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Haha. Good spot. It should have read 7.3N blocks! There is no detail on the drawings to say whether the cavity should be ventilated or not. I had similar thoughts, that if the cavity was open at the top under the roof, then the external EPS is not adding any value, therefore I have asked the builders to make sure that there is a good seal at the top. Maybe I should not have asked them to do this.

Hello. We are nearly finished with a renovation (that is an almost new build). Large dormer bungalow shaped building. Ground floor 7.3kn blocks with Isover filled cavity and 90mm EPS covered in render. First floor gable walls and low stub walls below the pitch of skeiling starts, working outward: 50mm insulated plaster board, 150mm PIR board set within studwork, OSB, membrane, 100mm cavity, then external wall studwork on to which 90mm EPS will be fixed and rendered. We had a late design change from tile hanging the gables to render, hence bringing the gables slightly further out to allow a continuous render line. This has created the additional cavity at first floor level in the gables and stub walls. These will have the EPS board fitted by the builder on Monday. I have the weekend free. It would be about £250 in materials for me to stick some Isover 100mm Spacesaver within this extra cavity/within the secondary studwork line. Money is tight at this stage of the build, but it would be a lot more expensive to add more insulation at a later date. Is this overkill? Our SAP calcs don't require it, but is more always better

4 guys x 3-4 days to erect. Similar to remove. Equipment hire, disposables, vehicles, fuel, insurances, inspections. How much do you think it should cost?

When I looked at these a couple of years ago, I understood that they are in effect two small dishwashers rather than a single split dishwasher. I thought that felt like a lot of doubling both the risk and consequences of it breaking. I'm toying with the idea of having two full sized dishwashers in our kitchen. We have a space either side of the sink that would suit it, just struggling to justify the expense at the moment, so we might just save the space for the second.

We have designed one of the Liebherr ones in to our kitchen as a drinks fridge (in addition to a standard tall larder fridge). Having stayed at a friend's house where they had one filled with cans and bottles it seemed much more practical than sliding cans around a shelf on a normal fridge. They are about £950 though, so we'll have a blanking panel over the space that it will go in for a while.

Thanks. Unusual, but I like it. I've also recently seen someone mount a dishwasher at a higher level so that you don't need to bend down to load/unload it.

In many years of visiting houses and looking at them on Rightmove, the only time I've ever seen this is in a home that had been adapted for a family with some mobility issues. Even then the hob was on a height adjustable mechanism for those family members that didn't need it lowered. Do you have a photo?

@Originaltwist is that a copper worktop? Mind me asking who supplied it, as we've had a couple of quotes and it may be someone we've missed. Happy with it? We expect it to tarnish, mark and dent, but quite like the idea of it on our island gaining some character in what will be an otherwise quite modern ply kitchen.

I started this topic back in February, but as there has been a bit of recent activity on the thread I thought I'd give a quick update. We have found a local company that specialise in direct mount glazing to oak frames. They surface mount and then cover the edges with oak trims as described by someone earlier in the thread. I've in the last week finished sanding the internal faces of the frame and the glazing company have prepared the frame with various bits of DPC, and adding fillets/notches where required to sit the glass on. Rather annoyingly the glazing can't be finished until the front door is fitted, which will be in November, so we will have the upper levels glazed in the next few weeks, and the door level sections covered with Ply for a couple of months. We chose triple glazed glass, with a solar film, as the front of the house gets sun all afternoon and we wanted to avoid it becoming a greenhouse in the summer. None of this has been cheap, and if we were to do the house again, we might choose something more simple, but hopefully once it is all finished we will be happy with the choice.

Not really, but a few discrete steps on a non visible bit of the roof might mean I don't need to get scaffold up at some point in the future. I've scoured UK eBay and Amazon and don't seem to be able to find them. The only other places are EU sellers that don't explicitly say that they sell to the UK (I haven't emailed to check yet). Another solution might be to fit a bracket between the roof tiles near the top in a similar way to solar panel mounts that would allow me to hook a ladder over it.

Very good!

Probably only once a year or so, but there is a great view from the flat roof section, so will find excuses to go up there more often if access is easier. We do not have a ridge between the pitched and flat sections, so we don't have anything to hook a roof ladder up to.

Hello. We are building a house that is a large dormer bungalow with a flat roof section on the top. Barn hips/snipped gables either end. This means that there is no easy way to put a ladder up to get access to the flat roof section for cleaning/maintenance of the roofing and any solar panels. We decided to have an access rooflight to get to the flat roof section from within the house, but we spotted the solution in the photos below on lots of houses whilst recently in Germany. Maybe I'm searching for the wrong thing, but I can't seem to find what they are called, or any supplier in the UK. I have never even seen them on any UK roofs, but they seem like a decent solution. Would they be permitted in a domestic setting?

Thanks @DevilDamo The pitched roof sections are already battened and tiled. So, having read a bit more, I agree with you that we do not have a warm roof. I think that we will keep the PIR board as shown in the photos, but add additional insulation at ceiling level. We'll make the new ceiling level insulation building regs compliant, making the pitched and flat roof sections 'bonus' insulation.

