Leaderboard

Fermacell sounds the best option as its fire resistant and you can fix into it. The plant room is one of the places where, IMO, extra consideration should be given regarding fire, so best to completely contain it with FC on the walls and ceiling? Kills many birds with one stone, cheap as two layers ( timber + PB ) and can be painted / looks better naked.

I see a lot of "hacks" on youtube and i am rarely impressed but this one is really quite good, you can buy rings with grub screws in them to do the same thing but I like the simplicity of this idea

Lovely looking shed but he has some of the tyvek wrap on upside down!!!

So, I had my 5th visit from the local authority building inspector yesterday. 1. Foundation/Radon barrier 2. DPC 3. Frame erected. 4. Block work DPC 5. Block work cavity inspection The meeting was a few minutes and went like this: Me: "Would you like to inspect the cavities?" BI: "I can if you like but if you're happy then that's fine" BI has a wander around inside and out making various comments about it looking well built. Me: "So when do you want to visit next?" BI: "Give us a call when it's finished. You know what you're doing." I then run through the various bits of paper he'll need for the completion cert. Me: "Do you want the water consumption calc" BI: "Have you done one?" Me: "No. But I can put something on a peice of paper" BI "Well if you like. I doubt we'll ask for it. Entirely pointless" Meeting ends!

All will become clear when I post some piccies later tonight, or maybe tomorrow, (in the pub at the moment), and just a teeny weeny bit drunkish......

Senco double is a good set if you want another drill. Batteries can be redone pretty quickly so not something that will be obsolete soon either

I actually saw that door in my search. It looks very nice. I assumed @ryder72 wanted flush doors specifically but maybe not. In my quest to find glass walnut fire doors for a reasonable price I feel like I am currently a door expert.

What's the primary objective for fitting this to the boat? My experience over the years has been that there are three main problems inside boats. They get too hot in summer, too cold in winter and are more or less constantly damp inside. You may not have the first problem, being where you are! Condensation has always been the most annoying thing on every boat with a cabin I've owned, and is even the most annoying thing on the open inland waterways boat, with canopy and sleeping "tent" I currently own. The cold I could always cope with, although I will admit to a few nights on board were a bit of warmth wouldn;t have gone amiss. Overheating, especially when cooking or brewing tea invariably seems to go hand in hand with condensation. So, what are the priorities? - Less heat loss? - Less condensation? - Less over heating? It may be that an MVHR type system could help, but it could also be that you might be better looking at other approaches. A friend (who has the luxury of shore power where he's moored) runs a small dehumidifier in the boat when it's alongside, and that makes a very big difference, with the effect lasting for several days at sea afterwards. My last yacht had two solar powered ventilation fans fitted in the coachroof, one right forward, over the loo compartment, the other over the galley area. They worked pretty well at keeping the boat dry-ish inside when it was moored up, but weren't at all effective at sea. I had the use of a boat with a small charcoal stove for heating once, and that was brilliant for both keeping the boat warm and dry, as the charcoal didn't introduce moisture the way a gas heater does. When it comes right down to basics, the very best modification I ever made to my old yacht was to build an old-fashioned dorade box on the foredeck, fitted with a removable, and rotatable, ventilation "elbow" (it was modified 160mm drain pipe bend..........). This was unplugged and a blanking plug fitted when the boat was moored up, but when out sailing the vent could be rotated to blow fresh air in, whilst the dorade box kept even pretty heavy water out.

And you can just tile straight onto that liquid membrane? (once it's dried... I'm not a complete idiot you know...)

What I normally use

Get the Lidl ones the only weak spot is the top button but that can be refixed with a center punch. They last and last, I have three pairs I rotate, total cost £29.97 I will buy some more of the thinsulated ones in a few weeks when they come back in - great for winter working.. I, after many years of boots, shoes and trainers, now prefer the trainers which are light, easy to slip on and off but secure in use, don't mess with my socks and look the part.

