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We have our planning permission but fall under the new regs so for Part O Overheating we have to pass either the simplified model or the dynamic model. I have created my own spreadsheet and by changing nearly all my windows to opening and to opening inwards to get round the arms reach criteria and a few minor size changes to increase ventilation we have just scraped through as a pass. My architect has given me my sketchup file and this weekend I plan to start looking at the Thermal Dynamic modelling TM59 with Part O adjustments using TAS software. The simplified model does not take into account the MVHR or the overhang shading so I am hoping by spending a bit of time and money on the software I can keep some of my fixed windows. As this is a new reg if any one wants to look at my spreadsheet I have attached it below. I’m a Mac user so if you run into any problems on Microsoft excel let me know and I can amend it. Thanks @craigfor your help so far. It’s been a steep learning curve to get this far so if I can help any one else on their journey that would be nice. So I’m off to start another steep learning curve using the software, just preparing with a big breakfast and lots of coffee. Any tips on the software welcome. https://kb.goodhomes.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/220720_FHH-Part-O-guidance-Final-LT.pdf#page44 https://www.edsl.net/tas-engineering-downloads/ Part O Calculations Simplified method.xlsx

For all.. you can do a lot to help yourself..here is some old scoool stuff that should save you money .. get it right. I live in an ex council house that is in a terrace. The mains supply off the street is 3/4" (~22mm) and that one pipe serves all three houses. Now the static pressure say at 3.00am in the morning is 4.0 bar just say as we are all in bed.. When we all get up in the morning and start turning on the taps.. we don't have anything like 4.0 bar as soon as the flow starts . Once the flow starts we have loses due to every bend in the pipe.. so this idea of having 3.0 - 4.0 bar static pressure is bollocks.. you need to know the pressure combined with the flow rate at the point of delivery.. if you don't then you could waste a lot of money. To put it another way I could supply your house with 8 bar in a 10mm pipe at 3.00 am.. akin to a heavily furred old lead pipe where you have chalk soil. But try and fill a bath.... the laws of hydraulics means that as soon as the flow starts the static pressure drops.. often like a stone.. and so does the flow rate don't take my word for it do your research. That is why we have accumulators for mains water if weneed them. Maybe we should all go back to looking at the basic hydraulic equations and understand what we are talking about before we splash the cash? Folk say 4.0 bar at the street.. yes fine if you have a modern 25mm alkathene pipe under say 50- 75 m run. The first thing you do is ask when assessing any supply is to ask.. what type of supply do I have; is it metered and what type of restriction to flow applies in terms of pipe diameter (and bends in the pipe) and at the meter. Next test the static pressure at 3.00 am and and then again at 6.00 - 8.00 am .. that is when folk bath their kids..get up in the morning.. use your judgement on where you live and how you want to live. Get a bucket of known volume and test the flow rate at 3.00 am and at 6.00 - 8.00 am To nail this down put a pressure tester on the line when you are filling the bucket.. now you know flow rate and pressure when the water is running. Now you at least have some ball park figures on how the water supply to your house behaves.. Give this data on what you have measured to your heating plumbing Engineer.. otherwise.. up to you I suppose. If you don't know how the water gets into your house and how it behaves when you turn on the tap how are you supposed to make an informed decision when selecting the right system for you and spending thousands of pounds? Gather this information and you are on your way to getting you plumbing right at the right price. I know it sounds like a bit of hassle but if you gather the basic info yourself you'll at least know if folk are trying to sell you a pup?

I put a vent axia sentinel s in, twin 75mm ducts to all rooms, apart the master, where I split to two single 75mm ducts feeding low level vents. I ran the system up last weekend, as boys with toys just want to play. Bear in mind the build has no plasterboard up, and is pretty much open plan at the moment. The unit is located in the loft (insulated between and under the rafters). Tried it at its pre-set normal and it's boost setting. I was happy with the noise levels, which made no real discernible difference to me. Noise levels at the Supply and extract plenums, nah, nothing that I could really tell unless I stuck my ears at the vent. I reckon I'll be happy with my choice based on cost/performance. I got BPC to quote, I then had a good guess at the layout plan, based on their number of supplies and extracts, and reading some of the best practice guides. Plenty of plans have been discussed on here too, which helps with design decision. I shopped about, ventilationland, isells, blauberg, and bpc, for components. I did add a couple of metal duct silencers on the building supply and extract.