Hi All. We are mid way through a significant refurb, adding an additional storey to a bungalow. We had planned for a warm roof space. 120mm PIR board between joists, with 50mm insulated plaster within the loft space, and no insulation at first floor ceiling level. This would allow the loft to be used for light storage, and all of the MVHR ductwork to be within the insulated zone of the house. The truss design doesn't really work with allowing the insulated plaster to be fitted around then. It would involve so much cutting and bodging that it would be infeasible. The loft area is about 150m² (15m X 10m), with joists every approx 600mm. The loft space is only 1200mm high, and has a huge amount of trusses in there, so not really useable space so we aren't particularly bothered about it being plastered in there, just getting the insulation correct. I've attached a photo showing what it currently looks like. With the 120mm PIR between the joists, and the underside of the 150mm insulated flat roof section (above the OSB). I've also attached a section drawings. Our builders have suggested putting 300mm of standard loft insulation roll above the ceiling level, over the top of the MVHR duct work as an alternative to the insulated plaster board on the roof line. I'm not sure about this, as if the standard ceiling height loft insulation is effective, then it would mean the loft space becomes cold, and our MVHR extract plenum that is within the space is then extracting cold air from the loft. Would be great to have some thoughts on how best we could deal with this, so that I can have informed conversations with our builders and our engineer who is also doing our building regs drawings. Thanks

I would also be interested in an update. Thanks

You'll want more than 2 foot of headspace above the bed for when you inevitably end up sitting up with him whilst ill or reading with him in bed as he gets older.

Hi We need to decide on a rooflight for a flat area of our roof on the top of our house that is currently being built. 1. We will eventually be putting some ballasted solar panels on this flat roof section, so ideally it would be good to have access for occasional inspection. 2. It would also be useful to have the rooflight able to be electronically opened for ventilation (this is at the absolute high point of the house, and in previous houses we have enjoyed the chimney effect, although the house will be well insulated, 3G windows, MVHR, so this isn't strictly necessary). The Velux CXP rooflight is the access version. It manually opens to 60 degrees with gas struts to allow access. This satisfies point 1, but not point 2. The Velux CVP is the electronic opening version for ventilation, which satisfies point 1. Does anyone know if it is possible to squeeze out of a CVP if fully opened, or manually disconnect the opening restrictor to allow it to open further to climb out? I imagine that if doing this then the glass would be heavy without a gas strut to hold it open. Alternatively, if anyone can recommend a sub 1.2 U Value, electric opening access roof window then I would be interested. I can only find one available from Roofmaker and that is +£3k, the Velux ones mentioned earlier in the post are about £1200 Thanks all

Hi. We have hit a bit of a budget Vs aspiration roadblock with our front door. Looking for ideas on who could supply with the following spec. - 1200x2400 aluminium door - sprayed in a custom RAL - ideally sub 1.0 U value - vertical handle (ie not just a standard door handle as comes on Rationel/Velfac doors which look a bit silly on such a large door) - possibly with a fingerprint entry system (although this is a 'nice to have' rather than a 'need') - ideally South East based supplier, rather than ordering directly from EU, but would consider this if the price is attractive enough We've had quotes from Domadeco, Rationel, Spitfire, Fenbro, Urban Front. eBay direct Polish based supplier. Ranging £4k to £10k. Ideally we want to get less than £3k. Anyone got ideas of suppliers that we should also consider, or suppliers/procurement routes to avoid? Thanks in advance.

We have recently placed an order for just over 50m2 of Velfac doors and windows, that comes in at about £860/m2 including VAT at 5%, delivery and install.

My thoughts are that even if there is no insulation on the first floor, and the heat travels downwards in to the slab, does it really matter? The energy isn't lost, it is still heating the house through the materials under your feet. It might just be a bit slower to react, but if you are running an ASHP low and slow, then the effect will be lessened even further. If I am incorrect, then please let me know.

It came through the plumber/heating guy that our builder usually works with, so not sure who the company behind it are. Previous quotes I've got myself through other companies were a lot less, and based on 12kw systems. I expect that our builder's plumbing guy would put an uplift on whatever quote they get from a specialist company, but the £21.5k feels like they don't really understand what they are asking for. Not confidence inspiring.

It is a 5 bed, 280m2 house. New build, well insulated and sealed with UFH throughout.

I've had a quote back that is seems even more crazy -16kw Nibe ASHP -400l tank - Nibe UK 200 buffer tank - install commissioning and MCS Certificate £21,500 + VAT (Minus the £7.5k grant, so £14k

I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to do without any heating upstairs. We'll certainly want UFH in the family bathroom and en suite, so I thought that it might be easier to run UFH throughout so that floor levels remain the same. I suppose if we were to mount UFH drum below for the bathrooms, and put in pipework for radiators in the bedrooms, then we shouldn't need to worry about floor levels, and can always put radiators in if we feel like we need them, as by that point the bedroom layouts should be settled so radiator placement won't be a restrictor.