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Condensation will form on the underside of the roof and it will drip onto your kingspan and probably make its way through the roof onto your plasterboard. We have some old outbuildings and the underside of every single metal roof gets condensation. The only one that doesn’t drip has chicken wire strewn between the purlins to hold up some cheap roofing felt. You’ll need to take the roof off and put up felt. Over the battens will work fine. On another note the fleece “non drip” roofing doesn’t work very welll here in Ireland. For me roofing felt every time. I wouldn’t put PIR in the roof either for a list of reasons as long as my arm. Use mineral wool batts or cellulose , airtight membrane, insulated service cavity and plasterboard.

We have Rational windows and very happy with them. In for 5 years now and look as good as new. Around a year after they were installed, a couple of guys from the supplier visited as they were in our area and had a quick check of everything. The biggest issue they said they normally encountered was, as you say, lack of maintenance, especially the hardware/opening mechanisms etc. I've religiously made a point of twice a year cleaning and lubricating everything I can get to with a PTFE spray.

Have had no problems except 1 window steam up due to the seal failing. Phoned up and it was replaced 3 weeks later. Mine are in 6 years now so so far so good. At the time I made that choice for the amount I paid they where far and away the best window I could get for the money.

No brainier LA We used LA on our last and next Cheaper No limit to visits Better availability

Real world experiences like these, both good and bad, of systems and companies that supply / fit, is how people can make informed decisions about where to look and aim their money. Keep em coming I say.

Bit of everything. The design on the sliders has some fundamental issues in terms of weather tightness IMO. Made for hot climates I think. Sloppy manufacturing for the Uk licensee. Sloppy installation from the installer.

We went with aluminium 3G from cortizo Uk manufactured. They are lovely looking design and we got a great price. However the installation was a nightmare and had to return/get fixed several of the frames. They are not 100% airtight even though they are meant to be for the big frameless sliders (tight and are fine). The word cowboys spring to mind. I’ve got them to a point I’m reasonably happy for what we paid and got but I would never recommend them.

You talking about door frames? They made the C sections ~75mm or so wider than the door openings. They then lined the inside of the studs with 25x50mm battens and noggins either side. My joiners then fitted standard timber door frames before boarding.

Hi Marvin - I don't think it is 'hard' as such ...... if froths up easily enough. Hi Joe90 - thanks for that - I wasn't sure if the disc could be replaced or if the whole tap needed to go!! I'd have to shut off the mains ...... Hubby's care package comes thru shortly - we should be able to get it looked at 'on the package' ... as that will be a bit beyond me, methinks!! cheerio & thanks

TFFT! ? You had me panicked I'd been testing things wrong for 40 years! I'll measure all the caps tomorrow if I can. The converter unfortunately is 6' up in the air on a shelf above a donkey saw. I had to balance on the saw earlier. Yep, I'll discharge the caps!

That marine ply won't hold up a large window. The Denby Dale one was able to because they made a box. The sides supported the bottom. I think you're overthinking this. With a 110mm cavity you're short of bregs not to mind PH. With low insulation levels thermal bridging isn't as much of an issue. I would pursue whatever kind of window installation the builder knows and is comfortable with and will definitely keep out water. The only low hanging fruit on your build is airtightness. Concentrate on this and your house will be warm.

Forgot the membrane. It's not needed and you'll need to introduce battens if you want to use it on the walls. You have blockwork internally which is perfect for the parge coat I mentioned earlier. Go around with airtight tape and tape everything; around doors, windows, floor to wall, walls to airtight membrane in the ceiling, around all pipes and cables going from inside to outside. Then add the parge coat. This will give you a brilliant airtight home to Passive House standard and is something you can do yourself to save money if needed. You do not need an airtight membrane to the walls but do for the ceiling.

Five months on from breaking ground I think they have made good progress. I like how neat and well planned it all appears. Inspires confidence. I bet BC will not be breathing down anyone's neck on this job.

