NSS

Reading this and other Sunamp threads, one could be tempted to conclude that Fischer's customer support may be carp, but at least they have customer support ?

I'm glad we didn't use an architect as this sort of thing just serves to reinforce my opinion that, too often, they seem to want you to have what they want, rather than what you want. And if he's omitted a window to the front of the property and the drawings get approved then you may well have to submit a revised application (rather than NMA) as adding it back in will change the 'street scene' view of the property.

We moved our Twintec from the old house so, in total, it's been in use for over 10 years. The guts of it were replaced within the first 2 or 3 years (factory recall due to a faulty batch) and we did have it serviced between removal and reinstall (I think they replaced a couple of seals). We get a bit of salt crusting on the inside faces of the block housings (which I just scrape off) and the blocks have always been consumed at slightly different rates (circa 20%), but otherwise I don't touch it.

According to The Guardian "Bathstore has 132 stores and 529 staff. Most employees – 405 people – are shop workers, while 124 are in the head office." No wonder their shops look empty @Tennentslager, they barely have any staff in them!

Can't answer the cost question, but a few things things you may wish to consider. 1) does that blind cost provide an automated solution, i.e. closing the blinds automatically when solar gain is going to lead to overheating or does it rely on you being there to close them? 2) when blinds are closed that will inhibit (if not totally obscure) your view out, whereas with SageGlass you can still see out, albeit through tinted glass, and 3) we also looked at integrating blinds into our Internorm Windows, but the advice (at least then) was that they wouldn't offer the level of reduction in Solar Gain that SageGlass offers (and of course SageGlass tints progressively to suit the conditions at any specific moment). Noise reduction wasn't an issue for us, but automated control of Solar Gain very much was. Brilliant sunshine here today but the glass is only about 33% tinted as the sensor recognises that the sun is high in the sky so the angle it is hitting the glass means the solar gain is not as great as when the sun is lower.

I'm not sure there is a straightforward yes or no answer to that question @lizzie. As @JSHarris has mentioned, there is need to get a 2-core cable to each frame from wherever you site the control panel, plus another cable from the external light sensor to the control panel. The SageGlass 3G IGUs are 44mm thick which was fine for our Interior frames but not all frames will take a 44mm unit. As for connecting the cables to the glazing units, it's not quite as simple as @JSHarris suggests, i.e. it's not just a 2-wire to poke through and connect. The SageGlass units come with a cable 'tail' that has a flat connector on the end. The cable from the control panel has a similar connector and, when mated, the connector sits between the frame and the edge of the glazing unit. From memory these connectors when joined are circa 4mm thick so there needs to be provision for this in the sizing of the frame/glazing units. Frankly, I wouldn't contemplate retro-fitting SageGlass into a finished house as it would be a huge undertaking to discretely route the cables. It would also be less cost-effective as you would be ditching the glazing units that were originally fitted. Whereas, if factored in at the design stage, as we did, it's much easier to justify the expense.

I know it got a brief mention earlier in the thread, but don't discount using SageGlass. Yes, it's expensive, but so would automated external blinds and active cooling be, and I'd suggest SageGlass is a far more elegant solution.

@selfbuildaberdeen, as is well documented elsewhere on this site, MVHR and the air quality it provides was the sole reason for our self-build, but we're all different and we all have differing priorities. My advice is to listen to the various opinions you'll get and then make decisions on what best suits your needs, not what has suited others'.

According to Mrs NSS there's a large fossil in our bath/shower.... ... every time I step into them!

Herzlich willkommen.

Probably goes without saying, and with a 'traditional' design you may not intend to have a lot of glass, but worth considering what effect solar gain may have. A well insulated near airtight home can easily overheat.

Fair play. Interestingly, I had a conversation with our PV and ASHP installers yesterday (we purchased all the kit ourselves but had them install/commission it) and they said that PV installs have (surprisingly) actually picked up considerably since the FiT scheme ceased. They also said that Tesla have turned the taps on for Powerwall supplies into the UK, but that there's still no economic case for installing them, only an ecological one, and that prices have actually risen significantly (partly due to exchange rates) rather than showing any sign of falling.

But also reducing the amount you export to the grid. I'm not knocking it Jeremy, merely pointing out that even in a home as well insulated as yours, with all the technology you've incorporated, with your own borehole water supply, and 6.25kW of solar panels (imsmc) on the roof, it would be virtually impossible to achieve a net minus energy cost if starting again today.

Okay, but even if that were to happen, and to my knowledge it hasn't yet, assuming you generate circa 6.2MW per annum, the 50% export at 4.5p/kWh would only earn you about £140 rather than £1,000.

That's still almost 4 times what we get for ours, and anyone building exactly the same house as yours now would of course get nothing.

Out of interest, how much do you get from FiT payments?

We bought our plot with OPP and designs for a bungalow. In fact we bought it with OPP for the bungalow, a chalet bungalow and a pair of semis (four plots in all) and all had drawings. We did a deal with a local small developer for three of the plots, kept the best one and then applied for detailed planning to build a chalet bungalow rather than the bungalow design for which the OPP had been granted.

Just caught up with last week's episode. The older couple (albeit younger than me) reminded me so much of what we set out to do and why. Like them, there simply wasn't a house we could buy that adequately ticked the boxes we needed to tick. Okay, they went about it a different way (SIPS as opposed to TF, a lift rather than a ground floor bedroom suite, coated rather than SageGlass and he was far less 'hands on' than I was) but hopefully they've achieved a similar outcome in terms of meeting the needs of her health conditions.

Yes, but how often do you see the architect of a 'client' with a budget of 'x' design a home with a likely cost of 'y'.

It's this one... https://www.simplylogcabins.co.uk/norland-newark-1-log-cabin-p573

The bearers are 70 x 45mm (doubled up at front and rear edges) spaced at circa 470mm centres.

Not really as the bearers are set low so as to minimise the threshold height to make wheelchair access as easy as possible.

Except that would make the floor higher than the door threshold ?

There'll be no danger of rats or the like getting under it, and the bricks on which the bearers sit provide a convenient 'lip' to sit the boards on so no need for supporting battens/wire either. It will get damp under there though so main concern is for something that won't absorb moisture and then 'droop'.

Thanks, but need to do it this week so offcuts are probably not an option, and not sure I want all sorts of insects nesting in rockwool or the like.