Iceverge

Are you growing weed or developing some commercially sensitive form of geranium? If not I can't see the issue. Can you elaborate please. Have they engaged with you informally and if so how did you respond? Escalating things to the solicitors level seems drastic and in the long term only benefits the solicitor. Have they explicitly said this?

Broken AAV. Air admittance valve.

Your wife is very very right. It's a house not a branch of currys. nothing more frustrating than being unable to work the controls. It's more expensive, more lightly to break etc. Single zone heating on a timer or single thermostat. All rads no plinth heaters or fan coils or UFH. UVC for DHW only. No messing with banking heat for space heating. It doesn't really work unless you have thousands of litres. dMEV to every wet room. Electric UFH in bathrooms on a switch or timer. Fastidious attention to Airtightness. As much insulation as you can fit. As much PV as you can fit. No home automation or connected nonsense. It's out of date as soon as it's installed and everyone who is not Geek hates it.

Fine, beware for DHW you're roughly halving the capacity of the store Vs an UVC. Eg a 500l TS will only deliver roughly half the amount of hot water a UVC will at the same temp. They work well with high temperature water supply though. I put a 250l Maxipod in my parents house. Good idea. Water is a cheap battery. Beware you may not have quite enough solar in shoulder months to achieve the 60ish Degs a TS needs to work. An UVC meanwhile will work right down to 40 DEG. Fine for DHW, however unlightly to do much for space heating. Beyond early morning. Rads everywhere. As large as you can fit. Simple cheap, all on the same zone. Put electric UFH mats in the bathroom on a timer for comfort. In my parents house the solid fuel cooker will often get the store to 70ish Deg + after which the rads will kick in to dissipate the excess heat. They'll be running at maybe 30deg which is far more comfortable than the regular "hot" rads you get. My point being, if you oversize your rads and run them at a low flow temperature then you'll have lots of the benefits of UFH without the complexity of integrating a new and old system. Good plan. If you were just to add 10mm of PIR under the floor though it'd make a world of difference. I did a thermal model here for someone ages ago. There's no mystery with internal insulation. Just make sure it can "DRY" more than it gets "WET". 1. Eliminate bulk water. Gutters, chutes , drains leaks driven rain etc. 2. Regulate internal humidity with mechanical ventilation. MVHR DCV and PIV is the hierarchy. 3. Don't build layers in manner that will trap moisture with materials of very low permeability, PIR, foil, polythene etc. 4. Stop air taking internal moisture where it should go via air leaks. Lime and hemp is good, but over sold IMO. A mild sand cement wall parge and tapes to the windows and floor for Airtightness. A battened layer of mineral wool for insulation and plasterboard would be fine. Airtighess is the key here.

If you have the time why not. We're in a borehole so I try to avoid copper and brass where I can.

Hep20 all the way home for me too. Less joints is always better than more joints.

Copper to Hep20 worked primo for me. Also I put Hep20 straight into compression fittings. Not recommended by @Nickfromwales but I've had zero issues with it. .........so far...... As documented previously I tried to insulate my way out of a hot water issue with a huge dead leg caused by moron plumbers. It didn't work. My philosophy would be to absolutely minimise the amount of water sitting idle in pipes and not bothering with insulation on them. They cool quickly regardless. Then MAXIMISE insulation around the cylinder including any pipes that are permanently hot. My only exception to insulating pipes is outdoors for freeze protection and inside for hot return loops. ( A good house design will make these redundant anyway)

That ply between the foil and the PIR will be cold and attract condensation and won't be able to dry out again unless you have superbly low internal humidity.

That looks like a problem that needs to sorted from outside. Can you get any picture of that?

Lol, wasn't actuallly ment to be a joke! Yes noise transmission would be a potential downside.

There's not much margin for labour for a plumber in it I guess. Nobody likes doing themselves out of a job. It won't pop out, it'll weep a little at the joint. Usually from a scratched pipe. The joints can be disassembled but it's more fiddly than the videos suggest. One thing I noticed about them was there's less water hammer than multilayer barrier pipe and press fittings. Time spent with a a pen and paper before install will be well worth it as they'll look a mess if you don't plan it all out.

I don't know why we don't use more insulated metal panels on houses. They're extremely fast and perform very well.

Mortar is sloppy work by nature. If you want zero drips use a different method. Like @saveasteading says the most important thing is a workable system . My preference had I to do it again would be to extend the cavity as low as possible so that any fallen mortar would still be far below the floor level. Have a hose on site to give a quick rinse of the ties at the end of every block laying session to clear them of any mortar. Pump the cavity with EPS beads.

