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J poor phone pic. Slider 5.3m

Outside temp today currently close to 35C Indoor temp steady at 24C SageGlass in full tint during daytime and Active Cooling has been running 24/7 for the last 3 days. Not sure where we'd be without either one, but I suspect it would be a little sweaty!

No idea but recently bought a portable in room unit with a 6” exhaust tube hanging out a window for £300 and boy oh boy do I like the freezing blast it blows out it’s getting too hot even in Glasgow

I installed bifolds, locally made from Oak, I specified compression rubber seals as I have heard brush seals used by some are not air tight. Yes sightlines are a bit heavy but that’s the price for Oak I was willing to pay.

Probably a case of trying to be more clear with communication. I saw our approved inspector for the first time since lockdown yesterday. There was a couple of things she was a bit wooly about so I asked her clearly 'So what do you want us to do about x'. I followed up and confirmed this by email later which all gets logged into their system. Honestly I think your simplest and best course of action is to call the inspector and ask them to clarify exactly what they want you to do. Hopefully the answer will be nothing and then just confirm this in an email so its on record.

I suspect it will be a bugger to sort out I'm afraid. Most coloured aluminium is done by anodising which is a chemical process, growing a layer of aluminium oxide on the surface of the metal and applying a dye into that layer. Unfortunately alkaline (caustic) substances such as wet concrete will eat away at the oxide layer and affect the dye. The best I can suggest is to try and find a matching non water-soluble dye (could even be a permanent marker) and apply to the affected area to see if you can get it to match: good luck. Otherwise swap the trim out.

Yep it’s called a ducted cassette ... and they are not cheap and need an external unit otherwise you’re just heating the localised air. Shame you can’t buy the US window units over here as they are ideal. Edited to add ... apparently you can buy the single room external coolers but they need a big hole or decent sized window ..!!

No sliders here, I thought these doors would be sliders, but we just went for French doors. I was quite put off when I looked at a set of sliders and as soon as I went to touch them the salesperson said I had to be careful or they would break. I don't need that kind of worry. I must admit I do sometimes wish we had a wider window looking out from the kitchen, the TV/chimney got int the way. The easy one is the 3m window. I would make it fixed, the table is in the way so it is unlikely you open it to go outside. If you want air it could be a full height opening window. The trouble you have is sightlines. Looking at your house you have a quite consistent window width. Even in a fixed window you would probably want to split it into three sections. The good thing is that fixed windows have much slimmer frames. I actually find that as long as he window is large you don't notice the frames much. One the wider window, a big slider would have great sightlines, but it wouldn't match the windows above. You would either have to be comfortable with that or change the configuration of the top windows, actually I think ti would be just about OK. Personally I would go for centre opening as the natural walkway through the room hits the centre of the window. I wouldn't do three windows, it would be too off centre relative to the roof and top windows. It is either two or four for me.

Can we have some more information as the design seems odd. I am sure people can help once they understand what you want to achieve. The unusual stair layout seems to be because the porch area has a supporting wall for the outside walls upstairs, is there reason for that? Maybe to add interest outside? South, position of garden etc would help people. Also plans for the house, number of children, lots of visitors etc. I put it into a PDF and the scale seems to be 1cm to 0.323m on the ground floor an 1cm to 0.452m on the first floor. The ground floor area is 107sq metres and the first floor is 95 square metres so you have a decent amount of space to play with. There are a few design rules that I would try to stick to with a house unless there is a strong reason not to. I can't draw to save myself, but I can create a floorplan. Obviously these are just my opinion and sometimes planning constraints, budget etc mean you have to compromise. 1. Rooms should normally come off the hall and not other rooms, en sites are an obvious exception and maybe a family area off the kitchen (What is that room off the right side of the kitchen?) 2. Most bedrooms should have a fitted wardrobe. 3. The hall should have a cupboard for coats/shoes etc. 4. As mentioned there should be a minimum space around a bed. I would say 8-900mm to allow for the overhang of the duvet. 5. A window on the landing is good if you can fit one in. 6. Lots of small rooms will make a house feel smaller than it is - The study is 1.78m wide, the room off the kitchen is 1.62m wide, the kitchen is very large so there is ample space to make these rooms larger. 7. Try to have the door open into the room away from furniture so as not to bump into people as you go through the door and create a feeling of space (the kitchen door is in an awkward position) 8. Try not to have kitchen cabinets in front of the island unless for a specific non kitchen purpose. 9. Showers should be a minimum of 80cm wide and corner showers should be avoided unless necessary. Walk in showers work much better if possible. 10. Ideally doors open into a room and against a wall. 11. Try to keep all passageways/walkways at least one metre wide. 12. You probably need a larger space than you think as a plant room. 13. Don't put so many windows/doors in a room that there is nowhere to place furniture. 14. The design should try to take advantage of views and the position of the sun at different times of the day. This house breaks a lot of these rules. Upstairs - Do you need that many en suites, they are too small, particularly the master en suite? Minimum sensible size for an en suite is roughly 1.4x2.2m. In a 200sq metre house, I would expect the master en suite to be more like 2x3m. The good thing is there is plenty of room to do this. I would stick with 4 bedrooms, but you need to add wardrobes to at least three of them, possibly a walk in for the master and make the en suites larger. Offsetting this is you only really need 15ish sq metres for the area where the bed would be in the master, this frees up 10 sq metres. The bathroom is not large enough to have a shower and freestanding bath if that is what you are hoping. It would not need a shower if most of the bedrooms are en suite. Indeed if all the bedrooms are en suite and you also have a shower room downstairs you could do away with the bathroom to make more room for the bedrooms and en suites. Downstairs needs a complete redesign - Aim for a lounge, kitchen/breakfast/family room, study/bedroom with en suite, hall, WC and utility room(that un named room maybe is supposed to be a utility room). There is room for all of these, the kitchen is larger than necessary at the moment and the lounge is too long, that space with the stairs in it should be part of the hall.

