ProDave

Why do you regard installing some renewable energy that will save you money every year a "disaster"?

Voltage drop calculator https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Technical/Charts/VoltageDrop.html

Well done on moving in. Sorry about your "tipsy" beer that ruined the laptop. It's hard to describe to someone who has never experienced it just how nice the constant temperature inside a well insulated house with mvhr is.

I was trying to be brief. I forgot to mention decent triple glazed windows etc as well.

Frametherm 35 is stiff enough for that, but not sure it is available that thin. Look at wall batts that might be available that thin.

If I had bought a Persimon box, I would be living on an over crowded housing estate, in the same type of box as many other people, complaining about my higher than expected heating bills and complaining about many aspects of a design meant for the average family that are not to my liking and not tailored to the individual plot. Instead I am sat inside my warm, low energy house, looking out at the setting sun, over fields towards the mountains in the distance still with some snow left on them. I like the fact I can only see a few houses from my windows and the house layout and features are exactly what we wanted and designed to work with the plot and it's orientation with respect to sun and views. I love the individual details like the west facing kitchen window specifically to see those snow covered mountains. I like that all the fixtures and fittings like kitchen, worktops, doors, floor coverings, doors, skirting boards and even smaller things like door handles, socket types and exact position, were all individually chosen by us to our liking. I like the fact that the house was built with all the AV and network cabling we needed all built in and hidden in the walls, including hidden cabling for surround sound speakers in both main rooms. I like the fact we have under floor heating from an air source heat pump. You don;t get many, if any of those tailor made details by buying a developer standard design house.

They are correct. the VAT refund scheme is only for where YOU have purchased materials and paid VAT for those materials which are incorporated into your build. If a builder supplies and fits materials in a new build THEY should zero rate their invoice for both materials and labour. If they have incorrectly charged you VAT, you must go back to them to reclaim the incorrectly charged VAT

I am intrigued why an under stair cupboard needs a fire door?

Rubbish It seems common here on individual builds to have nothing. The tree or hedge on the plot has to suffice. If you need anything more than a pee, go and find a public loo.

Why are you building it narrower than the base it is standing on?

If you have turned the Toby off and you still have water coming out, it is probably just emptying the pipes or draining down a tank. It is not like electricity where it all stops dead when you turn it off. The white handle at the bottom right in your picture is the stop valve and it looks to be in the off position.

That's a stopcock / boundary box / Toby Choose which is the usual term for your area

That could have gone badly wrong. I have heard of tradesmen who have not been paid, going round and starting to remove whatever it was they had just installed and the police were called and they got charged with criminal damage. My non payer is clever, they paid half the bill so they can say the materials have been paid for, just not the labour.

Yep sh!t happens when you are a tradesman. I have a non payer at the moment but thankfully a small amount. Small claims court or debt collector.

That depends what you are hoping for. I was disappointed with 1.4, I was hoping for less than 1, but in practical terms our house is very low energy.

Hi and welcome. Changing the light bulbs will do nothing to reduce your heating bill and just shows what a stupid system the EPC is. What you really need to know, is how much heat energy needs to be put into the building on the coldest winter day to maintain it's temperature. From that you work out the size of ASHP required and whether it is even practical or not. A whole years oil consumption would allow you to make a reasonable assumption.

The world is in desparate need of a competent assasin.

Photos of the roof from above? It is likely the roof is leaking somewhere, water is running down under the tiles on the felt, but the felt is not correctly dressed to lead the water into the gutter so it is soaking the inside of the sofit.

I am no expert, but i would be telling the builder to halt work until the SE has been to site so see the steels and either say they are okay, or tell the builder what remedial work needs doing. Simply tell them they do not appear to be in accordance with the plans so you want it checked.

I would want to strip some of the grey render off to understand firstly why it is so thick? It is normally just 2 coats of sand / cement render and thinner than the roughcast coat. and secondly to understand the logic of what they were trying to achieve with that gap?

Try it and see, you need the flue a certain length to create a draw. that's why you often see a very long guyed flue from a single storey building.

I saw this discussed somewhere else and a figure of 50W per square metre when it is raining. Solar panels will give more than that, and I am sure the sun shines more than it rains, even in Scotland.

We had to provide the air test result as well as the as built SAP

Our building warrant went in with a random make of stove, and what we fitted was quite different. At completion they just needed the manual for the stove to confirm the required "distances to combustible materials" and confirm it was HEATAS approved.

Just strap the flue to the side of the shed with stand off brackets. It will need to remain 50mm away from the overhanging eaves but you can get adjustable stand off brackets. 1M above the ridge is usually all that's needed. That's all I have on the static caravan.