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To put that into reality that is double a passivhaus. Really look at how they have accounted for ventilation heat losses. With MVHR ventilation heat loss drops from big to negligible. Another thing we are 192m² living space plus another 26m² in the insulated space. Our roof area is around 50% more than yours as is our floor area, as we are single storey and every room has vaulted ceilings. All of which (part of form factor) really add to our heat loss per m². We are nearer 13W per m². With a 12kW you may need a volumiser, depending on water volume. You can always get a volumiser with immersion that gives you another 3kW if you really need it. We have an oversized heat pump that doesn't modulate well. I can get acceptable SCoP from it, around 4, if it modulated better I would be getting closed to 5. So a 25% reduction in running costs. So sizing is important. Looking at heat pump monitor a 12kW appears to modulate down to about 4.5kW, cannot see any 16kW on there.

Sorry maybe this is clearer re the vent I do think your last detail is a decent compromise in terms of the look you want and being constructable. Probably quite a bit wider though to avoid overshooting

And should be scrapped as well as the wearers of the crown and all the hangers on. But that's a different conversation.

Which of course then triggers the "interesting" situation of the Crown Estate making fortunes (as the "landowner" of the sea). And then we have to ask the Crown nicely if they'd mind giving a bit more of that money to the public purse, if they're not using it. So for example the "private" income that is paying for the housing & pension of the Andrew formerly known as Prince is in fact coming off our electricity bills. Still, at least we're not funding him as taxpayers... 🙄 I realise the wind farm owners have to be charged for the land - with the way electricity is priced in the UK if they weren't it would just increase their profits. But surely it would have been better if from day 1 the income from seabed windfarm leases was 100% ringfenced to the Treasury to fund onshore grid upgrades and other parts of the energy transition that currently also sit on our electricity bills...

I do like the look of the Brimstone Ash (from Vastern Timber?). I tried several samples including it as well as Western Red Cedar and British Larch, one set indoors and the other outside to weather. The Brimstone faded to silver grey really quickly. It also proved a good demonstration of why you don't use galvanised fixings which was all I had to hand... black staining within a week! Are you leaving the bottom edge over the windows as in the photo? I am thinking of adding a drip edge piece in timber or aluminium profile. Would you mind sharing the detail?

Thanks Nick, I thought I'd be looking at doing that sort of arrangement. Would you take the full board out or do the same along the opposite side?

Found this on YouTube demonstrating the problem i suppose blown insulation avoids the problem IF it gets in around the trays ok. Probably best to avoid this type of abutment if the insulation can't be don't well and water really does stream down inside of cavity.

Thanks John. I did account yes, it’s got An insulated cover 95% of The time but also the room it’s in will Be a bit warmer as well. it sounds like you would err on the 12kW side. One frustration is Panasonic don’t seem To publish their modulation figures for these machines so I don’t know what they would typically modulate down to. If they both modulated to a similar level I probably wouldn’t be as concerned. My upfront cost is a bit more for the bigger machine granted and if I didn’t use the extra kW it wouldn’t matter… but if for some reason I’ve undersized it I’m a bit stuck. Sound logic? the installer says they haven’t come across a build that’s averaging 19w/sqm before and think they’re nervous we will be cold. They’ve used higher air change figures in their calcs I think as well (as per mcs).

I just can't envisage that much water getting in. How many weep vents do you ever see dripping water. How do you know its running down the wall inside?

A lot of my build is great. Some of it no so much but I was able to sort it/work around it. End of the day I won't recommend the builder to anyone, so his loss possibly. It's why I have trust issues with trades, always disappointed in some capacity.

Thanks @torre. I don't follow what you're saying, but your comment makes me think I could have aluminium bits made up to match the roof & conceal the gutter, which would be attached to the plumb cut on the rafter feet & look something like this.

If the brickwork faces south west and is a large wall, a fair amount of water will get in. If a stepped tray is difficult, do it horizontal and a coat of Stormdry on the remaining triangle of brickwork for belt and braces.

