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Hello all, I am pleased to join this community and hope to be useful at some point! For a while though, I think I will be learning a lot more than I can contribute. 🙂 I live in a block of flats, in a flat on my own, and have a number of projects ongoing. First is a ventilation issue, which I hope to detail once I am settled int the community and can upload pictures. I also have a kitchen worktop join issue: the join had some water seep through it and one side of the wooden worktop has bulged a bit, thereby making the worktop surface uneven in that area. For now though, hello from London. ais

jimal1969: https://www.google.com/search?q=lulu+'shout'&oq=lulu+'shout'&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i22i30l9.6577j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#cobssid=s It was the w-ee-e-ll that did it. ''but surely if treated and untreated is the same price, treated would be a better bet??'' The feeling I have on timber treatment is that it contains stuff designed to kill things and if those things are very very unlikely to be there then it's a chemical I can keep out of the (or at least my, immediate) environment.

I think some people worry about the chemicals used.

Thanks for the response and yes please an explanation is required:) but surely if treated and untreated is the same price, treated would be a better bet??

Okay, so just to stoke up a bit of emotion here, I think on the face of it, it is poor. They don't appear to have thought about or questioned your brief, just plonked an additional kitchen diner on the end of the house. I think the bedroom layout is a bit ropey too. I'd reckon you need to step back a bit from your brief and ask yourself how you are going to use the space and what you need from it - from a functional perspective. Do you have a family? Is your family young or old? Are you planning for this house to be a family home or are you wanting it for older age and/or for a couple who wants to have space for guests? Some of these questions are likely going to feed into the design and how it works. For example, if you have a young family, the existing layout could work really well because you are going to want to have a seperate space to get rid of the kids and the kids stuff (possibly into the front lounge) when you want some piece, tranquility and tidyness when you want to chill out. Same thing with the utility - yound family with children means a great demand on washing an laundry etc. so a generous room is a great thing. But at the same time I think that the open plan dream can turn into hell on earth with a busy family because of noise and disturbance too - just think someone cleaning up the kitchen and making a load of noise while the other is watching something on tv. Did your architect actually visit the site and sit down with you to understand you as a client? This could yield alternative and more efficient designs that might work better. The whole thing needs a tad more thought IMHO, then consider designs and subsequent likely budget. For 150k, don't even think about knocking down to rebuild.

We-e-e-e-ll... (no, not Lulu, for those of a certain age) (explanation available on request)... OK, so pressure treatment is no longer CCA (Copper, Chrome and Arsenic) but whatever treatment is there may not be necessary in your circs. My general feeling is that if you are not exposing timber to potentially aggressive conditions you don't need to treat it against them. My timber-framed extension will have no treated timber in, and neither have a few extensions and TF buildings which I have helped build over the last 15 years. I would not buy treated for mine even if it were available at the same price.

Treated or untreated Neither will get any weather

Flints nearly done in the second pillar. Needs a good clean when gone off a bit. Then concrete sealer sprayed on. Got to figure infill panels left and right. Probably a welded steel frame with more black stained scaffold boards like the gate. I might even think about powering it up...

And the glory hole doorbell and the boiler boxing in and the ufh and the rotating shower head thing and that window surround and the ….. etc etc etc ETC

I would just squirt some sealant into the crack to try and keep further moisture out and move on. It is not going to fall down any time soon. Don't start any more new jobs, you have plenty to do.

Ignore it til you finish the bathroom?

And the $/£ exchange rate. Extraction and transport costs affect it is as well. The oil price is the 'in ground' price.