+1 for Hep2O. Plastic pipe tidiness is directly proportional to the amount of clips used. The fact the fittings are double the price would have a lot to do with it. Building industry is slow to move from what they know too.

Can you drag out the local planning applications and read the planners comments. Know exactly what everyone else got shot down for and you'll have a very good idea what is best to apply for.

One key point about warm deck roof construction that I dislike is that plywood gets trapped between multiple layers of impermeable material with no opportunity to dry through ventilation. If there's any excess moisture or construction moisture it can't go anywhere, potentially storing issues for freeze thaw action or organic matter decay. In the above diagram every piece of timber has the chance to dry to air.

Sorry no sketch. My family dragged me off before I got my drawing finished. As ever durability, cost and buildability are top of my agenda. Couple of points to discuss with your designer. 1. The steel looks like a 305*102 UB of some description. I would try to get it swapped out for 2 x C24 300*75mm timbers or maybe a Gluelam. For a TF building they would be far easier to fix to and present less thermal bridging issues and be about half the steel price. 2. Those pozi joists look to be only about 180-200mm which really isn't the best application of them in my opinion. You are gaining little of the potential strength of them by having such a thin depth . If you were to replace them with 225*75 solid joists you'd save a ton of cash and be able to collect them from any builders merchant. They'd be simpler to trim and adjust on site for chippies too. 3. To get the desired slope I would just rip a 100x75 timber onto a wedge and hammer it on top of the gable walls and use them to slope all the joists. Accept a 2 degree fall in the ceiling inside too. It'll be imperceptible. No need to source tapered insulation or multiple fitting strips. Here's my proposal. 225*75 joists in lieu of posijoists. Cheaper and easier to source. 100mm mineral wool batts between joists. Easily sourced and cheap. 11mm OSB layer returned to internal airtighess layer at perimeter with strips of membrane. Joints all taped externally for ease of construction. 2 X 50 mm layers of PIR staggered taped.and foamed joints, to mitigate gas migration and board shrinkage. Breather membrane. 38 x 50 mm battens at 90 Deg to joists for ventilation/drainage plane to be continuous with wall ventilated cavity 18mm ply deck to support EDPM or GRP. Build the parapet on top of this layer of ply allowing the ventilation to go under it and down the wall cavity.

I might try to sketch something later if I have a chance

Yes. However a single skin layer for water proofing is more vulnerable to long term damage than a system which deals with 99% of the bulk water with a primary external layer, then a ventilated gap and then a secondary impervious layer that will allow any drips drain away by gravity. A cavity wall, a slated membraned roof would be examples. Relying on a single waterproofing layer such as an EDPM over a warm roof, rendered external insulation, or a bituminous flat roof is less robust long term. The waterproofing layer is assembled on site, generally relying an adhesive of some sort to cure correctly. Moreover the elements will be directly pummeling the only waterproofing layer increasing the lightly hook of leaks.

That'll be fine. Personally I would always prefer a ventilated gap above a drainage plane but what you've got will work.

Parapet. Flat roof! Can you design them out?! A cross section would be good of what's proposed.

Waiting to take flak again for this. Is an A2W ASHP the correct choice for your farmhouse? Those room heat losses suggest that you have an older building that might be more suitable to intermittent heating. Espically if it's not occupied 24/7. Continuous maintenance of say 21deg will get very expensive unless you're in a super low energy building. Intermittent heating needs a high power heat source. Domestic heat pumps tend to top out at about 16kW while the smallest oil boilers begin at 20kW. You may simply not get enough power for economical operation with a heat pump vs FF.

@Chanmenie That sounds like a complete pain. I've been picking through my brain for ideas to save work. Cladding over thick external forum has been a debate on US forums for years. 1. You could build an independent metal or timber frame external to the ICF. 2. Maybe even a block wall. 3.Perhaps locate some kind of powder driven fixings that would penetrate all that EPS and concrete. 4. You could independently support the vertical battens at the top and/or at the base to take the vertical load reducing the need for so many fixings. Unfortunately the best answer I can think of is to install the vertical battens pre pour with long screws and let the concrete take care of the rest.

Any specific reason for the Celecon? It does almost nothing for the U value, costs more and cracks easier. Lighter to lift though.

Bought the USB C Flir for android. The resolution isn't mega but its good enough for DIY. Think it was about £150. Here's a pic of the UVC with the hot tap running. You can see the hotspots of the pipe going to the bathroom and the blanking plug. The dark blue line on the right is the cold inlet with the expansion vessel top left. The diagonal line is the vacuum cleaner! One of our windows from the inside. Our front door from the inside. It does a hybrid photo if you have lightning so appears better than it is resolution wise. You can see the thermal bridging at the locks, hinges and thresholds.