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Yes we’ll have MVHR. Cooking will be induction or possibly a multi hob with induction and gas. Extractor hood will be re-circulating. We should have plenty of room for a large tank, and only 2 people living there. Stove will have an external direct air intake and TAS safety valve.

So if the builder has all these insurances, what is the insurance e.g Self build insurance covering for that I have been advised I need to take out. Do I still run my current empty house insurance (for the due to be demolished bungalow) at the same time or cancel that one at a certain point. Thanks.

Your Wilo pump should also display the power W (watts), not sure if it alternately switches from flow, m3/hr to power, W but there is certainly some method of having a look quite easily, I have a 6M Wilo (Yonos) Pico that only displays the power W but quite easy to read off the flowrate from the pump curves. If its the 4M model then the power at 0.9ms/hr is only ~ 17W, if its the 6M model, then the power at 0.9m3/hr will be around 40W + a quite hefty pump head of ~ 5M. (speed 3, C3) What is the UFH manifold pump model and setting? What are the flow indicators showing in LPM?. What dia are the Loop pipes and roughy the loop lengths?

It can identify where the main air leaks are so that you can fix them. I'd rather do that than rely on Aerobarrier at that stage. High winds make for a good pre-pre-test (or post-test) too; go around all the junctions slowly & feel for air leaks & mark them or fix them on the spot.

I need to turn 90 degrees from my bottle gully without using an inspection chamber for the turn and see two main options for it: (a) use a 45 degree bend on the bottle gully and then a second 45 bend before the long pipe run (~5m). (b) use a rest bend either directly on the bottle gully or after a coupler and short length of pipe (will depend on trench position). Both should be roddable since the bottle gully can be rodded and there is an Inspection Chamber (I.C.) at the end of the long pipe (~5m). Can't you rod through a rest bend? If so, I lean towards option (b). (b) is also cheaper as I have a spare rest bend. What do others think? For full disclosure, the I.C. is a 4D960 shallow one and has two S/S 45 bends on it as it is at the corner of the house so the pipe turns. All these pipes will be paved over.

That’d be a first for me!

Indeed! Think I might have a go myself with soudatight and see where I get?? Any other aerobarriers out there? What did you do pre aerobarrier

Insurer - how much in % of you roof is flat You - 100 Insurer - 🤑

Winner winner. Looks good, and almost as if a professional did it 👀😄 ”Result”.

A few more thoughts….

A solid section of XPS board, and zero battens. The talk of battens has left the building, and is not coming back, which is my lame attempt at a subliminal message. To reiterate. Battens = 🤐 You can have this floor 10-20mm higher to get more insulation in, that’s a good idea all round. A decent chamfered timber (hardwood) threshold has been great a way out of many similar transitions that I have done over the years. Works a treat. UFH over the XPS tile backer boards (no place for Hardie type boards here sorry) and then the least amount of SLC as possible, then the flooring. For stone, you can just lay on a decent bed of flexible tile adhesive immediately over the SLC. Or, if you’re brave or are paying a tiler, they may be ok to simply lay the tiles straight over the UFH wire / mat and save you having to use the SLC at all. That’s down to how much undulation there is in the subfloor as this will be represented above the XPSc as that will be bonded down, again with flexible tile adhesive. You can use that first layer of adhesive to remove any undulation, which may be another way of reducing layers; you can then do away with the SLC if the prep is good as above.

I had to tell my local address authority that my house was now inhabited. Although i paid £95 about 18 months ago to register mine, and assumed that was all that was required. Lots of delivery companies had no idea the house existed, including Amazon. It turns out you also have to inform the authority that the house is now occupied. But nobody informs you of this up front. This kicks off the ' add it to your live database' signal.

done! looks much better.

Shame - bodge . I’d never do anything like that . Bet it’s leaking now ; go check ! 😉

Hope it's better than decorating caulk, which shrinks after a couple of years and leaves gaps everywhere.

Not yet but am not sure what it would tell me. I’ve seen case studies that get airtightness from 6 to 1.0 so if I blew 6 today would that mean I should still crack on with aerobarrier? I worry that aerobarrier gets you a great result on the day but does it persist long term? I know they’ve tested longevity of the material itself but presumably this is fairly controlled. Does it cope with movements around junctions well for example 🤔

there are many complexities around linking a boiler stove into another scheme- will you have MVHR, will you be cooking on gas or electric/ do you want an extractor fan, and how big a hot tank have you room for? Even if you're only thinking about it, you better look at these things in advance. You may need e.g. a mains water supply going to stove for overheat protection etc etc

I have now got 5G with Smarty (3) and have had 4G with them for a few years now. £16/months with no restrictions and never made a voice call, ever. I use a new 90 quid phone as a hot spot. Works very well.

