Iceverge

@Arnold9801. @Gone West sprayfoamed his original house with icynene via a contractor. IIRC it worked well but there was a lot of waste. When I priced it for our own house it was quite expensive. If done incorrectly it can shrink and leave gaps. My preference would be for mineral wool or ideally blown cellulose behind a membrane. What is your current roof buildup? What kind of roofing membrane did you use? Do you have any photos?

@LSB. What a pain. I feel for you. Self building is tough on a greenfield site never mind having to deal with the issues of kicking an agricultural building, dragging and screaming, into a modern house. To me it seems absolutely ludicrous one cannot simple demolish and replace the exist structure with something externally identical. I suppose that's beside the point. Perhaps, given the reality of the works to be undertaken, the planners would now have some sympathy to this position? Secondly about the SE. If they are quite new to the role they are naturally very cautious, infact the exact right personality to be an engineer, however they may not have the experience to know exactly where the line is. Hopefully a senior colleague will have better news. As an alternative solution, maybe contact a local underpinning firm for a consultation. They may well have a cheaper solution that your SE will be happy with given their more in-depth knowledge of the situation. Good luck.

You could just put nets over them for the winter and do it in one go next year. Perhaps plant some new bushes and trees in the meantime that will ultimately replace the lost habitat.

If it has been pressure tested and doesn't leak now I'd say it's no more likely to leak than any of the other connections. It's hard to tell from the photo but I think the plumber has put a bend in the pipe. I think it's fine.

How much do you have to get rid of? I would suggest a digger and hire a proper branch chipper if you have a lot. Don't bother with the chainsaw. Having seen my share of cheap petrol chainsaws I'd steer clear. They're difficult to start, heavy and invariably break. The mains electric ones are actually quite good if you've got power. I bought a husquvarna helmet with a mesh guard and earmuffs built in about 5 years ago. Something light and comfortable so you will be more lightly to use it. Get a colour that will stand out and write your name on it so it doesn't go missing.

If you were ever to tile in future you might end up with cracked tiles. Also if you needed to remodel the kitchen you mightn't be able to reuse a duct under the screed.

It's a tricky one. You could substitute your 220x90 for 4x 110x54 mm ducts spaced out so the screed could bridge the gap. The most robust solution is probably down through the floor in the unlikely case you ever need to access the them again.

Here’s an example of a passivhaus in your climate. It’s 8w/m2K heating load is tiny. https://passivehouse-database.org/index.php?lang=en#d_5214 If you build a passive house and put a 5kw stove in it will be unusable for most of the year and only then probably with the windows open. Did you run PHPP on your build, I suspect cooling is a much greater issue.

Out of interest if you were to add a 45mm thermal break under the soleplate it would make it worse. Your internal thermal bridge would go from 0.0124W/mK to 0.0129W/mK. Hardly significant , about 1/2 a watt extra power peak heating load but really the definition of throwing money away for nothing. With your existing design (unmodified) the external thermal bridge is -0.02w/mK which satisfies the Passivhaus criteria <0.01w/mK.

To be honest you're pretty good as you are. I've attached some pictures of the Therm drawing. You can see how significant the steel is. It really is a tremendous conductor. You should aim to keep it as far away as possible from the inside corner. I've done a slight modification in the second two drawings by putting an extra 50mm of PIR between the screed and the wall. and putting 150mm x 25mm of PIR in the bottom of the service cavity. I reckon this reduces the internal thermal bridge from 0.0124w/mK to 0.0042w/mK or about three times better. However it only would reduce your maximum heating load by 10w if your house had a 50m perimeter! Like I said your design is fine as it is.

It's an intriguing design. I modeled it in Therm and came to the conclusion it'll be fine without. A couple of other improvements if you're chasing easy wins. The sole plate looks like 140x140. 140*45 would be better thermally. I assume you have 150mm PIR in the floor? If you were to move the entire floor up until all your insulation was above the steel it would help. Alternatively save some cash by replacing 150mm PIR with 200mm EPS. It'll raise the floor level 50mm further from the steel and improve the thermal bridge. I would get the best timber treatment I could for the soleplate and especially the vertical timber in the web of the steel. These will be cold and gather condensation. If you were to glue something like this between the timber and the steel it might help reduce the condenstation risk on the timbers. Someone will be along to tell me off no doubt.

https://catalog.mann-filter.com/EU/eng/dimensions This tool will allow you to input dimensions and find something close.

Carefully ( maybe attaching it with string to your wrist in case it drops) use your phone camera to make a video of the part you can't see. You might get a manafacturers mark then.