12kWp of solar would give you a huge amount of excess, and if your DHW is instantaneous you would defo still be buying electricity even on a bright sunny day for all times where the irradiance isn’t at max / other base loads are not satisfied. With a cylinder and an immersion you could store all the excess PV generation as DHW ( plus other things ) and save a LOT of money each year as that setup would provide free DHW for prob north of 6 months of the year to both the home AND the annex. That 12kWp would diminish to sub 4kWp for the 3 months of winter, so will not even scratch the surface for space heating with resistive heaters. Used a heat pump ( which will run the split A/C, and that 4kWp will be equivalent to 12kWp again because of the CoP of the heat pump. Please ask for an explanation if you do not fully understand any of my blabbering The reason I ask about how far the annex is from the house is because it should be quite easy to tether the annex to a centralised plant in the house. My current clients want a WC and wash basin ( + DHW ) in the detached garage, so I have ducted between the house plant ( UVC location ) and the garage to run plumbing inside. I intend pulling 2x10mm pipes ( hot and hot return ) together, mummified with Armorflex neoprene insulation, to give the few sporadic handfuls of DHW p/a that the garage requires. A PIR sensor ( aka occupancy switch ) will trigger a pump which circulates DHW in a return loop to give instant DHW to the WC basin hot tap, and when the room is vacated the pipes will just cool and go cold again. The hot return will be required to stave off the “dead leg” that would be created if it was fed with just a single hot ‘leg’, but only really a requirement if the hot supply pipe run exceeds 25m ( risk of legionella ). Upsize that hot feed to a 15mm DHW supply and a 15mm hot return and feed it from the house and that’s your all of your DHW to that’s annex done for a few hundred quid of pipe and insulation. Space heating could be completely via A2A split A/C units afaic, and I would save the cost of the WBS install and use those funds to pay for the A2A system. A/C gives cooling in summer, essential for a gym(?), and space heating in the winter. The summer A/C will run from excess PV generation. The insulation levels are sub BRegs so are by no means admirable, and floating floors are cold-ventilated, so space heating in the winter wouldl benefit from the excess heat from the WBS if you do fit it as the floors will be quite a significant cold bridge during the worst of the winter, but it will likely give off too much heat for all other times, with that heat contained to the room that the WBS is in. MVHR will not distribute that heat btw. Another issue is, the chimney of the WBS will be a cold-inducing ventilation heat loss demon, which will be constantly reducing the room temps for all the times that it’s not lit. Going for a room sealed appliance would resolve this, but it sounds as though you already have a WBS? The MVHR is a bone of contention, because if you don’t get the air tightness detailed, AND tested, and get a score of <1 ACH ( air changes p/hour ) the MVHR will do next to zilch or less. Use this time and the advice available here to make some informed decisions

The pump price is not only linked to the crude price but also the refinery capacity. We used to import 25% of our refined diesel from Russia and the UK does not have the refinery capacity to up production. Apparently...

A DPM can be used as VCL. They are both plastic sheets doing the same job, DPM is a heavier gauge.

VCL is not breathable, clue is in the name and its function.

Vapour Control Barriers are breathable. DPM is not and should not be used as a VCL

Here's some info you may find useful. https://www.singleply.co.uk/fixing-solar-panels-to-flat-roofs-why-we-recommend-an-engineered-solution/ https://www.nicholsonsts.com/products/rooftrak Apparently these are about £50 each.

How old is the house, does it have an existing DPC? We had similar problems with our 1850's house without a physical DPC. All advice we received was to excavate and lay a slab. Micro digger and dumper in to excavate then 150mm MOT 1, 25mm sand, 100mm Conc, 100mm PIR and 60mm screed. We were also rewiring at the time, so dropped all our services from above to avoid ducting within the floor itself. We did most the work ourselves and it was messy, uninhabitable during that time. It would have probably have been cheaper to replace the joists when DIYing, certainly not so when paying a contractor. Since we did ours, others have raised concern regarding a new slab with a DPM potentially pushing moisture to the perimeter and therefore up the walls (without a DPC). Those concerns haven't come to any realisation (yet...) (FWIW, if I was to do it again I'd probably go 150mm MOT 1, 250mm EPS (50mm as a sand blinding), finished with a 100mm conc reinforced slab instead. Slightly deeper but better thermal properties and arguably cheaper than PIR + conc + screed.

The floor rotted because of the elevated moisture levels. These were caused by the removal of ventilation and the elevated ground levels. You will need to. 1. Lower the existing ground level and reduce the localised water table through drainage ( French drains work well if done right). Damp proofing ( especially the injected type) is peeing into the wind against a high water table. 2. Remove the existing rotten/uninsulated floors. Get a mini digger + dumper in and mechanise as much of the process as possible. Dig out everywhere to 500mm below floor level. 3. Reinstate the floors with appropriate insulation. Given the problems and distance needed to ventilate the existing timber floor I would replace all with a ground bearing slab if possible assuming suitable soil conditions. The next part will take some planning. First fix all your ground floor services. Put ducting here for all your new electrics. Run your bathroom+kitchen extract ventilation ducts, drains and water pipes in ducts. All Preferably elevated say 100mm by chairs. Then pump is something like TLA insulating screed to a depth of 350mm enclosing the ducting in insulation. Then an appropriate membrane. Finally pump a 100mm concrete slab with UFH pipes clipped to mesh and a good upstand to all the walls. There's a fair amount of disruption +muck away (maybe) here initially but man hours and drudgery would be really reduced. An electrician mate first fixed a 1000m2 warehouse with one colleague in a day with this method once. You would be left with a perfect base to continue the rest of your build from. The thick slab (u value about 0.15) would be ideal for UFH and ASHP. It could be used to build lightweight stud walls from it if appropriately specced.

