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I was talking to a chap local to me who had just installed their 2G windows and he was very happy with them

That's a very good point, as I'll bet that it isn't common knowledge that trusses have significantly higher stresses in the timbers, because they work as a composite frame, with loads distributed throughout the truss. Using joist rules of thumb for making holes in trusses is inherently deeply flawed, but it's easy to see how the lower member of a truss could be considered to be "just a ceiling joist" by some, when it's not at all in terms of the loads it is carrying.

There is a general point to make here and that is "trusses are not the same as joists" different rules apply.

The engineer came back this morning and confirmed the trusses are OK, and he will write a letter to building control to that effect. So panic over! Luckily. But I don't think the electricians will be back.

And here are links to guides / regs http://www.nhbc.co.uk/Builders/Technicaladviceandsupport/TechnicalGuidance/68/filedownload,37238,en.pdf http://support.ambirad.co.uk/article.aspx?id=10724

We have a similar arrangement - the MVHR intake / extract is on the south wall of the utility, 1.5m apart and about 4-500mm above ground from the outside. The gas flue is on the west wall and from memory needed to be 300mm away from the door opening to meet regs and 2000mm above the external finished ground level to avoid an ugly cage around it. The gas flue was quite tricky to locate as the MBC studs kept getting in the way. Big tip - get your MVHR penetrations and flue sleeve (we used 150mm PVC duct) in the wall ahead of blowing the insulation and any external wall finish such as render etc. as it makes life much easier. Darren from MBC did ours in return for a bacon sandwich - I find this this is the preferred MBC currency for doing 'favours' It's also good practice to get your electrical penetrations (usually short sections of 22mm PVC ducting) in at this stage too so they can be taped for the airtightness and nicely rendered from outside. We left the gas main penetration until after the gas was re-connected as it needed to be close to where the meter box was. Be warned, the MBC erection stage will go very quickly so you need to have your sparky geared up and have made all of these decisions in advance! Also ask for a few left over rolls of Sika tape to airtight any follow on penetrations and repair any rips to the yellow paper or holes in the green board - i.e. if you remove a piece of batten.

Hi Terry No it's not so bad. We'll fill it with stone for now and top it off with Type 1. Setting out the trenches tomorrow, BCO on Wednesday and concrete on Thursday / Friday. Looks like it's going to be wet tomorrow though - bit of a change from Friday!

Linzer Pro frame with Arroworthy microfibre sleeves - 18" and will cover a lot of ground very quickly !

Do check the ex rates of the money transfer services as they usually beat the card rates. Less protection but for reputable sites like Megabad, you're pretty safe.

Yes, pretty much any small split should do the job. There are loads available that are aimed at those with hot conservatories, and they are often cheap and around the right capacity to cool the whole of a well-insulated and sealed house. You can also get multi-splits, one external unit and several internal units, that may still end up being more cost effective that using an MVHR with a relatively low cooling capability. Our Genvex Premium 1L does not provide a massive cooling capability in practice, as, like all MVHR heating/cooling systems it is very limited by the duct airflow rates, so can only really trim the room temperatures a bit, not remove a few kW of heat from solar gain at all. You could make a normal MVHR at least as effective as one with a heat pump in if a cooling/heating exchanger was added to the room air feed main duct. These are water-fed, using chilled or heated water from the ASHP, so are easy to plumb in and control. There's no need to mess around with refrigerant, you just run a flow and return water pipe to the duct heat exchanger. If you fit a duct heat exchanger with a built in condensate tray (like this one: http://www.veab.com/documents/cwk/broschyr/CWK_VEAB_Heat_Tech_GB.pdf ) One of those duct coolers fitted into the main duct from a normal MVHR would provide the same sort of performance as the MVHR units with the built-in heat pumps, but at a lot lower price if you already have an ASHP. FWIW, we find that by far the most effective way of getting rid of excess heat from solar gain is to just cool the floor slightly. I've been cooling our floor to around 19 deg C and that has a massive impact on keeping the house cool, far, far greater than using the Genvex in cooling mode. The reason it's so effective is that it absorbs a fair bit of the solar gain at source, from the sun trying to heat up areas of the floor, by swiftly moving that heat out before the floor has a chance to warm up and start warming up the house. It doesn't make the floor cold to walk, either, my other half tends to walk around on the travertine flooring in bare feet and reckons that at 19 deg C it doesn't feel at all uncomfortable.

lol. i was starting to worry the Hippies had actually taken control i suppose as a small silver lining they did at least find something, and another thing to moan about for the next few years is always a great source of conversation........

1950?, impressive. The sum total of finds on our Roman Marching Camp site was a spent shotgun cartridge.