@SuperJohnG first of all, do you need both those in your dining room to open? how realistic is it that you have them both open at the same time? My frugal mind says fixed on on and openable on the other I really don't like bi-folds so I won't get too involved, but for me, sliders are a better looking, more practical solution for scotland...

When we lived in oz I had a 6m multi stacker, so 6 panels 4 that slid out of the way leaving a 4m opening. When we started designing this place I thought we would have the same, but then I thought this is England not Australia, how many days of the year will I have all that door open. The answer was not often so we settled on smaller openings but picture windows looking at your location I will be surprised if you ever open it ??

V-tac's "grill fitting" strips are superb if you want something more "linear". Light and plasticy, but great light output, run cool, and cheap! https://v-tac.eu/led-products-results-page/led-fixtures-1/?custom_f_145[0]=3134302d313630206c6d2f57&custom_f_145[1]=3131302d313330206c6d2f57

Have a look at the uubink foam ducting, about £10 a meter all ready insulated, easy to install as well.

On this one I''d say: 1 - Five bed is too busy - study can be optional guest bed. 2 - Move the asymmetrical pair of ensuites towards the master - that can afford to lose more space. 3 - Need natural light on the landing. 4 - Importantly - think about it in the context of the site eg position and arc of sun. Moving smaller shapes around in a bigger outline in mid air awill not give you an optimal place to live. 5 - I have not gone on real detail because I think you are thinking general concepts at present. F

This is fabulous, thank you both so much! Yes there is a big black monstrosity up in the attic, right above the tank, which is in the cupboard in the main bedroom. If I recall correctly it was kind of wrapped in black plastic and I just left it alone. I'll process your info and go check it out, and come back in a couple of days. Many thanks, Smithy

VTac panels are my weapon of choice - I would put 6 No. 600x600 panels with ceiling mounts across the space. Can be had for sub £20 for the panel plus £6-8 per flush mount frame. You’ll be able to do operations in there it will be so bright ..!

There are several ways to create the detail shown in the image. One common method we would specify is a builders detail, whereby a cover detail is creating by framing and plasterboarding it, it get plastered and essentially a ledge with an upstand is created where an LED product sits. Tape is the contractors friend but is not always the best option, stuff from the merchants and Screwfix and B&Q is pretty poor. I usually specify ridged LED profiles which come in 200mm to 10000mm and these sit into the "builders detail". Another way to do it is using a profile that gets plastered into the ceiling or a continuous light fitting. https://www.lightnet-group.com/en/product/matric-f1-ip54-342 https://arc-led.co.uk/plaster-in/897-arc-pbuw-plasterboard-flush-mounted-aluminium-led-profile.html?gclid=CjwKCAjwps75BRAcEiwAEiACMb52xzv6lGqe6O-jfx1aSE2yr8KNYtC8CseBOq4YkqObIgcYTWF62xoCZzYQAvD_BwE

That's great, hearsay can be a real issue in building. Good luck with the build.

Have sorted and cleaned up this years temperature data, interesting result. As a house cannot be placed into a lab, one can only work with the prevailing conditions. This can be described as 'normal usage'. What seems to be happening is that the decrement delay runs into the millions of hours, with the only times it is in the sub tens of hours is at the extremes. During the normal external temperature ranges of between 6°C and 18°C (this is Cornwall, so no big extremes), there is very little change in internal temperature , it just tracks external temperature (y = 0.2792x + 16.869, where y in internal temperature and x is external temperature). It increases by 0.28°C for every 1°C external temperature rise. Over the whole temperature range this year so far, it is only 0.34°C for each 1°C rise in external temperature. I suspect that most of this is down to the ventilation i.e. I close windows when it is cold, open them when it is hot, solar gain. I may have a look at night time temperatures later, and at extremes. This may give a fuller picture as it eliminates one element. Deaggregating is not an easy task as the signal to noise ratio is quite low, but I shall see what comes out. But basically my feeling is the adding additional mass to a building makes almost no difference to the thermal response times. This is more affected by ventilation, heating/cooling and solar gain. But to initially answer the question, does 2 hours difference actually make a difference, then no.

