Jeremy Harris

I made a thin partition wall between our bedroom and a walk-in wardrobe space, that's a fraction under 45mm thick. It was a bit unconventional, but has worked surprisingly well, and seems every bit as solid as a conventional stud wall. I made the wall up as a sandwich of 12mm MDF on either side, with 20 x 44 PAR battens glued and screwed to the MDF at ~400mm centres. I filled the screw holes, sanded the faces, sealed with diluted PVA and painted as normal, and I can't see the difference in finish between that wall and the skimmed and plasterboard walls. Hard to judge the sound insulation, but it doesn't seem to be that bad, although this was a pretty non-critical application. I only made the wall this way as it was an afterthought, and space was very tight, so I was trying to gain every little bit I could. I think that glueing all the battens to the MDF probably increased the stiffness and solidity of the thing.

Clean up the edges around the hinge cut outs, then cut and fit slim graving pieces of wood to fit, glue them in with a decent adhesive, like one of the quick setting polyurethanes, then sand back and fill any slight imperfections. Filler is likely to chip and crack with time, and it's much easier to do the repair now, whilst you have good access with the door off.

I've been doing battle with this for the past couple of years. It got established when the plot was still a bare site, and I thought I'd got rid of it by burning it all off with the big gas weed burner I used to clear all the other weeds, before we added fresh topsoil and did the landscaping. For the area around the trees at the front I covered the ground with heavy duty black weed fabric (the tough, woven, stuff), tightly pegged down and then covered with a layer of bark chippings. The mare's tail came up through the fabric, and I thought I'd managed to kill it off with repeated treatment of glyphosate, trickled on to the heads so it ran down into all the spiky bits. Last year the stuff came back, and I repeated the process, and I've just done the same earlier this week. I rather think I'll be fighting this every year, as it seems to be remarkably resistant to being killed off, with shoots coming up through the weed membrane right across the whole area.

Any chance of a photo of the gap around the walls? Presumably the slab doesn't extend as far as the garage walls all around, but has a gap around the periphery, is that right? This seems odd, as normally a floor slab will either be structural, with the walls on top, or will be poured after the walls are built on top of trench foundations, using the walls to contain the concrete. From your description is sounds almost as if the floor slab was poured into shuttering before the garage was built, then the shuttering was removed and trench foundations dug around the slab (awkward and not something I've heard of). I wonder if that small bit around the edge might just be a shallow recess from where boards or battens were put in at the time the floor was poured, to set the level of the floor. Might be worth picking away at the dirt in it to see how deep it is. I'd be inclined to fill the gap up with a bit of strong mortar if it were, me, before laying any tiles.

Best approach is to try and keep the heat out as best you can, rather than try and deal with it once it's got in and warmed things up, so the idea of fitting external blinds on the Velux windows is a very good one, if the budget can stretch to them, as those windows are going to be the main source of solar gain. High decrement delay insulation definitely works very well, we have a South facing roof elevation, with the bedrooms in the roof space, and are in a sheltered spot that tends to be warmer than the average for the area, and yet very little heat seems to penetrate through the roof insulation. I've tried to measure it, but haven't been able to see a significant increase in the temperature of the internal skin at all. We have 400mm of pumped cellulose, giving a U value of about 0.1 W/m².K. PIR has the advantage of giving a better U value, or the same U value for less thickness, but it has a pretty rapid decrement delay, so prolonged sunshine during the day will get through it. Whether this can be mitigated by the combination of a reflective membrane plus very good ventilation under the roof covering I'm not sure. The latter makes sense anyway, as it would mimic the effect of something like a safari roof, as fitted to some Landrovers (and that works very well). Given that A/C units aren't very expensive, I think I'd at least build in provision to fit one. I'd not be without ours, it's running right now and is keeping the bedroom at a nice and comfortable 19°C, whereas downstairs it's sitting at a bit over 23°C at the moment, with the floor cooling and MVHR cooling running . . .

The important bit is really whether or not the connections are accessible or not. If connections are going to be permanently hidden away inside structure, then they need to be maintenance-free connections, if not, then ordinary interconnections, like screw terminals, can be used. Screw-type terminations aren't classed as maintenance-free, so cannot be buried inside stuff, unless there's some sort of access cover to get at them for inspection and test. Wago connectors are classed as being maintenance-free, as they don't use screws, so are OK for use in places like this, as long as they are enclosed in a suitable box, with cable strain relief. FWIW, I pretty much exclusively use Wago connectors, mainly as they are just so quick and easy to use. Being maintenance-free is just a bonus.

