ProDave

Interesting debate. Yes a lot of people here think building a well insulated low energy house is a good idea. But I don't recall ever making anyone look like a fool for not agreeing. I recall one discussion on the old place where the poster was adamant he wanted to do just enough to comply with regs and no more. Some of us suggested he could do better and it wouldn't cost much to build to a better standard. He was adamant he just wanted to do the minimum. I don't recall him ever being made to look a fool or feel unwelcome.I certainly hope he didn't feel that was the case. It still amuses me that people will only buy an A+++ rated fridge, and then put it in a house with an EPC rating of F.

We are more "politically correct" up here, and we have a "community council" instead. One local community councillor objected to a poly tunnel that had been errected in a field on a farm near here to grow vegetables in. Have some people got nothing better to do?

Not long after I moved to the Highlands and started as self employed, I did the wiring for a loft conversion, that due to the very limited headroom used a layer or 2 or this wonder foil type stuff as its only insulation. I often wonder how that worked out. I could tell the owner didn't have a clue as he was proud of the fact he had "insulated" the eaves storage space with the leftover bits, but on inspection he had covered some bits with what he had but left huge gaps. Fat lot of good that will have done. There is a house in our road that whenever it has sold (twice now) it has been marketed as an "eco house" Just about the only things it has that could even remotely qualify it for that title is solar thermal water heating panels, and (rather poor) triple glazed windows. It has an EPC rating of D, worse than our "ordinary" house. This is one of the reasons why I will not describe our new house as "eco" prefering to use the description "low energy" instead.

When I bought mine I hired a 7.5t flatbed truck to go and collect it. TIP if looking for one of those, try a plant hire firm, none of the "van" rental firms had a 7.5t flatbed, box van yes but that would have been a pain loading and unloading.

I don't recall any particular problems satisfying NHBC. Yes they required more inspections than building control but there was never any real issue. There were a few points where BC and NHBC differed and we had to assure one of them that we would change a detail, while telling the other we wouldn't. At the end of the day, my house has been detailed by an architectural technician and a structural engineer. As long as I build to the detail in the plans, and BC are happy at each inspection, then I am happy, and in an ideal world that should be all that anyone requires.

Interesting how opinions differ. My builder was adamant that as he was not doing the whole build he could not rely on his own insurance. It's irelevant anyway, if you take out a self build insurance it will include employers liability, so whether you use it or not, you will have paid for it.

I think the concensus there is store the hot water at a low temperature to minimise standing losses and only heat on demand with an in line water heater as you draw water off.

Yet another example of how different parts of OR have different rules. Up here they still use SWA phone cable and that's what we have. One continuous length that starts under the floor in the house, under our garden, under the road and ends where it will terminate to the trunk cable in the verge. The only bit in ducting is under the road.

He's right on the fact YOU need to get a self build site insurance policy in place. Part of that will be your employers liability insurance certificate. Like it or not, you are seen as the employer for any contractors you hire. My builders that were contracted to build and erect my frame asked to see this before they started. As regards materials, anything your main contractor supplies and installs should be charged to you at zero VAT as should his labour. It is only materials that you buy and fit yourself that you will have to pay the VAT on and claim back later. If he supplies materials that you are going to install then there is an argument that he should charge VAT on them. That's a matter for you to discuss with him. As long as you don't go overboard that may not be an issue.

I have been wondering that. Or if not a sensor to detect that it has just started a defrost cycle. My thinking is if the heating and hot water load is low, and you have plenty of time for it to heat the water so are not in a hurry, it would be better to shut it off for half an hour or more and let it defrost naturally. The thinking being most icing occurs when the climate is cool and wet, i.e still above freezing so it will defrost naturally. If it needs defrosting when it's below zero, you have little option but let it do its thing.

On my last self build I used the HNBC solo for self build. It wasn't too badly priced then. We took it on as we knew we might sell within 10 years. As it happens, the 10 years of that has just expired and we still have not sold, so it in fact turned out to be a waste of money. And there have been no issues with the house that would have warranted a claim either. The present new build, we have no intention of selling (after the trouble we are having selling, I won't be in a hurry to sell another property ever, it has the be the very worst aspect of owning a home) so we are not bothering with any form of warranty. The only bit of paper that interests me is the building control completion certificate. I did briefly lok at structural warranties and found them all to be a lot more expensive than 10 years ago.