I'd like something like this:

To me they're very different, because with my design I have a neat sloped roof panel that's at 42 degrees from the highest point to where it ends, with a gutter concealed in the 42 degrees slope. With the arch tec's first draft drawing, the gutter is tacked on to a projection from the roof edge. So the drawings show this:

I’m in this position too. I’m certain I'm being pushed quotes heavily oversized, and I don’t want a system that keeps turning on because it’s not been properly calculated and sized. I just have very little time outside of work to do it whilst also keeping tabs on the work being done (where I keep identifying issues that need my attention immediately 😭). following, and will update as I progress myself.

Cut along the red line, to leave to chipboard under the stud wall. Then put a piece of wood (18mm plywood or similar) under that existing flooring, wide enough to be 75mm under existing and 75mm on show, and screw / glue it by fixing down through the chipboard into the plywood to form a connecting ‘tongue’ of plywood. Then your new flooring will sit on that, which you then glue and screw, and job done.

One of the nicest things a client said to me ...we were a subcontractor to them but with design input, they being a bigger contractor, was..... "you are not always the best price but always the best value." He retired. His successor use someone cheaper and handed on some of my suggestions. They went bust. Sometimes expertise is doing simple things well. Such relationships are more difficult to find on self build, because you don't know each other. Fundamentally though the real expert may not have to charge more, because it's easy for them.

erm....the other £70bn is engineered and just finds it's way out of the public purse and into the hands of c****. Same thing, year in year out. That's why in the UK we're switching off streetlights to try and save money. #utterlyfeckedandnothingwecandoaboutit

So if that's heated - have you accounted for the net input this provides to the building. If the space has insulated external walls, the heat in this area is added to the building internals.

Looks like you could vent below your drip into the gutter as the equivalent to over fascia vent if you had a simple gutter fixed outside

I was happy to install YY, until the merchant said they just don't sell any of it! 3-core flex it is. I just observe segregation where things like long LED strips are in the mix, so the DC runs are not bunched with equally long runs of AC stuff; unless it's a small bit of LED which doesn't really seem to ever care how you run the cable.......no complaints yet, so I'll belay starting to panic before bedtime. This. Under-volt = over-current, and then the LED's are on a shorter lifespan. RIP.

That's SELV, Safety Extra Low Voltage, old boy What someone says when a random Welshman on the 'interweb points out that they've spelt SELV incorrectly 🤦‍♂️😆

That projects out almost as much as the previous detail though? Very little in it, from what my Pentium 1 brain is looking at. Ultimately you will get a solution to the remit you have provided, so if you have specifically asked for the least projection solution possible then the AT needs to sharpen his pencil; however if you just said "give me a secret gutter" and no further information re particulars of how you want this to be presented have been forthcoming, then you must be willing to accept a draft revision (for discussion) at the outset so you can see what you 'don't like' and then request changes to arrive at something more inline with your expectations. This is self-build and feck all goes right first time plus...we're only human too. The issue I constantly struggle with is getting exacting information from my clients, but it's not because they don't know what they want, it's more about things getting lost in translation; folk simply don't know what the options and possibilities are, so they need to see something in front of them so they can say "close, but no cigar yet....let's discuss!". That's why I choose to work with a select few (patient and pragmatic) people, as they get the haywire between my ears. We arrive at solutions very quickly, with zero friction or fuss, and all whilst sharing the same common goal; get the client the best things we can for the least amount of time / money spent. Every damn day is a school day. I don't care who you are, how old, how experienced, if you can't be open to a bit of collaborative thinking and discussion (2 heads blah, blah, blah), and be patient whilst the answers begin to form into a thing or shape you like, then how would anyone ever get to the finish line with hair and sanity still intact? It's not a war, or a battle, it's a team effort; all you need are good team members to work with. So if the right solution doesn't jump off the 1st page of a thick book, best to not shit the bed methinks. Share your findings, google search images, likes and dislikes, and discuss! Then the juices will start flowing Then it'll be the best house it can ever be. Tres bien.

no - the spa has its own heat pump. It’s basically a big hot tub so a closed system driven from its own a2w pump. We are going to put some insulated plasterboard to reduce bridging of the steel lintel…

So how are you heating all of that,is that included as well in heat pump sizing? Depending on how you have calculated ventilation losses there can be plenty of room for error both ways. Is your thermal bridging any worse than the glazing U value? If not impacts aren't much worse than the glazing? If the steel is insulated on the inside most likely not a huge issue.