Stones

Same with our ASHP (Mitsubishi Ecodan) It has the cooling function disabled to make it eligible for RHI. Flip a dip switch in the control module and it is activated / control options in master controller become live.

We used Amvic 280 (150 core). Have a read of my blog if you've not already done so: Any particular reason you need a 200mm core? Additional core means more concrete and pouring time required.

If nothing else, you have an extremely good flue monitoring system

That's my thinking. Given how sewage treatment requirement is calculated (you and I both had to fit a system to accommodate 6 people because of the number of notional bed spaces in our respective house), it wouldn't be a great leap to suggest a similar logic was applied to ventilation requirements.

In our last house, we had an exhaust air heat pump. An expensive bit of kit to run so the less said about it the better. However, it did heat the supply air up using a wet duct heater, and that did produce a very pleasant environment to live in. A wet duct heater could be plumbed into the supply ductwork from an MCHR, although they are not cheap, and you do need a fairly large duct heater if this was going to be your sole source of heating. An electric duct heater is far more compact and cheaper but would if run too hot, lead to the scorched / burnt dust smell referred to earlier. You have to bear in mind that occupancy plays a large part in air quality. If there are only two of you in the house, vs four in mine, you are producing less 'pollutants' and using less fresh air. Our ventilation rate is set to suit the four of us. If we have people round for any length of time, I would increase the ventilation rate to compensate. I'm guessing the rates set are based in some way on the notional occupancy levels?

My joiners (2 of them) took just over 4 days to do 105 m2. It was the smaller areas that took the time.

I'm still not sure I like the feel of a fully bonded floor. However, what I do not miss is the normal gap between skirting board and floor that you get on a floating floor where heavy furniture is placed against the wall. Replacing boards (see my blog) was quite invasive if using the plunge saw method. We have recently tried a different approach as we have two or three other boards that need some remedial work. I should stress this is not an adhesive issue, but a level slab issue - the boards didn't bond in certain places as they were pulled up from the slab when fitting subsequent boards due to minor undulations. You really do need a level slab to bond without issue. We recently tried the following product http://www.espares.co.uk/product/es1708231/fix-a-floor-repair-adhesive with great success. Clean and easy to do, and A LOT quicker than the lunge saw method. In the test area we tried, after 24 hours the floor board in question, previously hollow sounded is now rock solid and sounds like all the other fully bonded boards. For the test area a hole was drilled and a plug (cut from spare flooring) was fitted. We have a couple more boards to do so will try simply drilling a 1/8" hole, injecting the adhesive then use wood filler to fill the drill hole. I should be able to report back in due course as to which repair method looks best.

Clear resin was the only thing I could think of, but as you say, adding all these bits on increases the cost.

On a fairly regular basis, we get questions regarding whether it is permitted to live on site in a static caravan. Schedule 1 of The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (Scotland) Order 1992 / Schedule 2 of The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995 both refer to paragraphs 2 - 10 of the First Schedule of the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960, which details the permitted use of land as a caravan site where a caravan site licence is not required (to obtain a caravan site licence, you require planning permission). http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Eliz2/8-9/62 Paragraph 9 states Building and engineering sites Subject to the provisions of paragraph 13 of this Schedule, a site licence shall not be required for the use as a caravan site of land which forms part of, or adjoins, land on which building or engineering operations are being carried out (being operations for the carrying out of which permission under Part III of the Act of 1947 has, if required, been granted) if that use is for the accommodation of a person or persons employed in connection with the said operations. Many people believe that this paragraph means they can live on site with their families. For those individuals who are employed in connection with the relevant building operations that may be true, but the paragraph does not cover family members not employed in that process, children being a good example. Whilst it may be the case that individual Planning Authorities are more relaxed about their interpretation of this paragraph, and individual circumstances will differ, the only way to be sure that you can permanently reside on site is to obtain planning permission. The most straightforward way of doing so is to include provision of the static caravan in your main planning application.

Quite like this, something a bit different, but what a lot of work. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4902128/Coke-polished-garage-floor-33-000-2p-coins.html Not sure how they intend to fill all the gaps between coins.

Hi and welcome. Are you fixed on the Swindon area or are you considering further afield?

