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@Gus Potter @ADLIan @JpManning @Stu789 Many thanks guys for the swift responses and warm welcome, much appreciated. Feels like general consensus is one's needed but with varying degrees of how critical it is by sounds. I reviewed some of the warm flat roof material and it makes sense to me especially when you have an impermeable layer of epdm above, I suppose the concern if I'm understanding correctly is that the pir could cause that issue albeit it the breather/waterproof membrane above pir would potentially let some of it out... I checked out the alutrix 600 and note it needs a fluid applied primer for it. Is there anything that doesn't require going over the whole roof with primer or is this just a necc evil? With regards to stopping the slippage...is there methods that you recommend? Id heard about creating a solid fascia type upstand which would essentially act as a stop for the pir boards. And screws being driven in at the correct angle....anything else worth thinking about? Thoughts appreciated Will

Does this still l hold true for tiling @Nickfromwales? I'm going for porcelain over 6mm plywood (which is over chipboard) already glued and screwed. I went over it with Ultra primer 3:1 mix last night, should I go over over it again just before I start to mix up my adhesive? Instructions on the container are ropey at best. Advice welcome.

probably 15 years. I'll give them all an airing, but generally it isn't a problem. This radiator did leak from a valve for a while so may also have been letting in air there or elsewhere.

I didn't explain myself very well. They put up the end frames and a couple of frames in the middle using muscle, braced them, and then used a crane to drop in the intermediate frames. We had some dormers, so some of the frames were odd shapes.

I like this approach and for me a most enjoyable part of the build. Myself and help from my Dad, 75 years old stick built my self build. This is half of it.

Often nails are structurally superior to screws. Think of them as bolts, just that you cannot adjust them with a spanner (but you can with a hammer). That is why they sold it to a Limey. It can seem strange to use that the VCL is on the outside.

Infill frames around where windows are? A requirement that could be designed out with some thought. I think I've seen (online) something done whereby you build every frame the same, stand them, brace them (even board them). Then come back and infill support structures around windows (cutting the required i-joists then adding lintel support in one operation). Do it that way and you get a protected shell in very short order and then cut in access. But it might be my memory confusing this for something else.

It's fairly common, and it usually tells you more about the system than about that one radiator. Pressed steel rads nearly always fail from the inside, and the top is the classic spot because that's where air or gas collects. Steel sitting in that pocket with a film of moisture on it corrodes much faster than steel below the waterline, and inhibitor does very little up there. So the real question is why there was a pocket at the top. A few things worth checking before you worry about the whole house: How often do the other rads need bleeding, and is it a long hiss or barely anything? Rads that need bleeding every few weeks point to air getting in, or gas being produced by corrosion. When you drain the old one, look at what comes out. Black sludge is magnetite, which is normal wear and manageable with a magnetic filter and a clean. Orange or brown water suggests oxygen is getting in somewhere, and that's what eats rads. If it's open vented, have a look at the feed and expansion tank in the loft. A ball valve that's constantly topping up, or the pump pushing water over the vent pipe, keeps pulling fresh oxygenated water into the system. If it's sealed, think about how often you've had to repressurise it. Regular top ups mean a slow leak somewhere and fresh water going in every time. Get a sample tested for inhibitor level rather than assuming it's fine. Most inhibitor manufacturers offer a testing service, and a cheap dip test kit will give you a rough idea in the meantime. If the others rarely need bleeding, the water is black rather than orange and the inhibitor reads OK, I'd treat it as one tired rad (how old is it?) and just replace that one. If several bleed often and the water is rusty, it's worth tracking down the air ingress first, otherwise the new rad will go the same way.

Ours started off like that, then the infill frames were craned in. IIRC the SE said the limitations of this system is that the roof angles can't be shallow.

Just to give you a sense of scale, our walls are 70m long and extend to 3.5m tall at the front of the house and 2.4m at the rear. Front is quite complex with many direction changes. The walls finished took me 4 weeks to build with a assistant helping me. That is fully built and insulated ready for the roof, windows and doors to be fitted working in NE Scotland in December. Total cost worked out at the time was £7500 from memory in 2020, including paying for the assistant.

Our glulams went in during the January we painted them the back end of the next spring. No additional protection. All good, two coats of Jotun Demideckk. Well worth the money - 5 years later all good still in a very sun exposed area.

The breather membrane is a good call. If you attach it with stainless staples it will give very good protection.

It should be dosed. The whole circuit was looked at not so long ago. Is this a common thing? Maybe the whole house is a concern.

I've just built a new SIPs extension which has a cantilevered section supported by a glulam post. The post is currently untreated. It will have windows installed either side of it in the next week, so 2 faces of it will end up inside, and 2 faces outside. I was going to paint it, but the paint shop recommends I leave it unpainted until next summer when the weather is better, otherwise the moisture from the air will get trapped and the paint won't adhere properly. Common sense suggests that I should put something on it to protect it over winter. I can cover it up with a breathable membrane over winter to stop it getting wet, but is there a better approach? With hindsight I should have asked the SIP installers to paint it before the install, but it's too late now and I'm going to have to do the best I can with it in place. thanks.

I am hoping to build a lot of the panels/frames of the structure myself in an onsite shelter of some sort and then pay people to help me erect it. Hopefully that will mitigate the issue of paying more in wages if it takes longer. I don't earn much more than minimum wage and in the gig economy that is further reduced by not getting sick pay, holiday pay etc. It's more cost-effective for me to build as much of this as I am able rather than work my job for the equivalent of something like a tenner an hour to pay someone hundreds a day. Gus is going to design it with that in mind.