An interesting subject. Having been Engineer, estimator, architect with small e, and contractor, sometimes all at once, I have knowledge of this. A. 1. they don't shop around. Well no, they won't. They are preparing an estimate, using a lot of time without payment, so generally they will use the going rate at the moment, or perhaps what is expected in a few months. A small builder usually only has a few accounts with merchants so can't shop around anyway, unless paid in advance. Adding 10% waste is the norm, through mistakes, offcuts, damage and being bothered to spend the time making best use. 2. They have a cut on it. Yes of course they do. They will be buying, involving admin, then handling, and taking the risk on damage or shortages. Imagine somebody asking you to get them some bricks. You would charge something I expect. You can offer to buy the materials, and save this margin, but you are then responsible for it turning up, being suitable and for all waste. 3. adding a healthy margin in their own role. That is business. they otherwise might as well sit at home or work as a charity. What is healthy? B. On top of all this, there are layers of cost. Cheapest of course is diy, if you have the time, resources and skill. Let us call this best price. =£1 per hoojamaflip. Next level you hire some specialists, on a series of small fixed price contracts. If you can remove their risks, and they work fast and well, then you only pay for their time. Say £250 /day. which you pay them from your taxed income. Next are packages of work. Contractors have to quote for these jobs, getting perhaps every 5th one. This takes time. If successful, they then employ workers and have admin and overheads. and they will add a percentage on everything. Probably about 20%. Then there is the full project by a main contractor. They need an additional level of overhead and profit, and a lot of management. Their margin is on top of margins already applied by others. Your job at £1 is now somewhere about £1.7. Add for risk. who is paying for unforeseen problems? If you want the contractor to take it then add 5% if he likes you and the designer. More if wary. And every 10th client , or so, doesn't pay the last bill; not because of faults but because that is how they behave. Unfortunately everyone else ends up paying some of that. C. If everyone had the same ability and cost structure, then you would need only one quote. But they don't, so some will be genuinely better at a particular project than another. Do they charge less, or more? It varies. Combine A, B and C and your £1 can become £2 or even more. There is no right answer. then there is D, how good / flash is the design? and E: weather and F, G , H : inflation, competition, access.... On the £/m2 issue. I could tell a potential client the approximate cost of a project, based on known £/m2 from experience. I didn't always because they might pass that on, or think it was too cheap. And then that was for our price, with our own control of everything. But any involvement from outside, such as inefficient design, fancy features, nasty contract terms, would likely add. So the advisors are rightly cautious on the question, until they know you, the project and the current market. The RICS and some other bodies publish tables £/m2 for different types of building. But , as C, they all need to be well designed and go to tender. If you think I have left out any issue do remind me. Edit: of course this all assumes that we have already decided the method of construction, and have made the right choice.

I bought an inexpensive Titan vacuum from Screwfix. Seems to do the job on our site. Think it was about £40 think it was this one https://www.screwfix.com/p/titan-ttb774vac-1300w-16ltr-wet-dry-vacuum-220-240v/826kh £50 now.

Solaredge do 3 phase batteries and I'd hazard a guess others do too?? http://www.windandsun.co.uk/information/solutions/on-grid-solar-pv-battery-storage-solutions/solaredge-3-phase-storedge™-battery-storage-system.aspx#.Y_Er03SnxxA You might want to try other installers?? The hybrid inverter comment means the inverter can have PV connected and handle battery charging all in one unit.

Small detached buildings 1. A detached single storey building, having a floor area which does not exceed 30m2, which contains no sleeping accommodation and is a building— (a)no point of which is less than one metre from the boundary of its curtilage; or (b)which is constructed substantially of non-combustible material. Part L (energy) May apply, Part P (electrical) apples, other parts exempt. as you are over 1m it seems to be ok if under 30m2. The definition is floor area, so inside the external walls. guessing 40 mm for cladding, and 80mm stud and sole plate, so 120mm. That is worth about 2.5 m2.