Lost the roofers for a couple of weeks due to covid but they are starting next week. Door frames in now, going to re jig the main bathroom door to to the left to give more room for a walk in shower. lost the quadrant on the stairs which has given us an extra 400mm in width on the en-suite and utility

Yes.

Most of the gas main is iron or polyethylene. I think the FF is PF which could be pitch fibre but I didn't know that was used for gas. SI and CI I guess iron. ST for steel? Maybe an experienced excavator operator could comment as they will have hit all of them over time. Speech bubble looks like it is pointing to a valve.

My brother in Law has just remodelled (very respectfully) a 16th century building and used kinetic lights all over to save chasing walls and removing oak panelling to hard wire them, brilliant idea.

Cavity closer does stop them - it’s how we do it with them wedged in place.

That must have been re-Pointed and I’m guessing they racked out some of the DPC while doing it. certainly doesn’t look like subsidence, I would go along with @Brickie diagnosis of splash erosion of the mortar, also looks very grey so may have been too strong and that’s caused the shrinkage. I reckon the path has sunk from being undermined by the downpipe washing away material.

?. It was planned from the outset. To get the ridge a bit lower. Nothing oppressive about it, as I said neither feature is noticeable and the combination achieved the aim - but thanks for your input all the same.

don't see why not, subframe/cavity closer certainly wouldn't stop them.

be aware those plans are +/- 100m! Cant trust them at all, if you are hand digging it wont be a problem if you are using a digger get someone who has done it before.

Have you read the blog post I put up? It's quite good. Here is a sketch of the detail. Cheap, easy to build, airtight, thermally sound.

I’d say the course just visible is part of the footings brickwork & was never meant to be seen,the fact that it’s stack bond is annoying but nothing to worry about in the scheme of things. Extremely hard to tell if there’s any actual movement occurred locally in the zone highlighted or if the pointing has degraded over time with rain splash. Same with the perpend joints on the partially seen course-no way of knowing if it’s degraded or if the joints were ever full in the first place? Can I ask the significance of tomorrow?

I think it depends on other factors rather as well. for us it was cheaper to use the same private building control company for both BR and our warranty rather than using LABC for BR and a private for the warranty.

I remember watching a TV documentary featuring the life-long struggle of an Irish Aristocrat to keep his inherited mansion from falling apart. His main advice was to view any old property as an upside down ship where the top priority was to eliminate water ingress from above i.e. start at the chimneys roof then work downwards.

Using CNC for ours ,builder was happy as he knows them all and has dealt with them on our behalf, no issues whatsoever so far.

Should be fine,. inward opening or outward. how wide is the profile?

You can’t close the cavity with brick or block or you create a cold bridge. Also, blown bead needs a properly sealed closer in place to stop the beads coming out at the window frames - it’s easier to use a plastic/ foam closer over the 3 sides and then fit the window and the internal cill to that.

To get back on topic for Calvinhobbs.... What are folks views of alternatives to the internorm products?....... Simple aluminium / aluminium clad / whatever What have you installed and are you still happy with your choices, and if not, why not?

Will the adhesive stick to the foil lining?

WOW! Thanks for that. I've heard of Mens Sheds but not 'She Sheds'!!

General operation check, checking gaskets still look good, hinging oiled etc. Basically a health check.

Arpie sorry to read about your husband. I can't help you with the above enquiry but I thought I should tell you about something I recently discovered. She sheds. The one in our area runs courses that help with joinery, electrics/white goods and upholstery. I have heard others do plumbing. TBH it's brilliant because for whatever reason, women are best to be able to do some basic fix's if they can, life can throw some of the most unwelcome curve balls. Most of all it's fun, gets you out of the house and you get to meet other humans!

https://www.soudal.co.uk/pro/products/coatings?f[0]=categorie%3A1062 can also be used

Is it a new build? You can add a parge coat to the walls first. This is a very wet layer of plaster. So wet you can put it on yourself like a thick layer or slurry paint. A lot of members here have done that, myself included. The quality of the plasterboard doesn't matter as much then

I have hanging tiles on my next two I will use only one baton

Personally I would go 2.45 downstairs and 2.4 upstairs. Our house is a little unusual that we have 2.4 downstairs and the two main upstairs bedrooms have vaulted ceilings going up to the ridge, and I like it. The small, spare bedroom has a 2.3M ceiling to give more height on the mezanine but it is only a small room. I think it would be oppressive in a larger room.

