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It's a difficult thing, especially new builds when mastic isn't always possible at the point of installation for numerous factors. I always allow for this to be done by the contractor or appointed mastic man.

I used regular exterior ply with a custom single piece 2mm aluminium extrusion made by a local fabricator. The main reason was these should never need any maintenance in my lifetime Regards Tet

You could consider High Pressure Laminate type products, a la cladding type products like Trespa, Rockpanel, etc. We have been looking for a soffit material that would look like timber but not fade etc. The only one we could find in the right colour is a Fundermax one, made on the continent and widely used there and in the US. However our only route to getting it is a special shipment via a French distributor/fabricator it seems. https://www.fundermax.com/en/Portfolio/Collections https://www.trespa.com/en_GB/ https://pura-uk.com/ and https://pura-uk.com/products/fasciasandsoffits https://bbsfacades.co.uk/ Maybe well be too much cost and faffing for you though.

I have had Accoya replacement windows made for a house in a Conservation Area. Apparently very durable but time will tell. Painted finish. I have used Guttercrest for ali gutters, copings and fascias. Nice quality. If you are cladding the fascia with ali, they only need to be treated s/w.

From your description I cannot work out how much of the upper floor has insulation at sloping rafter level and how much is at ceiling joist level. The ceiling joist insulation is simple with extra loft roll. You may need to use loft legs if your are storing crap stuff up there. If you can insulate the sloping parts, so much the better. BC may take a fairly pragmatic approach, especially if you would need to trash ceilings etc.

Any advice on materials for fascia’s & soffit’s? We are trying to source good quality materials, that are fit for the task and will also have a long life. At present we are considering 2mm aluminium fascia & soffits, fixed onto a marine ply sub-base (25mm fascia and 9mm soffit). Builders merchants Marine ply is not always the best quality so what are the alternatives? What about Accoya? Is Accoya or other timber is good enough without aluminium sheet applied? For information, planning to install Lindab Majestic (only 10 yr warranty) for the guttering & down pipes. Many thanks.

I think it depends on exactly what you do or don't want. Some just want some basic drawings for the planning application creating based on their own sketch. Some want someone that severely games the planning system to get plans through that should never get through. You can't build a planning application drawing, and any build quote you get will be fairly meaningless. To build you need construction drawings, or you start making it up as you go along. To get a proper quote you need construction drawings, electrical plan, structural engineer's design/report and a tender document which becomes part of the building contract. Some want actual creative design to address their life needs (i.e. the brief) and achieve aesthetic goals. Some want to build at £1.5k/sqm, others at £8k/sqm. Some want to accept whatever single design the architect draws unchanged, some want preliminary concepts to choose between, some want to look carefully at the plans and make improvements and changes to give them what they really want. I would always say plan, plan, and plan because the more you plan, the more problems you will avoid. Change on projects is always a killer. You certainly see so many extensions that are diabolical - saw one once where someone had built a kind of bridge with steps up and down to cross a staircase opening. Builders and Architects love to hate each other but each bring something essential. The best thing a good architect can give you is probably a route to a good reliable builder.

1907 detached house, High Weald AONB, EPC Band G. Stripping front and right roof slopes (over 50%), so Part L triggered. Sarking boards, 115mm rafters, bitumen underfelt. First-floor bedrooms have sloping ceilings. Attic above has no fixed heating, ladder access only. NFRC contractor has quoted £9,652 + VAT for between-rafter insulation as a separate line item. On a G-rated house with uninsulated cavity walls, I estimate the annual saving at £75–200 — giving a payback of 48–154 years, well beyond the 15-year test in para 5.9. Three questions: If the attic has no fixed heating, is the roof above it NOT a thermal element — making the attic floor the relevant element instead? Has anyone successfully used the 15-year payback argument with Building Control on an older property? Above-rafter insulation would raise the roof height in an AONB, needing uncertain planning permission. Is that "not technically feasible" under para 5.9? Thanks, Jon

It's a bit more complicated than that. They should warm up at the same rate. Even in a somewhat unbalanced system the rads might eventually get to the same temp but if they take a long time to do it then over that time they have put out a lot less heat. You say that with confidence but I'm not so confident. I'm not sure your most recent installer would have done balancing. It may have taken several additional hours once the install of the heatpump was complete and involved him going round your rooms repeatedly. Did that happen? If he balanced the system then I would have expected him to bleed the radiators also. (Bleeding the radiators is step one of balancing the system).

