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Just install it! Your SAP won’t go in to such detail. In my opinion you’re very much over thinking it. we installed just as you’re proposing and love it btw.

Soaking would dissolve the bitumen content and lose the stickiness. I couldn't vouch for a coating of solvent between the old and the new but it might work.. it's your own surface so you can try.

Hi there, Another silly question likely but hopefully someone can offer some guidance. I'm looking at having a large rectangular plaster in LED profile, in the ceiling of my kitchen/diner. When reading my SAP Calc, it states:- Client to install lighting 100.00% Low Energy Lighting, minimum performance requirements as below: Wattage: Less than or Equal to: 5W Efficacy: (lumens/Watt): 100 Is there a way to remain compliant with this type of lighting? It seems to be the wattage that's causing the concern. Would it be assumed to be a single light or can it be assessed with a bit of pragmatism? The part I don't understand with the SAP calc, is it appears there is no limit on the number of lights I can have, so long as they are 5w and 100l/w. Surely this isn't energy efficient either if I have 1000 lights (obviously over exaggerated to make my point) Thanks in advance, Jamie

But they are ineffective. My installers met all the requirements on paper but the regulation tundish is too small to contain all the splashing. But more seriously, at full flow from the tprv the water backs up in the D2 pipe and would overflow the tundish if I continued the test.

Sorry - I'm not intending to trickle feed - I think I've just posted a bit early in the process. The building itself is roughly 900m2 over 2.5 floors, it's shaped broadly in a cube. Agree that fabric needs to be spot on. The only draft detail I have right now is 250mm PIR in the roof. The rest will get fleshed out over the coming weeks. Mechanical ventilation is planned: a big unit from Systemair. I haven't yet seen details on how air tightness will be achieved, but I have discussed with the team making use of Aeroseal. I think it probably makes sense to post back in a few weeks with a bit more info and some drawings.

Enjoy your holiday., but see you are still monitoring comments. So in that context hope this helps. Agree. I've put my day job hat on and thought, how would I go about sorting this out, bring discipline to the process? You mention that you are keen to avoid stressing your personal set up, that is a material consideration and probably the most important one. The rest is just building mechanics, how much it's going to cost to build and recognising that at times you need to make reasoned design compromises in places and then compensate where it is easy to do so. As I've said before I like your design, not everyone will but beauty is in the eye.. Now as a word of encouragement, you are not the first to experience this, and you won't be the last! If I was going to tackle something like this I would probably just spend half a day, may take two goes at this, say a day, listening to your journey, trying to understand what you actually want from the build, how you got to where you are. Often when I go to an initial site concept design meeting I try, insist, that all parties are there. So that would be you and your partner. This works well as I have the "day job" advantage, if there are two of you then less chance something gets missed, questions not asked by you. I would ask questions as prompts, let you talk and from that it lets me build a picture of your basic requirements, the things that really matter to you. The conversation needs to be general, technical stuff comes later. One of the things I do it to assess what time you have, your skills, where you lack them, where you need help, where you can learn and help yourself and how that help gets delivered. Now all that sounds wishy washy and a bit woke, but once I get a handle on your capability and situation it lets me put together a costed design brief after figuring out what needs to be done to bring order to the project. Yes you don't "want to go back to the beginning". The next step is to look at what you have, what is useful, viable, what relationships can be salvaged and what can't. What do you need to do to get BC approval, an approximate build cost. A bill of quantities (BOQ) is a different animal. @Tony L I think you'll get there in the end so keep your head up! For all, this is worth a look at as there is often confusion about what all this means. The following is a bit of a summary, not perfect mind! Often self builders on BH will employ an Architect / designer to get planning permission. The same will produce a set of drawings with sufficient detail, thermal calculations and the like to get BC approval and many use these drawings as the "construction drawings". Sometimes it's fine bit other times it leads to dispute about money, lack of fit up on site, changes made by the builder (as they go off piste) that compromise the structural design big time. Some divide the design into work packages, say the foundations, a timber frame, but the interfaces never get thought through, again money and time is lost as these interfaces never get properly designed. The Client is left disappointed as they can see they are not getting what they think they are paying for. Client may then go back to the designer and might say, your drawings are crap, the designer then says, I was only contracted to produce sufficient info for BC approval, and I have excercised reasonable skill and care in the sense that a competent builder should be able to fill in the gaps, my drawings are not detailed construction drawings, see my terms and conditions!. Cost is not a primary consideration, safety is, no one can run about designing stuff that has no chance of getting built safely! The next step up is to produce a full set of detailed construction drawings. This is kind of the level that @Tony L is going into at the moment. From that you can generate a respectable bill of quantities (BOQ), on Tony's job it will be lenghty, cost a fair bit and this falls much within the remit of a Quantity Surveyor. There is no point in spending loads on a comprehensive BOQ unless that is coupled with a recognised form of building contract that eveyone signs up to., or at least something similar, a bespoke contract, risky though! Few domestic self build Clients do this, unless it's a mansion and you have loads of money! So say you have a set of construction drawings, a BOQ and a recognised building contract. You now need someone to Admimister the contract. They may or may not be the principle designer. Story for another day. But the new PD rules now require in essence a much more hands on approach to what is going on on site and ensuring that the builders / Client does not go off and do there own thing.. which they often do! The risk for the administrator is that if you authorise a payment to the builder and it turns out you have authorised too much then you are on the hook and liable. Most adminsitrators will authorise payment but caveat, from what we can see visually the works are at this stage. They do not certify the quality or accuracy of the work for example. This is a key thing. What is NOT offered it seems, is what we would call a traditional Clerk of works service. A traditional Clerk of works is on site pretty much all the time and they are responsible for standing over the builder at every stage, absolutely nothing gets covered up.. every thing is checked for workmanship, level, setting out and consitency for example. My own PI insurance covers me for SE design, Architectural design and contract admin, it explicitly says that Clerk of works function is excluded, and for good reason.

