate which I think conveyancing solicitors will likely ask for when the house next changes hands. It wasn't a big deal and the building inspector was a useful source of information to make sure it was done right. Having building control involved might also put your builder in the right frame of mind when making construction decisions.

Thanks @nod, but I only see barge board verges in your photo.

Interested in some thoughts on this design... I'm especially interested in how to make the front elevation look more interesting. It faces on a bearing of 190 deg, just west of south, so perfect for a large array of PV panels. I have 3 phase so planning for an 11 kW array. Unfortunately though the large plain roof could result in a rather uninteresting design. We're in a conservation area, but our planning consultant has told us this is more about the leafiness than any particular look to the houses, so contemporary would be fine. The street has a mix of late Victorian, 1970s and recently renovated modern houses. The owners describe the Victorian houses as Arts and Crafts, I'm not so sure about that, but they have interesting hanging tiles which is not a look we plan to imitate. Contemporary would be fine. We have been thinking about ways to address overheating from the sun on the front of the house, and looked for ways to design in overhangs, but our architect didn't find a way to make that work. We think we'll have to install external blinds instead and a probably a heat pump with air conditioning. The angled external wall on the kitchen dining room is to get more natural light into the north facing elevation. On the first floor, we're going to switch the master bedroom en suite and dressing room so that we don't have the bathroom with a big window at the front of the house. The views are to the rear. Interested in your thoughts 🙂

We're discussing design details with our architect and told her we like the look of parapet verges, similar to the attached drawing. She told us that a parapet verge on a timber frame house is not buildable. The attached drawing is actually from a timber frame company we got a design from but didn't proceed with, so I guess they thought it was possible. I do understand that you only have the one leaf of brickwork, so I'm not sure if the timber frame company were proposing a verge just one brick thick, which would look a bit skinny, or had some other way in mind of building the parapet wide enough to look correct. Any thoughts? Can you have a parapet verge on a timber frame house?

@Nick Sheppard what do you think of the CITB CDM Wizard app?

Gas hobs (and stoves) are increasingly being criticised for affecting air quality in the house. Nitrogen dioxide seems to be the main issue and its link to asthma.

The government has published its response to its consultation document on the Clean Heat Market Mechanism. The original consultation is here. Targets for generating or acquiring heat pump credits for the first two years of the scheme will be 4% of a manufacturer’s relevant fossil fuel boiler sales for April 2024 to March 2025 and 6% of relevant sales for the following year. A tradable heat pump credit will be earned by a heat pump manufacturer upon the installation of a qualifying domestic-scale hydronic heat pump. Boiler manufacturers will have to pay £3,000 for every boiler they sell above the target. This will have an impact on the up front purchase price decision whether to buy a heat pump or a boiler. But it might be more effective in incentivising people to choose heat pumps, if they were to break the current relationship between the price of gas and electricity, to reduce the relative running costs of heat pumps? Interested in thoughts ...

Here you go https://www.pipelineservices.co.uk I'm not sure if the forum rules or etiquette would prefer me to DM this, but why not give them a shout out as they did a good. I'm sure Forum Admin will advise if I got this wrong!

As well as the water supply work described above, I've also moved the electricity and gas meters and at the same time got new supplies from the street - Cadent for the gas and SPEN for the electricity. I also wanted to relocate the supplies away from conflicts with the new build. Cadent told me that if I was increasing the size of the supply they would install the new supply from the street or free and I would just have to pay for the fairly short relocation of the meter, which is what I did. I got Cadent to leave the trench across my garden open, so SPEN could use it for the new 3 ph supply. SPEN billed me for the trench but agreed a reimbursement if they could use the Cadent one, as they did. Btw, despite the agreement, I'm still chasing them for the reimbursement. This all went well and the only problem I had was with energy supplier Eon Next who I needed to commit to installing the new meters to ensure continuity of supply. They were a compete pain in the proverbial. I switched to Octopus shortly before the work was done and they were much better. Technicians showed up when required to install both new meters.

I'm preparing to demolish the house into which the water supply goes, prior to building the new house. We're still living in that house and will live onsite in an outbuilding during the build, so need to maintain the utilities. The water meter was inside the old house so I wanted to relocate it out of the house and agreed with United Utilities it would go in the street by the stop valve. UU agreed that the supply to the current house (built in the 1960s) could be replaced under their lead replacement programme. I did it all at the same time and the way it worked was, I paid UU £82 survey cost for the meter relocation, paid a private moling company £785+VAT as described above, they submitted paperwork to UU to demonstrate the work had been done, UU paid me £550 grant under the lead replacement programme, and I paid UU £183 to remove the old meter from the house and install the new meter in the street. I got quotes for the moling, and they did the connection in the street and installed an Atplas box over the stop valve and all UU had to do was screw on the new meter. It all went very smoothly. I only talked to two moling companies and the other one was more expensive and was going to do less - they were just going to install the new MDPE pipe and leave me to arrange a plumber to bring the new supply into the house and were going to leave UU to do the connection in the street. This would have left me with having to coordinate work to ensure continuity of supply. Very happy with the moling company I chose and UU were easy to work with.

I just got about 15 m of 25 mm MDPE water pipe installed by moling for £785+VAT. That included making the connection to the main in the street. It also included bringing the new pipe up into an existing house and connecting it with new shut-off valve and drain. No road crossing though.