It's a tough one, where and how do you spend your money? I have / do wrestle with this. One starting point is to ask.. what do you want the windows to do for you! Do you need lots of light, do you want thin frames, (say a set of sliding doors with thin 20mm thick mullions) do you need to comply with planning conditions, reduce noise or are you trying to use your windows to achieve a certain U value to make your scheme work? How long do you want your windows to last.. in other words is this your forever home or are you doing this as a step to something else? I'll leave it to you to moralise.. The windows/ doors are a big ticket item. Considerations for me are: 1/ Do you really need 3g? Is this for insulation or sound? If sound insulation then plus point, if just for insulation then can this be achieved with less long term risk..(say by spending your money on insulating elsewhere go for the simple stupid option) beyond the glass guarentee. Put three panes of glass together and they are heavy. The inner pane can heat up like fury as it is in it's own green house, lots of thermal expansion which stresses the seals. Then you probably have some argon gas that is supposed to not behave like a gas does and just stay put! 2/ The hinge and locking technology.. look carefully and you'll see that this has not developed as fast as we would like. Again fine for a few years but look at the size and embedment of the fixing screws in the hinges. It's a weak spot. Three panes of glass? Remember that some windows and doors will be opened a lot.. some on few occasions. Seriously have a look at the screws.. you can have some really high end windows with "tiny screws " .. it's a serious weak spot! 3/ What level of adjustment do you have in the locking mechanism. Take a tilt and turn window/ casement.. can you as a home owner adjust them yourselves after reading the instructions? 4/ How flexible are the seals? Well as a lay person unless you have a good knowledge of the materials that are used to form the seals you won't really know and your window supplier is not likely to tell you! But as a lay guide. Imagine you are sealing a shower tray on a bouncy timber floor. Put in a tiny bead of silicon (aka a small seal) and that tiny bead has to stretch a lot over a short length, put in a big thick bead ( heavy seal) and the stress is less as you have a longer length of bead. Same with your window seal, don't ask it to compress too much and it will return the favour in the long term. 5/ Overcladding timber with aluminium. All sounds good, warranty for say ten years.. but what about the windows performing for say 25 - 40 years? Like say a timber sash and case window that can be maintained with ease. It would be good and I would welcome info from the "Aluclad" type suppliers on their recommendations for long term durability and low cost maintenance in the long term. What do you do when you need to replace a hinge and have lost fixity / embedment of the screws? Yes these composite frames may be fine in Scandinavia but hey.. this is the UK.. we just don't get the low temperatures in the winter with the associated low humidity, we get British weather.. it's a different animal, wet, a bit cold but plenty water in the air. Covering wood with metal which seals moisture in? Really but how do you keep the joint watertight on the aluminium section in the long term when the substrate of timber is doing what wood does..? 6/ Now we all know that for timber to last it needs to breath. We have for a long time used cross laminated timber (CLT).. it's like plywood where you glue films /veneers of wood together. Engineered flooring is a good example.. we often use this when we have underfloor heating. Look at the UF heating specs for engineered flooring and they are quite clear that you need to control moisture, let the CLT breath. But suddenly the window folk are sealing one side at least with an impervious material? Once the water gets in what then? Much reliance seems to be placed on say the glue, how the timber is dried and the fact that the metal cladding will remain water tight. I am at a loss as to how this works in the long term given the different behavoirs of the wood and metal subject to varying moisture contents. Maybe the glue is the thing? The argument does not stack up in the long term for me. Just say you get a leak in your aluclad near a fixing screw for the hinge. The timber will suffer, your window drops.. you don't need to be a technical wizard to work out what the consequences will be for you heavy 3g sash! In summary what I'm saying is this. If you want good looking windows and go for timber over clad with aluminium then fine. But if it is your forever home then we need the manufactures of these types of windows to step up to the plate and tell us how we can maintain them in the long term. If you are just trying to do something that complies with the regs.. well spend a bit more time on build hub.. the cost effective answer is probably here. Calvin. Hope the above helps.. I have laid it on a bit thick but windows and door are a big ticket item so the hard questions need to be asked. If you have a tight budget then look at improving insulation where it is easy and cost effective, cost effective to buy and cost effective labour wise to install. Do a bit of research on how windows should be installed. In particular how you insulate the ingoes and seal the frames. Spend time on getting the workmanship right here and this will pay dividends. A cheaper window well installed will often perform better than an expensive one that is not well installed. Maybe go for UPVC windows, install them well and spend money on the kitchen, or just a nice sofa/ curtains/ just family stuff? Lastly all the best with the project.