Would have thought so, but only up to a point, if you have big gaps everywhere, you may be fighting a losing battle. Have you done a pre plasterboard air test? Then you know where you are and can discuss what is is achievable with them.

Interesting. I will investigate further tomorrow.

I use cone filters in each extract terminal, you would be shocked how much dust they stop getting in to the system.

Cheers, Gus - those documents are excellent!! Really informative & clear. From what i can tell, the 2 main factors to consider in the design are: Orientation - avoiding a 'terraced' effect with other properties & being overly imposing Daylight & Sunlight - ensuring the proposal has no impact deemed significant enough for loss of light I've considered it as follows, for our side extension: Orientation: Our house is set back approx 2m from the neightbours There is a 3m gap between buildings The neighbours house is 1-2m naturally higher than ours Their roof is gable end, ours is sloped Our extension is 1m from the boundary line (neighbours building is 2m from theirs), making the 3m gap mentioned above Our side 2 storey extension 1st floor guttering is likely to be about mid-point between their ground floor and 1st floor rear windows Neither property has windows overlooking the boundary, nor will the extension There are a reasonable number of existing 2 storey side extensions in the neighbourhood, where they have built flush with the house front, and closer to their adjacent house, and in some cases not subservient in terms of profile or roof height (we'd add more details of the properties at submission time) It's likely we'd apply for party wall agreement, due to being only 1m from the boundary line Daylight & sunlight: Neither property has side windows, so the 25' rule shouldn't apply The 45' rule (horizontally from their kitchen window) - i can see by eye, that we currently don't cross this line with the existing garage, so wouldn;t anticipate the 1st floor extension to either The 45' rule (vertically from kitchen window - i wasn't aware of this until now!). It's unlikely we'd cross this from our 1st floor guttering level, but it would be within a meter i'd imagine Pitched roof - as ours will be a pitched roof, then it seems like we take the 45' vertical rule from the midpoint, in which case we'd definitely be fine. Is this pitched roof midpoint interpretation correct? Sunlight - both houses rear gardens are Southern facing (South-East, to be precise, so there might be some shadows cast early morning on their front lawn, side of house early afternoon & maybe the rear late evening/sunset As the roof is sloping and 1st floor halfway between their ground floor and 1st floor window, the amount of shadow is far less than it would be on even ground. The shadows would likely hit the side of their house (with no windows) likely no more than halfway up. There are a number of mature trees on the road that could obscure their property from sunlight, regardless of our extension, so hopefully we won't be causing any major impact We don't believe a VSC would be required, given the above All the above is only a high level appraisal, and would need more accurate measurements and assessments. But we feel this is a good starting point for our case This is a crude drawing of the proposed side extension (in orange). The footprint remains unchanged to the existing one, except for moving the front edge forwards 3/4m, in line with the existing front This is not to ask whether you consider the proposal would be successful, but more to enquire if there are other things we should consider when designing & applying......

Am considering aerobarrier… so far we haven’t done any airtightness detailing for - window junctions/across cavity - slab floor to wall junctiob - liquid membrane/parging of internal block work (traditional masonry, 200mm cavity with eco beads) I have implemented a Tony tray and done airtight board in room in roof with taping.. Does aerobarrier negate the above entirely? Or should I do it (was thinking of using soudatight and parging with it as well). do I need to? I know that aerobarrier gets good results for air blower but does that hold up over time? Eg does it deal with the movement at window joints that tape/liquid membrane does? And if I go around with liquid membrane do I then need to shell out £5k on aerobarrier? I wonder if it’s diminishing returns - the difference in heat loss between a 1.0 blower test result and 2.0 For example is about 150W!

Yes, I've seen that happen and adding insulation will resolve it. Be very cautious about running the MVHR - as @JohnMo says, you don't want to be drawing dust into the system. However it is possible to have it running when there's no work going on if you take some precautions & accept the risk, as I have. While work is in progress and until dust settles, keep it switched off; during work put plastic shower caps over the terminals; add sock filters to the extracts (a good idea anyway). Also consider upgrading the MVHR return air filter to better protect the heat exchanger - from (normally) ISO 16890 Course (old G4) - to ISO 16890 ePM1 (old F7 & as normally used on the air intake), which filters out at least 50% of very fine dust and 85% of medium-sized dust (up to 55% of sawdust, for example, is too fine to be trapped by a course filter). I've not done this myself as I suspect that these smaller sizes (<10 microns) would be fine enough pass through the heat exchanger without building up significantly, but I've not looked for any research on the topic.