Bitpipe

Ask Craig for the BH discount

Yes - boards still look great (after a spring clean). Only wrinkle is the supply/fit firm that has the UK supply contract went into receivership but seem to have regenerated as a supply only firm.

Dara, as ever, is on the money here...

Regarding media presentation and public interpretation of surveys and studies - it's long been unacceptable to be illiterate. We make every effort to ensure children and adults can read and write at a functional level and there is generally adult shame if these key skills are inadequate. Furthermore, being 'well read' is seen as a sign of intellectual superiority - especially if you can quote freely from 'the classics' However being mathematically and scientifically illiterate is perfectly acceptable - witness the media giggle over being 'no good at maths' and roll their eyes at 'geeks and nerds'. So sadly, many of those whose job it is to report such findings are incapable of even the most basic critique and we end up firmly in 7/10 cats territory*. * Not to be confused with 7/10 Cats Do Countdown which is without doubt, the pinnacle of UK TV.

Funnily enough I prefer to wash the new car by hand as the pressure washer (k4) can easily damage the finish if you get too close. The K2 may be a bit underpowered for the patio attachment - I find the K4 pretty decent but you still need to go over the same area a few times to get the coverage.

I'm, not sure they use that much water - try filling a bucket with one, takes ages. I'd say a running hose uses more. Obv. their USP is providing a very focused jet of water to shift dirt etc. I got a patio washer (the round drum with rotating pressure heads inside on a stalk) included with a K4 I got a few years back and it makes short work of cleaning the 60m2 patio we have at the back - only took 20 mins this weekend to remove most of the winter grime.

I remember doing a school science project on acid rain (then the big bug bear) in 1984. Since then we've had awareness over the hole in the ozone layer, deforestation and climate change. The impact of our wide use of plastic on the environment is now the current mainstream issue. Seems to be that we're increasing able to quantify our impact on the natural world but struggle to address it, outside of grass roots consumer action. I suppose the CFC ban was one positive example. The average person on the street will struggle to get upset about an unseasonably warm easter weekend or sunny Feb half term but may be upset to see a dead whale that may or may not have eaten a plastic bag. I wonder what it will take before mainstream opinion shifts?

I've been trying (in vain) to get my GI contractor to refund VAT using the examples in the VAT notice - I wasn't that clued in when I commissioned them. They've refused, I keep chasing but don't expect any success. May pick up the phone again to VAT and have one last shot..

One of the home build rules of thumb is to make provision for things you're not 100% sure you'll need but will a pain to retrofit later, or just for peace of mind. By way of example, before we laid the driveway in Jan 2018 we ran ducting under the entrances to facilitate driveway lighting at a later date (as it's resin bound stone, I never want to have to cut into it.) Then when commissioning the power to the garage we realised that the SWA between garage and kiosk had been damaged at some point in the driveway construction so we were able to pull a new run using the existing duct. Ducting is your friend

I did consider UFH pipe in the basement floor and engineering some kind of heat dump outside the insulated envelope of the basement but dropped the idea due to cost. You could consider chilling the MVHR fresh air in summer, although the volume of air moved is small so the effect would be slight. Remember that the biggest contributor to overheating is usually solar gain - our basement light wells are quite deep so rarely get direct sunlight, its more diffuse. The only change I'd make is to have one of the high level windows openable (in the room diagonally opposite the room that has the exit & stairs to ground level) - this way I could create some cross draft for additional purging of warm and stale air - the MVHR does he job eventually. If you're really concerned about overheating, make provision for a split air con (i.e. ducting etc) in the basement and you can install it later if the problem arises. If not you can just plug the ducting.

We have 300mm EPS 200 under the 300mm slab and 200mm EPS 70 on the outside walls of basement. It's about 115m2 divided into four rooms and the plant room, each of the back to back rooms open into each other. There's a plant room with UVC, gas boiler and MVHR unit. Two TV rooms with gaming consoles etc and a room with lots of boxes and a freecycled running machine that I optimistically call the gym Always the same temp year round, about 22. Feels warm in winter and cool in summer. No heating down there, MVHR for ventilation.