Maybe your correct on that Thorfun, but surely, if they are using a show to promote a product, youd expect a business to ensure the product is showcased in pristine order, to gain as much positive exposure as possible. I found it disappointingly difficult and no matter how efficient it may be, it would drive me nuts if I had it in my own home.

Find out why such a difference. It may be that you like a hotter house, or you have an underperforming house. The EPC assessor probably used default values for when the house was built i.e. no insulation, single glazed windows, high air infiltration. Solar Thermal, is not only a 1 trick pony, it also needs servicing. PV does not. The electricity from the PV can be used for many different things, including warming up the sauna (though a simple, small greenhouse would almost get as warm). So rather than try and integrate two wet systems to work with each other, and in reality, there is little difference between an ASPH and a GSHP, let PV power the ASHP during the day. Or charge the car, that will give you the best return (compared to an ICE powered one). All this RE business is really playing with averages and probabilities i.e. Most likely time of maximum generation is between 10AM and 2PM, the weekly mean generation will drop in the winter, and rise in the spring, peaking in the summer. Take advantage of that, don't think that a box of electronics will make it produce more than it can. But work on the house first and reduce those losses, then look at what you can buy the kit for. Subsidies and grants have skewed the market.

Sorry to nag: I have seen many a steel with insufficient thickness and some left-over paint, because the painter said he didn't need it all. It is usually very much thicker than normal paint. Also many where there is no seal coat. The working intumescent stuff is soft and gets mucky, so make sure you have the finish coat too. On the other hand, the paint company likes to sell paint. If the steel is already enclosed on one or more sides the amount of paint reduces, and they dont always bother to mask. A heavy enough steel doesn't need extra protection at all.

There are a couple of situations where I'd consider a GSHP: - If I lived somewhere a lot colder than the U.K. (the improvement in efficiency between ASHP and GSHP is greater the colder the climate) - If I has a large property that isn't particularty well insulated. (higher usage in this case means the improvement in efficiency will give a shorter ROI) But otherise, ASHP.

Compared with ASHP, GSHP kit is more expensive to buy, much more expensive to install, is potentially more disruptive in terms of earthworks (less of an issue with vertical boreholes), and costs more in ongoing maintenance due to the need to replace a lot of glycol every few years. Some have mentioned that the pump itself is quite noisy, although I can't see why that can't be located outside in an enclose to keep the noise down. There have also been some horror stories on performance. Things like ground icing up and killing lawns/plants due to the loops not being buried deep enough, and soils with low thermal conductivity with not enough loop area causing the ground to freeze over the heating season to the point where little or no heat can be extracted any more. Most of these are installation issues that shouldn't happen in a properly designed system, but how do you as a lay-person know if a system's been designed and installed properly? For all this, you get a nominal bump in efficiency that will take decades or more to pay back in reduced energy consumption.

