lizzie

I find - so far - my house is difficult to control its either too hot or too cold. That could be because of the issues I had with mvhr not being set up properly and ufh still isn't properly sorted (fingers crossed man is coming tomorrow). I am all in favour of exceeding building regs for insulation as I think its low bar but I am wondering if there will be significant benefits to this way of building (which is not cheap) when its all up and running properly. Time will tell I guess.

Interesting thread

https://www.nrshealthcare.co.uk/bathroom-aids/shower-seats-shower-chairs/shower-stools/height-adjustable-shower-chair-stackable it was something like this....not a thing of beauty but safe and stable and the height adjustment was useful.

When we did fil bathroom into a wetroom we went for a flat floor no tray (no step to trip over) and we had a curtain not a screen. That was on the advice of his carers as it is more flexlible and gives more room for carers when assisting showering. We also kept to a purpose made moveable chair ....got it from mobility dept.... again on advice of carers they said fold down too restrictive and not as safe. He was over 90 and needed help......Occ health assisted with positioning of handrails...we had a few!

@Big Jimbo I’ve not heard anything about potential contamination.....another scare story perhaps. If you can get them that cheap I would be tempted to go for it and hire in the equipment to lay it down. Sounds a steal and who will be asking for details of where it came from. Our build was signed off on the day road laying was going on in all the heat last year as far as I know he didnt ask the provenance of it!

If you are still in time to get external blinds then go for them you can get supply and fit zero rated but even if you had to pay the vat it will still be worth it. I was too late for blinds - by the time everyone acknowledged the problem it would have meant major works to retrofit and no one on site wanted to go there...the carpenter quailed at the idea of removing his beautiful cladding to get cable runs behind. Blinds inside the glazing are not as effective nor are internal blinds. I have an overheating problem with a house built to passive standards of insulation and airtightness with mvhr as per but solar gain not properly taken into account (thats another story). I always said I would have issues due to amount of glazing on south and west but was told it would be fine.....it was not. I have had solar film fitted to see if this will help but it was only done last October so this summer will give it a test. A bris soleil would help but design of house and roof and exposed location make this tricky. Internorm windows... I have them.....the windows are beautiful. The installers are the problem. Be aware of that if you do choose Internorm, the bad press on here is well deserved.

We were offered this method too. It seems a good way to do it. In the end we went with a different contractor as one offering scalpings couldn't meet our timescales, would have gone with it otherwise.

On the access road we used 50mm binder with 30mm top. That was onto the many many tons of compacted Type 1 we had used for the construction access road. We did the min we could get away with without being too skimpy (we don't own it). Using it are only us, rarely our neighbour if he wants to get to his bottom land (he owns access) and an occasional tractor going into field behind us. We had to do 300sqm so its wasn't cheap.

I have the sioox sample pots here...I tried it on some cedar and left it for a year to see how it developed. I decided to go for larch in the end and had it pre treated in the factory with silvabp ( a sioox type product). I still have the sample pots of sioox if anyone wants to try it. OP wanted to keep the natural orangey hues of the cedar - sioox will silver it - it just evens and accelerates the natural weathering of the cedar so you dont get stripes of light and dark and black areas as you do with un treated cedar until it weathers down over a number of years. I think keeping the orangey hues is a big ongoing maintenance task. It will need treating every few years.

My neff is in the open plan kitchen and it is silent. It is built in though. In the Utility I have a freestanding american style side by side which I bought for the rented property I didnt pay a huge amount and it is a really great piece of kit and very quiet I’m so impressed with it. Brand is Haier

@Nickfromwales thanks thats fine on supply and fit and ok with white inside.... the rest of the garage painted white inside. Appreciate your help

I hope not! My cladding is mainly on the exposed western elevation, I’m on top of a ridge and the wind and rain can be brutal. Hopefully not as bad as the Cairngorms though :-))

Looks lovely you must be very pleased.

@Nickfromwales I think I would need to replace the lot including the threshold bit......I think its the cill I mean there not entirely sure of correct terminology. I dont want to do a half job. I dont think I need to be too precious about the Ral as long as it is anthracite. Its not next to anything to 'match'. The trad panel style in example wouldnt go though it would need to be more modern - flush is what I have now but it doesnt have to be flush just not trad panel. I have no idea on price last door I bought was an Internorm one :-((( As long as not megabucks then fine - what is on example seems ok. I dont think we have any need for increased security on door garage is alarmed and we are behind big gates and walls LOL @JSHarris sounds as though he has found a good product that didnt break the bank although I appreciate prices will have increased by now. Thank you.

