Kelvin

My one experience of ‘a proper’ architect practice was woeful and negligent frankly at every level of dealing with them. Their comms was shockingly poor, their drawings full of inaccuracies, shambles over setting the house on the land costing me weeks of delay, errors in planning submission, non existent site management that led to build problems, inability to manage their main contractor and a general lack of care. I even had to research and draw the visibility splay and tell them to submit what I drew as they wanted to hire a consultant! They are all members of the ARB and this was under an RIAS contract. Colour me cynical. My wife’s father was an architect and he was very good. He worked closely with an SE so never drew anything that couldn’t be built. They both worked into their 80s too and specialised in old buildings. It always drew a smile when these two old buffers turned up to a site in an old Bentley and proceeded to clamber up onto church roofs etc. He made two simple suggestions for our house build that the actual architect we were paying really ought to have suggested. Sadly passed away before we achieved final planning permission although my other half is glad to some extent, that he didn’t witness the shambles Heb Homes and their builder made of our simple two rectangles house. He would have been apoplectic and probably given him a heart attack.

My experience is the other way around. I asked for a rainwater soakaway but the architect neglected to include it. However planning stipulated we needed to add one anyway. Our burn drains into a river which has burst its banks flooding the town a few miles below us. Therefore I didn’t want to add to the flood risk problem for the town.

I researched this and there isn’t anything as far as I could find. The best I came up with was some low profile clamps. After our standing seam roof was fitted I decided not to fit panels on the roof for three reasons. Firstly it’s a beautiful looking thing to my eyes and PV panels would have ruined the look of it. It requires the roof being penetrated and while there are products especially for metal roofs I didn’t want the roof penetrated. I couldn’t see how they’d be fitted without the roof being scratched dinged or damaged in some way. In the end I’ve gone for ground mounted panels. There is a fourth reason and that’s fire risk. It’s a tiny risk but friends of ours lost their 6 month old self-build to a PV fire caused by faulty cabling. The panels would have covered the whole of the roof on the left.

I doubt it’s as simple as this but one of my windows was doing the same. Turned out to be the gasket which had come out of the rebate and was fouling the hinge.

I’m doing exactly this as we speak. It’s a building reg as far I understand it. Even if it wasn’t I’d be doing it anyway. In the grand scheme of things it’s not a huge expense. I’ve put all above the cables and between all the webs of the joists. If you cut slightly bigger than the hole your filling it stays in.

I agree. But I know of an example that HH built where they scored just over 1 but couldn’t afford MVHR despite the ducting being in so they slit the window tape and tested until if was above 3. BC were aware they were doing. Arguably all they care about is that it meets building regs.

Is there also a potential problem of condensation build up if you warm moist getting into the building. I noticed it forming on the back of the alu cladding on the rooflights as I increasingly sealed the house up as I did the rooflights last. I’ve been more concerned with condensation than anything else because it’s so damaging to the building and your health.

You get shit service from expensive people too.

It’s warm just like any house can be warm. The issue is more your heat is escaping the building through the leaks so you need more heat input to keep it warm.

It is the he real World as far as airtightness testing is concerned. They are testing your build fabric for leaks which you can’t control other than sealing them up.

My understanding too but if he wants a worse airtight test then this is a way to achieve that. 4 is poor even by typical new build standards.

3m

Holy thread resurrection and thank heavens for buildhub. We are boarding out and joiner commented on the size of the oven cables. We have two separate radial cables for the ovens. I said what’s wrong with them and he said they don’t look big enough. The ovens are 3.3 kW at 16A so installed 2.5mm cable. He reckoned they should be 4mm of even 6mm. I said no that’s completely unnecessary for ovens as they use very little power but you’d use it for induction hobs like we are. He still insisted that every kitchen he fits has much bigger cables for the ovens. Of course he’s got me doubting myself but the sparky knows his job and I shared the oven specs with at fit out time. Just spent 30 mins googling and found this thread. Sanity restored. I’ll tell him to stick to bashing in nails. 😂

Looking great. I need to decide how to finish my garage floor and considering the tuff tiles. What did you paint the floor with?

Good stuff. Any pictures? Bargain kitchen. Well done. Our ovens and hob were dearer 😂 Does the £590k include the windows so it’s to weathertight? We were £850/m2 to get to weathertight including all insulation and airtight layer, also 3G windows and 3G rooflights. Adding in all the roofing and cladding we are at £1287/m2. That includes all fees. Is the 200k to complete the fit out to finish?

I’ve gone individual trades for every aspect. Pricing has been either negotiated fixed price or day rates or paid in arrears. It’s been a combination of me supplying the materials or the trade supplying the materials depending on the material. It’s not easy to manage all the trades especially where the trades need to overlap work. Getting some of them back is hard work. Contracts have been minimal which is how most of the trades operate. Had I been going main contractor then I’ve have had a more comprehensive contract in place.

Good point. It took me 8 months from beginning to end from the initial quote from the DNO to a metered supply

Our windows were on a 12 week lead time alone. There have been points where I would have rather not done it all. Instead would have bought a wee cottage, bit of land, workshop and banked the rest. As it is we are two years in from first stepping into the land to now. We are 6 months into our build with maybe 4 months to go with a fair wind. It’s all been funded by the sale of our previous house. Neither of us work so getting a mortgage is out and we won’t use any of our savings to finish it. Building costs more than you think. People tend to overestimate how far your money goes and underestimate how much things cost. There are many new posts on here from well meaning self-builders starting out on the journey thinking that they can build for a fraction of what the reality is. Ultimately it will come down to how much you can do yourself and doing it yourself will likely take longer than getting trades in.

If you are going for the complete scandi look then I can see the appeal but you can achieve that with well fitted ply.

Only the Heb Homes timber kit prices. It was 15% dearer than their SIP kits when we first started looking two years ago. Then they removed the CLT price and said you had to contact them for a price and they reckoned it was getting on for 25% dearer then they removed it altogether. Their SFS kits used to be cheaper than their SIP kits. They now aren’t and having built one of their SFS kits I can see why. There’s loads more timber and labour in them.

Yes me too just because we seriously considered it before ruling it out. We ruled it out much for the reasons @ProDave cited.

Ours is simply some timber with the DPC lapped over the top of it which we have above every opening. The windows/doors are also sealed using Wigluv tape. Our cladding is much deeper than yours though so any water drips off and away from the building anyway.

What’s your target?

Is it inherently airtight?

Why is that? Because it’s less common? Heb Homes used to offer it alongside SIP and their space frame system. Made in Austria. Was quite a bit dearer. I noticed they’ve removed it from their website.