Leaderboard

Hi @Furnace, a belated welcome. Once you have some success with the planning app, please come back an outline your walk from Class Q to full planning, especially as it seems you hope to site the new build in a different location to the agricultural building (if I've understood correctly). There's a few Class Q builds on the forum and a couple that have gone to full planning after securing a Class Q Approval. It's good to hear different experiences. I've now been living in a Class Q conversion of a cow shed for five and a half years, built mostly to PassivHaus principles, but without certification. I have an Advanced Foundation Technology Ltd. insulated raft, with a Touchwood Homes I-Joist frame, designed and engineered by Cullen Timber Design and insulated with blown cellulose fibre. I'm not sure if Touchwood Homes are still running, but the two brothers (Reuben & Adam) that were involved in my build are still involved with Passivhaus builds via https://mango-projects.co.uk/our-passivhaus-build-method/ and https://wilkinsonpassivhomes.co.uk/ I've not found the build method they've developed with Cullen Timber Design offered by anyone else, but can whole-heartedly recommend them. It's a very cost effective way of easily achieving Passivhaus performance levels. For window and Doors, I went with Internorm, but was very close to selecting Norsken. For cladding I went with a European Oak, featheredge cladding on the upper half, for a zero maintenance finish that tied in with an adjacent barn, and a board-on-board PAR Sapele vertical cladding on the lower half, that does require oiling every few years, on the lower half.

This feels like such a daft question, so sorry. I have Blockwork walls to be wet plastered (HardWall + MultiFinish). As I imagine it, the lining depth should be the sum of - 2no. (i.e. 1no. on each side) MultiFinish skims 2mm each - 2no. HardWall base 11mm each - 1no. "100mm" block 96mm TOTAL: 122mm But linings are 108mm or 132mm finished depths? Howdens Door Lining Kit Am I missing something or should I be ripping them down to 122mm? @nod I hear plasterers hate linings being wrong so what do you suggest? Am I too thin on the MultiFinish layer?

Providing a toilet is one thing; providing HSE oversight with full accountability for site safety with a full set of RAMs and policies is something quite different !

Commencement is digging (a) foundation(s) and Building Control need to see the trenches before concrete is poured. Not interested in demolition but could be involved if a dangerous structure being demolished. Planning could be interested but not BC.

No, just make sure you have your planning sorted. Don't need BC until you sif your founds / drainaged

Don't think they care about that part if its a complete demolition. But it does no harm to phone them up and touch base and explain that your starting the demolition and hope to have the digger in X amount of weeks doing the founds and what's the best number to get you on. Most of them are pretty sound here once they see your doing things the right way.

Expanding foam and airtight tape. We rendered with Sto and the beads were self adhesive and stuck to the outside of the frames. We had the glazing company fit the windows, wouldn't dream of doing it myself.

If the tiles are OK you could just strip, felt, batten and relay the worst sections.

We have a similar condition, building in an AONB. We discharged it by submitting details of the light fittings to be used, and yes, all pointed downwards. I think they also look for nothing too dazzling. We also had a condition to have them on a sensor (but interesting there is no comment on how long the timer can be)

Day light coming through your roof is caused by the torching coming away. It's not necessarily a problem in itself - you can see daylight without water ingress, sometimes. That being said, torching was used prior to felting. As the torching degrades you're likely to find more slipped/fallen slates etc. as they're solely reliant on the ageing nails keeping them in place. Certainly needs some work but, if you fancy it, torching is certainly DIY'able. Im my experience - when the torching goes it allows rain in, and if you have fibreglass insulation that moisture will ruin the insulation's thermal properties, meaning a chunk, if not all of the insulation will need replacing too.

sounds like scuba diving to someone who has hardly got grasp of snorkling…

Oh that’s ok then, I misunderstood when you said they hadn’t updated ‘the designs’! They very much have updated their design service, some nice designs there.