It’s a domestic - as opposed to a commercial - garage Joe. Volume 1 will apply.

I have one of these. Wet and dry, battery powered. Einhell. Its great for builders stuff straight into the drum, and no cable to trip on or find a plug for. Being so portable, it is easy to use for a few seconds tidy of dust or small rubble. Downside is the biggest battery only lasts about 10 minutes, so a spare is required, or recharge. Or there are mains equivalents, much cheaper.

What an odd fitting to put the lamp so far recessed? And as for having to unclip the whole thing from the ceiling to change a lamp, by about the 4th blown lamp the hole in the plasterboard ceiling will be too big and crumbling. Choose something different.

I've just bought this - https://www.toolstop.co.uk/v-tuf-vtm1240-m-class-dust-vacuum-cleaner-lung-safe-240v-p79283/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI0oblptef_QIVx-3tCh1idADGEAQYASABEgLzYPD_BwE Low low price for M class

Henry even stands up to commercial cleaning

Henry are good, Dyson bad, they don't like building dust and it voids the warranty. Been there done it, one broken Dyson. Henry was used when I ground away a huge high spot in my concrete floor, 7 bags of concrete dust later it was still running fine, 18 months later - still running fine.

we haven't made the final decision on window supplier, there is one locally that is highly recommended, but quite expensive or the big boys who are slightly cheaper, but not so easy to get back if there are any problems. trouble with building is the number of decisions, we've only just decided to go block / block versus ICF, that decision took weeks of going around in circles We are actually doing a conversion which made the decision in the end as we have to keep some of the barn walls and then double skin them which is straight forward with blocks. The thermal bridge on the join and DPC need working out as the barn doesn't have anything. It was quite difficult to get planning so we didn't look into suppliers until we had that sorted and all the conditions discharged in case it all went pear shaped.

Approved Document K a. in dwellings: provide pedestrian guarding that is capable of preventing people from being injured by falling from a height of more than 600mm That's why I built my lawn retaining wall to be 590mm high.

I indeed do need help changing a light bulb . But anyway ; I’ll raise a 🍷 to @AdamSee

our local household auction has Henry's every week that sell for about £20 plus their sizeable commission, we have had our henry for 25+ years and he has been heavily used and abused. That saying HID bought a bigger one at said auction, exactly like a Henry but twice the size specifically for the new build as I need Henry in the house. He has outlived probably 8 Dyson's which can't cope with cat hairs, dog hairs, horse hairs (my hair) and lots of dirt from all the above. So, you could investigate if you have such an auction locally to you.

That wishbone looking bit of spring steel near the top of the black part of the fitting would usually hold the gu10 bulb. Remove the bulb from the fitting nad slide it in from above and in a sideways motion. Looks like the bulb will sit approx 50mm back from the base of the fitting.

If its rendered it doesn't make any difference what size your openings are. I think you are over thinking this. 18.4 m is also 40 blocks plus a cut a block is supposed to be 440 mm plus a 10 mm joint = 450 mm x 40 = 18m

It depends on if you are using metric bricks and the wall lengths work brick gauge. I presume from your message that you are using blocks on the external skin ? If your wall lengths are gauge then you would be better at 2260 mm 5 blocks at 450 mm (including the joint) plus 10 mm for the extra joint that will be at the other end of the opening. or 2485 mm ( half a block)

Aldi usually do a 'shop vac' that has optional bags. ~£60 when I got mine a while back.

Thrust bearings at each point wouldn’t make any difference and only one point will ever really carry the vertical load. Bigger hinges have more or larger leaves to carry rotational (moment) loads rather than the vertical load

Mine are made by Eclipse, bought from Screwfix and have just the top and bottom ball race. No problems with them.

