Stones

I know, I know. There is a kitchen retailer up here who gives one price and one price only - her best price. Refreshing in many ways and she has built a very successful business on the back of that model. Interestingly, a regional builders merchant is building a new depot here. From what I hear they operate the same kind of pricing.

I'm astonished at the prices some of you are being quoted. For 13 windows and cills (4 of 1800 x 1800, 5 of 900 x 1800, 3 of 900 x 1500 and 2 of 1500 x 600), 1 velux and 2 doors my builder is charging £1200. Judging by the amount of time taken, to fit and seal up the windows, I've been charged the going rate rate for joinery time up here. When we built our last house 6 years ago, the TF company was going to charge £600 to factory fit the windows....

I wouldn't say it's my favourite hobby, but I do like getting a good deal. The best by far was our windows, taking my time using the 'methodology' as set out above saw me save a fairly tidy amount. Life would however be a lot easier if you didn't have to waste time negotiating and everyone just gave their best price from the word go.

This is the door I was looking at: http://www.coram.co.uk/product/premier-frameless-hinged-door/ The other option is: http://www.kudosshowers.co.uk/rangeprods/17/Straight-Pivot-Doors-&-Enclosures Any experience of these particular products / manufacturers?

Delivered today on a pallet. A few pictures for anyone interested: Lid and pump housing Internal shots Housing fitted

Terry, I appreciate that there probably wouldn't be a noticeable drop in temperature, but given the low hysteresis some people are employing to control their heating, there may well be a measurable drop of 0. something of a degree, which would in turn have a small knock on effect in terms of the smaller heat pump having to work a little harder catching up or running a little longer. Again, appreciate very difficult to measure this and probably not an issue in reality. I've already committed and gone for a slightly larger unit than I need for a number of reasons. Whilst my heating requirement shouldn't be that great, the design of my house isn't anything near optimum for passive design. The unit I've gone for, should if the performance data is reliable, be able to heat the house, on a day without any solar gain, operating at the lowest modulation point. This gives plenty of remaining capacity for DHW production, and heating capacity if ambient temperature falls lower than average lowest temperatures or we have higher than average wind speeds.

One of the early floorplans I drew had walk in showers, but having lived with one in a rented house for a few months last year, we ultimately decided against. I certainly see the advantages of not having annoying gaskets, seals etc to keep clean, but my wife really didn't like the concept and all the water / spray which made its way out with the designated walk in area.

Plan attached Main plan without spec and name - A1.pdf Pretty straightforward shower cubicles, 3 sides to be finished with shower wall panels.

I'm trying to narrow down my choice of shower screen / door. Framed or frameless? 6mm or 8mm glass? Pivot vs Hinged vs Sliding door? Sizes required - 800mm and 1200mm The only requirement my good lady has specified is that they be easy to clean, which for her rules out a sliding door. I'm therefore looking at an 800 mm pivot door and a1200 mm large pivot door comprising circa 400mm fixed pane and 800mm opening. My thought is that 8mm glass and associated hardware would be more robust and have a longer life than 6mm. Not sure on the framed / frameless and hinge/pivot questions Any thoughts / comments?

Interesting. Would you say your ASHP ran pretty much 24/7 during the coldest spell (albeit ticking over)? In terms of DHW production, was there any noticeable or measurable drop in house temperature whilst the ASHP was otherwise engaged?

Big houses seem like a great idea, but do you really need 250 m2? While you might love the look of the house, you have to live inside it, and it strikes me that you only have a limited amount of public space given the size of the house. Our last house was 130 m2, 3 bedrooms, master measured 4 x 4 m, large en-suite 4 x 2 m and walk in waredrobe, large open plan room of 60 m2 split into kitchen, dining, lounge and family / TV room. When we marketed our house, it went on for the same selling price as a house 200 yards away (newly built) that had over 50% more floor space. Ours sold first. It's the quality of the space, not necessarily the amount of it that's important. The floorplan of that house is posted on my blog. An initial thought re upstairs - drop to 3 bedrooms upstairs, relocate master bedroom to where 2 and 3 currently are so you can have a bigger room with large ensuite and walk in waredrobe Use the former master bedroom and bedroom 1 space to create 2 smaller en suite bedrooms.

Congratulations. I'm counting down the weeks until we can get into ours and say goodbye to the rental we are in...

