oranjeboom

Yes i do intend to apply a UV treatment to it. Mrs OB wants it to retain it's 'new look' whilst I don't mind it going grey....like all good things. And I have no intention of treating it yearly so it will weather. I'm thinking that over time, Mrs OB will not notice the gradual change.....

Thanks Dave. Some installers: "it don't matter when you install it. It's gonna shrink anyway..." But I'd prefer to be cautious rather than be looking at warped wood next year!

Not sure if this is the best place for this posting so admins pls move as you see fit. With both extensions up and now just waiting for the windows to go in, I'm getting organised to get the cladding on which will be WRC using a TGV profile. Window reveals will be done in cedar too. With 'summer' here now, should I wait to put the cedar on until the cooler months set in and the sun starts to disappear again? I'm wary that the wood will start to contort/shrink too quickly over the summer months. But then I'm also wary of my scaffolding costs and I'm tempted to get rid of it as soon as the windows are in and either erect again in October or use a couple of scaffolding towers instead. What is best practice? Timber merchant just said that he gets orders in all year round even during the summer - but then they're mostly big commercial buildings being clad where property owners aren't as picky with wood shrinkage issues. Thoughts?

Thanks Nick. yes, part of the plan was already to use acoustic wool in the ceiling. I wasn't going to go for resilient bars, but perhaps they will do the job. I already have 22mm egger board as the flooring and I read that acoustically it would be better to add either a thicker or thinner layer to the existing one. I will get a further quote for spreader plates then to see how that compares. But I was still thinking have a couple of rads upstairs may work. It's actually only 2 rooms upstairs (bedroom / landing / bathroom) approx 35sqm.

I won't have UFH and rads in the same space. I'm hoping the renovation is a bit better than that!! Fail safe would be the best approach. I can here the wife whingeing already about the coldness upstairs...Though, having lived in the static for 2 yrs, I hope she has become a bit more accustomed to 'cooler' temps! I did consider UFH upstairs but I need to lay down some acoustic boards up there anyway. Wunda do a combination product for this (http://www.wundafloorheating.co.uk/downloads/F09 Acoustic Fibre Overfloor Panels.pdf) but this seems ££££ for what it is. I didn't want to go for separate acoustic boards plus a separate UFH boarding system on top of that. I have threshold issues with the balcony door then also. So that's why I was thinking of connecting rads with TRVs to the boiler as an easier solution. I'm hoping they won't be needed a lot but be there in case the boss thinks it's too cold. FYI: bungalow will have 275mm EPS in floor, 3G windows, maximum loft insulation, 100mm EWI, so hoping heat loss is minimal. The two storey SIP extension will have 250mm EPS plus 50mm PIR so hoping for even less heat loss. Rising heat from here will hopefully be sufficient to travel upstairs to keep that warm enough not to warrant having the rads kick in.

My introductory spiel is always a bit long and the detail sometimes gets lost. I've been meaning to add a blog on ebuild (good thing I didn't) but will start one here as soon as i get the permissions. Bungalow is completely gutted, so all rooms have nothing in them apart from the walls, ceilings and a large 500mm hole in them. Ready for me to plant the potatoes in now. All rads were crap, full of gunge, pipework surface-mounted...yuk....now all rusting outside whilst I wait for the price of scrap metal to go up again!

Hi Nick, I thought you may contribute here! Well possibly. But only upstairs with TRVs. My SIPs extension won't be as ' thermally sound' as other builds on here, so I'm not convinced the 'no UFH upstairs' will work. Or should I be brave? That's why I was thinking of rads upstairs as a minimum.

We went (I mean the wife decided!!) for a grey in the end. I did want orange....(maybe when we get divorced I will repaint it!!).

Hi, Following on from advice received in the other 'world' (ebuild) I now have my final design for floor buildup in my renovation of a 1950s bungalow: 15mm Finished floor 100mm reinforced concrete with UFH (ie meshed) 275mm EPS70 DPM Sand blinding 100mm compacted hardcore 'type 1 MOT' Existing in-situ compacted ground Currently digging up 18t of hardcore and 30t of soil so that get the necessary depth. I've seen sense to get some contractors in for that part though. Back and knees are tired from all my toiling. But the rest I pan to do (i.e. insulation, UFH laying, concreting will be left for someone else as it needs to be level and power floated). Having spent many hours reading up on ebuild I still have some questions remaining: 1) House has PV panels and the original idea was to have an ASHP. Originally house had oil which I have stripped out. I did lay in gas pipeline for kitchen (wife only does gas...) but due to escalating costs for piled foundations for the extensions I will now fit a combi boiler. Perhaps one day when it makes economic sense will I change to ASHP. I presume that will be a fairly easy swap-over? 2) I'll have a utility and small bathroom where I will probably extend the loops from hallway into. But then also had a rad in each room also. Should I connect the rads to the UFH manifold or direct to the boiler feed? I presume the latter? Or should I have electric towel rads instead? Running costs/efficiency is my main concern. I can route plumbing to boiler feed up through the wall and into loft without too much aggro. 3) In a similar vein, I have a 2 storey extension (175mm sips) and am wondering whether to have UFH or to go for rads instead on 1st floor. The only reason I am thinking of UFH upstairs is because I wanted to add some acoustic boarding on the floor and one supplier is able to do that with a 2-1 ufh/acoustic board product, but seems costly at nearly 2k (34sqm, 150mm centres). This is the same cost as my ground floor UFH quotes which is 135sqm! So probably a better solution to get separate acoustic boards and then fit rads. So I presume I would connect the rads direct to the boiler feed rather than the UFH manifold that would be heating the downstairs pipework? Comments/suggestions welcome! OB

Beware of how the panels are fitted onto your roof too - if they are in-roof like Mr Harris above, then that would be ideal. But if conventional with rails etc, then often these rails turn out to be silver anyway, which kind of defeats your objective if you want to 'disguise' the panels as much as possible! My install ended up with aluminium rails which buggered up the whole look really. I ended up painting the rails where they were obvious and that helped disguise them a bit.

They sell a nice product and their salesman seemed to know most of his stuff or at least got someone to contact me when back in the office. They seemed very determined to beat Velfac's quote.....so worth getting a quote from them too perhaps. In the end other screw ups in the build meant I could not stretch to IC. I have a nice sample of their alu-clad profile if you want it!

Thanks for the input....I can see myself painting the door every year as the cedar transitions from red brown to grey! Maybe I should just go for a completely different colour altogether....blue or pink!!! May be the safer way to go!

I've ordered my front door from a continental manufacturer and need to provide them with a RAL or NCS colour code as I'd like them to match my cedar cladding. Any ideas what is the closest RAL match to unweathered Western red cedar is? I realise there will be colour variations in every cedar cut, but as long as it's a rough match.... The cladding won't be on the same face of the property, so a 100% match is not vital. I also realise that over time the cedar cladding will weather so eventually they won't match anyway. TIA! OB. PS: Good to be back!