That's good. Condensation is an absolute PITA. Several of my products have microcontroller driven LED's in clear plastic tubes for use outdoors (under cars, yachts etc.) and despite going to great lengths to hermetically seal the end caps and cabling, the polycarbonate tubes themselves have a finite amount of hygroscopic absorption and repeated heating and cooling pumps water vapour through the plastic. Then because it's decoupled from the outside, once the temperature falls below the dew-point the vapour condenses into water droplets. That's not a good look on a PCB full of electronics. Because of the inevitability of this I've had to apply a good coat of mil-spec lacquer over all the electronics and just leave nature to do its thing. The good news is that the water never builds up. The self-heating of the electronics clears the vapour on average and some tubes I've had outdoors since 2003 still work fine with a few drops of water nearly always present.

If have a void, but not ventilated. The void is for heave only. And is created using large crushable ground-heave protection panels (I used the Jablite version) made of polystyrene. They sit below the insulation, atop the compacted MOT sub-base.

@pocster , yer not going to like this but, I'm old, so I have a relevant story for ya ..... One of my first seasonal jobs was as a lifeguard (well, cleaner really) at a swimming pool that was heated by methane gass. All the heat we ever wanted, and all free. So of course we ran the system full throttle all the time. Loads of heat wasted, very happy swimming customers - but people in the viewing gallery - sweating after 10 minutes. Air temperature stratospheric. Double glazed in places by the pool, but not in the viewing gallery. Yes .... condensation aplenty. The dampness dribbled down the beautiful laminated beams causing a white trail of calcium carbonate left behind after the re-evaporation of the now re-warmed water. Looked seriously awful. Architect - make the fans bigger Pool manager - scrub the bloody beams every day (yep, me) Me - make the windows openable : there's more than enough heat - for free Fans made bigger, me scrubbing like a dervish, if anything the condensation got worse ( yep - bigger fans) Then one year during closedown, they told me that they were going to make the windows openable. BINGO Viewers in the gallery - very happy - nice cool breeze now. Wet swimmers walking past the open windows - very sad. Me very happy Make your window openable. - I know - I'll get me coat.

This is quite a complex topic. Completion is not formally defined in VAT law and so there are various different things that can trigger "completion", including moving in. HMRC obviously have history of trying to pick the earliest possible "completion date" to minimise the size of their payout, but these have sometimes been challenged & defeated at tribunals. But it often depends on the very specific combination of factors (e.g. what was left to do when you moved in / are those things fundamental planning/building compliance things or just minor stuff etc). Several of those cases have been talked about here over the years - I would recommend searching/browsing through the threads in this subforum and ideally reading the linked tribunal judgments to get a sense of the ways different cases have gone and how they might apply to you. Very loosely, I would say avoid being in a situation where you've moved in and would in theory be eligible for a building control completion certificate but just haven't yet applied for it. But that really is a rough answer, and probably only good enough if you don't have much to pay for after move-in, so losing the VAT would just be an annoyance. If the amount at stake is important, it really is worth getting a full understanding of the history of VAT completion arguments (and potentially professional advice).

Here's a quite amusing take on the whole energy market thing and why that so called seperation of businesses between enrgy producer and supplier is essentially a false one:

The guy who did the bad work is Go Plastering. He plastered a ceiling for us, and his plaster work is spot on. ...Unfortunately, his render workwork clearly not! We Had to get it totally redone and used a company called Silk Render, to fix the mess that Go Plastering had left. Here are the before and after pics..

Yes if a load bearing wall. Even if it was load bearing then the odd stud 10.0mm out of alignment can be often sorted SE calculation wise...takes a lot of effort to prove but often it is not a show stopper.. unless we are in dispute with say the NHBC in which case all that gets cast up.. as follows For all.. A bit OT fun.. but if that stud was on an extenal wall and we were having a chat with say the NHBC we ask.. hey we know the stud is fine for axial load (downwards load) but it's bowing in or out.. if out we want to inspect the cavity width cavity to se if it is below 50mm.. if out we want to check that the wall ties have sufficient embedment.. if we find we have a non complince then we have a structural safety issue and now we are pushing at an open door to win claims against warranty providers. Otherwise just finish the wall..put the furniture in. Hang a picture.. if you can see the bow after that report back.

