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HI All. I hope this is allowed. We used some spacetherm super thin insulation blanket for insulating the steels internally in our passive build. I have a few meters of a roll left if anyone can make use of it. I know its quite expensive and don't want to tip it before i check if any of you self builders can make use of it. Message me if anyone is interested and can come pick it up from lovely north wales.

Hi everyone, I've been stalking the forum for quite a while after buying a farmhouse in Nantwich to renovate and thought I should finally introduce myself. I'm an engineer who has taken 6 months out of work to work with my builder to the majority of the build done. We have put nin steels and are putting in the slab next week so are on with the build but some of the finer details will need ironing out as I get to them. I'm almost doubling the size and the inside has been gutted and insulated so it can be brought up to a modern standard. I'm not aiming for a passive house but am putting in a fair amount of insulation, MVHR, ASHP, rainwater tanks etc. I have a few questions which I'll put int he relevant sections for some help. I really like the forum because it contains a wealth of information and on occasion differing opinions which is something I like as I can choose which one I agree with Here are a few pictures so you can see the project, Frank

For completion, you need the required level hard standing parking area and a hard path from there to the main door without steps (a ramp) and all the other doors need steps or other means of access. It was pretty obvious the steps from our patio door were not permanent but they were accepted. You also need the trivial things like bin storage space and a washing line. Apart from that, your garden could resemble the Somme and there would be no reason to refuse a completion certificate.

Having an interior designer is like having a personal shopper spend all your money on sh*t you don’t need, don’t like and will never use in a month of Sundays. Oh and don’t forget the “iconic” piece of furniture that we found in a flea market in Hong Kong which we shipped x thousands of miles that we “just thought was typically you” which will go with the £1000m2 roll of gold wallpaper from Venice hung by a trio of Italian circus tumblers. Not for me thanks.

yup, don't throw anything away, it'll come in handy in 30yrs.

you take the furniture/rugs and paraphernalia in the existing house and transfer it into the new house, rearrange to suit. hate waste

I use patio cleaner like that for getting the algae off of fences. What I found is that just brushing on and leaving it works best. It's greatly accelerated by sunlight too. Sometimes it takes a week to fully work. Any of that wall pointing South?

Just how sad are we? 😂 I went over each flint last night with a small, soft stone in the Dremel: What I need to find is maybe a spray lacquer that will give the flints a wet look and at the same time seal and protect the mortar. Ideally it'll get in the gaps if the mortar has shrunk away from the flints though so far so good. Hopefully that's the plasticiser and lime working.

Yes, a bit of ground works would put the bottom step “in tolerance” they don’t need to be exactly the same but close! An obvious different step is a red flag.

Use bright colours that make the most of the natural light. Pastel colours make rooms look bigger. So far most of the rooms in my wee house are buttercup yellow, similar to the yellow used in stately homes in sunny France. That's where I got my inspiration... My curtains seriously contrast the yellow walls. "No, they said, "you can't use yellow on the bedrooms walls" they cried. Oh yes I can and then they said, "OMG, I never thought it would work and it does". Why follow current trends. grey walls, grey furniture etc. I live in grey Glasgow where an extra touch of sunshine is always welcome.. And, if it had been a disaster, a cover up job would have been easy! Be brave and buck the trend then you won't have to keep up with the Jones when grey is no longer fashionable!

Why not just pump water up and down an old water tower. Lower embodied carbon footprint.

And don't forget above a certain height handrails will also be needed.

Two stairs leading to one landing can have different rise and going, but any stair must have equal rises in that run. What is the ground at the bottom? Can this be graded to sort the bottom step height.

I have a cellcore-alternative in my build. With screw piles, as I have, then it doesn't get attached, no. And it does need to be. And it doesn't matter if it sinks anyway so long as it stays in place until the concrete sets. The cell core is there to create a void while the concrete sets. Afterwards, it does not really do anything other than "be a void". The concrete & piles holds the building up. If the cell core sank, it wouldn't matter. You'd have a bigger void. However is it is unlikely to sink. In reality, when ground is excavated to make space for the cellcore the soil will slightly heave anyway, quite naturally, as the pressure of the overlying soil has been removed. This is not the major tree-based heave you are guarding against, just a very slight reactive heave.

a pump should not be noisy, air in system, or lack of pressure upstream will cause cavitation which will make a racket. Also a gas boiler should be near silent.

My mum and dads house is on clay, it was built on raft foundations

Called bolts. I have often wondered how to make a wobbly wall flat with battening. Probably worth getting a couple if long straight edges. And string.

With a very large quantity of potentially toxic chemicals stored near me Id be wanting to know all the measures taken to deal with fire, chemical leaks etc. I know very little about battery chemistry but I doubt the contents are something you want drifting in the air or leaching into local ground water.

DPC and insulation required at the junction of the new and old wall constructions. Normally wall starter kits used or full cavity opened so that the cavities and insulation is continuous.

If you look on the Elexon website you can see how cheap excess Scottish wind power is, and how expensive emergency extra generation is. Large scale storage is much cheaper than domestic level, though I do think if most houses had 1 kWh of storage that could deliver at 3 kW of power, that would be very useful. It would be owned by the power companies, rather than the householder. That way people cannot tinker with it.

As @Thorfun, we put together a mood-board. The interesting thing was that as soon as we went through that process, we found trawling through relevant books and YT videos was so much easier. You can also find plenty of ready made mood-boards online. Grand Designs episodes help - a bit. We also assembled a 'scrap book' of the things we liked about the houses we saw: anything at all - and thats how we came to ask for a timber clad house, and why knew we wanted a large area of glass facing south. The scrap book helped us show other people what we wanted. And there's a good deal of value in that.

I’ve got 100 in my garage and have high point loads (machinery), 100mm in a residential floor should be fine, surely?

Think you want bolts that have a wood thread one end and a nut thread the other. You lock two nuts together to act as a head to screw it I to the wood then remove the nuts, fit bracket and use nuts to secure it. Cut off excess. Should be stainless steel. See if others have better idea.

Just a heads up that Loxone have recently announced their prices will increase from 1 May 2022. It's not a global % increase but reviewed for each product so increases will vary. Average is around 15% with most products increasing by between 12% and 20%.

I know, I know, I’m even an electrical engineer so it’s just slightly upsetting to get caught getting it wrong. I’m still waiting for ST to come back and tell me that’s more than he consumed in his one bed flat for the entire week… 😂

Yeh the pattern on those tiles match the bottom of the skip I had a month or so back …. Does he want their number ..??

You need a mood room.