jayc89

I have a solid brick wall house with an open chimney in one of the downstairs rooms. Its not used but is uncapped. I want to do something with it to help reduce drafts but am worried about damp if I just brick it up. What’s the best approach to take? thanks

The link says; TW* are apparently for tile, whereas TF* are for slate, according to the Velux side - https://www.velux.co.uk/products/sun-tunnels/pitched-roof

These are what I was looking at for our en-suites in particular - https://www.roofingsuperstore.co.uk/product/ztv-014-ventilation-outlet-for-use-with-twr-014-2010-twf-014-2010-only.html but according to the Velux site, they're only suitable for tile fitments, not slate. I hadn't mainly because the extension will likely double the footprint of the existing property so assumed MVHR would likely be justified. In reality it's only 2x downstairs rooms (plus hallway) that would be difficult to retrofit, which I think we could live with.

My partner bought be this a while ago, apparently I'll be doing our 1st fix joinery now Not managed to get it out of the box yet! Father in law was pretty jealous so I'm taking that as a good sign!

I plan to do exactly the same with our extension. Our plumber used copper everywhere for the original house renovation and we get so much knocking/banging as the heating comes on/off it's unreal. I should get him back but I really don't fancy pulling the new carpets etc up to get it fixed. We'll have to live with it for now. The majority of the runs being plaster and just the bits on show being copper should reduce the vast majority of this problem.

Cat 6a provides 10Gbps over a max distance of 100m so should be relatively future proof for the coming years. For peace of mind, I'd run that everywhere. The expense will come from trying to find a switch that can support 40x 10Gbps ports - that's data centre spec stuff! Right now, most consumables support up to 1Gbps so I'd stick with a 1Gbps switch.

We used Longfloor IntegraCure (http://www.longfloor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/LONGFLOOR_INTEGRACURE_Brochure_A4_8pgs_LowRes-1.pdf) which was ready to accept tiles once the UFH had been commissioned and cooled again.

The existing ground floor rooms would be problematic (AKA near impossible without making a mess), this would mean some of the downstairs wouldn't benefit from MVHR, but the extension could and all of the upstairs could.

Your input has been incredibly helpful and it's genuinely appreciated. Without the help from this forum, I don't know what state we'd currently be in!

The footprint has been reduced since it was knocked back and the planning officer has informally said they would approve the current footprint (as per the last formal set of drawings on this thread)

I arrived here on a bit on a tangent. I had considered installing sun pipes with built in extractor fans in our ensuites, although I'm not entirely sold on the sun pipe idea in general. An alternative could be MVHR. The property is 1850s built, solid wall and no wall insulation, the floor is a new slab with 100mm PIR insulation (and UFH throughout downstairs, radiators upstairs). We're currently working through an extension design which will more than likely be 150mm cavity wall (EPS bead) and 200m EPS under slab, at which point all existing (1980s) upvc windows and doors will be replaced too. Once done, we plan to do an air tightness test, I'm not expecting miracles, but the original part of the building is wet plastered and the skirts have been sealed top/bottom when they were fitted last year, so I think we can get something "OK". Do you think we'd be suitable for an MVHR system as part of the extension? We could possibly install it to the existing upstairs room too, but it would predominantly supply the extension.

I don't think something like this would be a million miles away; The sun pipes were originally in the ensuites as I know they can act as extractors too, however, having double checked the Velux site, apparently that's only the case if they're fitted to tile roofs and ours is slate! I would much prefer sky lights, we did briefly discuss it, making the ceiling over the staircase "vaulted", there were concerns around the expense of doing so, strengthening the existing joists etc and given the size of the new roof, would there be space to do that now? It's possibly the case. I don't think the brief was too prescriptive, but I do find it easier to describe things in pictures rather than words and more recently it seems like I send a plan across to try explain something and I get a converted version of it back again - this very much was not my intention, I'm paying for someone's expertise, not just to follow instruction. In a similar vein, it's very much why I've drawn the above, to confirm what has been discussed here before making suggestions to my architect, but again I want his opinion too, not just to make my design work - I'm under no illusion, my drawings are terrible!