Beam and block floors have a time and a place. Sometimes I design them but always look at the whole job in the round.. maybe B&B is not just the best, sometimes it is totally the right way to go.. but you make savings that can allow you to add insulation elsewhere. Some advantages: 1/ They don't rot like timber. 2/ They can help tie masonry walls together.. which saves money elsewhere and that saving can be used to better insulate the beam and block. 2/ They have mass which changes the dynamic response cf say timber joists.. if they B&B don't span too far they feel really solid.. too long a span and get it wrong as an designer they could make you feel "sea sick" particularly if the builder does not follow the installation guidelines. Long span and shallow depth B & B beams can develop a low frequency response which can be a bit.. odd... saying that for a low frequency response you would need to have say a very long corridor, it ain't going to happen walking round the bed to kiss your beloved. It takes a lot of effort to make a B & B floor bounce. By recognising and understanding how the solum ventilation works and designing / controlling it. Yes a few days a year it may reduce the floor temperature but often in the UK when we have low temperatures we have no wind.. heat loss is driven by temperature difference and air flow. Also sometimes it's good to get a bit of cold air into the underbuilding... it kills the rot like a good frost! It's daft to rule out B & B until you know all the facts. The best thing to do is to take a pragmatic appraoch.. think about where you live, the climate all year round, the temperature, where the wind and sun come from, think, sleep on it and try to understand what applies to your job. Now that all sounds a bit philosophical but that is the starting point for good design.. and you never rule things in or out until you have got these basics understood.. well you can but you may well regret it.

Bugger. Apologies for my hit-n-run reply. Just very busy atm with about a billion new enquires. I doubt you are alone. Let me explain. With 3-4 bar of incoming pressure, many folk would be jealous of you. Having stonking showers off an unvented hot water cylinder ( UVC ) is easily within your grasp. If you have multiple occupants then you may want / need to consider fitting a cold mains accumulator, but if you are just yourself and the better half then you can discipline yourselves to avoid this cost / space requirement ( for another cylinder the same size as the UVC ) by choosing when to shower / run the dishwasher / washing machine etc.

I like the vent axia S for my build also, 135m2 . I was advised against the xs as the set up is a bit different I can’t remember why but the Wi-Fi bit can be purchased separately for the s model and it works out cheaper than the sx. not purchased yet but BPC have done some plans already for free enough to get through new SAP and Part O hopefully. you need to compare the SAP test results for your size of dwelling kitchen+n the thermal efficiency and SFP note BPC and some other sellers had the out of date SAP test 2013 is the old one I think it’s 2016 but you should check it’s been a few months since I looked at this. The test changed and you need to check your comparing apples with apples.

It is oddly vague, but based on how SCOP is calculated and the balance point being specified as -7 I would expect 4.2 (stated in manual, 4.1 on product page...) to be pretty close to the average performance short of them straight up making up figures. All heat pumps have reduced COP as the temperature differential increases so I guess it's just referencing that? It's not like A2W where there are lots of variables affecting this, it's a closed system so should perform as expected? I believe @Radian's have a SCOP of 5.15 so the real life performance staying close to this at low temperatures is encouraging. I was almost convinced, then Octopus went and added 50% to export rates with Flux so a bit more thinking needed.

Sort of. The principle of not running everything in parallel a long distance from the central cabinet makes sense, but not your original reference to adding a miniserver. The point I was making is that, if you need whatever combination of relays, dimmers and inputs for this studio, you just need whatever extensions are required for those functions. You don't need the cost/complexity of a second miniserver at that spot. The only downside is that there's a risk you'll end up with an extra extension or two overall, depending on how you split out the functionality. For example, if you need 5 dimmers in one cabinet and 11 in another, you'll probably need an 8-channel dimmer and a 16-channel dimmer if you split them as described above, whereas if they're all central, a single 16 channel would do.

Ah ok. Unvented cylinder, as large as you can comfortably fit. Aim for 300l at least. A vastly nicer system to use. Mixer taps+showers work properly, no noise etc. No need for any tanks in the attic. A cold water accumulator may be called for if your dynamic pressure (I think) is too low. Beware high bills with an ASHP unless you have a very low flow temp heating system and a low heat loss house.

