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That seems sensible. I’m just wondering about if the top screed will crack. The inner blockwork is about 5-6mm less than the slab, so that’s the thickness of any mortar plus screed there. I was going to chisel some block off, but it has a dpm over the top of it and I feel like it’s best not to touch that. I don’t know if we should do some mortar and make it level with the slab, and then the screed goes over all, or to just have thicker screed.

The second one is what I had in mind, probably take the PIR up higher to minimise the thermal bridge leaving the top of it exposed, then just screed over it. Wouldn't bother with a cavity closer there, I'm not sure what it would bring to the table.

Hi All. I'd appreciate some of your thoughts on planning bedroom layouts. Are there any general rules of thumb for bedrooms design? I need to do 3 bedrooms for the kids (expected to last from age 7 to, say, 22 if needed) and one bedroom for me & Mrs. In my mind the kids' bedrooms need to have: Single bed with storage underneath the mattress, with a view of potentially installing a 1.5-sized bed in the future. Desk with pedestal and office chair Wardrobe Bookcase Large radiator Optional shelving or extra storage, space permitting. To me, the main decision that needs to be made here is the rad position - everything else can be moved around later. Rad-wise I'm inclined to install tall double rads on the walls in front of the door openings - otherwise that feels like wasted space as I can't put anything else there. This would be a departure from the more traditional traditional rad-under-window designs though. Any advice on selecting the right rad type & size is particularly welcome - I'd like to run lower boiler temps if possible, maybe even with a view of switching to a heat pump in the future. Wardrobe-wise, I want to position them against internal walls to avoid mould issues that I've raised in another thread. Desk to be positioned next to a window (but not directly facing it, as that would make it hard to look at a pc screen). This is pretty much where my thinking ends. Is there anything else to guide the design process? Here's an example sketch: a type22 rad under the window (current state pic on the left) gets re-plumbed to go in front of the door into the room (pic on the right). Bed either ends up in the corner made up from the external walls (pictured), or is placed away from the west wall, into the middle of the room, at the expense of available open floor area. Mrs' argument is that open floor space is better, as younger kids can spread out their toys there, while older kids might want to use that space for yoga/pushups/situps, musical instruments practice, whatever else they decide to do. My concern is that it might be a cold corner to sleep in. Cavity wall yet to be investigated, but I suspect either an empty cavity or old UFFI insulation inside. Another thing to consider: is it an acceptable practice to place two rads opposite each other on the same internal wall (single leaf brick construction)? The home office in the sketch currently has an under-the-window rad that will need to be re-positioned if I'm re-plumbing the bedroom one, so I'm thinking of hanging another tall rad in the office, on the same wall but right opposite as the one in the bedroom. Thank you.

Or like this

Thanks Paulie! Like this picture? So do you think I need a cavity closer? Can you just put concrete on top of the pir.

If you're bridging the damp course lower down then use a membrane down the inner skin, across and then up the outer skin. If you're worried about thermal bridging then 25mm PIR against the DPM and backfill with concrete? In a few window openings I've used just PIR in there but it takes no load so at a door reveal I'd want something a bit more solid.

This is what it looks like in section.

If it's a 100-year old pipe, personally, I'd be more concerned with having a potential long run of lead pipe supplying your property and supplying lead-contaminated water for your morning tea for years... The risk of the neighbour damaging the pipe while building an extension seems like a minor issue compared to the former. And yes, get both replaced with plastic-fantastic and re-located, as Spinny said. Might even do it on the cheap.

What johnmo said. Its cost of windows, plus duty (not sure of rate) cost of shipping plus the same duty rate. Add up the windows, duty, shipping, duty, then add vat to cumalative total. Plus pay an agent to clear it through customs for you. ( careful with finding an agent, plenty preying on the gullible) Plus anything gets brokrn or damaged, thats your problem. Dont let me put you off. Beeen importing product for years, but never glass!

Hi! In a bit of a rush as our LVT is coming on Monday. Our door installers have left the floor area under the door open and there’s a cavity there, and a tiny bit of dpm under the window. My intention is to fill the cavity with PIR kingspan foam boards, with a cavity closer on the top and a dpm tucked under the window one. Is this correct and can anyone draw me a detail? (Where does the dpm go?) Do I need to put some mortar down? The LVT installers will be doing a self levelling screed on top. We took out all the rubble here. Internal block with some membrane on top, cavity, new window with some membrane under. It’s about 10cm deep.