Two entirely different things! The weather sealing is fundamental, so absolutely should have been done. They (or you) can now use a clear UV stable mastic to do this, or employ a "mastic man" who will not come with fat thumbs and make a mess of this in anger. If the work is offered up as snagging, state before work commences that you don't want the sealant looking like Ray Charles did it.

I'll get my coat.......

People will just be plugging these in with near zero GAF though, I expect.

Quite interesting! Thanks for that.

I think this is a regular thing. Even I've had that vibe lately.

Is it me, or is this thread still unnecessarily hard work ? I ask because I think it a compliment if anyone responds to my posts. And that response - no matter how much I disagree with it - is a starting point for my own thinking. Gentle responses are harder to draft when upset.

No worries... The fees to date cover items 1-8 below. 9-21 are another couple of thousand. We have planning approval, have discharged the pre-commencement conditions and we're probably 50% of the way through the remaining points. PREPARATION 1. Development of initial statement of requirements into the Design Brief on behalf of the client confirming key requirements and constraints. 2. Surveyor and measure the house. DESIGN 3. Prepare a number of sketch designs as your brief and for discussion purposes. This can include hand sketches, 3D computer modelling and physical models. 4. Prepare final design/make alterations in accordance with your instructions this will be weighted at 20% of the design fee. Planning 5. Prepare planning drawings and other information if needed. 6. Submit the Full Plans and Design Statement. 7. Act as clients agent during the planning process and advise on planning requirements. 8. Notify the neighbouring owners of the construction under the Party Wall Act etc. 1996, prepare notification letters only under the act. PRE-CONSTRUCTION 9 Obtain a quotation for a Structural Engineers on your behalf. The client will hold such persons, and not the Designer, responsible for the competence, suitability and performance of the work thereby entrusted to them. This also includes any specialist contractor, sub-contractor or supplier 10. Liaise with the Structural Engineers and co-ordinate changes across all disciplines. 11. Revise drawings to suit Structural Engineers/ specialist contractor/ supplier designs. 12. Detail Structural Engineers drawings to suit. 13. Write to the statutory services and establish service locations. 14. Prepare detailed construction drawings and could include, depending on project: - Dimension Plan - Electrical Plan - Foundation Layout - Sections - Detailed Sections - Drainage layout - External works and indicative landscaping scheme 15. Prepare a specification. 16. Prepare the storm and foul water drainage. 17. Discharge planning conditions. 18. Obtain notification of planning discharged conditions. 19. Obtain a Radon report. 20. Make a Building Regulation application to the local authority. 21. Prepared copies (or originals) of all approval documents and statutory consents. I have to say that the project has very possibly taken longer and been more complicated than the architect perhaps initially anticipated, but to be fair to them they have stuck to their original quote. We've been very involved in the design process. Additionally, we've done quite a lot ourselves (rainwater & foul water management plans, SAB application, planting plans, green infrastructure statement etc) but that was pretty straightforward and quite enjoyable. That being said, most of those aspects weren't included in the other architects' proposals anyway. One of the really frustrating things was that most of the architects we met, with only a couple of exceptions, seemed intent on designing the house as if it was for them. We gave all of them the same brief and most ignored it. One flounced onto the site dressed like a Tom Baker Doctor Who wannabe and spent an hour telling me how wonderful he was... his quote was over £40k and having seen some of his other work I saw nothing to justify it. Of the architects I met in person, the one we chose was the only one to ask questions about our lifestyle & routines, how we expected these to change, what worked/didn't work in our current house... I really felt that they were invested in helping us build a house we'd love. I'd use them again in a heartbeat.