I believe it's the upstairs which is the concern, yes. My understanding is, because of the way the boundary runs (curved) the angled window is actually facing our garden, rather than directly into the neighbours garden if there were any downstairs on the north face. I did have similar thoughts, when I asked I was told "Squaring off the extension makes the impact worse on the neighboring properties which is what the planning officer is concerned about. ... the squaring off adds another 2.5m which the angle took away." This was a concern of ours too, we did toy with the idea, in fact some of the original plans on this thread included sky lights in various locations. I think the main problem with doing that over the staircase with the design as is, would be the new roof being so large there's no room centrally on the original roof to do that now. The sun pipes were to help offset that loss of light, but I agree, direct natural light would be far better. I don't know where those full height windows came from, originally it was another massive pane of glass, similar dimensions to the doors, which I asked to be replaced with windows. Thanks for the detailed feedback, @AliG. I think all in all, we need to go back to the drawing board on some of these points.

The angle was something we raised a few times, it's acceptable in the open-plan area but feels like it cuts off too much in the master bedroom - however I was told it would be needed to mitigate the problem of overlooking our neighbour on the north side. It's certainly not something we're keen to protect in any future re-design if those concerns could be mitigated in other ways. Our BCO, who has overseen other renovation work to the property, recommended a handful of architects when we mentioned the possibility of extending to him. We spoke with the majority of them, plus some we found ourselves, and chose the one whose work we liked, albeit not on period style properties, and who we thought understood the brief the best. Perhaps I'm just a terrible judge of character?

Agreed, I don't think it's a million miles away either. I assume the room to the north is the accessible shower room with the utility and boot room to the south? I did toy with having the sofas/TV in the south/west corner, the reason I ended up putting the kitchen there instead was because there'd be arguably too much light for a TV and it's a bit daft to be closing blinds, restricting all that light just to watch some junk on TV One big benefit of putting the kitchen where it's located in your plan is being able to hide the underneath of the new flight of stairs with a tall kitchen unit. Sorry, that's my mistake, I should have been clearer earlier on. The architect and to be fair, the planning officer seem to share similar concerns around this point. I don't think we're averse to having a clear separation. I some times worry I was too restrictive in my requirements which has resulted in the current plans. However in reality the only requirement we've really had is to focus attention at the rear of the property to the north/west where our lawn is situated, away from the garage at the rear of the house (west) and drive running along the south. I think part of the problem we now have is we've become numb to the existing plans/style so are struggling to vision what something different would look like - we're only doing it once, it's a pretty special house in the area (IMO) so we want to do it right. I'm not expert in these things so please excuse my naivety. What's so concerning in the plans that make you question the architect's credentials?

The house does have a certain symmetry to it right now, especially towards the front where it hasn't been modified over the years. We're really wanting to strike a balance between respecting the property's history (i.e. not wanting to move/replace the staircase) and adapting it to modern living. Excuse the terrible editing (and poor quality Google Maps image!). Green line is the boundary, red the proposed extension and blue our closest neighbour. Our architect is suggesting the angle in that corner will be needed as to not overlook the neighbour's rear garden too much. It's also quite nice to focus attention across the garden, rather than directly to the rear of the property (which is a view of the garages!). I expect the doors will actually be sliding AluClad. We plan to put all the windows back to sash (terrible 80's upvc at the minute) and I think AluClad will be the best compromise between traditional looking and thermal efficiency.

I see what you mean, I think I've been over indexing on making the most of the opportunity to have south-facing windows, plus the garages are to the west so I had been trying to keep the utility/porch/boot room door as near to there as possible. I had also been trying to avoid bringing the dining room wall in, for a couple of reasons; - If we knock that wall down there will be a gap/cold area in the new hallway where UFH loops are missing, plus we'll have to fix the DPM where the wall once was. - We've just had some pretty expensive cornice fitted to the existing dining room, part of which would need removing and making right if we knock that wall down. Assuming we're willing to bite the bullet on the above points I think something like this would work; The Utility Room and Boot Room + W/C are pretty much interchangeable, I still can't decide which way around would best best, but I don't think their exact location would impact our planning application at this point either. The most obvious downside that I can see is the Dining Room is now at the opposite end of the house. There is something quite poetic about putting the entrance to the side. We have an old picture of the house (from ~ 1900, we think) and the original (kitchen, we think) door was in that area, where the existing dining room is/proposed office will be;

Hopefully, our final set of drawings have just landed. What does everyone think?