You can just use a Wago box, with some 222s: https://www.screwfix.com/p/wagobox-junction-box/7355f

When I fitted ours I just put a shallow back box in the wall behind the mirror, recessed more than normal so that a flex outlet plate could be set back a bit and not hit the back of the mirror. T&E runs to the box and plate and the flex from the mirror is terminated and secured by the plate. Something like this: https://www.screwfix.com/p/lap-25a-unswitched-flex-outlet-plate-white-with-colour-matched-inserts/89178

Ivy is a PITA, as the leaves are waxy, so the stuff tends not to wet them very well, which in turn means it's less effective. There is usually a small amount of detergent in glyphosate, to help get around this problem, but I found that adding a squirt of washing up liquid helped a bit. It worked at our old place, where I needed to kill off a fairly large area of overgrown ivy, but it did take two or three applications, spread apart by a few weeks, to be effective.

I guess you've not read the introduction to Part M, then, as the INTENT (as I mentioned above) is very clear. Deflecting the debate into what the mass developers get away with is just yet another diversionary tactic. I couldn't care less what others do, TBH, and certainly feel no emotion about it one way or the other.

Not my personal opinion though, is it? The intent in the regs is very clear, that anything other than a ramp is very much a less preferred solution, with the intention that it should only be used if the topography of the site is such that a sloped approach isn't practical. Deflecting the argument on to a totally different topic, like planning, is completely irrelevant and in no way connected to the intent behind making all new homes accessible.

Looks very good to me, and seems to follow all the basic principles, like trying to maximise the path length across rooms, avoiding "dead" spaces and extracting overhead sources of high humidity.

Shows they just don't understand the basic physics involved. As @Mr Punter rightly says, the ducts will almost certainly be above dew point, and anyway, as soon as the MVHR boosts when a shower is run the increased air flow rate and mixing from the "dry" extract ducts will reduce the humidity level at the MVHR. MVHR units are designed to deal with internal condensation, and usually have a condensate drain specifically to drain away any condensed moisture. It's not possible to "over run" an MVHR, sounds like a bit of hocus pocus that someone has made up, to me. Humidity will never get close to 100%, I think the very highest I've ever recorded on the extract side of ours is about 70%, and that was exceptional, it rarely rises above 60%. Me too. We have ours set up with a humidistat, that boosts the MVHR when the humidity rises. It boosts a minute or so after the shower is turned on and stays in boost mode until the humidity drops below the trigger threshold (usually about ten minutes or so). I can be wrong, and have been, many times!

I'm coming around to this view. My wife's been an avid iPad user for years, now on her third one, I think, but she still had a Windows PC until last Christmas, when I got her an iMac. In terms of my workload it's the best thing I've ever done. Instead of having to try and resolve some problem with her PC (almost always Microsoft-induced) every few days I now do nothing at all. The mac just works, and despite not being very tech savvy she can do all she wants to do with it, and never has a problem. As an example of a bit of kit that just works, with no need for device-stopping updates, problems created by stuff not being compatible, etc, it's pretty hard to criticise. The only thing I find a bit annoying is that getting it to file share with the Linux file server isn't exactly easy.

FWIW, I'm intimately familiar with Part M, but just because there are sections in there that allow for some leeway with provisions where the site topography is such that steps MAY be permitted doesn't mean that everyone should just ignore wheelchair users and install steps just because they want to be bloody-minded and selfish. The intent is very clear, new homes should be designed and built to be accessible to all, without needing expensive alterations through life. Having been through the pain and grief of adapting a 1930's house so that it was partially wheelchair accessible, I think it needs to be absolutely mandatory that all new homes are made accessible where it's practical to do so. For a house on a fairly level site there is absolutely no reason not to have good wheelchair access, with no steps. It may well be that a reasonably fit wheelchair user, in a lightweight chair, can negotiate steps with a long enough going and shallow rise, but age will reduce that ability, as it reduces mobility for us all. Doesn't matter whether a house has a disabled occupant or not at the time it's built, such short-term, rather selfish, thinking is precisely why the regs are worded as they are. In my view they should be enforced more tightly and steps should be prohibited altogether, and the current get-out that allows steps where the topography of the site makes a ramp difficult should be removed, as the last thing we need is new houses being built that may create problems for future occupants. Neither of us have limited mobility at the moment but that didn't stop me from going over and above the requirements of Part M as far as designing and building the house to make it easily accessible. Apart from the gentle ramp and level access into the house, all the doors are 33" wide, to give a wider clear access (saves rapped knuckles for wheelchair users), all the door thresholds inside the house are completely flush, and all the internal doors open in the easiest direction for a wheelchair user. I also installed 18mm play strong points behind the plasterboard alongside the straight run of stairs, to allow a wall mounted stairlift to be fitted if need be, and made space at the bottom of the stairs for it to be safely parked out of the way.

