All Activity

Is it enough of a saving? The government is 'looking into' what they can do to reduce electricity prices. While I know this is all to do with the cost of living, rather than any environmental policy, I think it is sending a confused message, especially to the domestic renewables industry.

Sorry, I missed your follow up on where to find them. Honestly I do not have a reliable off the shelf source to point you to, they tend to turn up through specialist radiator fixing suppliers rather than the usual trade counters, and stock seems hit and miss. For only 20mm or so I would go with your fabrication idea. A short length of angle or channel fixed solidly into the stud, with the bracket bolted through it, will do the job and you can set the lug position exactly. Torre's point about taking the main load at the bottom is a good one too, so the top fixing is not doing all the work on its own.

Fire board not fibreboard . Sorry

Our 1900s built 2 bed mid terrace house has only one wall in the loft separating us from next door . Our loft has NO wall separating us from our neighbour in the other side. The property is under offer for sale and the buyers surveyor has noted this as a Fire risk . I have spoken to a builder who has suggested stud wall and double skin fibreboard ect My questions are if I go ahead do I need any form of certificate or permission? Thank you .

such a good point. We are entitled to proper receipts but its easy to forget to ask, or to be fobbed off. So if I have just a fade-able one, then I staple it to an A4 and write down what it was for in layman's terms. Photocopying is a great idea.

If standing charges are going next year, as announced in the budget for gas, I may consider reconnecting the still installed gas boiler. Gives a zero cost backup, in case the heat pump has an issue. Anyone had similar thoughts?

Ok, I've gone back and double checked and I think you are probably right. It's been a while since I looked at the regs and this was a specific area that I was interested in for my own plans. So no kitchen in same room as stairs (even with upstairs escape windows) was fairly firmly etched in my memory. Not sure where I've gone wrong in the past and I'm still half thinking there's a reason it's so firmly in my mind. Curious.

Depending on screed depth or floor buildup, warm up times can be way longer than 3 hours with UFH. That sounds like your boiler is cycling, one of the issues with zoning central heating. Is this the only part of the heating system on? What is the rest of the heating system and how is it controlled? More info you can provide the better

Thanks Rick. I think the kitchen separation comes from the three-storey open-plan option, where you need the kitchen enclosed plus sprinklers. For two storeys, ADB just asks for a heat alarm in the kitchen where it isn't separated from the stair, along with the escape windows upstairs. Our architect is obviously comfortable with the layout.

Thanks, l give it three hours. I have felt the tiles mildly warm before but tepid is with just above chilled tiles. The room temp is 19 and I have thermo set at 21. the water temp does go up to 36 but its inconsistent.

Not sure if these are still at lidl, but Big Clive just covered them...

No problem. I find it good practice to work through other peoples designs as a way of helping guide my own thoughts on my future project (still a long way away). Great! I believe the issue is introduced when you have a kitchen within that living area. If you could seal off the kitchen from the rest of the space I think it would be ok.

Thanks Rick, really appreciate you taking the time to look. Great minds! We went through exactly that with the architect yesterday. A direct door from the living space into Jessica's bathroom is going into the next revision, so she won't have to go through multiple doors to get there. Good shout to flag it. My understanding of Approved Document B is that sprinklers or misting, or a fully protected stair, only come into play when there's a floor more than 4.5m above ground, i.e. three storeys or more. For a two-storey house, an open stair rising from the living area is allowed as long as: • every first-floor habitable room has a compliant escape window (min 0.33m² clear opening, 450mm min width and height, sill no higher than 1100mm) So I think we're OK on that one, but I'll double-check and keep an eye on the escape windows to the bedrooms. Happy to be corrected if anyone's had a different experience!

Hi all We have a 1950s Hipped (Traditional cut) roof bungalow configured in an L shape. So we have no gables anywhere. Currently we are upgrading the loft insulation of a loft conversion that was carried out in the 1980s - We are doing other bits including relocating loft access stairs (Spiral to a proper staircase) and hence Building control are involved. BCO has asked for a 50mm ventilation gap between the underside of roofing felt and the insulation as we are insulating at rafter level. My understanding is the aim is to have airflow from the eaves vents up through each rafter 'bay' then down the other side of the roof or out of a ventilated ridge. With this aim I am struggling to see how I can maintain this crossflow air path with the hipped roof construction. We have Hip rafters at each corner, with Jack rafters leading from the eaves up to rest on these Hip rafters. So these effectively are 'dead ends' and airflow would never reach the ridge. Then when it comes to a rafter that does reach from the eaves to the ridge this airflow is blocked by the timber trimmers of Velux windows. So only a handful of the rafter bays will have a true airflow path. What's the most common way to overcome this issue? I'm not sure drilling holes all along the ends of the rafters does much good to structural strength! The existing roof membrane is a breathable type, as the bungalow had a new replacement slate roof only 10 years ago. So I'm not overly keen to be stripping any of It off if I can help it. Any Ideas? Many thanks in advance

Welcome. Had a quick look and two things sprung to mind when looking at your plans: Maybe worth considering a separate door into the accessible bathroom. Obviously not sure on the particular situation your daughter is in but just seems to me that navigating from the living room to the bathroom through multiple doors in a wheelchair is suboptimal and a more direct access from the living space might be a good idea. I notice you appear to have the main staircase to your upstairs through your living area. I believe this triggers extra fire safety measures that can add a lot of cost and possibly ongoing maintenance (sprinklers/misting systems). Worth considering if that is worth it vs an alternate design that avoids the need.