Even better than that, I believe they have a guaranteed price per kWh to fall back on, for at least a couple of decades. [Edited to add:] The agreement is for 35 years, and is inflation-linked. Also, HS2 is currently looking like costing up to £100b (and could be more). Imagine if we'd used that to build out more nuclear. Even at the crazy £23b cost and insane price guarantees, we could have had at least three more nuclear plants, drastically increasing our low carbon baseload generation capacity.

Time for a reality check people!!! Get a thermometer and put it in the bath when you think, "ooh, that's just right", eg just before you pass out and then turn the hot tap back off.. Please post that temp here and lets see who ACTUALLY needs these ridiculous DHW temps.

EVERYONE, STOP PUTTING RIGID BOARDS IN CAVITY WALLs!!!!!!!! It's a terrible idea. Use mineral wool or EPS beads. If you need a thin wall use timberframe or SIPs. Architects please can you get your heads around simply drawing thicker walls rather than updating your 1980's 300mm thinking with a very expensive and not very workable solution no doubt provided by the insulation manufacture.

I did get confused by all the other units that were easy fit but required an fgas engineer. As far as I can tell the difference with this one is the use of R290 which is not covered by fgas. Indeed having seen the installation manual now the install without a vacuum pump just floods the pipe with a bit of coolant which you then bleed out to the atmosphere. Apparently it's not much worse than CO2, none of the fgas nasties. Still highly flammable mind. Would the flushing install method reduce the CoP due to a tiny bit of air still in the system or would it just limit peak power output a bit?

Just get the trays and internal cabling installed now and do a second fix for the panels and inverter once the builder has finished. If youre under pressure to get the scaffold down you may be rushing into a full install thats not right for you technically and cost

Your post illustrates a simple truism: as valid for self-builders as everyone else. Cost, Quality, Time. You can have any two. But not three. Its called the Scope Triangle Do it yourself and learn to enjoy doing it yourself.

What is really really annoying me is the massive number of headlines proclaiming we were all doomed as the wholesale price went up versus the almost complete lack of comment as it has fallen. It shows the media's massive bias towards scaring people and causing alarm. If the war ends prices will fall back to where they were before if not arguably lower as we will have more supply of gas than ever and people will have reduced use n the interim. There will be massive oversupply of LNG. This could easily be the situation in 2024. Or of course the war could escalate and the price could be higher too, but my bet is on the war being over and prices collapsing. Ramping short term prices is a bad long term strategy for commodity producers as it hastens people's efforts to find ways not to buy your commodity in the long run.

Draw it in sketchup then send it off to someone off fivrr. They are freelance workers and it’ll cost you like £30. I do a lot of renders and learning the software and picking out the hatches to make them 3D ready is a pain.

Just the other side of the wall, I ran the string through a section of hollow tent pole drilled through the wall, I even stained the string black to match. No wires, no batteries, nothing to go wrong (except the string breaking 🤣) remember I hate “tech”.

Oak planks front and back and slab insulation between all in an oak surround.

Bigblok by Cavalok

Completely usual to have a pedestrian access facility whereby it only opens a fraction. From one of the remote fob buttons, a button in the house, on the intercom etc. (A nice touch I've done is to buy a Ford or whatever pushbutton to go in a dash blank and solder the wires to a gate key fob up inside the dash). An alternative is an opening gate within the sliding gate (with the appropriate safety interlocks etc). A sliding cantilever gate does away with the need for a gate track. The gate control PCB can be mounted down with the motor or in its own remote box on a pillar etc. Don't underestimate the amount of work involved. Plan the cable runs and get someone to double check them. Work out your cable runs to lights, sensors etc and don't skimp on the ducting. Think I've 14 cable entries into my box. Fit safety edges. Typical gate manuals attached (mine's a CB22) Look at the CB2 and it shows clear connections for the pedestrian function. Think how said gate will affect your post and deliveries. You can build a post box into the gate or pillars, fence adjacent etc. Yours will be likely finished before mine is btw. ? cb2.pdf cb22.pdf