I found that I needed silencers on both the fresh air supply and extract, too. The one on the extract side made a really big difference to the boost noise level in the utility room and downstairs WC, probably as both are pretty short duct runs. I also noticed a difference in the price between the different colours. Originally I was planning to colour code the extract and supply ducts, but the blue duct was a fair bit cheaper than the red duct, so they're all blue.

Definitely best right over the shower, for two reasons. Firstly, that's where most of the humid, warm air will come from, so it makes sense to remove it as closely as possible from where it originates, in order to minimise the spread of humid air around the bathroom, where it may well condense out on surfaces. Secondly, showers are often towards the end of a bathroom and it's always much better to place both extract and fresh air supply ducts as far away from doors as possible, and never in the centre of a room, as being as far away from the door as practical allows the longest diffusion path across the room and so minimises any spots that might hold "dead" air.

Depends on the AP. Some can be powered over Ethernet (PoE) so only need a run of Ethernet cable. Some need no data cable as they will work as repeaters, so just need power, some will need both an Ethernet cable and power. My inclination would be to run power and data cables to anywhere you think you might need them in future. I added several Ethernet cables around fairly late on during first fix, as a bit of an afterthought, and wish now that I'd run several more, especially through to outside, for things like CCTV etc.

I think a large part of the UK - Ireland commonality comes from both the close historical connection plus sharing a border. A great deal of Ireland's trade is with the UK, and vice versa, so it's made sense to have agreements to accept standards etc for decades. The same applies to travel, the UK - Irish border has always been transparent, with no need for passports, since long before the EU, as the UK and Ireland Common Travel Area agreement goes right back to before the founding of the RoI, with the 1923 agreement to establish the Irish Free State . Irish citizens living in the UK have the right to work, study and vote in UK elections, and vice versa, as well as access to health and social care.

SSEN initially requested that we install 150mm black Rigiduct for their underground cable, then, when the local chap came to have a look he told me he didn't see the point of using duct and asked if I'd mind just laying their cable in the trench if he dropped a reel off . . . We did this, laid their cable for them directly, leaving connection pits for them at the ends. Damned good job we hadn't already bought the duct!

As above, there will be a tiny increase in flow resistance from the increased surface friction from the changed duct cross sectional area to surface area ratio, but the impact of this at flow velocities below 2.5 m/s is going to be pretty tiny, and almost certainly way below the restriction that will be imposed by whatever sort of balancing valve/restrictor that needs to be fitted to every duct run. Assuming this is a radial system, then the total flow resistance is 90% determined by the balancing valves/restrictors, rather than the duct frictional loss, and it's usually pretty easy to just adjust this during commissioning and flow testing (although this is an iterative process and a bit of a PITA to do).

AFAIK, the acceptance of Irish building standards by the UK, and vice versa, predates the EU by a long while and isn't directly connected to it even now. The UK and RoI have had special arrangements for accepting each others standards etc pretty much since the formation of the RoI, which is why, for example, you'll find things like 13 A plugs in use in the RoI, albeit under the Irish version of BS1363. Many Irish standards are re-drafted UK standards, anyway, the exceptions being odd things like electrical cables, where the RoI insists on having T&E with an insulated CPC that's the same CSA at the two live conductors, IIRC.

We have the meter in a box in a fence outside, with two sub-mains running from it, one to a weatherproof CU that has cables feeding the treatment plant, car charge point ,water pump shed, and garage about 35 metres away and one feeding the house CU about 15 metres away.

Our intake is on the North wall, exhaust is on the East wall. Not ideal, as any sort of a breeze when I was trying to balance the system seriously upset the measurements. One of the things planned for when I eventually get around to extending the intake is to also change it's direction to it also faces East.

I used one run of the slim rectangular duct in a tight spot, it seems to be fine. The shape makes a very slight difference to the frictional loss, but not enough to worry about.