We have a normal through the wall kitchen extractor hood fitted with 2 x magnetic anti draft shutters. It works but in hindsight a good recirculating fan with a carbon filter might have been fine too. For the shower we just leave the MVHR run on normal and it seems to clear quickly enough anyway. Much quicker than previous houses with a dedicated bathroom fan. After 8 months the bathrooms are as dry as the rest of the house. If clearing steam is urgent we just open the window.

We have an all electric passive house. No heat pumps or stoves. Just an E7 cylinder and a single resistance heater. It's early days yet but I've been keeping a close eye on our electricity usage. PHPP has predicted 315kWh of heating for November, an average of 10.5kWh/day. So far we're on 9.75kWh/day. It's been mild so we'll see how the rest of the year goes.

Factor in the cost + availability of filters. Ours at €42 + €10 postage twice a year is expensive. Being tight I discovered that cabin pollen filters from a Corsa at €8 each can be made to fit with a supporting MDF frame. We didn't bother with any boost switch, or humidistat, or summer bypass or pre heater. Can't say I miss them but then I've never know any different.

"Store" them in your loft while you think about what to do. They won't do any harm. I'd line them up loose on top of any quilt insulation.

It's the diplomacy of keeping the area tidy and whodunnit when it resembles a yard sale! !! For noise isolation I would scrap the sliding doors. build a proper separate room. Thermal bridging isn't rocket science. You just need a completely continuous layer of insulation. If you can draw with a pencil anywhere on the plans where you can go from inside without bumping into a good layer of insulation you'll have a thermal bridge. Concrete is bad, steel is terrible. Having a look at the plans I'm beginning to wonder about the wisdom of the non aligning front wall. It'll add a lot of steel to the design, a lot of cost and be very hard to get right thermally. I would propose something like this. You'll end up with the same floor space but much less hassle. I appreciate the aesthetic value to the front of the house as is, but a good architect should be able to overcome this pretty easily. Also while we're at it bin the PIR in your roof between the timbers. It's difficult to fit (rarely done right), shrinks, leading to thermal bypass, offers poor heat protection (decrement delay), is poor in fire, burns toxically, is expensive, and offers little noise protection. Blown cellulose, mineral wool batts or woodfiber will be much better in real life. Have a look back at @ProDaves roof or @Jeremy Harris for good examples.

I had a look about 2 weeks ago. No condensation. Did a pretty thorough job on the airtightness layer however. 0.31 ach50. The pieces are about 500x500 just thrown on top of 400mm cellulose. Out of interest we had some extremely skeptical people on the build when I insisted on completely sealing the roofing membrane to the external plaster and taping all joints too. The cold roof space above the insulation is effectively sealed, depending only on the permeability of the Tyvek Supro for moisture control. We battened and counter battened and vented over the membrane. I must have been told 50 times that your roof will rot. Roofers were insisting a gale blowing through the rafters was the only way. On inspection the timbers were bone dry. No trace of mold or condensation anywhere.

I've done this with a few bits of PIR I had hanging about. I just chucked them flat on top of our blown cellulose insulation. I do like @willbish idea aswell. No point in binning perfectly good insulation.

It's tricky as they hold the keys to the law from a lay persons perspective. Maybe if you think this is a beneficial path make a query to another solicitor who isn't involved to explore the consequences. Just because you can doesn't mean you should! Clever design will give you plenty light and views without going to town on glazing. More glass means more heating and overheating, more steel and more expense.

Keep on the pressure and as soon as it's done change solicitor. We had a similar situation. It was frustrating at the time but we got through. More than dooable with a very straight forward design and avoid at all costs experimental or expensive materials + methods. Put the bulk of the budget into the structure. A second hand kitchen could get you going and easily save a 5 figure sum. Some shake hardner (£15/m2) on concrete floors will give you a lifetime floor for cheap. https://mollyglass2012.tumblr.com/post/48513565871/google-concrete-floors If you're going wood clad I'd opt for timber frame. It's a nice fit. If you're worried about material availability visit some local builders merchants and simply quiz them about what's always in stock. Tailor your house to suit.

I'm not convinced that you'll have much success with the single glazing unit so close to the wall. It looks very tricky to install and difficult to detail. Running a 3.9m roof window parallel to the existing house will no doubt create some issues with differential movement of the structures as they won't be tied together very well. This could well lead to leaks and drafts not to mention the nearer it is to the existing wall the more difficult it will be to keep clean with rain splashbacks etc. I would scrap the idea of a bespoke unit altogether. Detail the flat roof to wall junction as per a normal flat roof setup and opt for 3 900*1200 velux flat roof units placed at least 200mm away from the wall ensuring that there's plenty of clear area all around them for rainwater drainage. I haven't checked but I assume Velux (other brands available) have taken care of all the issues with breaking glass etc.

Remove them before the nesting season. March is when they begin so have them out beforehand if you can.