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So you have to turn that membrane down to get the suggested (obligatory) 9mm?

The RK door is set up for 9mm clearance. You can see the skimpiness of the threshold arrangement in that drawing. Essentially, my EPDM sits on the datum line where the arrow points and just has slim packers (around 5mm) between it and the underside of the threshold.

Watch the gap for stones / debris brought in on your shoes. 6-7mm gap is minimum but 10mm better. Just one gotcha to avoid before committing to final floor levels.

I find the same using Chat got, can talk utter nonsense and really contract itself - And AI is set to take over the world.

Thanks @Tony L for drawing attention to the erroneous information from Gemini. I use the same AI source a great deal. The answers to my questions are often simply wrong. But it's correct often enough to keep my custom. Annoying, but useful because simple acceptance of the answers given is not an option.

And with drivers on top of cupboards, make a box for them to go in (with side vents for heat dissipation). Regardless of how good your kitchen vent is, the top of cupboards still tend to end up with a greasy film over time so a little protection is worthwhile.

All our drivers and led controls are in a central location with a flex running to the led strips. no driver or control needed near the strips. All dimming and colour changes done on an app, al switching on and off from a switch on the wall.

You're welcome Will, glad it helped. One thing worth adding: when the VCL goes down, tape every lap and run it well past the wall plate so it can be sealed properly to your wall air tightness line. Do the same around anything that comes through the deck, like soil vent pipes or roof window frames. A few minutes with tape there saves a lot of grief later. Good luck with the build.

Not sure this is relevant ,as you may be asking about floor level lights under main units. Our LED strip lights under our wall units to light the work top are in a channel with diffuser. They were mounted right at the front of the units ,behind the front trim strip of the cupboards. Unfortunately this leaves an unlit shadow along the front edge of the worktop, they should have been set back a few inches . Didn’t want them at the back of the underside of the cupboards as we thought they might be visible from the far end of the large kitchen / living room. Drivers on top of cupboards , wires down behind units.

300mm pipe spacing does seem big, on tile flooring you'll notice the heat spacing unless you have really thick screed. Id opt for smaller and dial back the temp.

Yeah we had similar positivity with quooker several months ago, light weep from one of the joints, and despite being out of warranty, and without quibble, sent out nigh on everything for me to diagnose and replace myself. Wasn't a big job at all, but was a relief when I thought it could become expensive. Very happy with them.

Another Quooker service win from us. The filtered/sparkling water had slowed to a trickle, everything else was fine. The filtered was changed about 5 months ago so that surely couldn’t be the issue. Service booked (£125 😬) but only payable after the visit. Engineer arrived, diagnosed a knackered filter, replaced it, zero charge. So, whilst we have had several issues with our Quooker/Cube combination, not all posted here, we have always had a great service and quibble free fix where required. Throughly recommend if you want to spend the excess dosh on one of these appliances.

It was a dark wood unit and clear glass on top. It was just a smear of silicone round all the wood/glass joins. Most of the water stayed in the bowl, only the odd splash outside, it was never an issue.

FWIW, French regulations specify a maximum of 250mm between pipes - more here:

When I studied construction - when there were very few building physics geeks - the library had a whole bookcase documenting experimental buildings technologies that people had tried in an attempt to live off grid or cut their energy bills (carbon emissions weren't a thing). Trombe walls, solar hot water (usually using salvaged radiators), solar chimneys, superinsulation, earth sheltering, water powered generators and plenty more. Most of the people only had a rough clue about what they were doing and how well it would work, not much idea about what to prioritise, nor whether any of it made economic sense. And intuition was the only way of knowing whether or not a brilliant idea from Arizona, Tokyo or Stockholm might have any relevance in Abergavenny, Brighton or Clydebank. The revolution that PHPP brought to this jungle shouldn't be underestimated. It's difficult, for example, to be a member of this forum without knowing about the key ideas it helped popularise - such as airtightness, MVHR, superinsulation and triple glazing - even if there is a case for prioritising ASHP, PV & battery storage (at least in Ireland).

