jack

We have Scolmore Click Definity (screwless) in stainless. The covers have little divots in the metal along the sides to hold them in place. I find the divots more distracting than screws would have been. I'm also not crazy about the retention system - some of them more "mush" into place than "click". It does depend somewhat on the rear insert being perfectly flat, which will only be the case if the surrounding wall is perfectly flat. We have brick slips on some internal walls, and it was hard to get the rear inserts fitted flush in some of these areas. The stainless steel finish is also far more noticeable on white walls than white plastic would have been. I'd go for white if I were doing it again. I know you're planning ordinary switches, but for others, I'll share our experience of the retractive (ie, momentary contact, spring-loaded) switches we used, which were needed to work with our home automation system. For my money the mechanism is far heavier than ideal. It's hard to double-click due to how heavy the spring is, and they're quite noisy unless you're very careful. No way I'd spend the extra money on screwless switches if I were doing this all again! I think I'd go for high quality white plastic and spend the difference on something else.

I think the point is that they aren't meant to be a consumer-accessible organisation. You're supposed to go through a phone line supplier like BT (others are available), who communicate with Openreach on your behalf. It's very annoying that it's like this. When we had our line reconnected, I wanted to talk to someone about how it would all be done, because we wanted to go underground from the pole on our land. Literally couldn't get anyone who knew anything to actually talk to me. BT assured me that they'd pass on the notes of my conversation, but of course the first engineer who turned up hadn't heard anything and (allegedly) didn't have the tools necessary to do the job. It got done in the end but would have been far simpler for everyone - and certainly less effort for Openreach - if I'd been able to have a sensible conversation with an engineer before they came onsite.

I don't doubt that they're passionate about taking your fees.

Where's the "I laughed so hard my head fell off" emoji? They apparently "add value" by hitting users with a £20 surcharge just for making a payment! And passionate? Really?

It might be a subtle point, but to me the critical starting point is that "thermal mass" has no agreed definition. Without such a definition, there's no point even considering units imo. If "thermal mass" is used as shorthand for something like "real-world structural thermal buffering capacity", then it potentially does have units - ie, the units that apply to the factors you listed above, although we still need to define how they can be combined in a way that allows comparisons. Unfortunately, many people - including architects and builders - use "thermal mass" to refer to some ill-defined combination of mass and perceived heat capacity. That's the real issue imo.

I know what you mean Ian. I'd personally prefer it if we got less bogged down complaining about the phrase itself. In my opinion, it would be more helpful to concentrate on the fact that the phrase is currently used as a shortcut to a poorly-defined concept or set of concepts. If there were a clearer definition, then the phrase itself would be perfectly fine. Indeed, since it's actually shorthand for a number of factors, I think it's useful to have a phrase that doesn't refer to any individual factor (okay, "mass" is in the phrase, but I don't have an issue with that given the context). It's a fact that the general public - and even the building trade - is never going to dig into the details of a multi-factorial heat-buffering model. All anyone cares about is whether the house or extension meets building regs. Hence, short of building regs changing, nothing is going to improve on this front - not linguistically and not practically. To be fair, the document talks repeatedly about the importance of insulation, airtightness and solar gain control over the course of the year. Page 3 even shows decrement delay in graph form (note the time offset of the damped temperature curve). Okay, they don't talk about high-decrement delay insulation, but other than here and a couple of other forums, I've never heard any self-builder or anyone in the building industry discuss the decrement delay of different insulation types. I'm sure that's at least partly because high decrement delay insulation is relatively expensive, takes up more room for a given U-value (compared to rigid insulation), is difficult to explain to the average person, and - perhaps most importantly - isn't compatible with current standard construction methods used by the big builders and most smaller builders.

Cool, thanks. Next question: why do you need them to be PH certified? From memory, PH-certified windows aren't a requirement even if you're going for PH certification. It's just that you get a little more leeway in the numbers (can't remember how it works for windows, but as an example, for MVHR you need to put in a penalty factor of something like 15% if the unit isn't PH-certified). If you aren't going for certification, I'd just look at the specs and make sure you're happy with them. The PH-certified product will be more expensive than the same spec non-certified, because of the fees paid to the PH Institute for certification. If you are going for certification, then it's only one window, and using a non-certified product in this position will likely make no difference to your ability to achieve certification (assuming appropriate specs otherwise).