We had a surveyor undertake a building snag survey post build. One of the (many!) things he picked up was the windows were not sealed externally. The house has silicone render applied to thermal insulation boards. We believe SPS Envirowall was the brand used (but to be honest who knows with our builders!). Windows are Residence 9 UPVC windows. The window installer/supplier is saying that customers do not generally have their windows silicone sealed around the external edges, as they already have silicone render applied to the edge of the window frame. What are your thoughts on this? we thought that if a chartered surveyor picks this up then it must be important. To be fair the window company is via the contractor (but at our request). Any thoughts gratefully received.

Your experience was nasty, and we should hold responsible the suppliers and importers of faulty dangerous goods. There is a thorough write-up here, BTW: https://solarenergyconcepts.co.uk/post/plug-in-solar-uk/

Hi Rick, but if my rads furthest away from the new internal box wall thing (IE near cylinder), are equally as hot to the touch, as the rads nearest to it.. that suggests the balance is ok. Or if it's the outside HP which creates the water which runs in the rads (instead of the internal box near the cylinder), then I can safely say, that the furthermost rads to -this- are equally as hot to the touch as rads near to it. Evidently then the balance is fine. The install was only 6 weeks ago too- I wouldn't expect the rads to gave 'drifted' out in such a short time, nor that the installer (Vaillant affiliated & vg by all accounts too) wouldn't have balanced them upon install- if that is, it was one of the jobs he was meant to do. He asked me at this juncture, to bleed the rads: so I know he was doing some form of setting up, after the actual installation job had been completed. Thanks, Zoot Thanks Zoot

OPSS has reported some cheap chinese chargers that have been found without fuses fitted. A proper granny charger plug should have a fuse and a thermister to limit plug heat, but again, what you order off TEMU might only look fine on the surface. Granny chargers already cause scorching damage to sockets (which are not rated for 10a continous loads for 8 hours plus). What if the P-I-S was plugged into a double socket with the car? (I'm sure you can think of other examples! Nothing exceeds mankinds seemingly boundless capacity for stupidity) Think of this another way. What if its a long ring circuit, with lots of high load items (plug in stove oven, microwave, kettle, car charger, porn server, etc, etc), all switched on at the same time. Each load is cumulative even if they are only drawing less than 10 amps each. Without P-I-S that high cumulative draw will be detected by the mcb. With P-I-S it could be be 'situation normal' whilst the cables burn out in the walls.

We paid roughly £6k for our design drawings + planning application management. We had some other, cheaper quotes from architects who seemed very nice. We ultimately picked a more expensive one purely because he was insanely responsive and proactive with all his ideas. Absolutely zero regrets so far; he's been incredible. The responsiveness alone is worth its weight in gold. So sick of people just not replying or taking eons to get their stuff together.

?? Maybe I'm missing something but a faulty anything is limited to 13amp by the fuse in the plug which is way less than 2.5mm cable can carry. Any adjacent plug in solar is only offsetting what that faulty load would draw from the consumer unit but is again limited to 13amp by its plug? If plug in solar is limited to 800watt then it's hard to see a problem?? Unless....... If you plugged in multiple plug in solar units then you could have a problem if you also plug in multiple high loads, that's where the regulators might have a problem but thats the same problem Europe will already be dealing with??

Unless you want to join one of the export payment schemes AFAIK there's currently no requirement for MCS certification or testing for anything....products or installations??

The neutral needs to pass through an RCD/RCBO to monitor for earth leakage if there's an imbalance in current in the live and neutral. You don't have to break the neutral to do the monitoring although I think you can get double pole RCBOs in a single module width.