Disappointed but I suspected that would be the case. Thanks for the replies!

How would that be calculated? Gas system boiler, it's a 32kw Baxi Platinum. This is my concern. I think an ASHP would work but I don't know whether the COP at 40c would be enough to realise any savings over sticking with gas. I'd prefer to reduce our dependency on gas, but not if I end up paying through the nose for it.

We currently have approx. 65sqm of UFH pipe run at 150mm centres that we run at 40c quite comfortably and are currently planning an extension which would bring the overall floorspace to 165sqm, or 1,100m of UFH pipe at 150mm centres. It's currently heated by our system boiler. The current slab is 60mm Cemfloor screed on top of 100mm PIR, but for the extension we plan on 200mm EPS and a 100mm floating reinforced concrete slab. Given our UFH can manage at 40c, I was wondering whether we should consider an ASHP as part of our extension just to heat the UFH loops. is 40c still too hot to realise any cost savings from an ASHP? Would we get a single ASHP, that doesn't cost a fortune, large enough to heat the approx. 132l of water flowing through these loops?

We're in the process of agreeing the final designs for our extension (design thread). We currently have a reasonably large, westerly facing, window over the stairs (approx 1200 x 1400), which lets in plenty of light across the staircase, hallway and landing. This is going to be lost as part of the extension as we're building out that way. Our architect is recommending a series of Sunpipe; one on each half landing and 2 on the new landing to mitigate this loss of light. We can probably get away with using rigid sun pipes, which I understand emit the most light, but I'm struggling to find any solid data to be able to compare the light the original window emits vs the light these 4x sun pipes would provide. Given the direction of a sun pipe's fitting (vertical vs horizontal) I assume the furthest end of the downstairs hallway would suffer the most from losing the window? Any hints/tips/recommendations/comments/links to pages detailing the light emitted by windows vs sun pipes would be greatly appreciated.

Yeah, that’s looking much better! I wouldn’t say happy, but appreciate when extending, and when you don’t have that blank canvas sometimes you have to compromise. We did consider pulling the snug wall in slightly to extend the hallway around the stairs that way, but there’s complexity there too as the wall to move is solid so would need supporting, the DPM laps up the existing wall so would need patching and the UFH loops are already in place there. Nothing insurmountable, but complex. Other than doing the above, again, with naive eyes, I don’t see a better solution, do you?

Thanks @Iceverge, that's super useful. What do you think to this? - The utility is moved down to the side of the staircase, north wall, with very little light anyway - Boot room to the west, with a southerly window, opening into the open-plan space to let light through from that aspect - Similar from the kitchen so the open plan area has light from North, West and South now. - It even has a downstairs shower room I think the crux of the problems come from working around the existing staircase. The property was built ~ 1850 and has a lovely, original, monkey's tail handrail, which isn't to our taste, but given it's original, we're loathed to mess with, as it will never go back the same. If we could have moved the stairs, say to that north wall, I think it would have opened up the house to so many more options. This is my first stab at designing an extension, so I'm by no means an expert, but I'm stumped for any better layout now.

I think we're pretty much settled on the upstairs layout, but a couple of things to callout; - 6th bedroom (directly below the master) would be overlooking our neighbour so our architect suggested we may need a frosted window in there - Architect is suggesting we replace the existing extension roof with a new one that spans the original extension and new extension as it would look more sympathetic (only 2 different roofs, rather than 3). We don't particularly mind this as it will give us a better loft area, but appreciate it will be more expensive. The biggest concern here is we'd lose the Skylights and have to replace them with sun pipes (the black circles on the plan) The thing that's really not clear in my mind right now is the downstairs; - We have a long southern aspect which we're not currently making the most of, ideally we'd use that to add more light into the open-plan space, but I can't figure out how to do that whilst keeping a porch/bootroom at the far corner (west), nearest the garages/drive. - We want a downstairs w/c (happy to make that a shower room ) and don't have any strong preference where that goes in the grand scheme of things. - The north hallway, past the stair case will be dark, I don't think there's a good way to fix that, so have resided ourselves to the fact it can't really be used as a hallway. Possibly a utility room, or the downstairs w/c instead? Any tips/hints/ideas would be greatly appreciated.