ProDave

A few tips if you are making the frame yourself. Try to design things to be simple to build. For instance a roof pitch of 45 degrees makes everything simple. If you had say chosen a roof pitch of 42 degrees, you would curse that decision at every single angle cut. Make the panels, each one pre covered in it's outer membrane (plus overlap) so when you put the kit together you just have to staple to overlaps and it's almost instantly watertight. Even if not in Scotland, I would suggest using the Scottish approach and clad the roof with solid sarking board (usually OSB or ply) then put the membrane on and almost instantly the roof is pretty watertight. Far better than the English method of flappy membrane or felt stretched across between rafters. The length of time it will take to erect the frame and get it pretty watertight is insignificant in terms of what exposure to water the frame can withstand. If you erect the first flor first and it will be a while before the second floor and roof goes on and you want a working platform, temporarily clad the floor in cheap OSB and regard it as disposable.

My guess is it's a single phase supply. Most of the run done in large cable because of the length (they used wavecon 95 for the run down the road from our transformer) And then a junction to convert down probably to 35mm concentric for the run under the road and into the house. I saved about £1000 on my connection by digging a trench and digging the connection pit (so they didn't need to bring their own digger) which in my case halved the connection fee. I still think paying £1000 for them to pull a cable through a duct in a trench already prepared and just connect both ends was a lot of money. I then filled it all in after they were done.

I am planning to draw the air for my stove from the ventilated under floor space. It's on the drawings and building control have approved them so it must be okay.

I was going to ask about the S106. Aren't self builders exempt from that now? And welcome to the forum.

Virtually all that trenching and the road crossing should be contestable work. The road crossing has to be dione by an approved contractor or they may even be able to mole under the road. As above, are there any services that need to cross that road? get ducts in at the same time for all of them so you only have to have the road up once. The trench across the 3rd party land can be done by anyone, even you if you had your own digger (a number of us here have or had our own machines) Get independent quotes for that part of the job and the price may come down a lot.

I have always managed to get Aico RF bases for about £20-£30 each on ebay. That's a couple of hours of a sparky's time trying to fish a cable through a long impossible route. Sometimes it is the cheapest option.

Check manufacturers instructions. some are happy to be on a vertical or sloping wall, some not. Keep at least 300mm from a corner or a light fitting. If you can't get a link cable from the old to new part of the house, use radio link bases to link them. Then you only need power to the alarm in the old part of the house. Not the cheapest, but Aico are my favourite make.

That is something I have wondered about and will investigate when I get a system running. My thought if your heating demand is low, and you have all day to heat a tank of water, is in such conditions run the heat pump for say 20 minutes then off for say 40. That would have to be by an external timer. If doing that, and giving it time to defrost on it's own would avoid a defrost cycle then it would be worth doing. The other efficiency related thing i want to look at is separate the heating of the DHW tank and the heating of the buffer tank, so it only ever heats one at a time. When it is heating the buffer tank for the UFH then I would want to set point temperature of the heat pump set very much lower, than when it is heating the DHW tank. Again that will need some custom controls.

But now for us lesser mortals, you need to explain what "Stone columns (ground improvement)" actually is. (with a pretty diagram)

What a different climate you live in. A couple of weeks in winter when the daytime temperature does not get above -10 is not unusual here. Re number of showers. Is that "man showers" or "woman showers" It takes me about 5 minutes to have a shower and wash everywhere and wash my hair (granted I don't have a lot of that left so that bit doesn't take long) It would be a "short" shower if SWMBO is out in less than 20 minutes.

I believe all unvented cylinders have pressure and temperature relief valves so there is no problem.

A previous rental property, when we got it back from the tenant, I found there was a leak in the roof above the bathroom (would have been nice if the tenant had told us the roof was leaking and dripping into the bath) I emptied that bit of the loft of the sodden insulation and just laid it out in a bedroom, expecting it to be scrap. But in the couple of weeks it took me to fix the leak and re board the bathroom ceiling, the insulation had all dried out, so i put the old insulation back.

I joined the "poked them with a stick" club. Our previous house had a wasp nest in the roof void above a bay window. I put on all my motorcycle leathers, gloves, helmet, boots. Got SWMBO to tape up all the joints with masking tape. Then I squirted half a can of Raid into the void, before poking the nest with said stick to really stir things up, then emptying the rest of the can. Sure they swarmed around me, but then never got in. I nearly suffocated and sweated like a pig though.

In a previous employment, we imported a lot of stuff from Brazil. What lovely packing crated that came in. For a while it was all just burned on site on a bonfire every week, and employees could help themselves. I still have my trailer planked in that lovely hardwood, and a lot of the stu walls of the extension in a previous house were made of the frames of the packing crates. Sadly this scrap wood became "registered waste" and it was no longer allowed to burn it, or even give it away, and they had to start paying a contractor with an appropriate waste licence to remove it and dispose of it.

