Crofter

Following my recent slight change to the thickness of the cladding battens in part of my wall buildup (which has saved me buying new windowsills!) I'll need to find new nails as well, as the 70mm ones I already have are going to punch through and neatly poke holes in the breather membrane. Looking for 15 degree flat collated coil nails, stainless steel, pref ring shank, anything from 40-60mm would do the job. Will need about 1000 of them. Just curious about where people source these, as the combination of stainless and coil makes them hard to track down. When I bought the 70mm ones I got a cracking deal on eBay- something like 6000 nails for £40. But the best I can find so far for these smaller nails is about £12 per 350 nails, plus postage, which is way more expensive. Am I missing anywhere obvious to buy these? I can find huge boxes (e.g. 16,000) or single coils, nothing inbetween.

I was under the impression that on box profile, you fix on the flats (easier to get a nice positive fixing?) whereas on corrugated, like me, the fixings go on top of the section. I assume that with a curved section you wouldn't be able to get a good enough seal if it was in the dip. I have seen little hollow tubes that you use with Onduline, the fixings go through these after going through the roofing, and this lets you drive the screw in tight without it deflecting the roofing material. Perhaps Dave used something like that?

Agree re the detailing at the junction between top of cladding and roof. Why not just fly the sarking over the top of the cladding, thus protecting the end grain, and providing a better lath for water runoff.

I decided to go for Makita when I started my build, and have not looked back. Forked out on a set of brushless driver and drill with 4ah batteries. I didn't fancy the larger kits as they tended to include at least one 'tool' that seemed not very important, e.g. a torch or a radio. Absolutely delighted with them. Found the best deals tended to be on eBay and mine ended up coming from Germany because the postage to the Highlands was cheaper! I've added a circ saw, grinder, and sander (I got that secondhand) and they are all very good. Batteries last for ages unless you are going really heavy on either the saw or grinder, which usually means jamming blades. I did briefly look at getting some gear secondhand but the prices hold up well and I decided it would be better to buy new and then sell on (I think this helped get it past SWMBO!)

Ok so one at the VCB (which is my airtightness layer), by roof junction so you mean the membrane or the metal? How do people seal the membrane penetration on a more conventional roof?

Is the issue making the seal, or is it providing sufficient support around the holes? Would you not need to batten this all out anyway to carry the edges of the plasterboard etc?

Revisiting this, I was chatting to the local supplier/installer for this sort of thing and he reckoned there was no need for a flashing at the membrane, or at least not anything that seals tight to the flue. He suggested simply diverting any water away from the hole with some sort of upstand, e.g. lead or even just something put together with battens. I'm not sure whether this is a bodge or actually quite clever, as it reduces the number of flashings, and avoids having them stacked right on top of one another. One worry I have had is how to make sure that I have no flue joints in the region of the flashings. With a 42 degree roof, it is hard to fit three flashings onto a length of pipe without one of them clashing with a join. It is recommended that all joins are accessible and anyway I expect it would compromise the seal on the flashing. I don't suppose anybody here has fitted a stainless flue to a metal roof? Although the issue with multiple flashings surely comes up regardless of roof construction?

Thanks- so that's a vote against anti condensation lining, then. When you say you used a membrane, would you not need one anyway under the roof, regardless of final covering?

Are these screws of which you speak an alternative to the type where you use a separate plastic cap to cover the head?

Mitred corners in the horizontal boards ought to work in theory, but it probably won't in practise. I put together a little chicken coop using some scavenged wood and thought I could do the corners like that. What happens is that inaccuracies of even 1mm are enough to open up gaps at the corners. unless you are some sort of superman and can work to submillimetre precision, it will look pretty rubbish. Luckily the chickens have not passed any comment! It also exposes lots of end grain so all round not a good idea.

First job I did on my previous house was replacing a small flat roof over the porch. It had been built using flooring chipboard as the roof deck and I nearly fell through the bloody thing! Replaced with WBP ply. I thought about fibreglassing it but decided for speed and cost to just put new torch on felt down. Ended up selling the house within five years so was probably the right decision, but if I had kept the house I would have gone for fibreglass- costs a bit more (for us, it would have been around 400 quid vs 100 for felt) but it should be fit and forget.

Yes, the smaller units tend to be less efficient and also lack the more advanced features (e.g. summer bypass). I'm quite interested in the Boulder units- anybody on the forum have experience of these?