There's a pretty good (but a bit old now) comparison calculator between solar thermal and water heated by solar PV on Ed Davies website, here: https://edavies.me.uk/2012/11/pv-dhw/ I looked at fitting a mix of solar thermal and photovoltaic panels initially, but a few calculations showed that the true efficiency of solar thermal was well below that of photovoltaics when used for heating water all year around, even though the peak efficiency of solar thermal is better. The main problem is that solar thermal can only deliver sensible heat when the panels are hotter than the water to be heated. This means they start delivering power later in the day, and stop delivering power earlier in the day, than photovoltaic panels. It also means that there are many more days in the year when solar thermal panels deliver no useful power at all. The reason is to do with the temperature differential required to get a solar thermal panel to work. The panel always has to be a few degrees hotter than the tank, in order to drive heat from the panel to the hot water. With photovoltaic panels, this is irrelevant. Even if the panels are only generating a few watts of electricity, all of this can be delivered to the hot water tank, as long as the thermostat in the tank isn't satisfied and the electricity isn't being used elswhere. The icing on the case is the cost saving, both the very much lower capital and installation cost of PV and the virtually zero maintenance cost. Solar thermal needs maintenance checks every year, plus a high temperature antifreeze change about every five years, and altogether this pushes the cost per watt hour of useful energy delivered up to way above that a photovoltaic system. Add in the small FIT benefit, and photovoltaic panels are a complete no-brainer.

I'm anticipating my 50mm solvent weld elbows having to go inside the wall a bit so the wall brackets reach. I assume that's normal? Same as when I put my 110mm branch in for the WCs. Doesn't help that my render aside from being like granite is rougher than a badgers arse and has been done using the "chip pan" method. Seriously.....I found the chip pan when I dug the path up and it matches the render pattern.

I've a small ST system currently- my own copy of a Solartwin- and while it will heat the top of the tank enough for the odd handwash from perhaps April-Oct yes, there's no way it's going to heat the whole tank in other than high summer. My guess is that if you size the system for enough early and late in the year you're going to be dumping boiling water in the summer. It would be nice to do something with that extra, and to have good efficiency under cloud. I'm going PV in our build.

If they have not asked for one, I would think twice about submitting the soil survey, but perhaps might consider a para in the Planning Statement which would serve to demonstrate that one is not necessary. Planning permission is formally not precedent forming, and pre-app advice is just an Officer's opinion anyway, so just because it has been mentioned before does not mean it is relevant now. I would address the trees FIRST. Very important. Know what trees you want still there and make sure that that is the position before you submit anything, once you are fairly sure you will do so. Cannot overemphasise this. I might also check exactly where the 250m landfill boundary line is, and if it is across a corner of the plot make the application site a little smaller excluding that part if feasible. Then make the bald statement that the application site is outside the landfill whatever zone. I have never done that so I am not sure if it would work as a tactic to head off a soil survey at the pass. Might the same tactic work with the Heritage Site thing? Not sure why they want a material schedule. What is that, anyway?

Third list is a standard planning list from that council. Heritage site in the top constraint would worry me - what's listed in the EH register in the area ..?

Our final BC inspection was laughable. Chap spent 15 - 20 minutes on site to "inspect" 3 floors and a garage. Half of that time was checking water flow through the underground drain. Some aspect of the build was not quite there - painting, a bit of second fix plumbing and electrics. The inspection prior was before we had boarded up the walls and ceiling and first fix was still in progress, so there were a lot of works in between. He did not find any issues.

We used Fermacell in our plant room. Brilliant stuff for durability and mounting things to. I'm sure it's better than the same thickness of plasterboard for reducing sound transmission, but suspect it works better for airborne noise than for preventing noise from vibration caused by things mounted to it. Our Immersun unit, for example, buzzes under load, and that sound is transmitted quite effectively through the wall. I'll be mounting it on something more resilient in an effort to reduce this.

Fermacell ..?? Hardwearing, easy to cut and fix and takes paint and screws without a problem ... Heavy boards absorb sound ... Fireproof (60 mins at 15mm) too ...