We're not PH level, but very well insulated with UFH in a 70mm slab over Hanson Jetfloor. We have a total of 12 circuits grouped in 7 thermostatically controlled zones. This enables us to set and maintain comfort levels to suit the use of each zone, and for relevant times of day. Surely, a single loop/zone risks losing such control, even if you could deliver even heat distribution across the entire circuit/slab?

Would check your tax liability when you import, will need to VAT and import duty, not sure of the rates, may not be as cheap as you think

It was nearly a week. Def give them a poke. I'm not convinced that automatic systems for moving tariffs works brilliantly. It needed manual intervention (just a call to customer services) to get my export sorted. It was stuck on "waiting for meter readings" when they were already getting them and the guy could see they were. He just clicked a button and it unstuck.

It took a couple of days after the switch for us to move onto the EV tariff. As mentioned above, once we'd switched the 13p export rate showed up as an export option. All good so far and be even better once they've accepted the export payments

I think I answered on your previous thread, but have a look at Allan Bros' Alu Clad offering (made in Denmark).https://www.allanbrothers.co.uk/ab-product/alu-clad-timber-windows/ I probably mentioned that I got a long way towards an order only to find that they had given me the lead time for their UK-produced timber windows, which was about half the wait time for the alu-clad at the time. Had I not been in a rush I would not have minded. It's worth double-checking, though, that they are quoting the lead time for the right range.

Many of us with passive-type slabs treat the whole thing as one zone. That said, there could be a benefit to at least trying to keep each loop to one or a couple of rooms with similar heating needs. That way, you can tweak per-room heating by adjusting flow rates at the manifold. You'd do that entirely passively - tweak the flow rates when you first move in to get the room temps you want, then probably never look at the manifold again. As it happens, running all loops completely open worked fine for us. The one carpeted room downstairs is a little cool in winter, but it isn't used that much, and when it is, it's generally the kids gaming or watching TV, so it heats up fast enough. I haven't touched our manifold in over a decade. As @torre says, there's probably an advantage in keeping all loops about the same length. I think each loop in our system is nominally 100 m long (one might be a little shorter).

I think you'd struggle to pump through a much longer small diameter pipe and even if you could, most of the heat would be dumped into your screed in the earlier part of the run so heating would be very uneven. I agree you can ignore zoning exactly to individual rooms and not much point trying to control their temperature separately, but you'll still need a manifold and ideally similar length loops to even out the heat distribution and keep flow through the pipes easier.

I believe for 16mm pipe, loops should not exceed 100m length. About 16 sqm ? - have I got that right for 150mm spacing ?

There are lots of loopcad layouts here on BH with room-by-room loops. Figure heat loss per room etc... Now supposing I have PH-level insulation and a thickish slab - can I just slather my slab below the screed with a regular loop design, ignoring the individual rooms? My thinking is that concrete/screed is a good thermal conductor and, for that reason, I won't really be able to control the temperature in individual rooms anyhoo. The screed will pretty much all be at the same temperature, and the heat output to the individual rooms will be governed by that temperature, whatever I try to do? p.s. my place has 3 rectangular slabs roughly the same size.

Can I ask how long they had you on their standard variable tariff before moving you to the EV rate? My switch went over yesterday and still showing variable. App says I have a smart meter so I assume its been able to communicate with it.

yeah....I had to wait until my switch went through. Initally I only had the 3p option but once I was showing as an EDF customer it showed me the 13p option.....have only just done this yesterday so still plenty time for it all to go wrong. EDF advise upto 4 weeks to have it all confirmed.

I called Walraven and they don't actually stock those particular brackets, I spoke to a very helpful chap and by coincidence he needed the same bracket himself and randomly found a pair of them in the bargain bin in Toolstation, however I can't see them listed on their website. I think I'll have to find some suitably wide angle metal and fabricate a wider bracket in the garage.

@James1234 , it you want these re-uploaded to the post after you've removed your details from them, please let me know. Otherwise, I assume you're happy just leaving them deleted.

I know this has been discussed in the past, but I wanted to ask if anyone had recently investigated sourcing triple glazed aluminium or aluminium timber clad windows from Europe. We are currently lined up for a mixture of Velfac / Norskken, but the 50k spend and the recent "Oh, the price has increased emails" is now getting me thinking whether to have another shop around attempt.

Depending on type of farm, he may have a big load. No idea what our peak demand used to be but our bill was over £15,000 a year, 5 years ago with most demand in two 4 hour periods each day. Our stand by generator was 70 KVA and a full load would make that blink.