jack

That is such an AWESOME tune! If you want to feel really old, it's nearly 23 years since Kurt Cobain died (he would have been 50 this week had he lived).

If you're really worried, you could add back a slice of 100mm of EPS to make up what you've lost, and cover it with whatever step, deck or whatever you're planning for the external transition from the door.

Awesome work! Based on past behaviour, are you out looking for a new plot to start the next build yet?

We were lucky that the groundworker we were recommended happened to have done one of these slabs before (not for MBC), so had a good idea what was going on. Then again, we also spoke to a couple of others and explained what we needed (grade of stone, pipes and conduits coming up in place) and they all seemed, at least on the face of it, to understand what was required. Hillard Tanner's foundation drawings are pretty clear, so I'd be concerned if they couldn't understand what they needed to do. I found their needs pretty clear, and any questions were always answered quickly and completely by phone. Of course, trades definitely gave us the eye you talk about, but we had that from almost everyone along the way (including people who don't even know how things are done traditionally). I think the electrician was the only one who was completely positive and thought the whole "different way of doing things" was wonderful.

From memory we just gave them a FFL mark and a site plan, and they worked from there. I suspect that even if you mark it out they'll double check anyway, and since they're doing drains as well I suspect they'll be even more sure to carefully measure everything.

We get it, he's Welsh. Give the guy a break!

We have exactly the same detail, which was suggested by our architect and tweaked a bit by our window supplier. Do note that the recess and step formed in the slab isn't as precise as the rest of the MBC's work, as as it's formed onsite by offcuts of wood and foam before the concrete pour. I'd suggest forming it slightly deeper than needed, and making up to final level with something like a reinforced screed product. Ours ended up being a lot deeper than needed so we used reinforced self leveling screed to get within 25mm of final depth, then made that up with a layer of exterior grade plywood. Personally the plywood aspect of this worries me a bit from a long term perspective. I now wished we'd been able to get the depth right just with the reinforced screed.

The PRV isn't adjustable and I have more than enough to do to complete the house without having to replace the PRV and go around fitting flow-limiters everywhere! I'll get the PRV replaced (with an adjustable one) once the house is signed off. It isn't that big a deal in the meantime.

I didn't go into any of this myself, as all the calculations and design were done by the plumber. Our situation is a little odd. Our plumber wanted to make sure that if the building inspector decided to test the flow rates of any outlet, they'd all definitely pass. Rather than fit flow reducers at every outlet, he (with our agreement) temporarily fitted a 1.5 bar PRV on the incoming main. Over a year later and it's still there! The result of this low pressure is that if our water softener decides to run a cycle while you're in the (upstairs) shower, there's a very marked drop in water pressure. That's with a single shower and no water being supplied anywhere else. The shower is still usable when it's like this but it's not great. Similar to Jeremy, we binned the "full bore 22mm" flex hoses when we saw how small the actual apertures were. The unit was then plumbed using 22mm copper and plastic, so there shouldn't be much restriction. I don't know whether this helps at all, but perhaps it shows that even at 1.5 bar you can at least have a shower while the softener is recharging, as long as you're patient!

Polytunnels are absolutely fine to discuss in the garden section, so fire away.

Hidden came as standard on ours, although further down the line we discovered that some of the larger leaves required heavy duty hinges that aren't concealed. I don't mind the visible hinges that much, but they did make the internal finish a lot more difficult. It's hard to do a good job with the skim coat near the hinges when there's only a few mm between the reveal and a hinge. Agreed - ours are black and look great. A bit annoying that they have slightly visible text on them, but this seems to be pretty standard for some reason. One of our main issues was the thickness of our walls. The jokers that installed them didn't pack the windows up by 15mm as shown in the construction drawings. Unfortunately, the thickness of the walls and the position of the windows within them meant that we needed that packing to allow the cills to be installed.

@HerbJ went with Gaulhofer. You could give him a call. One thing to discuss is installation: do they offer to install, or even insist upon installing, the windows themselves? What's the lead time from sign-off - will they give a guaranteed delivery date? Do, eg, continental August shut-downs affect your build schedule? Do you want any extras (eg, blinds?) Are there options for, eg, higher-spec spacers? I assume they'll be double low-e coated, but worth checking, and confirming what type of coating they use. Are cills included? What information can they provide about installation details - can they work with whoever's doing your construction drawings to make sure installation will be a smooth experience? That's all that jumps out at the moment. I was hugely impressed with the guy I spoke to at a building show a few years ago (Tomas, I think), who was the MD. Assuming it's the same guy, he's a Passivhaus trainer, which is the next step up from Passivhaus consultant, so he really gets low energy building. If I had my time again I'd likely have gone with Gaulhofer. The only reason I didn't was actually because they flagged an issue with window sizes early on. The people we went with didn't, and it was only when we were finalising everything that someone at the factory pointed out exactly the same issue that Gaulhofer raised the first time they saw the drawings.

One of my friends is a consultant gastroenterologist. Says it's a pretty good job on a cold winter's morning!

Yep. And the fact that it's all so obvious means there's a real incentive to spend those few seconds keeping it clean every day!

I don't doubt that you understand the main issues better than a fraction of a percent of the people reading this, but there may be other things they do that take them beyond basic brushless motor controllers. Presumably their MTBF estimates aren't entirely grabbed out of thin air. Frankly, I'm far more concerned about whether they'll still be here in 25 years to honour the warranty. There's also the not-insignificant issue of whether what they can supply in, say, 10 years' time is compatible with the modules I currently have installed.

