MikeSharp01

Snap again - we are four years in, since planning permission granted 3 years of building, and just getting the roof rafters in which is a great feeling. I am not quite knackered but feeling the pressure now to crack so so having wished you all the best that is what I intend to do. Good luck - maybe I will have a coffee first - no just get back out there sharpie..

So is the access plan a very shallow ramp or do you want the ground everywhere to be at the level of the threshold. In either case there is nothing to stop you providing a trough as @Russell griffiths & pdf27 suggests and even if it is 600 wide there is nothing to stop you (them if its they who have to fix it) putting a grill on top of the trough so you can wheel across it although it will still fill with debris, leaves etc, and need regular cleaning so if you can get the telescopes that will be the better solution. As @pdf27 says if level access is in the spec then that is what the contractor should provide.

Our daughter, 28, checks that we still have all her notes in the GGE. Wonder now much it will cost us to help her buy a place of her own with room for 'notes'. We can talk J and I both still have all our Uni notes / assignments / letters (remember them) we wrote to each other stored in our loft along with the accretion of life together as a pair of baby boomers who's parents forced the never throw it away it might come in useful mentality upon us. Now we have sheds of sheds, hundreds of KwHr of combustible material, our children will look at briefly as they pass it from loft to skip - 8 yards won't hack it, or more probably just hand over the keys to the house clearance people and tell them to 'disappear' it all. I guess with the exception of her notes, son won't care a jot. Sentiment for sediment is a forgotten thing.

I suppose the question is how fail safe, it is a relative term? - IE fails safe every time or doesn't fail safe once every hundred million operations and burns the house down. Yep

Welcome to THE forum for self builders and like minded types.. Looks like a stunning project - enjoy the good weather.

Well at least you don't have to put up with the local Morris dancing crew, jangling and squeeze box, practising all day in the garden next door but one! Quiet today though - maybe the pro boxer next door has had words!

Yes but dragons can be slain can't they, particularly with money. PS Welcome to THE forum for self builders and like minded people

Hmmm -- it comes with 12 bales of warmcell as well, bit pricey, might try a cheeky offer once I have done the PHPP change to warmcell from current product to check all is well.

Welcome to THE forum for selfbuilders and like minded types. Our experience, still building in Kent, was to create a mood board, in our case a word document, into which we pasted dozens of images, furniture, interiors / exteriors / details from the web and photos we took out and about. We thinned this down and gave it to the architect as 'our sort of thing'. They then worked with that as their starting place. We have put a bedroom, with ensuite, downstairs as we are basically retired and we were wondering how long we would be able to climb stairs - however we put another upstairs and that will be our bedroom at the outset, the room downstairs will be our snug / guest room, albeit with a rather odd ensuite attached, complete with sofa bed. Our kids are grown up - well mostly, and live away so the extension we built at millstone manor is now largely empty - we have three bedrooms and a sitting room we don't use - how daft is that we now think. If I were going for a forever home I think I might just think about the tightest spot, when the kids were about 16/18 and create for that but working out how each of the spaces would be used once they are flown away. Eventually, one hopes, they will be back with partners & kids of their own so maybe those rooms will get used sometimes.

Wonder how that works - will have to investigate.

Can they modulate down any further though? Is that not just introducing more heat loss into the house.

That means just unlocking, they can open it - although in the Covid era maybe better of the 'entertainment' does not touch the door handle - no let them open the door, once unlocked, but fit these new fangled Silver Ion coated door handles that kill Covid. Simples!

Not sure why you would do this, it is after all a positive pressure system so the stuff in the air from inside the house will be on the inside of the outlet filter trying to get out, or already out - small enough, and creating a fallout pattern around your exhaust outlet and there is no connection between in an out flows in most MVHR systems, other than across the roof / wall between the external inlet and outlet.

Surely the door is smarter than to make you go around the town to lock it again. I recall having a car, I might still have it somewhere, that you can unlock remotely but if you don't open the door in 10 seconds it locks again so if you accidentally hit the unlock it protects itself and of course you could always hit the lock button!

Rafts tend to have peripheral drainage so working all the time to dry out the makeup below the slab thus reducing the likelihood of water up between the blocks.

Yes I wrote in the "Self Installed with MCS accredited sign of TBA" lets hope that works.

Probably - had not thought that high level - the form does after all cover all the technologies developing less than 50Kw (3Phase)

I am filling out my G99 A-1 form, it is the one that goes to DNO to get permission for connecting your PV supply and there is one question I am struggling with. In the Details of proposed additional Generating Unit(s) it asks for the Technology type. Any one know what technology type they are talking about is it: The cell system - Mono / Poly Crystalline. Is it the inverter type - EG String / with or without compensators / micro inverters. Is it the inverter 'system' IE with / without MPPT. Something else? Any ideas. (PS I know I could pay an installer to do this but I am seeing how far I get without doing that.)

Your right - the controller must be software cored and the interfaces common / industry standard so an accommodating controller seems obvious.

Then it all comes down to rate of delivery for DHW, there are electric combi boilers but the rate they deliver is pitiful - this one delivers 12L/M and needs a three phase supply, we need some massive kit that can deliver 20L/min at 50 deg C. You will have the potential current from the batteries - the average EV is many 10s of KW so not a problem energy wise it is down to getting it into the water fast enough.

Well it must be huge - we did our garden room through Howdens and it came in at 4k including appliances + fitting.

We used AFT (Advanced Foundation Technology) they did all the SE stuff on the slab based on what the structural SE said the loads were. It was not in Scotland but I know they work all over and his design got BC sign off.

Yes that is also an option - as I say if you cannot measure it you cannot control it.

Yep hot air rises so if you control it at the bottom it will affect the top but you probably need both and one right at the top of the house. The slab is the largest mass so controlling its temperature will use a big proportion of energy so you need to be in control of that as if things get out of hand there, heat wise, everything can go pear shaped and comfort on the floor is a key factor. You need one right at the top of the house to manage the accumulation of heat, open / close roof lights etc. Broadly the general rule that: 'if you cannot measure it you cannot control it' is in play here.

MVHR is more than air quality it also recovers heat and if you have the windows open in the winter you might find that feature valuable - unless you have pots of money and don't mind the challenge extra heating give the planet.