AdamSee

I used a parge coat (sound coat) internally to act as a air tightness barrier when renovating my place. Blower proof paint is the best way to get in between the joists if there is a room below to get access from. I believe it is important to ensure that there is a solid bed of drywall adhesive at the bottom of the boards to stop fire spreading in that worst case event. But If you have sealed the walls properly, I cant imagine its necessary to seal around all of the sockets as no air should be penetrating the walls to be able to escape via said socket......it is however good practice to do so. As for the ceiling. I don't see a problem with taping the PIR to for make a VCL, except that fitting down lights may be a problem (might not be a problem if your not having any though). In the past I've made plywood boxes to fit between the joists and painted/sealed them to a staple on VCL as this made space for the down lights while maintaining a air tight barrier. Good luck with it.

Your best off cutting them in to slabs now and stacking them up to dry. A well ventilated basement would be fine as long as they can be lay down to dry. The rule of thumb on drying is 1 year per inch, but your best bet is to buy a moisture meter and keep checking them. A quick googling will tell to what moisture levels to look for. Personally I've never done anything with green timber either, such as preparation work. But its well work doing plenty of research before hand to avoid been disappointed at the end result or the time frame it forces you to work with.

What thickness slabs are you expecting to cut this in to and how long are you expecting to leave it for before working with it? Most timber is kiln dried to speed up the process. I think to air dry out a 2" thick slab could take up to 2 years before it's stable enough to use.......just something to take in to consideration when cutting.

I would suggest feeding a cable down it then use a ground scanner....but Declan52 surgestion is actually a guaranteed way of find it. You only have to feed it a meter or two, find it then follow it as someone else pushes the mouse further.

The aluminium cills to go over the top sound like a reasonable way to sort the issue. Any sheet metal fabricator should be able to knock them up for you if your willing to draw it for them, most of them will know a local power coater to finish them off in the right RAL colour. What cladding are you using? Looks like wood, but have a feeling that its plastic.

I'm confused as to what i'm looking at. Can you do a picture from a bit further back? If that's an external window sill, shouldn't it extend past the cladding?

Think I'm going to have to try that on a fitting that I left dripping for the last year. The water is really hard here and usually weeping joins eventually stop after a while, bit it didn't in this case. Great for dealing with dogey plumbing. Not so great for the kettle or when you want to close the stop cock in a rush.

I'm sure I've shown this picture before. But I had the exact same issue. So i use 3/4 bsp male to 15mm compression, which I joined on to 15mm hep2o elbows. Make sure you use copper olives, not brass ones.......brass will not work, its just too stiff. To test the system I attached spare hep2o shutoff valves to all the outlets and let the system come up to mains pressure and left for a day to see if anything dripped.......it did drip....from the 3/4bsp. They take alot of tape. Also, don't make my mistake. I made the central space for my shower valve too wide. So the ply on the left which was for the shower screen to have something substantial to mount to is too far over. The stud needed to be at least another 50mm to the right.

Bit late now. But couldn't you have fitting it so that the hole is filled with CT1 then refitted the (PIR?) item over the hole. It looks like the aforementioned item has a cutout underneath to allow the cables to pass behind it.

I used the Omnie torfloor in my renovation project. It is made from standard 22mm chipboard T&G floor panels which are routed out to accept a 12mm pipe. This does weaken the structure, so to bring it back up to the normal strength you need to glue and screw a minimum 6mm (5.5) ply sheet over the top of it. Works pretty well with 9mm ply to. I believe that with the 6mm ply it will span 600mm joists but cant remember without rereading the tech sheet which is available from there website. I cant imagine why a floor which is going to be 6 or 9mm thicker than a standard floor would cause many problems. FYI, to tile it to Omnie standard, you need to use Tile masters decoupling mat and S2 ultra flex rapid set adhesive. Personally I would never use it again. Its the equivalent of trying to spread chewing gum.

Yes I can access it from the front by pulling off the panel. Previously I've plaster boarded the framework up. But you could easily cut through it to fix it. Just how inaccessible will yours be? I would guess that the worst case would be tiles on cement board in front of it. I always try to make things accessible, but in reality its not always possible. Second best option would be to be able to see it via a endoscope/camera. I've yet to have a leak from a hep2o, I would be more worried about having a brass connector in there. This is my shower setup. consisting of several compression fittings on to hep2o pipe and 4no. 3/4" to 1/2" bsp reducers. This is 100% inaccessible or visible. I do wonder a lot of the time as to whether its dripping away behind there or something. All I can do it try to take comfort in the fact that I left it pressurised for 24h without a sign of leaking. But at the end of the day, if it does leak, I have the ability to fix it and finally get rid of the bloody P-Bath.