......they were often used in inappropriate ground and just don't work properly. Many installers didn't know/care and did it anywhere....they are gone. (I spoke to many of them about real projects, when i was learning...they all said yes. When I learnt of the importance of ground conditions i asked them all at an exhibition re a project on dense clay. Only one (of 5?) stated that it was not appropriate. Some good companies remain, tarnished by the others. It really should work well in the right conditions, esp with water movement underground. BUT our project is on deep sand, and GSHP still doesn't come out favourably compared with ASHP, as turning up with the boring equipment costs the same as the heat pump. In summary I think it is for big projects with ideal ground conditions.

After making an energy and temperature logger.

GSHP have, over the last decade, declined in popularity because of the higher initial cost for only a tiny performance improvement. We also tend to have small gardens in the UK, do borehole drilling is best for most people. The UK has very mixed geology and drilling easily in one place may become really hard just a few miles away. Even down here in Cornwall, with some of the best understood geology in the world, and a £1m to play with, the Jubilee Pool project went disastrously wrong.

It boils down to the extra cost of a GSHP installation not providing enough of an efficiency improvement over ASHP.

Go luck, and have fun. I would say that 2003 standards, even if they were met would allow you loads of chances to improve. I think standards, and the checking of those standards were quite low at that time. A cheap thermal camera might be a good first buy.

Plasterboard/gypsum plaster is not breathable. Likely the paint isn't too. So yes your bricks are currently sandwiched between two non permeable layers. Whether this actually gives you problems or not will depend on whether water is reaching the bricks. Which as you can imagine could depend on many things. But the fact is that you can't argue with water, so you either need to very effectively keep it from ever getting to your build fabric in the first place (this is the modern build system. So wall cavities, damp proof courses etc) or, you have a building which works with the water and you provide it with a non-damaging escape route (this is the older building method, so materials buffer the moisture variation and expirate it without harm so ultimately the building is dry for the inhabitants because the fabric does the job of buffering and expirating correctly. Because the older building methods were skills handed down verbally father to son or apprentice the country lost a huge body of knowledge in the world wars and the massive build programme post WWII meant concrete and pre-fab with it's ease of setting was the go-to choice. So now the building trades and modern buildings are much more familiar with the modern systems. Add to that that modern methods have been applied to old buildings often leading to problems as people unwittingly mashed together water exclusion versus water management systems meant that the traditional methods got a really bad name and you will often find builders who won't touch it with a 10' barge pole. But although lime/gypsum plaster have the same job as a finish surface, they function and are applied differently so they are kind of apples and pears. There are a lot of people now formally re-developing the body of knowledge and products are becoming better known, but it can be hard to find the information for the DIY builder. In a nutshell if you try to mix the systems, you could cause problems unless you know what you are doing (i.e in that particular situation what result the relationships between the systems will create - I have a stone barn conversion and the roof has a non-breathable membrane which I have to keep for bat preservation so I have adjusted my methods to account for the interplay between the two), whether you get problems or not will often be down to the luck of the draw as to what water makes it as far as the building fabric. You get a lot of people trying to retrofit water exclusion methods to a building constructed with water management in mind, such as people chemically injecting sealants into single skin brick houses. but that often just pushes the water onto the next thing. I have a friend who tanked their victorian basement so they could have a games den... the water it was providing an escape route for then just started creeping up their lounge walls instead so now they have to tackle that. They would have been better putting in excellent ventilation. You can't argue with water as anyone who has been to the grand canyon knows, so if your building can't keep it out (no foundations / DPC) then you have to let it escape. Or just cross your fingers and hope you don't have a lifetime adressing damp symptoms. It can be dismaying to find you are trying to bolt on unsuitable methods to an old house, modern materials are often cheaper up front and people are familiar with them. But, if the house is to be your home for years and you want to do it right and do it once, you should educate yourself what you're tackling to make the decision.