Agreed, although interestingly we have experience of both routes on the forum, Jeremy has a larger ASHP and Jack a smaller 5kW. Both seem to do the job from what I can gather. No PV in my case so totally reliant on the ASHP for heating and DHW. I had at one point considered splitting heating and DHW, in which case a 5kW ASHP would have been the go to choice for heating, but I wasn't convinced a 5kW was sufficient for both. The other issue is longevity, if you run a smaller heat pump for longer continuous periods compared to a larger heat pump where you have shorter run periods (lets say 2 hours on tickover vs 1 hour), does the extra compressor run time outweigh or equal the effect of shorter periods of operation on the lifespan of the compressor?

IIRC his walls are 0.12, roof 0.14, slab 0.12 He has a lot of south facing glazing so does benefit from solar gain in winter.

I suppose there is always going to be a point where the ASHP lowest modulation point is greater than your heating requirement and you end up with a degree of short cycling.

Yes, asthetics. It was this type of thing we were thinking about A cut stringer probably would have been the way to go, but budget prevented that and stair is already ordered. Having an exposed stringer could work just as well, all i was really pondering was whether the former was at all possible without the expense of a cut stringer.

Well done, vastly superior to most UK housing stock. True, could have been a little lower, but I think it's a good, solid result. That's the figure my neighbour obtained for his 200+ m2 house, and his (actual) heating bill is less than 3000 kWh per annum.

Run a smaller ASHP harder or a larger ASHP more gently for a given heating requirement? I've opted to do the latter, oversize so that I have spare capacity and so the heat pump only really has to tick over. Just wondering what others have done or plan to do?

Something we are considering - recessing our stair stringer into the service void so that the plasterboard wall that meets the stringer is flush with the inner face of the stringer. Easy enough to do, the issue is how to deal with the join / junction of plasterboard and stringer. I've discounted a shadow gap between plasterboard and stringer - don't like them. Running some kind of flat bead or a flooring transition strip (T bar) to cover the join is a possibility, although potentially, quite clunky. I've also thought about bringing the plasterboard over the stringer to meet the treads, but the requirement for a shadow gap between tread and plasterboard, and the potential for damage in the longer term to the plasterboard as it gets kicked and scuffed makes this a non starter. We are planning a solid balustrade on the other side, so the issue applies equally to both stringers. Any other bright ideas?

Decision made and unit ordered. I couldn't get the Conder delivered up here for anything approaching a reasonable price so the only contenders in the end were the Biopure and Vortex. The Biopure, as offered on Ebay, did at first seem a much better deal, but that particular model didn't come with the built in housing / tray for the air pump - something to be aware of if you are considering purchasing from Ebay - phone the company to make sure you are getting the model / version you want. Once I had a price with the integral housing included, these really wasn't anything in it price wise between the two (delivered price). As remotely housing the air pump was something that I wanted to avoid, the Biopure won over the Vortex.

That's the reasoning I used, Why worry about locating something you only need access to every 6 months or so where it takes up useable space. Consequently, my MVHR is up in a section of loftspace, centrally located right next to the duct distribution boxes. This has freed up space in a large cupboard which means we can locate our DHW cylinder in a more central location.

I used Sketchup to draw up a scaled floorplan and do some indicative 2D elevations and a 3D version of our current build, which I was able to take and show my planning officer during pre-application discussions. The 3D images I produced proved very helpful in illustrating our ideas and in letting us assess whether we were happy with the design.

We are on build number 6. Some things get easier, others don't. There have been times when I wished I hadn't started, but I do enjoy the build process and of course, the end result. I think the important thing is to take a break if you are feeling things are getting on top of you. That includes taking a break from forums like this. Forums are in many ways a double edged sword, invaluable deposits of knowledge and information, but they can make you question decisions already made, and cause you to worry over things which you cannot undo or have no control over. Have faith in yourself and confidence in your decisions. Also be honest with yourself. If you only have limited time or limited skills, carefully consider the build route you want to take. We have always gone down the main contractor route, initially because I didn't have the time to deal with everything. As we progressed through our builds, I have taken on and done more work myself, but in general terms, I have always confined myself to planning the build, then overseeing on a daily basis what's going on, speaking to tradesmen while they work (which lets you deal with any minor questions they may have about how you want something finished). It may cost slightly more doing it this way, but for us it has worked, and worked well.

What a nightmare Jamie, puts a few weeks delay in perspective. Hopefully your making some headway on getting the matter resolved.

I've been following that thread. Wish I'd known that a painted finish was an option as we may well have gone down that route (do they do any RAL colour?), albeit we are more than happy with what we have chosen, as we are going with all white walls and ceilings. Thankfully, my builder is very particular when it comes to details like masking...