I am using TH and the fabric has been built. Rendering using EWIPro silicone in a few weeks. So this is what has and has not worked well: - Do a lot of research about getting a building warranty if applying render direct to walls. A couple of large insurance companies (eg LABC warranty) now all but refuse to insure this except under some impossible conditions. See example here. - I have opted for an architectural warranty which covers direct render to ICF. - I did have the option for leaving a vent gap between the wall and the render using battens and render boards but somehow that defeats the purpose. Plus with 150mm EPS there will be a lot of long and thick screws into concrete, both expensive and slightly impacting insulation values. - my EPS walls are all scratched (seriously), pushed in, damaged, etc. not in a big way of course. Any serious damage can be fixed with low expansion foam. But when different renderers came for quotes, they were not worried at all whatsoever. They said the first base layer will smooth everything out. - I understand you can hose wash the silicone render within reason. So it is water resistant enough. However it MUST be applied well. EPS is NOT waterproof, I have seen it in action. It is not porous like plaster at all, but water will get through it eventually. Remember the old white foam coffee cups? - very critical to make sure openings are sealed well. Goes without saying. Remember there is no air gap like a two leaf wall, so sealing has to be much better. - I plan to glue plasterboard direct to EPS with some screws into galv steel for good measure. But remember, if you were to fix heavy stuff, the plasterboard and the glue may take the weight, but the EPS could get ripped. Very unlikely to happen with normal loads though. With thermohouse there is only 50mm EPS inside the house so is easier to reach the concrete core where you have to. I have also used sterling board for heavier stuff as suggested already, fixed to concrete using thick hammer fixing for my plant room walls. - for external render I have the option of using double scrim for additional strength. But just can’t see too many cars driving into the walls, so am taking a small risk… - thin coat silicone appears best for EPS. - if you have neighbours across the fence when you design the house, make sure the architect looks at fire spreading regs. - for windows, thermohouse is not really the most impressive out there in terms of product support. Most other providers offer their window jamb system and kit. - for doors and windows, make sure you choose a system which integrates well with ICF. Assuming you will go for low u value windows, they are often different from standard windows. So do not make assumptions. Eg with my Rationel windows, they want to place the entire weight of triple glazed windows on the base, possibly over a few spacers. ICF EPS is not designed to take that type of load and will give over time. My solution is to replace the EPS above the concrete on openings with thinner EPS 300 or 400, with a 10mm layer of cement or timber on top of it. To take the point load of the spacers. - think what you want to hang outside and allow for it at concrete pour time. Also for any holes in the wall, etc. - good luck. - on a separate note, if you are aiming for low u value house, then be prepared to argue with heating engineers who will (likely) use standardised parameters to work out your heat demand. I ended up registering as a reseller with a main brand so could enter my own house parameters. Yes, those with 30 years of heating design may still want to use heat demands from 30 years ago (no disrespect to those good advisers, but personally I gave up with JG and NuHeat for underfloor heating, though I am sure it was my bad luck. same with boiler/heat pump. I had to insist over several calls and after emailing informative documents, before my heat pump guys incorporated MVHR efficiencies into their air volume change calculations….

An air pollution device that prematurely ends millions of peoples lives every year. WBS = Will be Buried Soon.

We have a Mitsubishi A2A unit in a domestic-sized office at work. Nice warm air in winter, nice cool air (if you switch it on) in summer, and well distributed throughout the office. Far superior in feel to the previous heating (night storage) heating. I cant really comment on the noise, the work environment is obviously inherently a bit noiser than a quite domestic one, but I certainly wouldn't rule out A2A on the grounds of comfort.

I agree, but as it was a barn conversion on an old pig farm it was obvious that we would need a bat survey and contamination survey. The LPA wanted to see the results pre planning whereas architect said it should be a condition. If it was something totally unnecessary, like flood report (top of hill) then I would have argued more. But, as it was already 2 years into trying I just wanted to get there. The only condition we had post planning was a phase 2 contamination as all the rest were already done. Cost in the end would have been about the same in this situation.

Yeah - stop (expletive deleted)ing around 😁