Agree, though if you are paying for help in any form, then quicker is usually cheaper too. Simpler also = quicker. In terms of performance I expect you can get exactly the same performance from either option. I think it would be very difficult to build any wooden structure solo. Two pairs of hands minimum, so either there are two of your with a fairly unlimited time budget or you are paying for help/asking for favours (which have a limit). Then having a simpler structure that can go up quickly is a huge benefit. Building out of ICF as John suggests is much slower but a lot of it could be done single handed with only lintels, etc, needing a second pair of hands. But then you have to do the roof. Portal style, you build each frame on the ground then stand it up (and brace it). Repeat. Then you board. Single storey makes things a lot easier. One point with the portal style is that I have a feeling (but not at all sure) that you would be able to avoid the need for a big long beam along the ridge of the roof to hold the roof up as each frame section can be self supporting. You just need to brace them against movement. This could be a large cost saving (big glulams are not cheap or easy to install) This really isn't an area I can say much more about. Gus is the expert. However, my main concern from this thread is that finances are really so extremely tight that all decisions really need to be made on a cost first, performance second basis. Not saying you can't get a high performance shell, but a lot of the conventional approaches to achieving that don't really consider cost as a primary factor.

We have 2 Ikea basins with these wastes. No issues with them. I probably used a bit of CT1. I do clean all sink traps once a year to fill some time!

Of the famous 'pick 2 of 3' I would go for cheaper and better before quicker. My funding isn't all in place and there will be a significant gap between the tranche that will fund the wind-and-watertight shell and the tranche that will fund the interior fitout. So taking longer to get things right and save money isn't a huge problem.

Building a larsson type arrangement is definitely not the cheapest option. An I-joist portal could be constructed for less labour (maybe higher material cost) and preserve the deep walls. Probably needs to be more on the slab vs overhanging it though. Two people + a telehandler could likely stand the portal up in a short period of time with temporary bracing and then you have to board it. Edit: but any time savings from doing that might be wiped out if you have to do complex details around big windows.

Yes some sort of solar pergola/brise soleil was what I have been thinking. I will make a separate thread on that though as it will get lost in here.

Seems a lot of complexity and possibly high labour costs, for someone on a tight budget. I wanted something similar but in the end went Durasol (now Ecobrix), really easy, made from recycled material. It was very cost effective. With service void it gives a wall U value of 0.14. But you could lime plaster direct and have a fully breathable high mass wall that is airtight, leave out the service for a slightly higher U value. Add additional external insulation if you need to increase the U value.

I owned a house in Florida for 17 years and I was appalled at the construction standards and methods. Mine was built in 2004, concrete pad with a timber frame and a central pair of concrete walls from which everything was hung. All the windows were single-glazed metal frame, It absolutely relied on AC to stop humidity tearing it to pieces, termite control was an insurance requirement etc etc Over the years I had a number of improvements and everything was done "to code" which is their local building regs - not impressed. What was weird was that everything was the same. Every door had two holes in the same place for install, they didn't really do aluminium for doors and so every external doorframe rotted and fell apart from the external humidity and rainfall. The plumbing seemed archaic and the flapper toilet flush was an abysmal piece of engineering One particular thing absolutely drove me wild. Americans are obsessed with nails, sometimes I wondered if they had ever heard of screws. My granite kitchen guy took me to see a house that was being remodelled. I was there when the brand-new factory-fresh kitchen units were installed. All the (pristine) trim was nailed into place. Where we would glue mitres they would nail them and then spend an eternity patching and filling the nail-holes with specialist fillers - I watched this being done and I could have cried. I did enjoy watching the roofing done, it was just crappy felt shingles over OSB, but the speed at which those guys could work was astonishing Regards Tet

Don't know if that was a deliberate pun or not, but blinds are definitively the most effective, but also the most costly option. Not to keep banging the drum but a south-facing room in full sun is almost unusable. In my previous house we had a south-facing garden and our kitchen diner was out of bounds during the summer. Only by shutting the curtains could you keep the temperature reasonable. After a few years I also had a removeable shade sail over an outside pergola to mitigate the sunlight which worked fairly well My new place has 17sq m of vertical glass and 6m of rooflights. This summer was a challenge despite having full blinds on all the verticals, I actually covered two of the rooflights with some leftover PIR insulation panels to stop the solar gain - this is despite solar-control glass and the main glazing being east-facing From your design, none of your openings are too large, so curtains would be cheaper, but you could consider some external shading as an alternative Regards Tet

Early 1980's build 4 Bed Detached with 113 m2 of floor area across 2 floors (Garage not included) Background in a thread below

Nothing wrong with open web joists, and exposed they can look really good. A couple of things I'd check first though. Most manufacturers rate them for service class 1 and 2, so covered and dry. A carport with two open sides should still count as covered, but ask the supplier to confirm, and specify treated chords and a good galvanised finish on the metal webs, because the nail plates are the bit that suffers if they get wet often. Also tell the SE you want them exposed and how they'll be fixed. With uplift the bottom chord goes into compression, so they may want a strongback or bracing along the run, and each joist will need a proper strap or hanger at both ends rather than just sitting on the plates. As for the swallows, lovely to have, but maybe plan a board above where the car parks!