Nickfromwales

With a typical 4kwp array consuming around 26-28m2, and an assumed cost of £100p/m2 for supply and fit of slates, you'd have had a hypothetical credit note of north of £2.5k from the roof costs savings with an in-roof array. Shame, as that roof was crying out for PV. £30k of uplift must be a bitter pill though, so spend wisely from here on-in. FWIW, I would go 75mm additional on the under-roof ceilings and 30mm on the walls, if on the walls at all tbh. Heat rises, and your walls are not too shabby now! In absolute honesty, if you have ~£5k sat on the desk wanting spending, and the scaffolding is still up, I'd get the slate ripper out and put a PV system in without a second thought. I would definitely NOT be getting hung up on the heat loss "horrors" that you are mentioning above, just based on seeing some snow melting. Get the steel beam boxed in 50-75mm minimum of PIR, sealed with illbruck air-seal foam, no voids left whatsoever, and EVERY bit of your airtightness detailing done, and THEN reassess. You'll have little to none of the issues you are seeing now if the heat isn't rising and escaping without any real resistance, so you've basically got a chimney there atm until AT works have been done.

Thank you for bringing some sanity to this thread. OK. Firstly it would be, in no way, shape or form, the responsibility of the MVHR supplier to advise you on timelines for you installing floor coverings or any such correlation between that and the amount of humidity that is in the house OR how you manage that!! That would be the responsibility of you, or your M&E consultant, and for them to liaise with your PM to make sure that is strategized BEFORE even choosing or installing such systems. They wouldn't stand by your front door checking if you've got a brolly if it was a rainy day...... Switching on your MVHR before your painting and decorating, second fix woodwork, kitchens and bathrooms are all installed is suicide. HIRE A DEHUMIDIFIER.

Is the slab exposed atm? Are you using an ASHP? Either way, you really do not want to waste the funds and treat with ( expensive ) treatments until the point it’s purged and filled for the last time.

+1.

No issues there at all. “Carry on!”

So that involves installing UFH in a car garage, with significant point loads and movement from shuffling vehicles around, lifting on trolley jacks etc, sooooo, lots of cost putting at least 80-90mm of 10mm concrete mix down with next to no insulation? The recovered heat energy from the ground loops would be so negligible it would fall flat afaic, so your requisite for a "background heat of 10oC" would likely need a supply temp into UFH of north of 20oC after the delta between floor and emitter has been input to the equation. Also you'd need LOTS of the heat energy so LOTS of brine loop in huge trenches all 1000mm deep and 1500mm min apart for each pair of ground collection pipes. I do like the idea, it's just the sheer scale of this that has to provoke a reality check. The real issue would be spending good money on a failed experiment, and to not have any funds for the second attempt. Can you get a winter-long supply of dry enough wood to burn? I'd seriously look at a wood burning stove with back boiler or a second hand log gasification boiler and a TS connected to some massive ( second hand if possible ) radiators, plus the de-Strat fans. Put the WBS into a masonry cave with a bent ( curved ) sheet of stainless behind it, set back a couple of foot, to reflect the emitted heat forward only. Some internal space around it for seasoning would then ensure cheap ( green ) wood can be bought in and dried in-house to further reduce fuel costs. Electricity is soon to flatline at 30+ p/kwh and economy tariffs will fizzle out, so any direct electricity based solution will end up being far too expensive to run during the day. You can get away with quite low temp at high volume, so if you go for fan coil units you can literally just blow the warmed air directly towards yourself, so one big ASHP running at 40oC flow temp could tick the boxes with you strategizing which FCU you used subject to where you were working ( say 2 units on wheels connected to flexis which you could turn and point ). It's cost on cost whichever way you cut this, simply due to the size of the building, so the biggest focus here should be on what will be cost effective long term, so it has to be insulation and draughtproofing, so you keep whatever warmth you create inside the building. Insulation is pointless unless you go for at least 2 big de-Strat fans up high. If seasoned wood can be sourced reliably, initially, then that ( or anything else suitable that could go in a WBS ) would be my choice. Obtaining cheap / unwanted problematic green ( wet ) wood and then seasoning it yourself going forward would help keep costs down in the future.

There are ASHP’s which are on a specific list and those “that are not” No electrician ever stops to ask to fit a new huge induction hob or a replacement upgrade to a 10kw electric shower

So, just fit a £40 Willis heater to get signed off as a “3kW electric boiler”, and pipe / duct services in, in anticipation of the retro fit ASHP? TBH you’d put more load on fitting a big electric shower !!!! DNO’s need a reality check. The ASHP I fitted before Xmas starts at less current than a toaster.

Hi. Looking at the gap, and the fact that you no longer have any bevel to the face of the cut, I would just scrub these completely clean of any residual adhesive and fill and finish with clear CT1. No need for any super skills at all, just don’t cut the nozzle and use at the 3-4mm bead size it comes at. Start at the bottom horizontal ‘grout’ line where these meet the floor / tray / other and work that in vigorously with your finger, rubbing it in in both directions ( don’t worry about the CT1 getting over the face of the tiles / other as it comes off in seconds. Caveat is do NOT let it get on anything that is not flat and impervious ( like floor grout ) as it doesn’t like coming back off that without a lot of extra effort ). Once you’ve completed the horizontal application and your finger and wall / floor has CT1 all over it, use cheap baby wipes to clean the wet sealant off your hands first, then off anywhere you do not wish it to be. Use one BW just a couple of times and discard it to a bag, as otherwise you’ll defeat the object and start bringing it back to the surfaces you’re trying to remove it from. Finish this part of the process by putting a BW over your finger and sweep from one side to the other in one long slow movement ( all the way along the horizontal ) to leave nothing of the CT1 on the tiles or floor / tray. Do this long sweep as many times as is necessary until you’re happy with what you see. Then leave for 24hrs to cure. Do exactly the same for all the vertical lines, working from the top > down. Do one vertical line at a time, cleaning 90% of the residual away at the horizontal grout lines up the wall. Once you’ve done 3 verticals, get a BW flat on your palm and polish all the area of tile 1 top to bottom. When you’ve done he 90% of tile run 4, go back and polish up tile 2 top to bottom, then 5 > 3, 6 > 4 and so on. The idea is to be constantly working wet sealant over / against wet sealant and to not allow the 90% area to start firing before polishing with your flat palm + BW. That will be much better than grout, 50 times better than silicone ( which has a very short lifespan on surfaces which are regularly cleaned thoroughly ) and will NEVER attract mould / go black. ??