Is that particular to Scotland? I dont have a masonry leaf between my tf walls and cladding.

@Besidethewye my plant room is approx 2m x 1.5m. I have large hot water tank, ufh manifolds, mains gas boiler, mvhr, a wall of drivers for lighting, a data cab and god only knows what else....they place is a mystery to me! Not one single pipe is lagged in anyway at all. I have an MVHR extract in there too. It was as hot as hades in there and that transferred to the utility room next door, couldnt get it below 26 on a cool day. My MVHr and UFH were not set up properly and this was exacerbating it. The boiler was firing almost continuously (large gas bills). Now I have those things functioning better it has improved but it is still very warm in there.

@Nickfromwales its RAL 7016 anthracite door is 1980 high x 840 wide plus the frame whole opening is roughly 2060 high x 925 wide. then there is a threshold and habing just tried to measure that (about 60mm) it seems to be sitting in thin air I can get my hand underneath and put my fingers into the cavity.... is it supposed to be open underneath like that? I think I would need frame as well as door. thank you

Yep the fittings are corroding...whole thing is very unsightly. Wil have a look at door/window companies too thank you. My biggest diffuculty is going to be finding someone local to fit the thing.

it was my carpenter.... he got it and fitted it. He got it and I reimbursed but cant find invoice to see what sort of door (and so work out if is faulty) Given the state of it my first thought was an internal door......it is quite exposed too.... He was so good with everything else hard to think he would have fitted the wrong type of door its just as much work to fit the right one. Does anyone know if I go for one of the steel ones above (thank you @Ferdinand) do I need the surrounding frame and thresholds too. Its fixed onto an uninsulated cavity brick wall. Currently it is a timber surround and threshold I dont want new door and then get problems later with frame etc

I wish.....

We have a side door into the garage. It has a timber door on it, door only went on last autumn was brand new and was painted here on site. I’m not clear exactly what the door is made from. Over the winter the door appears to have warped and looks like some sort of delamination going on at the bottom. I have not dared to try opening it as I doubt I would get it closed again. Less than 6 months seems a remarkably short life span for a door. Think I need a new door. Any suggestions.....I dont want this happening again in a few months. Will need to find a local company to do it.

This is cedar, its carved from a log of a tree my newphew cut down somewhere in Hampshire. It has had no treatment whatsover and is just out in the garden in a fairly exposed location. Its weathering nicely 5 years on. I went for larch cladding in the end as I saw some I fell in love with. I had spent time looking at cedar cladding weathering at different points - 1 year, 2 years etc and found the uneven weathering look not what I wanted. I also looked into having it treated with siouu (?spelling) to help miniminse that. Also the mix of colours the new cedar comes in was again not what I wanted. Had been set on cedar (blame pinterest) until I saw my larch and that was it a coup de foudre for me. I think it depends on the look you want to achieve. If you go for a natural untreated cedar be prepared for it to take a few years to achieve an even silver colour.

Try having the sap done on the wrong house spec.......

I think the building industry is rotten and the so called ‘trades’ the professionals who charge us significantly more than they charge developers are the worst. There are few real tradesmen around these days...I was lucky with my wonderful carpenter who was the saviour of the build. Generally it seems the standards of building in this country have sunk very low. I do know of cases where NHBC have paid out....not easily but they did....I acknowledge that is not usual either. I think the poor standards evident in mass building do transfer to us too.....just look at issues with slabs, timber frames, bricks, blocks,, windows, poor plumbing to name a few that have been discussed on this forum I had my last house built 30 years ago by a builder (now quite a prestigious small developer) who was and is a personal friend. The general house build quality then to now is very different, he still builds to a high quality and charges for it. If we had been going to build a ‘conventional’ house he would have built it but as we wanted tf passiv style he said not for him so we ended up with so called experts who in reality knew probably less in a lot of areas than the more experienced members of this forum. I think there is a little bandwagon of people setting themselves up to ‘help’ selfbuilders(at a cost) and it does the industry no favours. It is not just my own personal experience I refer to I have spoken to others who have been down similar roads. Because they are ‘professionals’ the warranty providers and building inspectors like them.......more than they do Joe Bloggs the self builder doing his own stuff and doing to it an undoubtedly higher standard. Its all a racket......if only we could tell them all to go and put their warranties where the sun don’t shine. Unfortunately we self builds have to stick with the frustrating situation if we ever want to sell or get a mortgage.

Postition of intake cant change air if its full of smoke etc it will still get pulled in mvhr filters pollutants - large or small dependent on your filters - not noxious air..also I had not from external air intake but from trap......my condensate drain kept drying out and I got sewage smells pumped round the house was awful!