Kelvin

So Biden has cut production has he

When it was less than 13p / kWh few people would have cared that much either.

This week has been particularly cold so a real test for your system. Milder weather is due next week. We rent a farmhouse with no cavity wall insulation. Even with the oil fired boiler on all day the peak temp in the house is 15oC. The only room we can get it higher is the living room which has a wood burning stove. It’s so cold in the kitchen all the olive oil solidified 😂 🥶

Out of curiosity if it’s a new house built with an oil fired boiler why have you changed it to an ASHP so soon? In any event, you can’t just swap an oil/gas boiler for an ASHP and leave everything else the same. ASHPs operate most effectively at lower temps pumping the heat into a large surface area hence why under floor heating and a big concrete slab works really well. It’s harder to replicate this with rads but you can get much bigger rads or fit an ASHP that runs at a higher temp. Personally I don’t think I’d fit an ASHP into a house without UFH for at least the downstairs.

You can’t judge it on the coldest week of the year just like you wouldn’t say it costs next to nothing to run in the warmest week of the year.

Same here. I’m going ahead with the garage but have gone through several design iterations to get there to reduce the cost. We’re going with a insulated steel building. Still not the cheapest way to do it but for about £30k including founds we’ll get a 63m2 garage. It’s the first thing going up so can use it as storage etc

Your ‘Greens are Putins best friend’ comment is a somewhat daft argument against renewables. You can easily make the same point by saying an over reliance on FF plays to Putin. FF aren’t ubiquitous and are controlled by a small number of countries. This gives them significant leverage and control over everyone else. The situation we are currently in was probably always going to happen at some point but the war has accelerated it.

It’s been widely reported that UK houses are poorly insulated compared to many European houses. Looking at the graphic overall, rather than the absolute numbers, the countries that are the best are the countries many of us would guess to be the best. Even just taking 3G many Northern European countries typically only supply it rather than 2G.

Worse still given we have some of the most expensive houses stock in Europe. We are also one of the worst European countries for supporting self-builds.

Depends how you organise things. Our design is 202m2 and two bedrooms. Upstairs was designed as two bedrooms but we’ve changed that to a bedroom and an open plan sitting/dressing area (open plan from the stairs) Downstairs there’s a guest room and shower room. There’s a study as well that could be used as a bedroom in the future.

Yep. If I’ve learnt anything this last 8 months check absolutely everything that the professionals send to you or do on-site. I’ve spotted numerous errors and omissions. The architect has been the worst culprit for this.

Our groundswork guy brings someone in to do the setting out.

Architects love zinc. They must be trading in it. I started with zinc but we are now fitting a Catnic Urban metal standing seam roof. I got a quote for Greencoat but it was much dearer than Catnic. Can you not getting a change of material? Most of our warrant says blah blah material or equivalent.

https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/search/?q="Build costs"&updated_after=any&sortby=relevancy&search_and_or=and

You’re miles out I’m afraid even if you were doing all the labour yourself and plus your costs are a bit all over the place. There are no costs for windows or a kitchen/util room for example. What about MVHR? There are plenty of posts on here about build costs so have a search. Right now build costs have probably never been higher for certain materials albeit some material costs are reducing. If you went with £2500/m2 you would be in a better ballpark figure but there are so many variables.

Worth a read. https://www.enhabit.uk.com/2020/07/08/is-mvhr-suitable-for-all-homes/

There’s definitely a lot of sympathy. I imagine most self-builders on here will have some story to tell of problems with their build and lessons learnt either from their own experience or the experience of others. If they have frozen it’s likely they will still be frozen unless the temperature has changed significantly or is changing significantly from daytime to nighttime. Therefore why would it still be leaking water?

The plumber couldn’t predict winter was coming and it gets cold possibly below freezing? He’s taking the piss.

What a pia. It’s something that seems wholly avoidable though which is even more of a pia as you’d expect a competent plumber to account for it.

I grew up working on a farm and currently live on a farm. When I was 17 I fell through a roof into an open slurry tank although fortunately it was empty. 😂 I also got kicked in the plums by a calf. The vet was debudding the horns and asked me and another guy to hold on to it. I’d helped the vet a lot so knew what to do. The other guy was a first timer so didn’t realise how the horns are debudded (gas tong things) As as the vet started the other guy immediately let go of the front end and the back end hoofed me right in the stones.

Being told to go and get a proper job doesn’t tend to always be the best approach.

Playing Devil’s advocate. He’s driven past your site by happenstance (let’s assume) he works for the HSE and sees two builders on what looks like a building job on a frosty day. What’s should he do? Drive on by or check what’s going on? He doesn’t know if you are a keen DIYer not bothered by H&S or a builder taking a chance or a contractor being coerced to work when it’s not safe. Seems fair enough to me for him to check given that the construction industry has the highest number of people killed in the workplace than any other albeit the agricultural industry has the highest rate of death per capita.

Place a bit of insulation on your hand then place the ice try on top which is how the uPVC window is made up. It’s not solid plastic.

I guess it’s a balance. If they have to dig up the road to get the cable to you then that should be at your cost. If they have to reinforce the network then that benefit is shared by other people either immediately or in the future so that cost shouldn’t be borne by one individual. As has been pointed out on another thread while the UK might be able to generate all the electricity the country needs the bigger challenge is that the local infrastructure can’t always supply it. My original quote for a 3 phase supply was £26500 as they needed to re-inforce the network. After a bit of back and forth the final cost was £450 for single phase. They’ve subsequently come back and mentioned that they could upgrade me to 3 phase for not much.

Yes you’re right to be concerned about their definition of entire perimeter. I can see their general point but the condition is poorly worded. Just about every new house with a level threshold (typically required for wheelchair access) would fail on this wording. Therefore I’d put this point to them and ask them to re-state the condition.