I've fitted 3 of these frames now and each time I've use the Hep2o bent tap connectors. 1/2" BSP I think. Got a small rubber washer inside so theres no need for tape. Last one I did was not a wall hung toilet.

My goods in transit only covers our items from damage/theft when the are either in our van or on a courier. For items in the warehouse it's just under our standard insurance for our stock......but as per usual, it's all sorted out via a broker.

Yea my mixer is pretty much redundant now as our system has no rads or any plans for them. You said that when yours is fully open it dosent make any noise so it probably is the same issue. Does it always make the same noise even when the rads are warming up? I remember mine became quieter when I installed the bypass. I would have thought that your rads would act as a bypass. I would keep a ear out for times it's making noises compared to times the rads are warming up. See if there's a difference between ufh running with the rads and without the rads warming. Im assuming you have motorized valves that can control the two systems independently.

Right, I had the exact same problem which I've just managed to sort out. Long story short, I set my boiler to the same temp and the mixing valve (50c) because I don't have rads. Noise be gone. Long story continued; So i have a omnie manifold with a grundfos pump, the thermostat is set to 50c and the boiler set to 65c as per omnies instructions and my plumbers. Problem was that the boiler would send hot at 65c to the manifold which would mix with existing water raising the temp and cause the thermostatic valve to slow the water comming in. But it eventually balances out to a semi open status. Open enough for the boiler to keep supplying water. But not shut enough for the boiler to stop. So the water rushes through a tiny gap was causing noise. I did fit a external bypass which helped and changed the pump speed which also helped. But the biggest and most importantly change.....I set the boiler to 50c. By the time the water gets to the boiler it's now 47c roughly. Valve stays open and there's no noise. Boiler will fire for about 10mins at a time I think. Then shut off for 10 mins or so. Only noise now is abit of vibration from the pump. Not sure how the affects the economy of the gas use, but it can't be worse.....either way it's quiet here.....kinda.....I have tinitus.......never really that quiet. I also talk to the dog alot..

Have you had a soak away test done? Where they dig the pit fill it water. Reason for asking is becuase I'm up in Sanderstead (no exactly far) and granted the ground is solid clay here which makes a brillant pond but poor lawn. But, parts of Caterham and alot of Whytleaf are on chalk, which would make for a good soak away. Not sure if you've broken ground yet or not, which would be a good sign of things, especially lately with the rain.

No idea who installed it. Previous energy supplier was called "energie" don't think they installed it either though.

I assume that must be different for commercial supply's then. My new industrial unit had a 3 phase smart meter and I think emlite produce one to. Well....it was smart with the previous supplier. Apparently not compatible with the edf tho.

I went with the click together vinyl, probably the easiest flooring to lay. Score and snap with a Stanley to cut to size, nice and easy. Got the cheap stuff from a normal online shop and it's great. The packets are weirdly flexible and as long as you don't have any ridges in your floor, (ours was laid over 6mm ply which formed part of our floor structure) it feels dead solid. Works great with the UFH. Probably going to install it in the entire downstairs area to.

I use the Synology diskstation for this sort of thing. Loaded up with a bunch of SSDs, easy to set a raid system for redundancy in the case of a drive failure and can install a "cloud station" for access while out and about. Probably the most user friendly system around.

You need insulation.....lots of it by sounds of it. More knowledgeable people are probably on the way to assist. But first I would recommend listing the current build of you kitchen, age, floor / ceiling build type, current insulation levels, window type and current heating system.

One question down, 999,999 to go.....what's next?

After re-reading your original post I now realise that you never mentioned having a flat roof......my bad. Does make it quite complicated trying to put a roof over the courtyard area then.

Good to hear that your getting back on it. Just an idea, but as your doing a flat roof on the extension, would you be able to join it up to your utility room? I like the idea of having a courtyard area to house your bins and the external services that you want to keep out of sight. But personally I hate having to take out the rubbish when its raining or cold and I having a partially undercover area seems appealing.

Brilliant thanks. It certainly makes your living room feel welcoming and relaxing. My plan was to do the same as this but in a much smaller room (2.2 X 2.9m). Currently I have down lights in my office and they are horrible to have on. This idea seems like it would provide a much more relaxing enviroment to think in.