Stones

Terry, very interesting. When we were discussing heating options a couple of years ago, it was the control mechanism, i.e. how you would determine how long to pump heat into the slab for that had me concerned, and that was really based on my experience with storage heaters which needed frequent adjustment to prevent either under or overshoot in relation to the ambient temperature forecasts (and even then still resulted in cold or overly warm rooms). Now that you have your data set, you can create what I assume is a fairly simple set of control parameters. Perhaps a difficult question to answer, but could a novice, someone with little or no programming experience, replicate your (intended) autonomous control system? Can you say how much time you have spent developing your control system? Is there an off the shelf alternative that would work for your system (providing autonomous control)? As you know I went for an off the shelf system firstly for ease, secondly my good lady wouldn't have put up with anything that required input beyond pressing a button, and thirdly because we needed a responsive element to deal with solar gain spikes, but also Atlantic gale battering. There is of course a price to be paid for this, in that the controller isn't cheap, and we are tied into the manufacturer if anything goes wrong / bang.

Wish I'd known about that trust / grant scheme on our last build. @jamieled out of interest, how did you find out about the trust?

The Planning Authority will only enforce breaches of planning control. Moving into an 'unfinished' house is not a breach of planning control. It may well be a breach of the Building Regulations, and Building Standards do have enforcement powers. In Scotland, you can apply for Authorisation for Temporary Occupation or Use from Building Standards to allow you to occupy before final completion. To get the authorisation, you have to meet certain standards - safety related (electrical certificate for example).

Terry, having determined your daily heating time (derived from day to day average temps) do you have to manually adjust the timer controlling your Willis heater to limit / increase the on time or have you reached a point, knowing how the house reacts to a given input of heating time, where the control is automated? As you know, we went down the ASHP route with an off the shelf control system. It operates in exactly the way you describe in terms of the split between no heating, shoulder and heating seasons. The biggest difference is that we are not tied to an E7 or E10 tariff and therefore the ASHP will input heat as and when required to even out the ripples. This is helpful for us as we have fair bit of SW facing glass which can cause spikes (albeit welcome ones) in internal temp. Our ASHP is set up on an auto adaptive, weather compensating setting, and flow temps do vary depending on heating demand, albeit it doesn't seem to go over 30C, and is usually a lot lower.

I think you're moving to small claims, but need / want to show that you have done everything possible to try and resolve the issue through discussion first. I'd be inclined to go back to them rejecting their offer, outlining the full amount of your claim - would be really handy if it was the small claim limit. If they fail to respond / raise their offer, final letter saying if they do not settle within the next 14 days, you'll proceed with court action via small claims.

When we had Kardean type tiles laid in a previous house, the chipboard floor was prepped by screwing down ply, screws every 100mm, then all the joins filled and feathered to create as flat and level a surface as possible. In our case the Kardean fitters did that work.

One benefit of being tall, I can see into the back of the top shelf. Drawers or pull outs below waist level and bingo, no wasted space! ?

☺️ It was certainly for my benefit, but my wife (5'8"), having got use to it, says she prefers having the higher worktop. As Jeremy says, lower worktop heights an option as well. IIRC correctly we could have had our Schuller kitchen supplied with worktop heights ranging between 800 and 1000mm

@recoveringacademic you might also want to think about worktop height. Our are set at 1000mm rather than the standard 900mm and it makes a huge difference to comfort of use.

@vivienz

I'll post a pic of ours later.

We had a high gloss black kitchen in our last house. Looked fantastic but an absolute pain to keep clean as it showed EVERY fingermark.

@vivienz Have you thought about rendering (and painting) your EPS upstand?

@Triassic I looked into this a couple of years ago

I would agree with Jack, let them have access to get a check done if they wish (and if required, agree to deduct the cost of replacing the CU off the sale price). Would a check throw up the issue of the bathroom cupboard socket issue previously discussed?

Indeed. I prostrate myself before the feet of the world's greatest living comedian self-builder. I only wish that I'd been able to accumulate the knowledge and wisdom of self-building you've acquired over the last few weeks, over the course of the 6 builds I've done.

We had a low temp radiator system fitted in our last house and very effective it was. The main 'issue' is that radiator need to be oversized compared to a conventional radiator system - all our radiators were probably the equivalent three to four times the size they would have been with a high temp system. We did initially have a towel rail in our bathroom but ended up swapping it out for a (designer) conventional radiator with a significantly higher BTU rating. Our flow temps were low, max 33C at 0C ambient, most of the time running mid 20's. Raditors never felt warm but if you did turn them off, you would notice the drop in temperature of the relevant room.

Permitted Development rights apply to a number of different things as set out in The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 This should be of use to you: PART 4 Temporary buildings and uses Class A – temporary buildings and structures Permitted development A. The provision on land of buildings, moveable structures, works, plant or machinery required temporarily in connection with and for the duration of operations being or to be carried out on, in, under or over that land or on land adjoining that land.

I was very keen on having tiled floors in all our public areas - one of our friends did this using 900 x 450 mm tiles and it really does look good. My OH had her heart set on an oak floor so we ended up with a log basket full of samples, and picked which we thought was the best finish / appearance, but the reality has always been a bit disappointing. I literally just finished putting two coats of Osmo Oil over all our engineered oak (110 m2 or so) and it has transformed the floor. We had Amtico in our last house (family room and kitchen) and it was good in many ways, but a little too utilitarian for a lounge I thought. One of my friends had wood effect Amtico in his lounge and it always looked like vinyl type flooring. It is however very forgiving and tough. Showrooms probably a good bet if you have any near to get some ideas.

In reality is this a very unfortunate typo on the estimate or do you think it was intentional?

@Jude1234 I've built 6 houses now, 3 with written contracts, 3 without. It's not necessarily a mistake not having contract, and you are where you are, so don't beat yourself up over it. As above, getting the provisional price for sanitary ware wrong seems odd unless it included the cost of doing the work in addition to purchasing the actual sanitary ware. When we priced for our current house, our builder included a provisional sum for flooring but I had to clarify whether this was labour and materials or for materials only. Are there other provisional sums relating to works still to be completed where there may be scope for confusion on one side or the other? Assuming your builder explains to your satisfaction why your garage is costing so much more, and you are able to clarify any provisional costs as above, I would be asking 'for his help' in identify savings for you to consider.

@Jude1234 Can't really add much more than has been said already, but the main thing is you have identified the issue and at least can do something about it. Conversation with your OH is essential and not to be delayed.

My own experience mirrors your view. COP, whilst perhaps useful to determine how an ASHP will perform at various pre-determined points, does vary quite substantially over the year as it is affected by a number of variables. The performance of our ASHP, (COP and SPF) is described here:

@Lynford Are they planning on using an / the existing DHW cylinder?

I recently posted details of how our ASHP performed in my blog. I obtained the figures from the on board metering (which seems accurate when I take into account meter readings and my daily electricity consumption). In heating mode flow temperatures rarely exceed 30C and the ASHP is barely ticking over. For DHW it does ramp up and like @ProDave and @JSHarris installations, a lot of condensate will drip off. Ice doesn't seem to form.