My entire house, roof and walls, is clad on the outside of the frame with 100mm thick Pavatex wood fibre board (other makes are available) In the case of the roof it takes the place of a sarking board (a requirement in Scotland) then is covered with a breathable membrane then battens and tiles. In the case of the walls the render is applied directly to the wood fibre board.

My neighbour fitted his over the winter, but has only just got around to oiling it.

Before you stick the tape to the face of the blocks, go round with a good filler, and fill in the grooves along where you are expecting to stick the tape, and leave to dry.

I found the same on ebuild. It must be an IPB thing. Once you have posted a table, any attempt to edit anythign whatsoever spoils the formatting of the table. I would go as far as saying post the related text in one post, then the table on it's own in a following post, so you can still go back and edit the text post without upsetting the table.

You can buy a 16mm to 16mm coupler to make a repair in one go, I have two here in fact. If you can't find them locally and quickly, TP sell adaptors to fit a standard 15mm compression fitting to take 16mm pipe, so a 15mm compression straight coupler and two of these adaptors will do the same thing.

I found them frankly very unhelpful. All the guy really said is "here's a drum of cable" and all he wanted was the cable from my house to the road verge where their trunk cable runs. It was up to me to get it there, which I did when the road was up for the other services. Our OR rep wouldn't even give us any ducting. The excuse being "my van is too small to fit it" (it was a tiny van) and all he could offer was I could make a 50 mile round trip myself to go and collect some. Well I had a length of black electrical duct that had been out in the sun for many years and gone grey, so I used that

But will Open Reach charge you for that? When I met the Open Reach man, I was told there is a "budget" of a little over £3000 for each new connection, and you were only charged if it went above that. I don't expect to be paying anything.

How are your other services coming onto your plot? do any of them require digging up the road? All our services come from the other side of the road to us (in the grass verge) so I managed to get away with paying for the road up only once, and laying in the water on that visit plus ducts to take electrcity and telephone cables. You need to talk to Open Reach to see what they advise.

I'm getting a better U value than that, with 100mm wood fibre board and 190mm of Frametherm 35 earthwool. That's a warm roof room in roof house (see my avatar) More detail of your roof make up, thickness of rafters etc. What are you putting between the rafters etc.

Originally my timber frame was going to be filled with one of the blown in types of insulation. However when I loked at costings i found that was an expensive option. So I have chosen to fill my frame with Knauf Earthwool frametherm 35 which is under half the cost of the blown in stuff and gives the same U value. I have 190mm of that in the frame plus my 100mm EWI. I would consider something similar. I spent £1200 on insulation and that is more than enough to do all my walls (what is left over will be used under the floor or in the roof) so you don't have to pay huge amounts. I would also look at over sheeting on the inside with one of the PUR type insulations sheets, e.g kingspan, celotex etc to mitigatecold bridging of the frame members.

The "normal" timber framed house in these parts has a 150mm frame filled with insulation and quite likely a thin layer of something else inside. An important question is what is going on the outside? The traditional timber framed houses up here have a brick or block outer skin, but because the cavity has to be ventilated, the outer skin adds very little to the insulation, and is just an expensive rain screen. So as well as having a thicker than normal timber frame, I have chosen to clad mine in 100mm thick wood fibre external wall insulation and the render is applied directly to that. As a very rough ball park figure, the external wall insulation system is a similar cost to a blockwork skin, but helps to make the building more airtight, and adds more insulation.

What you are describing is a 2 stage heat pump. I believe the additional problem is needing a different refrigerant for the high temperarture stage, so two ordinary ones cascaded may not work well. And the second stage one would be a water to water heat pump, not an air source.

Probably an even better idea up here. Our drinking water comes from a loch about 600 feet above sea level, so it's the run off from surrounding mountains, and in the spring, snow melt. By the spring, it comes out of the taps so cold I wonder it's not coming out in lumps. One winter I must measure the incoming temperature.

Yes you can appoint 2 agents, but it's unlikely they would work together and in the event of a sale they would both claim their full commission. The original agent we were with offered to do dual agency and accept half of the commision in the event of a sale but I couldn't find anybody else to take up that offer. I have been advertising it myself on gumtree, but the only enquiries from that have been other agents wanting to market it for me, so a bit of a waste of time, but it's very cheap.