What do you mean by "Passiv"? Do you mean PassivHaus certified? Is it on a flat or pitched roof? We have an electric opening quad (I think!) glazed Fakro rooflight on our flat roof. Not PH certified, but the numbers are fine.

I absolutely love that look and was disappointed it wasn't on the cards for our build. It's definitely something I'll be insisting on for the next(!) one.

I can't tell you how disappointed I am to learn this @Ferdinand. You'd have been my "phone a friend" on a question like this.

It - or something very like it - was posted a few weeks ago. Expensive but effective, I seem to recall.

Being completely honest, I think that's a worryingly optimistic budget for a house like this unless you're doing an awful lot of the work yourself. A sharp, modern building like this needs very crisp detailing and finishing or it risks not looking right, imo. Even if you choose to sell - or at some point need to sell it - cheap finishes on a house like this will put a lot of people off.

It still needs to be on the list. Our house would have been intolerable last year if we hadn't been able to cool the ground floor slab. We have external blinds on a lot of windows, but with a bit more foresight, external shading on a few more key windows would have reduced a lot of the overheating issues we face.

You couldn't pay me enough to have that plaque on view anywhere in my house. From logo to colours to font selection to layout, I can't imagine how it could be made any uglier. Edited to add:

All up? That really surprises me. As you say, the architect's particular situation is probably contributing to the cost being lower, but that seems to be a fraction of the cost I'd expect for full certification. It's been a long time but I'm sure we were expecting to pay three or four times that amount (including all modelling and inspections, etc), not taking into account the cost of more expensive hardware such as a PH-certified MVHR unit.

Yep, that's pretty much it. As said above, airtightness is important, and becomes increasingly so as the volume of the building increases. Using standard building regs insulation but working towards, say, 1 ACH will make a noticeable difference. If you can afford more insulation, do that too. Unlike insulation, which can only be improved by spending more money (twice the insulation is twice the cost), airtightness can be improved by careful planning and detailing. This needn't be expensive. I'm sure you could improve on building regs airtightness by a factor of 5 with relatively little extra cost. It might also be worth searching "decrement delay" on the forum. Choosing an insulation material with relatively high decrement delay, such as cellulose or wood fibre, may improve the perceived thermal performance of the building for a given U-value. The main improvement is reduced peaks and troughs of temperature.

Lovely looking house. Ours is about the same level of modernity but I really like the general aesthetic you've achieved outside. We have 400mm overhang on some south facing windows, and this is ideal. However, these windows are only about 500mm high (they're wide and not very tall - needed to be high up on the wall due to overlooking). What about making some of the vertical cladding (or whatever it is) into a sliding brise soleil? You can lock them in the positions illustrated above during the cooler months, and then slide them into place during the day when you want to reduce solar gain. Not sure how complicated it would be, but it would give you the general aesthetic you're after most of the year while provide excellent solar gain control when needed.

Interesting info, thanks for sharing. How much would it cost to have 120 evacuated tubes supplied and installed?

We have a new built-in Siemens bar fridge in our pantry and I'm genuinely surprised at how much noise it makes.

That's the plan. More time, more money, and no forwarding address for the kids.

Actually, I lived in a bungalow from age 6 to 18. So yes, I've ruled that out!

All those tips you gave me haven't worked. I think you're a better glider than a teacher.

The next house I do will either have a liquid screen upstairs, or use structural concrete for the upstairs floor. The impact noise in my house drives me mental.

Even some of our floors that were screwed down squeak (although far less than the ones that didn't get screws). The glue is the key, imo. I believe Egger board suggest only fixing one end of their boards with screws and using adhesive-only everywhere else.

One thing that jumps out at me is the distance between the walk-in wardrobe and the ensuite in the master bedroom. Get out of bed, walk to the wardrobe to get out some clothes, walk all the way back around the bed to the ensuite. In an ordinary bedroom this would be bad enough, but at this scale, I know it would drive me mad in short order. We have a walk-through wardrobe, which we find very effective. Along the lines of what @Ferdinand said, do some thought experiments about living in the house. Think about an entire week's worth of activities - what you do and where you go when you get up, head to breakfast, get the kids ready, have friends around and need somewhere to put the kids while the adults talk, etc, etc, etc. And then take into account whether your current layout makes all of these activities efficient. As an example, we wanted a mudroom/laundry at a side entrance where we could come in with wet dog and muddy boots. We got one, but we never really thought specifically about how we'd use the space. The result is that there's no proper space for shoe/boot storage, and it's really narrower than it needs to be to properly perform its function.