Crofter

That's a good point. I've worked in a few kitchens over the years and the stainless counters don't seem to flex that much. Maybe domestic ones are thicker because we tend to have them installed with a tiled splashback above, so any flex would eventually break the seal and lead to water damage. Commercial kitchens use freestanding units so don't have the same problem. Best place to find an old length of worktop is probably your local Facebook group or maybe Gumtree.

Depends on how far apart the supports are. Kitchen worktop is normally 44mm thick for stiffness. You don't want any bounce as you're chopping onions with all the ferocity of an aggrieved Gordon Ramsay. You'd probably be fine with thinner stuff, but at a guess I'd say half an inch would be minimum for a well supported worktop.

This is the way to go. I've thrown out perfectly good sections of worktop when replacing a kitchen. Can't even give them away.

It depends on where you get your news. If your main sources are the Telegraph, Daily Mail, and GB News, then you'll come away thinking that heat pumps are woke, EVs will turn your children gay, and renewables are an evil WEF conspiracy designed to bankrupt us for some nefarious purpose. Why doesn't the good news get more recognition? This isn't limited to renewables. Nobody is shouting from the rooftops about the modern day miracles that have happened in healthcare over the past few decades. Child mortality, maternal mortality, both slashed globally. Life expectancy and quality of life massively improved. Very few people across the globe area now in utter poverty.are In the UK, crime is down. Immigration is down (it spiked under Johnson, and it's now about half what it was at the peak). But as a nation we swallow Farage's tripe that tells us the opposite. Good news doesn't sell newspapers, or generate clicks. That's why our best selling outlets like the Mail are such purveyors of misery. Same as soap operas, which are hardly feel good comedies. To quote Mrs Doyle... 'maybe I like the misery"...

Your intuition is correct. Smooth bore rigid ducting is preferable for best performance.

The UK is, for once, a leader on decarbonisation. Something to be proud of. Strange then that all the flag yielding 'patriots' want to reverse that progress.

IKEA do worktops with a thin layer of real wood over fibreboard: https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/vrena-worktop-oak-veneer-00437167/

May I make a suggestion for some light reading that is pertinent to this discussion? 'Not the end of the world" by Hannah Ritchie... she's what you would call a techno-optimist. To summarise... yes, things are bad, and yes, they are going to get worse. But we are perhaps the first generation capable of actually creating a sustainable world. There are some amazing encouraging signs already. We probably won't hit the 1.5⁰ limit. But the closer we can keep to that, the better. It's better to have 2⁰ of warming than 4⁰. Global population is slowing markedly, and many countries including China have already passed peak per capita emissions. As populations level off total global emissions will fall, even without any major changes in energy use. And we are getting much more efficient with energy all the time. (Just think of how little energy a new build home takes compared to one from a few decades ago! Or a modern EV compared a 1990s Escort that did 35mpg!) Finally, there is plenty of low hanging fruit still available in the fight to cut emissions. It might be unpopular but reducing meat and dairy, and food waste, would be an enormous benefit. The world currently produces more than twice the total food calories needed for its population. But we feed much of that to livestock, and too much goes to waste. What's generally lacking from current discussions is data. Too many people argue from anecdotes. The numbers are all out there, we don't have to guess.

They are technically trade only, some branches are pretty relaxed about letting you open an account. You'll probably have to phone for prices. You may have to ask around and use a mate's account. Alternatively you can go to any kitchen retailer like B&Q, IKEA, or one of the online specialists.

Literally, any product made with a real wood final surface. Usually beech, oak, maple, or other hardwood. To save a bit of money you can get worktops which have a composite core and a thinner layer of wood on the top and the front edge. The alternative is laminate which has that composite core and a very thin layer of rigid plastic (usually called High Pressure Laminate, Formica, or Melamine). The plastic can be imprinted with a wood effect, or it can make to look like marble, granite, etc. (By 'composite' I'm meaning it's made if chopped up wood fibres mashed together with a binder. The end result looks a bit like Weetabix)

It's hard to beat a basic laminate worktop. Much cheaper than any other sensible option, very hard-wearing. I looked at some fancier options and couldn't justify the extra expense. Bear in mind I was building a holiday house so it needed to be pretty bombproof. For a house used just by ourselves, I would seriously consider real wood, and put up with the extra care needed not to cut or scorch it.

Or when my mate saw a great deal on an Islay whisky on Amazon. The bottle that turned up was a miniature.

So out of the half dozen emails and enquiries I sent yesterday, I've had two positive responses- both referring me to ADW. The others won't supply me because I'm in Scotland. Which is a bit odd because I would consider hiring a van and picking up the windows myself. But I don't really want that hassle unless it's really necessary.

I like ModernUPVC, and when I renovated my other house that's who I used. The online quote tool is my go-to device for getting a quick idea of the effect of different design decisions. However they don't offer 3G sliding doors, and in general their thermal performance doesn't really meet my needs.

I was swayed by the much higher performance. I've just been looking back at my quotes and it was uW of 0.83 vs 1.19 Do you have views on the window? I specced a side hung pane because I assumed it was best to have the hinges on the longest side. But having watched it sag and fail, I don't think the hinges were capable of handling the weight of a 1500*900 3G pane. I've since fitted some large top hung units which have been great. Unfortunately I'm struggling to find a company who will sell me a 1500*900 top hung window.

