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+1. I've been saying this to people for years. Still get stubborn assholes who say "it's OK".......it's not. Copper into compression and a hep fitting onto the copper each and every time = bombproof.

@SteamyTea guess how many fingers I’m holding in the air ?? ?- almost right

Zoot, FFS listen to people! You DO need fresh air period. Your house is very similar to mine in many ways, old in parts, new in others, badly insulated, bloody draughty etc. Lots of different construction methods. Fitting MVHR to an existing property is doable but a balls ache for many reasons for the most part. The key to efficient MVHR is good airtightness and good insulation, far better than what you will I'm sure grasp as good until you get the concept. And btw there is no real argument against what are indisputable facts. So the concept of MVHR, mechanical ventilation and heat recovery is what it stands for. Stale, moist, germ and dust laden air is pumped out of the house. Fresh, yes often cold, air is sucked in from the outside. The two streams of air don't meet as such but pass over a heat exchanger. The heat from the outgoing stale air is used to warm the fresh air coming in. This is a simplified view of how MVHR works: Now you can do this for the whole house which involves running ducts up in the ceiling (difficult in an existing build) or per room with a wall / ceiling mounted unit for just that room. With good airtightness and insulation they're around 90% efficient. That lost 10% you'll save that in other ways and health benefits. The single room, on the wall are a bit less efficient. This mould issue wasn't an issue "in the old days" as the construction as in doors and windows was inherently draughty. Another option is called positive input ventilation. This is atypical: https://www.vent-axia.com/positive-input-ventilation It's a case of making the best if what you've got. To do that as best as you possibly could costs.

I’ve always parge coated the inside with bagged sound coat Cheap and quick 5 mil thick

You need ventilation in a house. If you want to ventilate it without letting lots of cold air in, then you need mvhr which is what most of us fit in our new builds. This gives you constant fresh air while recovering most of the heat from the exhaust air that would otherwise be wasted. Just blocking up all ventilation to stop cold getting in, is not going to help the situation. The more I know about buildings now, the more I feel the best thing we could do with a lot of the UK housing stock is flatten it and rebuild properly.

Thanks again everyone for all the advice. I managed, after a bit of fiddling and swearing, to fix a piece of board in the gap and then glue a shaped piece of plasterboard onto it. Have to say I was very proud of myself for that! I’ve spent the last few days layering on filler and waiting to make sure it was dry. Just need to sand and paint now. Thanks again

? to Declan's comment. We have a reasonably spec'ed passive-class house with a Vent Axia MVHR system that's been running for over 3½ years. Pre moving in, I looked at all sorts of options control bypass, etc. by my RPi-based home automation system, but the reality is that we just leave it running and forget about it -- apart from swapping out the filters ever 4-6 months. I do press the boost button occasionally if we've been doing frying etc. that overloads the recycling cooker hood, but that's about it. We also open windows in the summer on occasion, but just leave it running. It works. It costs almost nothing to run. The house always smells fresh. It reduces air-circulation-related heating costs by ~90% -- and that drops my heating demand in winter by maybe 30-40%. What more is there to say.

Yup. That’s why they have very fine pitched threads, so lots of bite for very little torque.

So is cheese in a tube, bear in mind who I'm trying to explain it to! Be my guest in trying to get it across! ?

You could look at Equitone Fibre cement facade cladding had some samples and looked quite nice

It always frustrates me that we effectively have to check that what we want to do under PD is OK and the incurs a cost and wait. Feels a bit like asking permission, but nobody wants to get caught out so... If you have some hand sketches you might be able to find someone on fiverr.com that can knock up a drawing for you. I couldn't believe how good the 3D renders I got made for £20 were.

Ah, reminds me of holding my mother's hand, as we entered the slave trading city of Bristol.

Godzilla claw . I rest my case

Grown ups have gone to bed, we can get up to mischief now.

"We'd just like to thank everyone for watching tonight's show, and please remember to tune in....same time next week. Goodnight!". ?

Tell him to say "no" to drugs An UVC will have 22mm pipework and will happily connect to a 15mm cold mains. The discipline you need to observe is taking the 22mm cold supply all the way from the UVC multi-block ALL the way back to the 15mm cold stopcock. Reducing the resistance that the cold mains has to suffer before getting to your outlets is the critical thing to observe. You really need a plumber who has done a few ( lots ) of UVC installs, as the difference between plumber 1 and plumber 2 can be night and day. If you wish to retain the existing combi for money saving measures ( as long as it is in A1 serviceable condition ) then just have the hot outlet connected to the kitchen sink, and then use the heating circuit for heating CH and the UVC. That will work just fine. Do NOT connect the combi hot output to a shower, as whilst the shower is running ( the combi is in DHW priority mode ) zero heat will go to either CH or UVC. Flow rate and static pressure of cold mains needs reporting here before ANY advice can be given. You could get away with a Vaillant 938 and an accumulator, but we also need to know how many people living there, when they shower / bath / how often and more. INFO PLEASE!