My thoughts on the Thermals store Vs Unvented hot water tank. An unvented tank heated to 45 degrees, will deliver hot water at pretty much 45 degrees until the tank is empty, when it will go cold very quickly. A thermal store heated to 45 degrees will initially deliver water at 45 degrees but the delivered water temperature will start to fall off unless heat input can keep up with the rate of delivery. So for practical purposes, to achieve the same useful hot water delivery, a thermal store needs to run at a hotter temperature than an unvented cylinder. I did an experiment recently, I ran a kitchen sink full of water that was as hot as I could tolerate. It was on the verge of burning to keep your hands in it for more than a few seconds. I then measured the water temperature, and it was 45 degrees. So that indicates 45 degrees is plenty hot enough for dishwashing, hand washing etc (mixed with cold water) About the only "need" for water hotter than 45 degrees might be for thermal mixing showers. That is only because to achieve say a 40 degree operating temperature, they might not be abler to blend so far towards hot and maintain stability, so it may be necessary to have hot water for a shower hotter than 45 degrees, just so the mixer can blend it back down properly. That will only be found by experiment and is likely to vary from one shower mixer to another. Therefore my plan is deliver raw 45 degree tank water to all sinks and basins, and just have the in line boost heater for showers, if it proves necessary. Some experimenting will be needed. An obvious disadvantage of storing hot water at a lower temperature is there is less energy stored in the tank. So you will probably want a larger tank than would ordinarily be recommended for the usage. Re unvented tanks and sign off. I installed the last one myself. Building control were happy with that though they did check the discharge arrangements. There is also a guidance note from nhbc that explains how to use a waterless trap to take the discharge into a drain stack to avoid a vent pipe to the outside. that is what I will be doing, and referring building control to that document if the disagree. then arguing it up the chain if they still disagree. I have attached the nhbc waterless trap discharge note. NHBC_discharge_guidance.pdf

It might be a "time of year" thing. Every year is exactly the same for me, November and December goes completely mental, always my busiest time of year. Everyone's project MUST be finished by Christmas (and for me that's two new builds at the moment) All building trades I meet at this time of year are also running around like headless chickens. Come January, all will be calm, and tumbleweed will be blowing across the roads. You might have better luck then. I would always say stick with builders who have been recommended word of mouth.

Tiles?

I have only just read this thread. My immediate question is why use a "packaged" solution for a pocket door? all i have ever done (and seen done) is to hang a standard door on a sliding mechanism, and the joiner to construct the "pocket" for it so slide into. With Worldwidewebs question about a light switch, the answer is no problem. I just did one like this where there was a socket within the pocket area. The joiner framed the pocket in 2" by 2" timber each side of the door. So the "challenge" is to get a socket, or switch, within that 2". No problem at all with a standard 25mm switch box, and the wiring within the pocket area enclosed in pvc conduit so it can't stray and get tangled with the door.

Priority to DHW could just be achieved with the programmer, turn on the DHW 1 hour before the heating. Turn the boiler pump up to 3, and the manifold pumps down to 1 to try and ballance the system a bit. How is the boiler cycling? If everything really is running tepid, it sounds like the boiler cannot cope with the demand? in which case it will be burning continuously rather than cycling on and off to maintain it's flow temperature. Could it be the boiler is too small for the size of house and area it is heating? Also, what is the floor make up? how much and what type of insulation under the UFH? For that matter how well insulated is the house? near to passive house standard or just scraped through the minimum requirements of building regs? And where are you? what is your climate like?

My only observation is there are no holes in that steel beam. It's to late for you, but anyone reading should take note. you really want 3 or 4 good sized (100mm?) holes in every beam. Otherwise when your electrician and plumber comes to first fix the wiring and plumbing, some pipes and cables are going to have to take a very much longer route to get past that beam, often going down or up into another wall just to get around it. (the job I am working on at the moment, the steel manufacturer put the holes in, then the builder put them in the wrong way round, so only 1 of the 3 holes is of any use, and it has ended up VERY full) It's nice to see it taking shape. Most people when it's just a slab think "it's way too small" but when you see it with the walls up, you suddenly realise is is quite big after all.

That is exactly what I have, oil boiler, 3 circuits on their own 2 way valves, UFH downstairs, UFH upstairs, and DHW (via 250L unvented tank) I have no problems at all. If the UFH appears to be taking too much demand from the boiler, I would be looking at the UFH manifolds. These have a thermal mixing valve to regulate the UFH temperature, and a lot of the time most of the HW from the boiler is going straight back down the return pipe as it doesn't need much heat to top up the water flowing round the UFH system. Check your UFH is not set to run at a way too high temperature for a start and if you have a thermometer measure the flow and return temperature to each manifold and the UFH flow temperature. Because UFH takes a while to warm up, we have the programmer set to turn on the heating earlier than the DHW. So by the time the DHW turns on, the heating has been on an hour or more, plenty to warm up the system so it's then running at a low demand just to keep it up to temperature.

That merely replaces cheap, (usually) easy to replace mechanical parts, for expensive, probably hard to get electronic parts to go wrong.

I would say when there are no hazards, e.g no scaffold to climb on, no holes in the ground to fall into etc. Mine is not fenced in. Most people keep asking when are we moving in, it looks that complete from the outside.

Hardly any of my power tools have the original flex on them any more. They are always way too short even when new. Who wants a drill where the flex is not even long enough to reach to a standard height ceiling without lifting the extension lead it is plugged into off the ground? So fitting a new, very much longer flex is a standard upgrade I have done to most tools.

Brushes. BRUSHES. Those are serviceable items. Just fit new brushes and it's good for another 5 years.