@Jimbo23 said: ''@redbeard You're correct, 1920s exactly. 15-20 years lifespan is fine. Does that mean leaving it completely alone or does that include repairs (i.e. re-add missing hip/ridge tiles, repointing etc)?'' The 15-20 years was my latest target for *my* (slate) roof. No, it's definitely not leaving it compeletely alone! I don't think any 100+ year-old roof can be expected to be fine if left alone for 15-20 years. Even if it's just minor fettling it will need some TLC. My latest target for my roof is after a lot of trips up the roof. Till I started getting old I went up every year for a darn good look round. I cannot make a guess at yours from the pics, but you need to look at it critically, like you are *expecting* the tiles to be knackered. Let them prove to you if they are not. Appreciate you don't own it yet, but I think someone really needs to go up there to have any degree of certainty.

This is a house that clearly repairs and upgrades. If you are happy with that, then go ahead. If you are expecting a house to move into without needing any work, keep on looking. Have you considered insulation? EPC? Ongoing heating costs or probably significant costs to upgrade and improve that aspect ?

Get a new surveyor ..?? Photo 7 isn’t defective mortar on that chimney, it looks to be a substantive crack plus the outer edge is leaning suggesting the stack needs a strip and rebuild. Breaking off on the back of old rosemary tiles is not unusual but the whole lot is looking tired. Would suggest 1920’s or 1930’s roof that would be better replaced however you say there is a party wall and stripping and redoing rosemary roof joints between houses isn’t the easiest to get right.

You'd get longer out of it, almost certainly, but we cannot see the condition of the tiles. I am guessing circa 100 yrs old (?) - looks '20's - and I don't know the life of Rosemary clay tiles. Certainly I have seen some 'dying' in less than that time. My (slate - so almost certainly 'destined-for-a-longer-life' roof had, I reckoned, 5-10 years left when we moved in. 35 years (and a goodly bit of maintenance) later I reckon it's got 15-20 years. If you want 30 years and don't want to re-roof I suspect you might look elsewhere. If you want something which is not too bad, will last while you save the money and will improve a lot when you re-roof it then this may be for you.

In this instance I believe that the flowchart is referring to the room thermostat set point rather than the flow temperature set point. Ideally you want to see the programmer/boiler modulating before this set point is reached. (Interestingly on my Honeywell Evohome setup it tells me the percentage modulation compared to the boiler flow set point, which as you say will vary according to how close the room is to its set point and weather conditions) It seems, however, that the flow chart is a troubleshooting one that looks at diagnosing problems with modulating or cycling of the boiler due to flow rate issues within the heating system? I've seen this recently where low flow rate causes a too high flow/return temp differential (e.g. more than 38C and thus eventually throws a fault at the boiler), or that flow temp rises too fast so the boiler has to switch off (flow temp rises above the flow temp set point and too quickly), again due to low flow rates. With the new building regs I reckon there's going to be far more head scratching going on with Delta T/Flow Rates/Modulation/Cycling - in the real world it's turning out to be a time consuming process to get right! I'm finding quite a few issues setting all this up with new boiler installations on existing heating systems. Does your boiler have a flow rate sensor and a way you can access this information? Then put in a phone call to Glow worm customer technical support and see if they can give you specific flow rate figures to work by (Sometimes they don't like giving out too much info mind you). Alternatively, there's a straightforward calc given by Grundfos: https://www.grundfos.com/sg/learn/research-and-insights/calculation-of-flow. Or there's the CIBSE Domestic Heating Design Guide that has a more detailed section on flow rates: https://www.cibse.org/knowledge-research/knowledge-portal/domestic-heating-design-guide-2021

Not got the same boiler, but have found on mine, the following. On the controller there is a user menu and an installer menu. In the installer menu under the info tab, can see what the set point is for the boiler. Ours is running WC, and when I looked last the set point was 30. The heating pump runs all the time in WC, when the return temp has dropped a couple of degrees below set point, the boiler fires up. On mine I can set what is called the gradient, this is how quickly the boiler gets up to temp, I have set this as low as I can, so the boiler run time is high. Once the boiler has got to the set point temperature on the return water or if the max supply temp has been reached the boiler switches off. My max is set to 40, so boiler either goes to 40 or a return temp of 30 which ever occurs first.