Tis tonight. What is cutlery?

Shouldn't need a spanner. Finger tight. Only need a spanner for the long nut on the bolt that comes down.

With 3m ceilings and lots of cooking curries a ceiling flush mounted extractor, possibly with a powerful external motor is the solution. it wont be cheap though.

Go and have a drive around gravenhill in Oxford there are more external finishes on houses than I have seen anywhere else in the world.

Picture 2 shows a flatlock metal cladding. There are quite a few suppliers around in the UK - Zinc, Copper, Coated aluminium/steel, Stainless Steel. In picture 1 it looks like a metal fascia, again using a flatlock or simple lap.

I have not looked in detail I would avoid a split level ground floor. Also the trees could be overpowering. Overall a decent scheme. Architect has earned their money.

Hi trw144, The second image def looks like zinc to me, but the first looks to possibly be a mix of zinc and composite. It's hard to tell. I've had samples of swiss pearl. It's ok, but it's not what I ideally wanted. I've also had samples of another product called Oko skin. This is also a glass fibre reinforced cement product. Interesting textures to some of that, but again, not for me. The thread that Russdl referred to was started by me, and, is under he extensions sub titled zinc standing seam.

In a previous house I was going to erect a conservatory and told the neighbour (little old lady) and she told her son when he visited, he came round complaining that from the new conservatory you could see straight through her kitchen window and into her bedroom. I pointed out that the floor level of the conservatory was the same as the existing patio (which we often sat on) and that her kitchen window was closer to the boundary than my patio was. They went to IKEA and bought her a blind fir the window ? neighbours eh!!!

It was very tongue in cheek. It's a 28ft static caravan. Used as temporary accomodation during the build, presently still storing building materials but will end up as the 3 main rooms used as a studio, store room and workshop, with the added bonus of still having a working WC. and we will probably leave the kitchen sink in, place.

@Trw144 that looks to be zinc for the large majority, there’s a recent threads on here about zinc, it’s not the cheapest. The timber cladding on the second image looks pretty standard but again I don’t suspect it will be cheap, especially regarding the labour of a good chippy.

I got a PM from a member who is about to parge his Durisol build. On my build, as usual, I had never done this before. So this is a brief review of what, how, when .... and mostly it demonstrates yet another steep learning curve. Here's what I wrote about it at the time And this is the result ; each photo has a brief annotation to help explain. This photo shows two levels of parging - the RHS parging is thicker, much thicker than the LHS. You can hardly see the blocks I've chosen this photo (of the damaged corner) because it shows clearly the difference in thickness in coating: LHS much thicker Here's the spiel about rendering and airtightness : thing is from experience, I don't think you can get airtightness out of the parge coat alone : well, I can't anyway. Much more airtightness might well be provided by the following covering ( in our case ) Clober Permoforte Quattro. And, at that price, it should provide that. It's excellent by the way. Put an good plaster coat inside and you're well on the way to a decent breathable, airtight wall. Thing is - what happens in way of (behind) the wall plates. I think I've missed a trick there. Here's the point: I should have made the coating thicker.

With your cabinet building skills and low budget you could even build you own MVHR unit! https://www.builditsolar.com/Experimental/DIYHRV/DIYHRV.htm

Iirc, the UFH pipes from Wunda come Pre-pressurised with air / gas and the ends plugged sealed and factory tight judging by one I cut ( without knowing they’d started doing this, so subsequently nearly ? myself ), it’s at quite high pressure too. You’d 100% know you’d damaged it, but would the person who’s damaged it tell you? Also, a tiny puncture may not be notable so maybe not the immaculate solution. A pressure gauge is the only true way of knowing that the integrity has not been compromised. Water is not necessary, but it’s 500 times quicker to find a leak with water squirting out vs using leak detecting fluid with air.

Ah, I am in Devon, the do work in other places, not sure NI would be achievable. I will ask tho. Surely someone here on the forum near you can recommend a local company?

I totally agree. With us it’s just two people most of the time and family/friends occasionally we have an en suite with full bath and walk in shower, next to the two other bedrooms the family bath (for visitors ) has just toilet basin and shower. Friends/family are not going to stay away just because they don’t have an en suite !!!

GRP, works every time for me. There does not seem to be much actual glass area in that design.

It is the programming that is the tricky bit if you have never down it before.

Ah, I wondered why he was so relaxed about our inspections He was very impressed at our foundation dig. All very straight and precise from possibly the best digger driver in the world. Then along came our brickie, who is a legend in our area who we were so lucky to be able to get, so I expect he just comes to give himself something to smile about.

It depends on the inspector, their all different (mine didn’t because he knew I was building my forever home for myself, not profit so would do it all properly).

Just take loads of photos and send them (my brother in law did this to save visits) and ask if that’s sufficient.

