mickeych

Agreed - most of the suppliers give it fancy names like Aragon, or Castille. £60/M for 'real' Portland stone sounds like a steel though

I'll agree with that.

Ditto

You are right Alan. I made an initial payment of 10% as a deposit back in May and then a 25% of the total fee in September for the purchase of materials for an install (UFH, ASHP, 2xMVHR) due to have started in October. You are also correct about the subtlety of this. I am trying to work with the founder on a personal basis to resolve things amicably. Given the choice I would not have done this, but I cannot afford to lose such a significant chunk of money from the budget.

That makes sense. We have one consumer unit in the kitchen/breakfast area and the other covering the bedroom and living area (including the ASHP) so it probably makes most sense to fit a battery in this area as it also has it's own HWC as well as fridge freezers etc. If we really needed to, we could run power to the tanking pump near the living area) via an extension lead.

OK I think that I understand about the slab. So in effect if we heat up the slab at night and it depletes too much during the day we will end up having to run it longer to catch up? We've got 2 CU's one each end of the house and based on modelling, we will only need 2 phases at maximum load at any time (so probably not getting close in real terms!) There is room inside at/near both CU's for a battery as we have plant areas at both. Assuming that since the delivery of electricity from the line in will be AC then it makes sense to go AC (or does this have an impact on our future desire to add solar which may be DC!?) I like the Givenergy units as they were recomended by others, am I right in thinking that many batteries have limitations on the capacity to provide power?

Very interested in this discussion as I am going through the process of including batteries in the energy setup in our build. We have a 3 phase supply but don't currently have solar, although it is planned for longer term, and we expect to use the ASHP to heat the slab and HWC for water at low cost overnight. Working from home continuously using electricity (no gas) and with a fair number of power outages (around 5-6 per year up to 8 hours), with tanking pumps that need to be available in poor weather and with the drop in battery costs, we are looking at the option of including a battery backup. Questions that come to mind: 1. What spec should I really be looking at to deal with the 3 phase? 2. Where should it be located? 3. Do we need an inverter (we are not intending to export it back into the grid at this point) 4. If we are looking at 'whole of house supply' replacement from a battery is this a) unrealistic, b)ridiculously expensive, c) unduly complex - or all 3!😉

With all the rain we have had over the last few days there seems to be a lot of water on our site (again!) Glazing is mostly in and we are insulating the warm roof and floor before adding the DPM and screed. I'm interested in some thoughts on where we are seeing damp appear and how we best deal with it: There seems to be a lot of water on top of the waterproof membrane we have in place (the building has been tanked) - Waterproofing company suggests that this is condensation and have pointed out that we have no water under the membrane so it has to be coming from above. The Builder, (reliable and very capable) also independently suggested condensation although there does appear to be a lot. There does appear to be condensation on the backside of the Cellatex, but the water is only on 1 side of the building which if it is condensation is strange. Am I missing something? What do others think? We also seem to have ingress between the natural stone gable end of the original old barn and the new stone roof of the attached rebuilt stone byre which makes up our kitchen and utility. The builder reckons that the water is tracking down through the lime mortar joints and running down the internal wall between the old and new. His solution is to seal up the stone and mortar with a sealant that will need to be reapplied every few years... This doesn't seem like a great plan, but are what do others think and what are the options on something like this?

Just heard that Air Craft who are based in Chichester and have a stand at the NHBC are going into administration. If, (like us) you have paid them a deposit for an install via a bank transfer you are likely to lose all the money. Lesson to all - pay any deposits on Credit card and benefit from protection under the Consumer Credit Act Section 75.

Does anyone have any experience of installing a fire escape window from a 1st floor bedroom without a window into the ground floor kitchen/breakfast room as an escape route. We have a listed building which we can't get permission for an external window for the bedroom, but we do have permission to create an opening between the bedroom and the kitchen (originally intended as an ensuite). The Fire Engineer seems to think that this might work as the height between an escape window in the bedroom and the kitchen is 2M. There are other means of escape, through another bedroom window (over a non-securable landing) or down the main stairs, and we have agreed to automatic venting through the rooflights and an upgraded alarm system, but the question is whether anyone else has experience of an odd situation like this? I am suspecting that it will come down to BC and how they are feeling about it, but has anyone had any similar experience?

We haven't designed in a specific level of air-tightness to this old stone barn conversion and the target was initially 'just lower than 5,' but we are sold on centralised MVHR for air quality and was hoping for some HR. But reading the advice regarding HR and airtightness correlation, I am thinking that we need to revisit our levels of airtightness. Is it worth trying to improve airtightness with https://www.aerobarrieruk.co.uk/ or is it unlikely to make a huge difference long term?

I had a design spec'd for us last year by Omni and they where mostly using floor supply outlets and in the planning, as Jack says, they recommended that they work fine if they are in a remote part of the room that won't be covered by furniture. We may still opt for a floor outlet in 1 bedroom, so good call @Sparrowhawk I had almost forgotten with everything else going on at this stage! 🫠

Does anyone have any photos of what their beams look like with different finishes? I have seen and been recomended Danish Oil but have used OSMO on other raw wood projects succesfully too, but interesting to see a side by side comparison and hear any anecdotes...

Just on the off-chance someone might pick up on this thread again. We have 9 large trusses and 8 or 10 large purlins to clean off. I am veering towards bead blasting, but when should we do this? If we do it before plaster it is easier to clean up the mess caused by the blasting and any covering (Osmo or Danish Oil) or do we leave it will after plaster and then have to clean off the inevitable plaster from the wood which will also be a pain!

I'm guessing that the options are limited to throwing more money at making the building more airtight vs fitting trickle vents and leaving out MVHR. What do you suggest are the options?