We have very large Velux (SK10 1140mmx1600mm) in our rooms in roof and I've never noticed any noise. However we have a 2m horizontal slot style window high up in our master bedroom and the rain does make noise as it pings off the aluminium cill.

looks good, MVHR will need a condensate drain and your UVC will need the emergency overflow drain also so think on where that will go. You will have a vertical run of electrical cables from the CU so make sure you won't foul that space with your external duct - mine (also BPC) os 180mm so more like 250mm once wrapped in insulation so quite bulky.

Yup - I think this is worth exploring. While I had buildings insurance during the completion period I was always slightly uneasy until I got the sign off.

This is what we did - spark also made the pump run on bathroom light switch - same circuit activates MVHR boost... Just make sure pipes are all well lagged to minimise heat loss on the return circuit.

I marked out on the vapour barrier and or batten before the plasterboard went on, pretty sure it won't bleed through that but good advice!

My sparky used a laser level, or two of them, to lay out back boxes downlights, everything basically. Means everything is dead level and consistent. Then again he had his own chop saw and used proper timber for his noggins vs what was lying in the skip. Remember to allow for finished floor level when measuring. Also, remember to put in support for wall hung TVs etc while you're doing the noggins, ducts for AV cables etc - anything you want to hide away behind an appliance. Finally, if you're doing noggins for sinks, mirrors etc - do check where the actual fitting are on those. We put in massive noggins for the bathroom vanity sinks but I didn't see that the actual fittings were on the unit below, not the sink itself so we only just snagged the noggin when fitting. And then mark up all heights and distances of noggins from a fixed point with a sharpie, nice and big, and photograph every inch - you'll be coming back to that when you have a nicely plastered wall and want to find a noggin or avoid drilling into a pipe or cable.

Yep, I recall my back boxes protruded about 2-3 mm - guess they were set 15mm, allowing for 12.5mm board.

I do think that - two were for vanity units, which are explicitly excluded (although mine were really sinks, just not named as such) and loads of MDF, hinges, rollers and handles that were obv. used to build built in wardrobes per plans but i filed them as first fix timber and ironmongery. Never mind the basement fit out that was not in planning drawings (but i amended building drawings). That said, i did not claim for anything outside the official list.

A few of mine were just printoffs of web order forms. I put the vendors VAT number on them and were accepted.

Actually, that JB above the window just covers a sealed penetration for a sky dish so i could drill a hole behind that and drop a probe into the cavity. This is south facing so will get worst of sun. There's one on the other gable (north) which was a plan B BT connection if the under road ducting didn't work out so could put one there too. Next question is what type of probe... this looks interesting... https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inkbird-Wireless-Bluetooth-Hygrometer-Thermometer/dp/B07748V35X/ref=sr_1_19?keywords=wireless+thermometer&qid=1554403500&s=gateway&sr=8-19

I'll add a pumped hot return loop for the DHW with IR sensors to activate on walking into bathrooms as another recommendation.

My blinds, are made by Roma but came pre-fitted to the Gaulhofer windows which made them trivial to fix, really no additional effort other than feeding the 4 core power cable through into the house. We were able to design a recess into the frame at the top of each window, so they sit flush and the render runs over them - so when fully retracted are invisible from the outside. Great for privacy and excellent for reducing solar gain, we have rocker switches in each room (same console as the room lighting) and it's a small adjustment during the day to adjust as the sun moves. Bedroom ones are close as soon as kids are up to keep their rooms cool. Also quite robust and fairly secure, would definitely deter a casual trouble maker. Were not that expensive really - I got a quote for some internal ones on the windows we omitted to spec them for and they were pretty expensive also. Maintenance wise, they can be easily replaced - ours were actually wrong colour, we only realised in first fix when we had the power to lower them. New blinds ordered and it took 20 mins per window to replace them. Blinds also save on curtains, which are always surprisingly expensive. For the roof Velux (Integra) , we got their external blinds - they have a box that they retract into but not that noticeable on a roof. Has a funky wireless controller that can run multiple windows.

Plenty of fixings but possibly the wrong type / size for the panel vent board.

This is what the contractor has suggested should be do-able, just need to figure out how.