Yes, look at the cost of fitting roof integrated PV. It can be cheaper than tiling.

i learnt autocad architectire on a free 30 day trial and watched youtube videos. used it as paperwork for planning permision for a new build and was passed saved thousands and gave me somthing to do during lockdown!

I added a Pi-based controller as I was finding the built-in humidity trigger to be a bit hit and miss. The threshold was set on the unit but it was an absolute threshold so just when I got the balance right it'd need tweaking as the seasons changed. Sometimes it wouldn't trigger when I expected it to and sometimes it'd do so when I didn't. As I had an unused Pi Zero and humidity sensor I put it to use even if it was a bit overkill. To lessen this though I add temperature sensors to the four main ducts so I could monitor (and graph) its performance. Useful to begin with when I was still learning about MVHR, and I still look at it occasionally now. Handy for knowing the outside temperature too, and I've always liked graphs. ? I may expand it to have greater control over the summer bypass and summer boost if I get some time to do so.

Re the bainster spindles. Building regs say "a 100mm sphere will not pass through" so the gap should be less than 100mm.

Yes i see that, which is a naughty. But from where he says the water is coming in , i would expect that if he had a problem it would be the roof.

@Mulberry View I’ve had another look based on your comments. I think the office (10) doesn’t lend itself to being there as the view from the front door is a wall. Why not move the office to top right and use the space under the stairs and then move the utility door direct in line with the front door ..? It would give a view through the house and you can also lose some of the space in the plant / utility as currently the plant room is 50% door and corridor. May have a hack about to show what I mean..!

The only way it can be used and prevent birds getting in underneath, getting trapped and dying would be if you buried the entires perimeter which just isn't going to happen (and doesn't happen, thus making the stuff even worse). Plus if you do use it, it should be checked at least a couple of times a day to see if there are any birds trapped, so they can be freed. Alas I see this an an unneccesary and dangrous trend further impacting our already hard-pressed wildlife and I hope we see it banned soon.

Pretty sure you cannot pump the output of a combi boiler! Your first job is to get the supply properly measured. You need to know what pressure and flow rate the incoming main can supply without any restrictions due to the existing boiler etc. Sometimes you can do that at a kitchen cold tap or garden tap or both at once. If the incoming flow rate is poor some form of variable volume storage tank is needed (A regular unvented tank does not provide this). You would normally use a vented tank in the roof feeding a hot water cylinder and pumped to the showers (or pumped to all hot outlets). The CH side of the existing combi boiler could be used to heat the hot water cylinder and the DHW side could be used for one shower or perhaps the kitchen tap. If the static pressure is ok you might be able to use an accumulator tank to store cold water at mains pressure. Its possible thats what he meant but few plumbers seem to know about them. If you understand electronics they behave a bit like a capacitor in a power supply.

Yes - sharp thin blade will take it off as will a guitar string as a cutter.

Decent bead of CT1 all round about 20mm in from the edge and nip the bolts up. Level it across the back then tighten, wipe any excess CT1 off the pan or tiles and the leave for 24 hours. Then go back over with a decent LMN silicone of your choice.

Not knocking the job by any means, it looks first class.

same. However, this is a consideration in a planning application and would probably be flagged. Might need to build fence up or lower deck. If you can keep quiet I would, however if anyone complains, you'll be fined.. think fines about £1000 now.. I've had to go through planning for decking myself, as I was altering a window into a door and had a warrant open (meaning the cat-was-out-of-the-bag), and the cost of that of applications was about £300 when you factor in time of drawings etc. What's dimensions of your corner posts? It looks a cracking job by the way. What's the metal work they're sitting on? Are the rim joists/cross just bolted to corner posts, or are they lap joints? I had to have lap joints as well as bolts. As mentioned, you need 100mm or less gap between balustrades, if you're 125mm spindle centres, you might be ok. You also need to ensure there isn't 100mm gap between stair stinger/treds and balustrade/base rail. Steps need to meet minimum requirements (look up, as gets complicated quickly). As over permitted height, I think Handrail needs to be 1100mm above deck floor level, you need 1200mm from a door threshold to top of first step and in Scotland, (as a FYI), your balustrade must be vertical (reduce kids climbing ). Attached my approved (scottish) planning app drawing. Pretty simple to pass, so don't think you'll have issues, but there are boxes that have to be ticked! (lap joints etc).

Cut a piece of timber batten and slip it behind the existing plasterboard at an angle and fix through either end with a screw. If the hole if too fiddly for you to get in, mark it out and cut it bigger. Cut a new piece of plasterboard the size of the hole and screw it to the batten. Fill, sand, repeat. Paint.

Welcome to the forum. Officially you need planning permission as over 300mm and the planning portal says you should assume you need Building Control Approval if you need planning permission. I think i would just keep quiet unless someone complains. If Building Control ask you to get an SE involved you could probably get one to come take a look and write them a letter. Ring round a few. Personally I wouldn't have a timber deck as they can get as slippery as ice.