Does the following help at all? I'm no expert on the subject so do check my train of thought... Approved Document B (Fire Safety) essentially refers to BS5839-6 (Fire detection and fire alarm systems for buildings) for its recommendations. BS5839-6:2019 has the following to say in para 11.2(l): You can presumably cover (1) and (2) okay so that leaves (3). Looking at the installation instructions for an Aico Ei144RC heat alarm, which covers the whole Ei140RC series, it says on page 16: This, to me, suggests that only Aico smoke alarms (not heat alarms) are suitable for wall mounting and thus would fail to satisfy clause 11.2(l)(3) of BS5839 above?

Welcome..! There are plenty of small scale projects on the go here - so ask away !!

Used them with a base from memory (and that's fading). The cable comes thru a small hole in the pb and terminates in the base that's screwed to the ceiling, then the alarm, be it smoke/heat or CO2 clips/twists into that. A bit bulkier than Aico. Some pics somewhere...on Tinypic or maybe Photobucket that I don't use anymore... Edit: only pic I can find:

During the main build, I remember reviewing the skip contents every evening, pulling out recyclable wood, metal, plastic and cardboard and creating separate piles on site. Trades thought I was crazy but it was easy (and free) to dispose of the recyclables weekly at the local amenity site plus any kind of processed wood (MDF, OSB etc) and I offered the dry wood offcuts to locals for kindling - ended up with about 4 builders bags worth and only needed to take one to the dump in the end. Meant a paid for skip was just used for genuine rubbish which saved me the cost of a few over the build. I did need to get a plasterboard only skip during that phase and managed to squeeze every off cut into it. Many trades would also dump their lunch bags into the skip which is against the hire rules and will attract rats etc over time. I used to fish those out daily also and separate out cans & bottles , food waste etc into the respective weekly collection bins.

I have some nice external cowls to fit once the render gets replaced. Despite being near ground level, the internal intake filter does not get that dirty.

Our ducts go up into the utility room above the plant room and then exit the house about 500mm above ground level. They are obscured by the cupboards in the utility. Will get a few pictures.

I believe @SteamyTea that the OP is referring to the time taken for energy arriving at the external surface of an opaque building element to transfer (in a temperature wave) to the internal surface and the room. @davidc, There is probably very little difference in 12 and 14 hours. I would be interested in your build-up and like Nick which software/method have you used?

I have mounted Aico alarms on a wall in a similar situation with approval from Aico and accepted by BC. You must have picked the tea boy to answer your questions. I forget exactly but I think it had to be >300mm from a corner.

We ended up filling 1 general and then getting in a brick/concrete only afterwards, which we also filled!

A survey of an existing building can be very basic. I have previously been engineer and erection manager on many small, medium and large scale projects where we were supplying and installing quite complex steelwork for new build and refurb works. The surveys were often carried out with a tape measure, plumb bob and a site level. Steelwork into existing building connections is often left over length if going onto pads or an allowance for shims or grouting if face fixed to existing walls etc. Your engineer should provide the details for steel section sizes, connection details and overall dimensions etc. but the fabricator can and should determine allowances for connections into existing structure.

I used my own and wrote it up in my blog.

Probably by not using mm accurate steel fabricated off site and by a contractor who fixes issues as they go! If you fragment the process and introduce liability to people who don't usually have it, it won't be straightforward. And extending stone old buildings with new steelwork always needs a bit of jiggery pokery which in this case no one wants to be the cause of it ?

Im guessing 10mm is a typo and should read 100mm. Blinding layer should be well compacted to prevent voids and settlement later on, regardless of that, is the B.I saying its too deep because there isnt enough space left above to FFL? or that he (or she) feels you could have saved a few pennies by using more crushed infill to save on sand?

I found a brilliant way of getting rid of site waste. I have a list of everybody that made my life a misery over planning, and on bin day I drive around in the night and fill all their wheely bins up with off cuts of plasterboard and pir insulation, it takes a fair while to drive around all of them but gives me a warm contented feeling inside.

Hi, We have been going through some floor plan options and just wanted to get some feedback in case anyone spots anything obvious that could be changed or should be avoided. We are also not sure if we should make a 5th bedroom or go with a large master bedroom. Thanks, Alex

Isn't that what Jamaicans eat for breakfast?

you're not thinking this through, if you put the kamado further away from the house, you must stand close by for a number of hours drinking beers, if it's just out the door, you'll be observed! ?

Vacuumed too?

Well maybe Gustave Eiffel had a Total Station and just kept it quiet. Shared it with the Forth Bridge chaps. And Brunel. They bought it from Abraham Darby.