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I have just visited family (covid rules applied) and took the opportunity to visit @pocster and look at his underground lair, (I used to live nearby) wow , I discovered he has the same contempt for health and safety rules as I do!!!, place was a tip (but he knew where everything was!). He is the opposite of me with regard tech, I am a Luddite and hate tech, I prefer KISS (keep it simple stupid), Pocster on the other hand has tech running everything, from the front door lock which he can open with an ap , to flushing the loo (I bet). However as a software nerd I was impressed with the building work he has done (plumbing pipes aside ?) tiling is spot on as is his attention to detail. His site is basically a huge hole in the ground and I take my hat of to him for his perseverance and design. I don’t think he has any idea of a finish date (which he confessed his wife keeps asking him about). He was quite put out that I had not arrived to give him a hand and had the audacity to accuse me of wasting his day (mind, by midday he had not even started work yet ?), I have promised to go back and help him with his hoist (as he admits to not be much of a mechanical engineer) where I am not a software programmer like him. It was great to catch up with him and put a face to a name (he did say I looked nothing like my picture, but nor does he).I am not holding my breath on when he wants me back to help with the hoist (before I am in a wheelchair I hope!.) well done mate.

Yes I think so, I just wondered if you could decyphr what these figs mean.. Im really thick like this, as you know by now.

Just to follow up with this I opted for the ubiquity lite access point. Used the WiFi analyser app mentioned above and took readings in each room using my current talk talk router. These ranged from 59mb in the kitchen to 3mb in the farthest bedroom. Set up the new access point in the same location and ran all the same tests. Was an improvement in each room. Moved the access point to the first floor landing approximately in the middle of the house to find the sweet spot. Now the slowest I get in the farthest room is 45mb with some rooms touching 70mb. It's fair to say I'm well impressed with the range and speeds im getting with this access point. Using the ubiquity app on my phone setup took 5 mins. Was able to change the SSID and password to the same as was previously used on the talk talk router so nothing need changed on any device.

Exciting step forward today - LXN5 panel is on the wall. I start my Christmas "holidays" tomorrow, may the extensive termination festivities begin!!

I have the same build system as @Bitpipe. When the contractor who we engaged to put up backing boards (and install brick slips onto them) turned up for their first morning onsite, they realised that the studs behind the panelvent weren't spaced at convenient 400 centres. No idea how they'd missed that when pricing the job, since it was pretty clear. One possibility was to cut the boards so that they fit the spacing that was there, but that was going to be a mammoth task. Probably more than 80% of the boards would have needed some form of cutting. In the end, we decided to go with counterbattens. Vertical battens were installed along the stud lines, then horizontal battens were installed on top of those. Fixings for the horizontal battens go through both battens and into the stud behind the panelvent. I do have some concerns about the potential longevity of this approach. There's the odd bit of fine cracking along the mortar lines of the brick slips, but other than that it's mostly held up for over five years. I think with some care it could potentially be an approach that would work with renderboard.

Our renderboard was fixed horizontally in a brick bond style. How far apart are the splines? At a minimum, battens need to be fixed to these as I'm guessing the rest of the SIP panel is OSB? Is there a fixing to OSB that will give you more mechanical purchase? I found this resource but as ever it passes the buck .... (page 82) https://www.thesipcompany.com/assets/downloads/sta-sips-pocket-guide-aug2016.pdf Corrosion resistant fasteners from the cavity batten to the SIP panel are to be specified by the building designer so that they are suitable for both the loads and the SIP outer board thickness capacity.

Time over time, I read on here that ASHPs are no good for old houses. Can we stop this nonsense. ASHPs, or any heating system, if it has a too lower power output, will struggle. That is what power means. So rather than say an ASHP will struggle, or is the wrong thing to install, tell the true story. The true story is that it may be cheaper overall to install a gas or oil boiler, or a much larger, or even two, ASHPs. And could everyone stop getting temperature, energy and power confused, they are different thing.

I did try to sell him the glazing - he wasn’t interested!!!

I would like to see this house because from the snippets I see I just do not have an overall feel for what it is and how it fits in, or even any hint of it's size. Did you escape without buying some walk on glazing that rumour has it he might have for sale?

Needs a multi choice option. Compriband and PU foam, all day long. Anyone thats seals between window and building with silicone, needs a boot in the b*ws. As for no difference in price, sh*te. Compriband is significantly dearer than PU foam, both are significantly dearer than silicone. They’ve marked up significantly on material if they’re doing that.

