All Activity

Always the case with stoves! Presumably you want to get this up and running before the heating season? The chimney shouldn’t be an issue as long as you have a suitable and properly installed liner. I would be inclined to cover the existing materials rather than cut them back. The regs do allow for combustibles less than 200mm from the flue as long as there is an air gap of 40mm.

Reducing the size of the window would lower the energy input into the room.

😁 Naaah, the GPS signal is poor here - shaded by trees. Now if they did a robotic strimmer on the other hand

Get a Kress, good German engineering.

There's nothing incompatible with low maintenance and lots of plants and trees. The terms Low maintenance and plants and trees mean different things to different people. SWMBO designed our planting for exactly those criteria. Easy to maintain (self maintaining) trees, zero mowing, and no-faff plants. It took her two years ( or a lifetime depending on you POV ) to design it. There's a lot of fun in thinking about it and visiting places to get ideas. And lots of friendship in chatting to anyone and everyone about their ideas. My criterion? Zero mowing. ✅

Aren’t you having an Aco channel drain along the front of the concrete at the entrance?

Thanks for your reply. I do appreciate they are really busy, and not looking for them to come up with the solutions. We are having issues with the B5 compliance, we had contacted the fire service who said they needed to talk to the building control officer. Our officer said to forward the information over to him which we did immediately. This was 2 weeks ago and he is not replying to any of our attempts to contact him, even though he has mentioned the issue to our structural engineer while disusing a different issue. Its cost us money and time. We are now unsure of how to proceed. Firstly.. Thankyou to everyone that took the time out to respond and apologies for taking so long to say thanks, I Hadn't checked or seen that we had so many responses. I am starting to remember that the admin is one of the reasons I stopped social media. So the update is positive, I think we finally figured out how building control works. We had thought part of their role was in an advisory capacity and no-one, including them would tell us specifically what their role and responsibilities were, who they were accountable too, how the game plays out and what the game rules were, so when they just wouldn't respond to our emails or anyone in the company would answer the phone, and then would make extraordinary demands of us with no other additional information or guidance, we felt like we were being taken on a merry dance. We have since figured out that they are as a general rule NOT working in an advisory capacity, because if you build something they advised on and passed, and something went wrong, they are then liable, which makes perfect sense why they would be reticent to pass on their knowledge. The B5 requirement was a headache because the impression we got was that we HAD to install this HUGE turning area that would dominate our land and involve taking out a lot of trees to produce. This has now been satisfied with a sprinkler system installed in the house, of which a certificate from the company installing is enough and it was this extreme request that was solved with a simple solution that broke the camels back and we figured out the way this particular inspector seems to work. He will throw at us the worst case scenario, we find the simplest solution to solve it and as long as it is reasonable and under someone elses name, he is happy. I know it may sound daft and we are slow learners, but the parameters with which it all operates just isn't written down anywhere and my brain needs to fully understand the system we have to work within, before it can function. Anyhoos...We got there, we submitted our actions and we got the go ahead from building control at the end of last week so WE'RE OFF. Thankyou everyone and I am sure we will be back with more further down the line.

How much concrete is visible outside when the garage door is down? My garage door will be a sectional door that sits behind the reveals. My whole ground floor is beam and block at the same level, but the house will be 175 insulation and 50mm screed. The step down into the garage would be 225mm - the thickness of the garage floor concrete slab. So if its 125mm at the back of the garage, then there's 100mm minimum step down. A.I suggests 100 is the minimum step down for a flat floor, or the floor needs to slope outwards. My approved plans seriously lack detail which is poor. My drive slopes away from the garage door but there's not much in it. About 70mm over 17m. The channel is the cavity wall, ill probably fill it with the end of the slab so theres a good strength at the end.

That's cheap.

@Gus Potter, apologies for the delayed reply, I have been out of the country this week. Initial searches have revealed a problem with the land title which may stop us proceeding. In any case I really appreciate your suggestions and, if we do go ahead I will be in touch.

I've paid £195 for a heat loss analysis with a hefty report. £295 for the UFH layout and for that he's going to route the manifold supply and returns too. Honestly, I think he'll pay for himself in what he's looking like he'll save us on kit already.

Bit quiet in here recently, so for your viewing pleasure... Still need to paint the lid but these things look the b*ll*cks.

Thanks @SBMS I will save that schematic and pass to the heating engineer when I find one.

What kind of fee do these heat loss consultants charge? Do they also do the ufh layout?

Nope, cos that would make it a bungalow *shudders*

Just to update this, I've put it with an independent heat-loss consultant who has done a much more thorough heat-loss analysis. Very comprehensive and far more believable. I'll be sharing his details on here once I have the full work in hand so I can make a proper recommendation. I realise many can do this themselves, but there are clearly some out there with far more knowledge than I can hope to attain in the short time I have to get this sorted. Good news is that he makes our total heat loss a more respectable 5.45kw and has already hinted at 300mm pipe spacings with a 5kw heat pump. I hope to have eyes on the UFH layout plan next week.

Just wanted to get some feedback from anyone who has put a rug over their LVT flooring. what have you used? Have you had any marks or discolouring to your flooring? Karndean specify no latex, rubber or polyester on the backs of rugs. It’s proving a mission to find anything that works, as most rugs or carpets have a combined back on them. We also have underfloor heatings so extra nervous. thanks!

Things can often get installed to suit the convenience of the tradesman and minimise effort. Routing cables and pipework in an ideal way can be a surprisingly tricky planning problem rather like completing a puzzle. Some do a good job of planning 'in their head' based on years of experience or possibly just do it the same way every time. But without recognising the issue up front and having a sketched layout done - which may need redrawing a couple of times to resolve conflicts - it is difficult to control. When do you ever see a tradesman spending half a man day sketching layouts or routing plans ? Most would consider that money down the drain on a fixed quote. And always seems to be a race between plumber and sparky to use any readily available apertures. Builders get construction drawings (most of the time) but domestically it seems no-one ever has a wiring or plumbing plan beyond where they want the end points. You can't get domestic architects interested in planning service voids either.

Yes, I had heard that, and you promoted me to reach out to them to get a discussion going. I am a little concerned they will say that the chimney needs doing first. The liner seems okay, but the masonry on the chimney itself needs work and I am hoping I can do that later, rather than as part of commissioning the stove -- purely for cash flue priorities.

There is what I am thinking. Either take the whole wall back to stone, or expose more of the stone work to give the correct/ample clearances.

Yes it looks like a problem. I have done a quick scan of the building guidance, and it is too close to the flue. The distance above the appliance seems okay - it is about 650mm, but the distance of that bit of timber to the chimney liner is only about 200mm.

That’s standard fitment, nothing special. Another panel supplier you could look at is Joris. I will take a picture of mine as an example later.

Supply and fit for a new residential dwelling is 0% You can’t use the supply and fit route as a way of tricking the self-build VAT reclaim process. The person supplying and fitting the items has his/her own set of rules to comply with. So it’s up to their judgement whether wardrobes they supply & fit should be zero rated. They could then be liable for any incorrectly charged VAT if investigated (as someone else posted here previously).

Thanks @Susie, very helpful. I'll check your blog out.

That is a neat solution. Maybe a bit OTT even for me 😀