jayc89

I'm absolutely crap with design and knowing what looks good together. I need to see the finished article before knowing whether it works or not. The Architect wanted to go black frames on buff brick originally, but we compromised on grey.

I thought doing so was reasonably common, seen it mentioned on quite a few posts here and other forums.

It's the dining area shown here. Also including a cross section as this area is masked on the elevation.

I'm also seeing around £750/m2 for aluclad windows, across a couple of quotes, right now. Supply only. Is that typical these days? Should I be challenging and pushing back?

We like Chartwell Green (RAL 6021 is the nearest) but worry it's too "cottagey"

Are you talking about a single Fresh-R unit and using Fresh-r Forward units to push stale air from room to room towards it?

I managed to persuade our architect to remove our working from "slate grey" to just "grey" on all our applications, for the same reason, it gives us some flexibility. Luckily, the planning officer approved - I think it's the only thing she didn't object to at one time or another!

What openings are the provided fixings made for? I've spec'd all my windows 10mm smaller (all around) than the structural opening, that I'll slide compriband into once fitted.

I'd suggest gaps in IWI is actually worse for the fabric of the house as warm moist air will be able to condensate through those gaps to the cold side of the insulation.

Ours are approx. 1200x1500mm so reasonably large and I suspect will be quite hefty. I think the Rationel standard is 150mm 3mm galvanised steel plate, would you recommend something else?

I suspect you'd want to double up on that sort of length. We have a 13m run which I'll double up. How about 2x units, one for the existing side and one for the extension?

Supplier is asking if we require fixing brackets. They'll be installed in our solid-wall house so I was assuming I'd have to remove the window and use concrete screws through the frame, which would be a PITA as half the window is fixed... So fixing brackets wouldn't be a bad idea, are they suitable for when fitted to solid brick walls?

I can't answer how to model this, but insulation is only part of the solution. Thermal bypass, thermal bridging, airtightness or all factors to consider. If done well, a solid wall insulated with PIR could mitigate certainly 2 out of 3 of those areas quite well. This is exactly what I'm doing in my house. I've done one room, in the north west corner of the house (50mm PIR direct to the internal face of the brickwork), and it's made a massive difference, I've also taken the time to fully foam around the perimeter of each board, to try ensure any thermal bypass is limited to a single board area, and both taped and ran a VCL to airtightness and to restrict the risk of condensation. Whilst on-paper, it will still have a worse u-value than our last house (2000's mass-built detached), my expectation is that it will feel massively better to live in. "feel" is also hard to quantify...

I'd be inclined to go for digger + driver for that kinda thing. It seems like you'll have a pretty large garden so it might be worth considering whether you could hide any of the soil you remove in raised borders etc. We levelled all ours off in our paddock and you an hardly tell now.

The downpipe wants extending beneath the grate. If it's anything like ours was, it gets filled up with leaves and other crap too easily and with heavy rain overflows anyway. (I also mixed up some cement to fill the gaps between the bricks and the wall. )

Christ, don't put doubt in my mind. Our elevations are quite forgiving so we think it looks pretty good; The section with the downpipe is existing. Everything to the right will be a new extension.

Forma is Rationel's "traditional" range, less sleek/smooth lines, more of a classic profile, better suited to renovating older properties (IMO) https://rationel.co.uk/guidance/forma-formaplus/

We have a small-ish 4x4 flat roof extension, as part of our wider renovation project we'll be replacing the windows, blowing in some cavity wall insulation and we also want to replace the existing (50 year old) roof, with a warm one. The Architect has also proposed parapet roof going forward. The plan is to follow Green Building Store's Kirkburton Flat Roof detail - https://www.greenbuildingstore.co.uk/kirkburton-passivhaus-the-flat-roof/ - laying another inner course of blocks, hanging the joists from them, then running a couple more courses of external finishing bricks. One detail I'm not clear on is hanging the joists of a box-section wall plate. What's the benefit in doing this over hanging them in a standard way; joist hangers, Tony tray etc?

Kinda my feelings too. I'm keen to pull the trigger on an older but there are so many variables and a distinct inability to see such a configuration in the flesh anywhere. Coupled with some of the TrustPilot reviews on Rationel, it does make me question whether they're the right ones to go with!

The more the merrier. It could be a proper window-fest as far as I'm concerned!

Get ya windows out! Trying to get an idea for our own house. Brownie points for FormaPlus on white/buff brick.

That's our worry with grey, is it one of those which will age badly? Used by everyone today, and no one tomorrow? A more muted tone would certainly be "safer"...

isn't 7016 anthracite?

You might be surprised, if it's not shown any signs of movement after all this time. Ours is (only) 150ish years old and when we poured our new floor slab, we found the foundations to be well below 700mm. A ground bearing floor slab would almost certainly be the cheapest option too - MOT 1, sand blinding (some use a thin layer of EPS for this...), insulation, run your underfloor heating pipes (if you're having it), then pour your concrete, saves on using an additional screed too. The majority is also DIYable, if you fancied it.

We're about to place an order to replace the windows in the original part of our house. The house dates back to 1850(ish) so would have been sash originally, we can't afford, nor do we want to go back to proper sash, but quite like the look of Rationel FormaPlus in a "mock-sash" style, like this; Our Architect has proposed a mix of grey render and larch cladding for our extension, which we like, and has shown the replacement windows as also being "grey"; But we're concerned that might be a bit too much for the existing part of the house, which currently looks like this; The upstairs windows will remain the same size, to avoid any structural work up there, the downstairs openings will be pulled in to the same width, but be slightly taller than the upstairs openings. What would you suggest as an appropriate RAL colour for the windows going into the existing building?