@Ferdinand One of my friends used your A frame approach with great success. One issue he hadn't thought about was the subsequent fixing of skirting and facing boards. Having nailed them on, and filled the holes, he ended up doing a final coat of paint by hand as he couldn't touch up the filled heads to the glass like finish he had achieved by spraying them.

That's the 1961 order I referred to in my earlier post. I'll be posting in more detail soon.

To quote Captain Darling's last diary entry, "bugger" Short term finance / credit card to get wind and watertight a priority. Raising finance on your current cottage worth actively exploring.

That's certainty the way the immersions were wired in the West Cost holiday let we used to use, and how our most recent rental was set up. The holiday let only had a 150 litre cylinder which meant we needed to boost it every evening, for at least an hour.

@Tennentslager Briefly, Part 5 of Schedule 1of the General Permitted Development (Scotland) Order 1992, details how land can be used as a caravan site. It refers you to Schedule 1 of the 1960 Caravan Act which lists the permitted uses, one of which is the use of holdings of 5 acres or more. That particular use can be amended by an order of the secretary of state, and was in 1961 (the full title of which escapes me at present) which reduced the acreage to two acres and increased the period of time caravans could be on the land, provided that land forms part of a registered croft.

If having a heated garage is important, why not fit the TS in there instead?

@Crofter Have you sounded out planning regarding your proposals or are you intending to rely on the provisions of the 1960 caravan act / 1961 order relating to crofting land?

@Russell griffiths There are a couple of critical variables to consider, time and money, and only you can determine your priorities. I have actually discussed this with my builder, and even taking into account the labour and other associated costs of fixing additional sheets to the face of a standard block, he advised that it was still more cost effective for him vs buying a thicker block which cost more to buy. Whether that's true for all ICF systems, I don't know. Transport costs also play a part. I doubt there is going to be much of a difference in overall heat loss performance either way.

The legislation in relation to enforcement refers to (building) operations being substantially completed, which is the stage @Bitpipe appears to be at.

@ProDave We experienced this very phenomenon in both our last and current build. Up until the house was brought up to temperature it would remain cool, sometimes colder the ambient - after all we are talking about giant well insulated boxes (stick a refrigeration unit in instead of heating and we would all have fancy cold stores) Once up to a steady temperature, not much energy required to keep it there, and any extra input - work tools, solar gain, WBS, would rapidly push us into overheating territory.

It's certainly been argued: http://www.darlingtonandstocktontimes.co.uk/news/10742945.Plasterboard__used_for_cattle_bedding___Darlington_skip_hire_firm_trial_told/ I think we had a few sheets worth of scrap / odd size pieces that were unlikely to be of use elsewhere so got disposed of. It never occurred to me to use them between studs, but I think I would only want to do so if they were fitted tightly, i.e. not just a collection of rubble. I have to admit to liberating various things out of the skip which I thought may be of use to me, but were of a size / quantity as to be worthless to the builder. What pained me most was the offcuts of polystyrene ICF block that resulted from building the pitched section of the gable walls. I just couldn't come up with a use for the triangular shaped pieces.

Following a comment from @Nickfromwales about once being asked by a QS to fill stud voids with plasterboard offcuts to reduce waste disposal costs, thought it would be interesting to discuss the pros and cons of doing so. What are everyone's thoughts? I can see the rationale for doing this on cost grounds, and the possible sound deadening benefits if using whole pieces well fitted into the void.

@ProDave, looks good and a huge difference to when I saw it. Makes a real difference when you can see the rooms / spaces that much better defined with PB fitted.

I modeled our house taking into account solar gain, and separately taking into account solar gain and wind. For modelling wind, I lifted the PHPP / SAP methodology, as having discussed it on the old forum, it was going to prove challenging to develop my own model. I validated as best I could by modelling a house that had recently been built by my builder where I knew the energy usage. Our micro-climate is the exact opposite of Jeremy's, i.e. very exposed so getting a realistic idea of how much of an impact wind has was very important to me. Looking at the results of both models there is upwards of a 30% difference in the heating requirement where wind has been taken into account. I suspect one could use a simplified wind penalty, i.e. increase by 10%, 20% etc depending on local wind data rather than having to go into detailed models. One thing that is very clear having lived in our house for 6 or so months, is that high wind speed has a significant impact on fabric heat loss.