Before making a life decision consider this outcome. Five years from now you and your wife pass by the development then decide to stroll by this property out of curiosity to see if walking away in 2020 was the right decision. The current owner is outside, you get talking and he confirms there were some problems with the roof which jointly cost him and the developer £5k to fix. Otherwise the owner is happy and enthuses about the quality of like in this choice location and niche development. You then both return to your car feeling deflated. How much will you save in stamp duty by proceeding now? I suggest you are in a long way both emotionally and in legal fees. It might be worth stumping up another few £ grand for a highly detailed survey where the surveyor spends the best part of a day crawling all over the property looking for faults. If problems are limited to the roof, then the problems can be fixed.

20mm gap will be too big to cover with your skirting though?

The TS has an expansion tank via the loop from the Rayburn (it has a bleeder just for the top of the TS as well), after a bit of experimentation and advice from a couple of aged plumbers the gravity loop system came about. The problem was that the TS and Rayburn were on the same level so how to make a gravity feed work? But the solution works fine but I had to mount the expansion/header tank a lot higher than the system, which it is. I’m just in the process of building a control panel to run the central heating and include the fail safes but the gravity feed system takes care of itself rather well. I’ve done the unvented system course and work on heating and ventilation systems in supermarkets etc so am aware of the dangers of unvented hence I went down the vented TS route, plus it works well with the off grid nature of the place.

how flat is your floor?

18 mil is to tight You will still have to back butter the tiles

We have just installed one of ours now our ceilings are plastered. The joiner said he was quite impressed with it, it's provided with the architrave for the ceiling which is neat, it was easy to fit and no hassle. They have an installation video on their website which is v helpful. I am pleased with it, for the money i think its a decent buy though we may put some more insulation over the top of it at some point when we have some time. Hope this helps anyone trying to avoid having to take out a mortgage for one of the expensive alternatives!

Like a Dalek crossed with a Walnut Whip!

Bat wing seals like these maybe in the frame https://www.firesealsdirect.co.uk/passive-fire-protection/intumescent-seals/lorient-is1212-batwing-acoustic-and-smoke-seal-10-x-10-x-2100mm-white/?gclid=CjwKCAiAq8f-BRBtEiwAGr3DgYdZAqsDsgCYGJ2YYzrVbXMlU1YXMmwmStMxsA6F_PxajtDhOx-vyxoCw-MQAvD_BwE And drop seal in the door https://www.lorientuk.com/products/architectural-seals/drop-seals I must caveat with I haven't used either yet.

Between the flow and return on the underfloor heating circuits, not to be confused with the manifold flow and return temps as thats blended water from all the circuits.

Its a good question, @LA3222 was advised and used screws for his roof battens. There was guidance from the manufacturer that x amount of thread had to go into the insulation to provide the correct mechanical fixing for the roof battens. I'm thinking it may be the same here and ok. You just want to ensure really there is no relative movement between the SIP panel and the battens but also ensuring the required mechanical grip is there, which this should do.

We amuse ourselves by his inability to pronounce "architect" and have an informal drinking game based around this.

Not as such, but you are supposed to first complete the energy savings trust questionnaire on what measures are suitable for your home and that might have a built in limit on EPC https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/advice/green-homes-grant-scheme/ I had to run through the survey a few times as we're mid-renovation, if I gave before vs after figures it gives very different recommendations. In the end, the grant application merely asked me to confirm I'd done the survey, not for any evidence as to what it had suggested me

The batten issue can be even worse if you have external insulation on a timber frame. There is often nothing to fix to in the corners. Counterbatten is the way forward.

WD40 seems to have fixed mine ?. Thanks all.

You'll be wanting a 4Orgy booster then.

Our render contractor MD is back on site tomorrow, 5 years since the system went on, and hopefully we get resolution to this never ending issue - will update my other thread with any interesting nuggets but the incorrectly applied battens to appear to be the smoking gun.

Right. The live streaming of your orgies. Seems reasonable.

That's one massive area they have excavated around the area of the house. And it all suddenly seems to have dried up. I was looking forward to the concrete lorries getting bogged in the mud. And when they had that "bathroom in a trailer" for their trial glamping site, can someone explain to me where the contents of the flush toilet and the bath drained to?