Starting to shop around for my MVHR system, to serve my little 43m2 one bedroom cottage. I did get a quote from BPC who were very good to deal with but their system was based around a unit suitable for houses up to 150m2, and whilst overcapacity may be no bad thing, perhaps I can shave a bit of money off the total cost by shopping around a bit. In an ideal world I would have a unit sized appropriate to my house and with summer bypass and high efficiency. Humidistat control might be nice as I would like this to be able to run without any human intervention if possible. I have also seen some units featuring a heating boost which is certainly interesting as a house as small as mine might just get away with being heated in this manner, but I would need to research this and compare the added cost to just sticking in some panel heaters. There are some smaller and cheaper units around but from what I have found so far these are lower efficiency (c.70%- I wonder how much this matters in real life) and mostly designed for single room applications (despite having enough overall capacity for my whole house). Any tips/pointers?

I would just connect the condensate drain to the rainwater soakaway.

Most of the composite cladding systems seem to be designed to replicate horizontal shiplap, rather than vertical board on board. Have a look at Sioo treatment- they have a 15yr guarantee. @iSelfBuild has used it and seems pleased with it.

I've built my whole house without scaffolding. Have had some interesting moments perched atop a ladder at full reach. I find you reach a certain point and the sense of self preservation kicks in and you know when it's getting silly.

Yes this is an either/or situation.

Oh by the way the only real alternative that I am considering is to fit an inline water heater rather than an electric shower. But I assume that this makes no odds to the electrics side of things?

Hadn't heard of those, ta, but we have pretty impressive water pressure- we are directly downhill from the Scottish Water tank, with about 30m of head. When we first moved in I gave myself a fright when I turned the tap on!

What's a TT supply?

Thanks, Dave. Something like this? http://www.toolstation.com/shop/p14865?utm_source=googleshopping&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=googleshoppingfeed&mkwid=s3Z3fpJI3_dt&pcrid=99808204703&pkw=&pmt=&product=14865&gclid=CPaSkKXtvNACFcsV0wodTSQMUg

Erm, I may need some of this translated What do you reckon I need to buy, and is it expensive? Will probably get the sparky up the road to do the job (legal requirement anyway for this sort of job, no?) but as this is potentially only a temporary setup don't want to be forking out too much...

So the problems are threefold: - extortionate electricity bills (have had £500 for a quarter before, this is for two misers in a 90m2 house who use a woodburner as much as possible and do not expect to wander around in shorts and t shirts in the middle of winter. The water heater is the culprit, as when I have got away with turning it off and just boosting the water an hour before it was needed, the bill dropped hugely. I'm not allowed to do that anymore for, uh, domestic reasons, so the system stays on all the time. - poor flow rate and pressure at the shower. It's a gravity fed TMS coming from a loft header tank and vented cylinder. Exactly the same setup as I installed on my previous house (except that was oil fired) and the only difference is the make of shower. The previous house installation, with a Mira, was perfectly acceptable. This house has, if anything, more head, but some cheap unbranded TMS. I've switched to full bore valves on the pipes which helped a little, but still very poor. - insufficient quantity of hot water. We have the thermostat on the tank turned as low as we dare, to keep the bills down, and now that the weather is turning colder we find it is running out of hot water before the end of a single shower. And this is despite the poor flow rate of the shower itself. I'm sure there are lots of all singing all dancing solutions to this, UVCs and whatnot, but I have decided that spending a weekend and £150 installing an electric shower will let me turn the damn tank off and will give lower bills, more consistent showering, and probably a better flow rate. Even as a temporary solution it has to be worth a try. All my energy needs to be focused on the other house (the new build) so I am not getting bogged down improving this one at this stage. Remember I have 24/7 access to cheap rate electricity so there is not need for me to be paying for standing losses. Anyway, I wasn't really after a discussion on all the various options, just the specifics of installing a leccy shower.

Even a rubbish little electric shower will be better than what we have, believe me. Water pressure is excellent. Was assuming around 9kW, but whatever the supply allows me to do,

Our (current) house is all electric, on the 'Total Control' system. This means that we have two rates, one for space and water heating, and one for everything else. Currently we heat DHW using an electric immersion, but this is horribly inefficient as the small tank sits in a cold loft space and loses heat quickly. It also leads go a rather unpleasant showering experience. With SWMBO's words ringing in my ears ('dearest sweetheart, might you perchance be able to put your mind towards installing an electric shower, just when you get the chance.'- OK I'm paraphrasing as her actual words are not printable) I would like to install a basic electric shower. Question is- can I just buy a big enough breaker and stick in the existing CU? In our previous house there was a mini CU especially for the shower. I know these aren't that expensive but just wondering if it's needed or not?