Was that coloured glass then or did you manage a neat job with the sealant?

I did that in our previous house. I got a piece of glass cut to the exact size of the top with a central hole cut, sealed the edges with silicone (handn’t heard of CT-1 at that stage). Never had any problems with condensation or water tracking underneath in the 10+ years we lived with it.

That's a though for water condensing on the basin and running down onto the top as well.

The calcs need to take account of what's going on top of the rafters, of course. I was having a Gemini AI chat about a workshop with a flat roof & proposed 6.5m span, about a week ago. Gemini recommended reducing the width to 6m internal so I could use 47 x 220 C24 at 400 centres to save a load of money against the next size up, in C24 spec' (THIS WAS MIS-INFORMATION). The same chat gave this link for a span calculator, which shows that 47 x 220 will not be good enough for a 6m span. https://www.timberbeamcalculator.co.uk/en-gb/span-table/flat-roof-joists?load=0.75&class=C24

Depends on the depth of pipes, ours are in 100mm screed and there is zero. So thats should not be a concern. Even when I used the boiler at 34 degs there were none. 300mm is generally fine, one thing it does bring is a fall off of heat transfer at very low flow temps, so to counter that on 7 to 10 deg days I just flow at 29 and in Cosy periods and the runs are good. Have a WC curve that runs 29 to 32 (10 degs to -5 degs). Running 29 degs gives a very stable run time of over 3 hours and also excellent CoP, just finished a run I did as I was getting free electricity, ran in manual for 3 hours and got a CoP average of 6.6 at one point it was doing over 7. At 300mm spacing you can very easily hit very high room temps, just flow too high for too long and you go into melt down. Just use the chart I posted on 30 Aug to work out how little flow temp increase you need to add to increase output hugely. If you are concerned just drop the spacing to 200-250mm, but tighter in bathrooms due to the limited floor area

An idea: How about removing the top wooden surface and putting something like quartz or corian on it? Keep the rest of the unit as is. That's about as bomb proof as you are going to get. Pricier than glass but you might find a keenly priced offcut the right size. Something like Corian can be cut easily. Does change the look though so maybe not what you are going for.

It is quite a piece of work to create a meaningful budget and to stick to it. Our original builder had a QS draw up a line item budget for our extension/refurb contract but with estimates for the plumbing and electrics. I insisted he got quotes for those items which came in a lot higher than his estimates. You need to either have a pretty good idea of what you want to do and the relevant prices, or be defining a budget and then constraining your choices to fit within it. These days there are lots of items where choice and affordability can change the price by multiples and huge amounts of that choice. You should have a window and door schedule and cost that up, a steels and lintels schedule etc etc. You are bound to want some labour too I'd have thought - some things require multiple people, some particular skills, or placing risk with contractors. As it's your forever home you will need to phase it appropriately. Are you going to be living there, or when would you need to start living there ? Living on a building site is not much fun, but makes it easy to be around as much as possible. Are you trying or willing to do it over 1 year or 5 years or even 10 years ? Do you have a partner ?

It's not just water getting underneath; it's the temperature differential too. Just think about what happens to a mirror without a demister. Do you want that for your flat surface?

That would have worked if it had been designed in at the outset, but that will mean changing the orientation of the joists which in turn will probably mean that the inner leaf steel for the large garage door opening is now not adequate enough to support the loading of the joists that are not resting on the blockwork above.

🤣 Definitely not 1. Glass is a good protection surface, not sure I've heard it done in a bathroom and fear water getting underneath (which would likely be a worse problem than not having the glass if you didn't notice it - and it's a pain to get at once everything is finished). My initial thought was a good application of latex type paint. Not waterproof but kinda close if you are good at keeping things relatively clean and hopefully moves with the wood. However, given your first statement, if you expect a collection of objects to accumulate and therefore maybe spills to get missed in the clutter I doubt it's a good idea. I've no practical experience doing something like this so just thinking aloud.