Dimming is not required for this lamp. I went cheap. 7 months later we have near constant flickering. Have now ordered a cheap G9 bulb from IKEA, reduced from £3 to £2.

I think I've mentioned here before how the cheaper lamps have no fancy drivers, using instead, capacitive reactance to limit the current. The kind of capacitors used in these is different to the polarised ones used in fancy LED drivers. And they last far, far longer. The downside is they aren't dimmable and will suddenly die if on the receiving end of a big mains spike. If dimming isn't required then the cheapest LED is probably the best one to go for.

Proair 600li. No problems so far. Bought direct from Proair in Galway. Played with a Vent Axia in my mates rental flat once. Wasn't too enticed with the build quality. No other experience.

I have two Titon units, but found the same units are sold and rebranded by Beam for lower prices. Also found the technical response from Titon was great, when I asked for technical assistance. The unit I bought from eBay for super cheap prices, had a failed motor speed sensor, parts to fix where with me the next day. Can't fault that.

You'll not find much with that rating as it's USA only. It translates to an F7 filter in EU- speak and you should find that quite a few units can have F7s or better installed. I'm more than happy with our vent-axia although I'm sure some on here will tell you that only the fancy European Passiv- approved units are worthwhile

I had the same thought and from googling it seems Loxone supports up to 6 separate devices playing via Spotify Family which is the limit on Spotify Family.

yes.

Hopefully somebody can help me as we have something stuck in our chimney breast and I can’t light the fireplace until we remove it. Not helping the Christmas spirit not having a fire. It’s big, red with a white border, although there are two dangly bits that look covered in what appear to be red and white stripey stockings. Leather bits at the end of the dangly bits.

In principle you can work out the transfer function of any control system by putting a impulse or a step change in an otherwise constant input. In practice, doing this can prove almost impossible as the system can be non-linear. For example, most new builds use dot and dab fixed plasterboard on an inner leaf of blockwork. The blockwork usually leaks air like a sieve and you get convective circulation behind the PB which kills any nominal U-values. This convection is non-linear and also very dependent on external wind, etc. One way of estimating spot U values is to use a single pixel FLIR meter to measure external wall temperatures. If the ∆t from internal room temp is x °C then you will be losing 7-10 W/m² into the wall depending on the amount of surface convective flow. The ∆t wall surface to external will allow you to estimate external U-values, and more importantly find any thermal breaches.

It’s got nothing to do with building control, as long as your cables are in the proper safe zones, and properly supported. If I was doing mine again I would do it like on the continent with a large duct that I can pull new cables through.

No the sarking boards have a gap, and the slates have a natural gap also. It's not normal to batten below natural slate in Scotland, but we have to install sarking boards.

Hi, My architect has specified an MVHR for our new build property and sold us on the benefits of airtightness and controlled air quality improvements. The property is 5 bedroom and just under 300m2 over two stories. We've had quotes ranging between £7000 and £21,000 for a variety of units including: Zehnder ComfoAir Q450 Sentinel Kinetic Highflow Airflow Adroit Pichler LG350 Zehnder Comfosystem Q350 with various different options for ducting (radial, rigid, semi-rigid). Our absolutely top priority is that we don't want to hear the thing - at all. We are particularly sensitive to white noise, so it needs to be 100% quiet (or close to). We've also heard horror stories of the ducting being like a secret talk-to-talk system between rooms, which we also do not want. Some of the quotes have included up to £7000 for installation (excluding commissioning), whereas out builder feels like he could probably make a decent job if given a design and some instructions. I'd be grateful for any advice - how can we make sure that we get something that is both affordable and also that is going to perform (i.e. be silent)?

ICF in a basement can be tricky as you cannot inspect the concrete. A groundworks company should be able to build a basement and they do not need to be registered. You will probably still need to use 2 forms of waterproofing. Basements are fairly high risk as the waterproofing can often fail and the cost to remedy can be high. You need a ground investigation and structural engineer.