You can look at the warranty in those terms, yes, but you can also view it as a measure of confidence in the product. If they fail fast, then they'll need to be replaced one way or the other. Even if the disgruntled home owner has to stump up the extra costs for installation, Enphase will still bear the replacement costs of the unit(s). It's not as though someone will just leave a dead panel up there for 20 years (will they?) Bear in mind that the software that comes with the units lets you look at the per-panel microinverter performance over its lifetime, so it isn't as though a dead microinverter can hide anywhere. Exactly what they use, apparently. A bit of reading, again on the understanding that these are the manufacturer's claims (TL;DR - since the capacitors are run at significantly lower temps than their rating, their lifetime is massively increased): https://enphase.com/sites/default/files/EnphaseElectrolyticCapacitorLife.pdf https://enphase.com/sites/default/files/Electrolytic_Capacitor_Expert_Report.pdf Take it with a grain of salt, but they apparently claim a MTBF of 330 years based on accelerated testing. I did a lot of research at the time and I couldn't find any credible evidence of significant failures of these products. I'll admit it's early days though - these things have only been on the market for 8 years or so, so it's only about now we might expect to start seeing significant numbers of failures..

Down our way (Hampshire/Surrey borders) not much is negotiable at the moment. Looking at what friends have been through recently, you're lucky enough if you can get anyone to even quote, let alone be open to discussing lower prices. I wouldn't negotiate individual trades down much if their initial quote seems reasonable. The last thing you want is someone cutting corners because a couple of unforeseen issues have popped up and they're losing money on the job. Even with a main contractor, I think it's a false economy trying to squeeze every last penny out of them. Negotiate fairly, but leave something on the table for everyone.

Enphase offers a 25 year warranty on their microinverters, They've published various white papers on capacitor life, which I suppose you can take or leave given they have an interest in a particular story. I seem to recall reading somewhere that the design of the units is such that even if the capacitors fail, they still work (presumably at lower efficiency and with significantly more ripple). A cynic might conclude that the capacitors are expected to fail at some point, but the user won't notice the drop in efficiency, so they won't claim on the warranty. Very easy (for us!), but that's because our panels are mounted on frames on our flat roof so can be accessed easily from underneath. Not so easy for more typical roof mounted systems, for sure! It's been a long time since I discussed this with the installer, but I faintly recall that there's another slight advantage in lower light conditions. It's to do with the minimum light that allows string inverters to start operating versus microinverters. I don't recall whether shading is required too, but basically on a cloudy day, there may be periods where the light falling on the panels in a conventional system will not generate enough string voltage for the inverter to start operating. With microinverters, the light level required for operation is slightly lower. We have a fair bit of shading, so they made sense for us anyway.

Also, along the lines of looking to commercial regs, it's worth taking a ruler or tape measure with you and trying out the stairs in public or commercial premises. I seem to recall that I based our numbers roughly on the stairs at the office building where I worked at the time. Agreed. I'd have gone for exactly that if we'd had the space. I do think there's a point where stairs become too flat and you feel like you're wasting energy going sideways. But Ferdinand is right, in my opinion, about generous stairs adding to that subtle feeling of quality. It's the same as generously proportioned hallways and landings.

Worth having the cutters too. They aren't expensive and they do make the job easier.

My mother in law used one of these on her Aga for years. Absolutely stupid design. No whistle, so you had to remember to take it off when it boiled. I, of course, boiled it dry the second time I used it! Also, the first people we know who got an induction hob a few years ago got a fancy kettle to go with it. I believe they've since moved on to a plug-in model. We have one of these. I think it's the appliance I'd fight hardest to keep if we had to choose. Quick cup of tea during an ad? Forgot to do veggies and you need to serve in three mins? I just love the lack of hassle and the absence of another appliance cluttering our worktops.

The kettle thing is hilarious. A company I worked for opened an office in New York. A couple of us went over there for a few weeks to hire and train some people. Went to make a cup of tea first morning there and asked the two current employees where the kettle was. Blank stares. A few seconds passed and one of them twigged "Oh, you mean like a tea kettle? I don't even know where you'd buy one of those". I was surprised to learn that most people in New York apparently don't have a kettle. They have filter coffee or drink coffee they've bought take-away.

I went the same way (wundatrade). From memory, MBC uses 16mm pex-al-pex, and the wundatrade stuff connected directly to that without the need for special adaptors. I did ring the supplier before I ordered to confirm compatibility.

Arrgh! It's all coming back to me!!! I had a series of heated discussions with my wife and our architect about stairs while we were finalising our house design. His original plans had stairs that I thought were too steep. The rise wasn't so bad - 190mm, or something like that - but the going was far shorter than I felt comfortable with. Having lived in a few Victorian houses with narrow, steep stairs (and having slipped on the third last step of one while carrying my 3 month old son - he was fine, my elbow took the impact), I was adamant that our forever home would have comfortable stairs that wouldn't have me worrying about walking down them bleary-eyed in the morning. My architect thought it was all a waste of time, as the stairs he'd planned for us were within regs. My attitude was that the regs were a minimum compromise for safety, not an ideal standard for comfort and safety. With a lot of looking at various international guidelines and commercial regs, we ended up with about 182mm rise and 264mm going. I find this ratio extremely comfortable and never think about my foot placement. I'd have preferred an even lower rise given we presently plan to be here until we kick the bucket, but we had some other constraints on length that meant we couldn't manage this. Our stairs are about 950mm wide, from memory, and that's ample for passing in a domestic situation (assuming cake consumption in the house isn't too high!)

Ah yes, that's another limitation. You can't use a wok (well, not properly - I do like a bit of a shake and a bang on the hob when stir-frying!) I haven't really found a solution to this. We don't make that many stirfrys anyway. Perhaps @TerryE's solution of having induction with a gas ring is a good compromise for those that like their stirfrys?