It’s just moss / other growth that hasn’t been hit by the rain. You’ll see it on many surrounding properties and is of zero concern.

I assume you know that the cold feed to the copper tank is gravity, and that the cold feed you need for a regular electric shower is the cold mains in the attic that fills the CWS tank? Do yourself a huge favour and leave the electrical connections well alone Run a 6mm2 from the CU to a suitable location for a surface mounted 45a DP switch, outside the bathroom ( uglier but much easier than fitting a pullcord ) and another bit of 6mm2 from that switch location to the shower area. Leave a bit of slack at the switch on both, a bit of length to connect into the shower, and a meter or so of slack at the CU. Then fit the shower and plumb it to the cold supply. Then ring an electrician to do the rest ( please ). Not worth dying before you move into the new house eh?

I'm doing the lighting design for one of my current clients builds, which also has a tall curved ceiling. I've suggested recessed wall uplighters to wash the ceiling area with enough upward light to allow sufficient ambient light to make its way down lower in the room, with the idea being to have light but not to see the source ( or as near as damnit ). No pics of that one yet, sorry, but here are some of the same I installed on another project.

Ah, ok. Then ignore my above rambling. I’ll get my coat.

Are the pipes down yet? If going under then you’re linked one is fine. Sorry. Just assumed this was going atop retrospectively for some daft reason. Been a long day.

Too thick. 500 is the thickest I’d use tbh.

I separated the pipes and marked the sole plate to avoid ‘unwanted water relief holes’. The studs all reside on a course of blue bricks, so there I just packed out with timber and punched 2x 200mm concrete screws down, through liquid screed and into the concrete slab beneath Trust me, with liquid screed the challenge is to stop it going anywhere it’s not supposed to It will have 100% encompassed those pipes with ease. The builder used mastic / sealants and I also used foam to create a dam in the openings where the flow of the liquid screed needed to be arrested.

Yup. I know of at least 2, with another one coming up in 6-8 weeks. A good blower team will ( should ) have a frame which goes into an opening which has no door in it yet, so they should be able to do this with a bit of ingenuity? 2” PVC electrical tape can be applied first, then AT tape onto that. There’s loads of ways to do this and mitigate against damages etc.

It needs to be a VERY thin membrane suitable for use with the liquid screed, so that it allows the screed to completely encompass the UFH pipe. Leave lots of slack / small folds in the membrane to allow it to be able to move and wrap as tightly as possible around the pipes. If you don’t leave this slack the membrane will tent over the pipes which you don’t want.

@Tom Easy to mitigate with insulation on the flow pipes where they congregate Don’t let them pick on you OK

Sealing the concrete with 50/50 SBR*water, by mopping the life out of it over a couple of days, will give you something to stick to.

Sikaflex would be my choice. Speak to their tech dept if possible. Used a lot of their commercial marine rated stuff and it’s ridiculously good.

Yes, totally agree. I’ve made no reference to VCL, as I’d need to know about detail of the rising walls too to be able to comment. If it’s a draughty shed, like my home office / man cave, I’d just deal with the worst of the cold bridging and open a beer. Adventitious airflow will do the rest. If folk don’t allow air through in winter then the ? will hit the fan regardless. I’ve gone with metal uninsulated roof panels, one piece 6.4m lengths, over 5x2’s @400mm centres. I used roof membrane 1500mm wide and tripled it ( overlapping every 500mm ) as I couldn’t get the metal in time. Bone dry atm, with joists ( treated ) exposed and painted with the grey floor paint. As it’s Baltic in there, during the warmer weather I will install 75mm in between the joists, with a 25mm timber ( like a doorstop ) to allow me to push the insulation up and prevent it touching the membrane. I purposely kept the membranes very taut during fitting in case this was necessary. I’ll then install 30mm PIR in 8x4 sheets over the joists and infill PIR to kill the cold bridge of the joists, and then foil tape, and prob then just paint white or leave as foil ( as both will reflect light ). Joints between 8x4’s of PIR will be foil taped for the hell of it. That will be my lot for the roof. I will then pull off the external membrane wrapped around the outside of the stud frame / walls, I’ve not yet installed the 150mm feather edge thankfully, and fill those voids with cheap rock wool and then reinstall the membrane and fit the cladding at the same time so it stays dry. “It’s just a shed, Rodney”.

That's how most SIP's roofs are done. There needs to be a solid deck to walk on to be able to EPDM a large flat / sloping roof, as the compressive ( point load ) strength of the rigid insulation would be insufficient to take a mans weight ( foot / knee etc ). Also a requisite when installing PV with Nickelson plates etc as you would also not want to introduce cold bridging through 250mm+ long mechanical fixings. The detail there needs to be; a compressed sandwich with layers bonded ( where there can be no ventilation to ridge etc, eg no gap between the insulation and the deck board + EPDM ) or counter-battens and a gap for ventilation and then the deck board + EPDM.