None whatsoever, and even less of a worry here as you’re skimming new over new. This is perfectly fine for refurbishing old houses, so fill your boots. 🥾

Finding a rainy day to do the job shouldn't be a problem!

Fair point

I'm more getting at the routing for the tprv rather than the usual stuff with inlet groups, expansion vessels etc which would all be needed. I'm coming from the perspective of the annual check needed for a vessel that could potentially explode (though most home owners don't get them serviced). If the vessel can't explode then the safety requirements are less critical. Actually, while I think about it, given a significant portion of unvented cylinders probably aren't serviced annually, have we ever heard of one exploding? Or even blowing off and injuring someone? I did see a myth busters where they deliberately sealed one shut and boiled it, and it did go off like a rocket. I'd have thought if that happened we'd hear about it.

Yeah but that's what the usual prv is for. The tprv for unvented has very specific routing and venting requirements to handle near boiling (potentially above boiling) water partially flashing to steam

If you treat as vented you may not or wouldn't have an expansion vessel, inlet control group, or PRV. A unvented cylinder is just that, once installed you have zero control what the home owner will or not do. The rules at least make sure that at install stage, a basic set of rules are in place.

Are you after a custom build house? Usually a few houses on a plot, different styles, some variation between neighbouring houses and you can specify some changes and decor/kitchen/bathroom spec. They do services, planning, building regs, build. What area/s are you looking at?

with a duff expansion vessel, even 80c could be enough to blow something.

Good evening everyone, I wonder if I can get some help/thoughts on how to finish the below: I recently got a room renovated in my 1930s house, at the end of the room an extension was done sometimes in the 50s/60s, the extended part has a patio door which was recently replaced with a new bifold sitting on the outer leaf. The workman put down new joists (suspended timber floor) and the joists was run resting on the inner leaf of the masonry as in picture, is this correct?. Also, telescopic vents were installed under the bifold which crosses between outer and inner wall to help with subfloor ventilation. I now have the cavity to finish, so I can have the floor going all the way up to the bifold door, the workmen suggested no need for cavity closer when they done the work. I am unsure how to finish off the cavity up to the bifold to avoid cold bridging and any damp. What is the best approach in this situation, all thoughts are much appreciated.

I found the only way to get rid of potholes in my road plannings permanently was to do it in the rain! Or at least the whacking part. Tended to drag the fines and a bit of mud/clay up and bind it all together. But as per saveasteading, properly clean out the hole first. Legend has it soaking in diesel also works but ive not tried that, and probably shouldnt.

would get 2 coats done as usual I just was not sure if there would be any issue with re-skimming a wall that's already been skimmed on top of the original plaster.

If that's a pair of steels over that window (difficult to tell from the resolution of the pic), then I'd remove the outer one and span over the window with the timber frame instead, to cut the thermal bridge. At least it doesn't look like a single steel across both leaves. BTW, make sure that the rafters over that ridge beam are adequately secured; I hope that the SE has specified something for that.

Doesn’t matter where you buy them from, more important is who fits them. It’s just a case of trawling the net to find the best price, delivered, which maybe a significant factor where you are! Might be worth ringing your builder merchants as well as their best prices won’t be on the web.

Finally! I might have had some joy. Found a brickie who has quoted me on m2 rates and his work looks very tidy too. Rates are £23/M2 blockwork and £55/M2 face brickwork. Those numbers do align much more with the estimators quote.

The internet seems to throw up a lot of options for Velux window suppliers. Are there any particular ones that people might recommend? I’m after some low-profile PK08 1400x800 Quantity; 2x top-opening escape low-profile windows with blind kits 2x top-opening escape low-profile windows, no blinds All with low-profile flashing kits for slate roofsI Internal finish: White Polyurethane Finish

@SteamyTeaHope you're ok , J

still don't agree, one rule for all appliances, then you don't someone deciding to fit an inline immersion or adding a gas boiler later and then blow their house up. If you want vented rules install a vented cylinder, if you want unvented then G3, simple.

Good point! The old "nail in the fuse box" fix.