Hi all, I've been lurking and asking the odd question here for a while now, so first of all a big thank you to everyone who's helped us so far, especially @craig @Owain1602 , @Nickfromwales , @JohnnyB , @Nick Laslett and @zzPaulzz . The knowledge and generosity on this forum have been invaluable. A bit of background on why we're doing this. Honestly, if it were just us, we'd be very happy staying in our little 4-bed semi for the rest of our lives. The only reason we're on this self-build journey is our disabled daughter. We want her to become as independent as possible while staying close by, so the house is designed around a self-contained annexe for her and her carer(S), attached to the main family home. We're now at the point where we'd really welcome some fresh eyes on our plans (attached). We're building on a plot near Ipswich, with a total floor area of around 350m², including the annexe. Planning hasn't been submitted yet, so this is a good time to catch anything we've missed. Any comments, observations or "I wouldn't do it that way" are all very welcome. Structure We're leaning towards a timber frame with I-joist walls and roof cassettes. The main reason is natural insulation (wood fibre, cellulose or hemp), for its decrement delay and to help prevent summer overheating, which matters as much to us as winter heat loss. Speed of construction is a big plus too. We're targeting U-values of 0.13 for the walls and 0.11 for the roof and floor, with a brick outer leaf and some Millboard cladding, plus a standing seam roof (Catnic Urban) with a small flat roof section. Foundations Our preference is an insulated raft, but we haven't ruled out traditional trench fill with something like Marmox Thermoblock to minimise thermal bridging at the wall-floor junction. The site is sand and gravel/crag. M&E Full MVHR for the house and annexe ASHP with underfloor heating on the ground floor; we're still deciding how best to heat and cool upstairs Solar PV with battery storage (AC coupled with safety the priority given the timber frame) I'll start separate threads on specific topics (foundations, frame choice, cavity barriers and so on) and link them back here, so this thread can stay as an overview. Thanks in advance, Jeremy PW1629-PL03revC Proposed Floor Plans and Elevs.pdf PW1629-PL02revC Proposed Site Plan.pdf

Yeh I feel it's time for a ping. @ProDave @Mattg4321 some expert clarification would be appreciated.

What I was hoping. As I said - it is not uncommon for circuits to have outlets that total to way more than the wrong can handle. This is why we have fuses in the first place. Even if you strictly had a single 13a socket on a 16a radial, someone could stick a nail onto the wire and draw whatever the breaker could allow.

We have a few electricians on the site. Perhaps they'll provide some guidance.

The 32a socket is primarily for an ev granny charger. Specifically an adjustable one with built in rdc and pen fault protection. They come in 2 versions - a standard plug and a 32a commando plug. The standard plug version is adjustable from 6 to 13a and should only be used at 13a with a designated socket. Which seems very sketchy - loads of peeps will stick 13a from a regular socket. The commando plug version is adjustable to 32a and uses a 32a plug which should be alot safer than the 13a plug version. Hence the 32a socket. As I said the circuit itself is capable of 24a (iirc according to the tables) and protected by 20a. If someone were to adjust the charger to more than 20a or plug in a device that could draw more than 20a the breaker should do it's job and trip. I thought this was the whole point of a breaker. If it were that you could never have an outlet bigger than the rated current of the circuit then you couldn't fit more than a single double socket (potentially 26a) on a 16a radial and more than 3 sockets on a 32a protected ring main. That said sometimes regulations are a bit odd hence my question.

For anyone who doesn't know. It doesn't need to be aluminium. The aluminium surfaces do not aid insulation, but simply hold the insides in and look good. Reflective surfaces only add insulation if facing an air space to bounce radiating heat back into. Manufacturers used to imply that it does ,but now simply choose to not mention this, especially the one you will have been bombarded with as a super new idea. The tape is to close joints, keep it all from moving, and to stop any grout getting down there. shiny looks good. It helps a bit in keeping cutting dust down. Thus the unfaced boards that are available from 'seconds' even though they are not, are an option. Tyvek tape can be a bit permanent! so be right before applying it. I think I must have wasted 30% of the shiny tape from SF. Not perimeter, as the tape joins 2 boards. So half perimeter (3.6m) x number of whole boards+15% I'd say. 10% if the rooms are big. Likewise boards. You should not have much waste.... remember you have to pay to get rid of waste so you are paying twice.

Welcome back to the fray! You'll soon catch up! Many of the old rules still apply, trick is to identify what's changed. Some of the things that have changed are really exciting, new products, prices have come down, PV for example and UFH is much more "normal".