Depends on the target though - if it is meet BRegs then they can do it, usually with 120mm PIR in the cavity, or 140mm rockwool plus 30mm of insulated plasterboard. But is that what you want ..? It may be the “cheapest” but what would adding the 30mm insulated plasterboard to the 120mm PIR do..? How much more efficient would the house be and what is the full lifecycle cost ..? Most of the TF companies don’t look at this (probably with exception of MBC and a couple of the “passiv” suppliers) and as such they don’t consider what you are asking for. I’d expect that most of their customers when asked what the requirements for the house are start with “4 bedrooms, 2 en-suite and a nice sunny open plan kitchen with an island”, not with “I’d like my heating bills to be less than £300 a year....” And if a supplier says they don’t know how to do that, find another supplier ...

@nod will be along shortly to give you your Strictly Come Plastering scores, but that doesn’t look too bad ..! Trick is to leave it alone and not constantly mess with and then flat it back.

This was the lad I "learnt" from when my boy & I plastered the bathroom ceiling and one half wall. Really pleased with both. Adding cream of tartar to the mix gives extra working time. Old plasterer's trick. It works. Easifill 20 is good too for filling those last imperfections.

Well just have to gorge on that then.

https://readinguk.org/draughtbusters/

I did get some of those originally from memory but I'd brought the pipes out too low and wanted the rad midway between floor and window cill.

Some you can, some you can’t. The Wunda ones are good value as they have interchangeable connectors so you can mix and match hence why I suggested them.

Just saw this post I’ve had to watch it!! It now makes me feel good about the speed of my project ?

☺️ Active posters on this forum are typically old, male and tight so you don't see many mentions of interior designers. I've spent around £100k which is small even for this forum and its taken a few years to come around to the fact that I could be persuaded that an interior designer would be useful but would struggle to justify spending money on it. Money aside, it would be nice to have someone do the interior design because there's so much other stuff going on, decisions to make, things to sort that being able to let someone else do it is one less burden. And those people who say they'll give it some time to get a 'feel' will typically never do it fully, just adding stuff over time and never quite nailing the theme whereas a designer could do it all up front and then the home owner could enjoy it straight away. Something my wife believes in is if you are going to make a significant change, do it early so you benefit from it for longer. If I were trying to sell my services I'd go with those sorts of reasons - as I'm sure you already do. You're not selling a service, you're selling a benefit to someone.

400litre (probably 500kgs+ with tank) sounds like a lot of weight to put in a modern loft considering how skinny the roof trusses are make sure you can spread that load and consider carefully where to put it --like on top of a stud wall in rooms below

At the risk of being strung up... are we being overly critical here... is everyone looking at this from the perspective of the self-builder (who is always aiming for perfection) rather than comparing this with other development type build standards? Is this any worse that the usual corner cutting you would see or expect on a new development? There are probably millions of new builds out there with significant amounts of poor workmanship, but most home owners would never notice or care.

Ignoring heating and hot water, we use typically 60=70kWh per week powering "stuff" Which is a one word way of saying the washing machine, the dishwasher, the tumble dryer, the fridge freezer, the televisions, computers, lights, vacuum cleaners and anything else you care to mention. We use a lot more powering "stuff" than we do heating the house and the hot water. If you could store 6kWh in batteries that could pretty much eliminate what "stuff" uses in the summer. Instead without batteries I just use the big appliances in the daytime to self use the solar PV generation and that, plus dumping excess to hot water, uses up almost all we generate.

I am of the opinion that all this doom and gloom if we leave is not correct. Not one prediction by the “experts” after the vote two years ago have come true. I liked the channel 4 Brexit debate last night.

Oh he tried soooo hard to sell it too me, but I told him if I go just a foot underground on my plot I will drown ?, didn’t stop him trying tho!

Took a while!

I'm more impressed you managed to escape!

I used all Ejot screws anf the big plastic caps. The screws were not the best with a habit of the head stripping, I ended up referring to them as etij screws.

Human centipede springs to mind

I think windows should be the ordered and delivered first, then build the house around them.

That would be telling, no point in living in a bunker and not keeping a few secrets ?

This all over. Its even worse for people (like me) who have not done a new build as such but slapped a big ugly extension on an existing house with all the featureless charm of a rusty Biffa bin. No money, no imagination, no features. ? It's grim. Its not so much that you have a blank slate to work with but a fresh turd. And you can roll it in glitter all you like but its still a turd.

Regarding no.4 how long has it been since you've fitted a toilet. While I agree with the sentiment of the post I may have a revelation for you...