Is that expressbifolds.co.uk? Their lift and slide door offers u values "as low as 1.3" which is not terribly impressive. But maybe I have unrealistic expectations...

No, we spend a lot of time travelling and usually aren't on site. Even if we were, people are checking in any time after 4pm, depending how it took them to drive there. It's simply not possible for us to meet every guest. Our cleaner still didn't really get it after two years... When you look at the utterly inane questions we sometimes get, I have zero faith that people would bother reading or following instructions. We routinely get asked 'do you have WiFi... towels... cutlery... parking' despite all these things being clearly described in the listing. I did think about this. I could have a video of my 8yr old boy demonstrating how easy it is to open and close the door with one finger. I don't think it would stop some visiting rugby player from wrenching the handle off though. No I'm afraid that the only real answer is a different design of door. As a consolation, I might put this one in storage and use it in my next build, which is a house for ourselves to live in.

Sadly not. It has to tilt onwards before it will slide. There's nothing inherently wrong with the design. You can open and close it without any physical effort. But you need to know in which order the parts have to move. Push the button in with your foot, move the handle part way, push the top in, move the handle the rest of the way. If we were the only people using it there would have never been a problem. Thanks, they're on the list now.

Well it pains me to admit it but I'm going to bite the bullet and replace my troublesome window and door with something a bit more idiot proof. Both current units are 3G aluclad and under 1.0 uW. Both are fitted to a very exposed westerly elevation on a holiday cottage in NW Scotland. The door is a fancy tilt/slide design which has always bamboozled the guests. Several times people have checked out and left it hanging open because they've failed to understand how it works. Not great in our climate. Another guest broke the cast aluminium mechanism by trying to force it to close in the wrong position. I want to replace it with a simpler sliding type. I was offered a slider when I originally purchased the door, but the uW value was much worse. Presumably a slider doesn't close as firmly as a tilt/slide? The window is fairly large (1500h, 1800w) with one half opening. Last winter a guest decided it would be a good idea to open it in a howling gale. The mechanism was subsequently damaged and it failed to close correctly. Now there's water damage in the frame and I've had to screw it shut. I'd like to go top hung instead on the replacement. I've never had a problem with a top hung window. They never seem to sag or need adjustment. Looking for suggestions for a cost effective supplier. I'm happy to go uPVC so long as I can get my choice of colour externally. Feeling a bit wary about supposedly high end alu clad after this experience. My two concerns are: - finding a high enough performance sliding door that won't result in air leaks - finding a supplier who will do a large top hung 3G pane Let me know who you'd suggest and I'll stick them on the list to get a quote 🙂

It might turn out that all the Gumtree windows are rubbish, even if brand new. Funny how we have to fit 1.2 uW on new builds but it seems like you can get away with any old carp on renovations. Doesn't work that way with cars... built to a certain emissions standard and then a few years later you can slap in a different engine 😁 I did find a Rationelle window on there but there's not much point designing a house around a single secondhand window.

This is actually a more useful link- a whole set of windows and much more local to me. Shame I'm not actually looking to buy yet 😂 Could anybody tell me if the stickers on these indicate enough information for me to satisfy SAP/BCO? https://www.gumtree.com/p/other-building-materials/timber-windows-triple-glazed-as-new/1501911082 Edit: the stickers say uW of 1.6, which is terrible, and not compliant with a new build. I find that value hard to believe though. How on earth do you end up with 1.6 on a brand new triple glazed window?? Even accounting for some frame losses, these are timber. @craig any idea?

First hit on Gumtree: https://www.gumtree.com/p/other-doors-windows/new-upvc-window-triple-glazed/1468439009 (IMHO it's a ugly thing but you get the idea- people make mistakes).

It's hypothetical at the moment- was just wondering if I might be wasting my time going hunting for windows on Gumtree.

Looking to do a low budget build, some years in the future, and I was wondering about picking up some good quality windows on Gumtree etc. There seems to be quite a lot of stuff around, I don't know if it's from renovations, or wrong sizes being ordered etc. Question is, would I need some sort of certification to satisfy BCO about u values etc? If so, what would they be looking for, and would it be stamped on the frame or would I be needing documentation?

I don't know what current prices are like but when I built my roof in 2017 it was about £7/m² for corrugated steel That was the higher spec 0.7mm with plastic coating rather than paint. 0.5mm galv finish is obviously the cheapest option. I've got some experience of waterproofing between panels. I built an array on my boat and had the panels mounted on a tubular steel frame, which left about 50mm between each panel. I used twin wall polycarbonate sheeting cut in to thin strips, with a larger flange on the upper side, and simply held in to place with CT1. It lasted a couple of years including an Atlantic crossing and be when I came to dismantle it I could barely get the strips off. I think the UV exposure would eventually weaken the polycarbonate. If you're butting the panels up against each other, you've got it much easier. I would probably use a T-profile aluminium strip bonded on. Or use butyl tape. I'm not sure how much thermal expansion you'd need to allow for but I presume that information is readily available.