jack

Mike, if you don't mind, I might merge this with the main Grand Designs thread so it's all in one place.

Exactly this, in my opinion. As it happens, my wife and I were talking just last week about what we'd do if we were ever to build again, and one of the things I said I wanted was cast concrete. The problem with what they've done here (I've only seen photos, not the show) is that the design itself isn't special enough for it to get away with such a bleak material, and it's used without any sort of break. It's just brutalist without more. Concrete houses can look spectacular in my opinion: Part of my love of concrete is driven by the South Bank. I used to walk over Waterloo Bridge on the way to and from work and got a bit obsessed with the Royal National Theatre and the way it catches the sun at different times of the day and year. I have far too many photos like this on my phone from around that time: In fact, the external design for our house was very much inspired by that building (not that they look at all similar!)

It does look generous. Take a look here @recoveringacademic

I draw it where I feel comfortable, based on my own experiences, research, risk tolerance, knowledge of my children's skills and abilities, and (of course) significant personal biases.

Yes, a great way of learning, as long as you survive! Personally, I know I have a very low tolerance for risk, especially if I don't perceive an adequate reward. For example, I'd love to get into hang gliding (genuinely), but the risk to reward ratio just doesn't work for me.

Apologies, I've hidden my response, since it's clearly way off topic.

The problem is that most 12 year olds just don't have the life experience to be able to predict outcomes. Mine certainly doesn't!

Just to be clear @Coops85, you don't connect the PV panels to just the ASHP and/or Sunamp. PV is connected to the household supply, and anything that is drawing electrical energy within the house will use power from the PV if it's available. You can do things like program your ASHP to only turn on during daylight hours, which will tend to ensure that it's powered by PV if available. But bear in mind that in the middle of winter there are days where you'll generate virtually no PV, sometimes for days on end. In that case, you can't avoid using mains electricity. The aim of the game at the moment is future proofing. Battery storage is still too expensive to be mainstream, but that's changing all the time. Include heavy cabling from the consumer unit to an area where you can one day install batteries (garage, attached shed or workshop perhaps). Also run heavy cables from your consumer unit to anywhere you might one day want to charge a car. As Nick says, the requirement for three phase is puzzling. How much PV has the council stipulated? If you don't know this yet, you can use Jeremy's heat loss spreadsheet to work out an estimate. Come back with that info and people will be able to give more specific advice.

I have a 12 year old - sorry, but the potential benefits are swamped by the risks imo. It may be that the risk of accident isn't that high, but the outcome of such an accident is likely to be very poor.

Electrician had some free time today so has kindly offered to come over. He's just arrived and will be extending the ring in the pantry to include the fridge socket. Looks like a straightforward job, thankfully, helped by having space to run conduit behind the units.

A friend used to hot-wire model aeroplane wings, as you said. Easy enough to build your own with nichrome wire, a frame and a variable current power supply. It would take a while to get it all together, which would allow you to put off actually doing the work.

I suspect could manage this with some help from the usual suspects on BH, but I just don't have the time this week.

I spent a lot of time thinking and worrying about this (initially to the amusement, subsequently to the boredom, and eventually to the horror, of my wife and the architect). My excuse is that I once slipped on some very steep Victorian stairs with narrow treads while carrying a [edited to correct baby's age: just realised I told this story on the thread Ferdinand linked above] six three month old baby. Baby was fine, but I nearly broke my elbow protecting him. One place to look is the commercial regs. They require wider treads and a shallower angle than residential. From memory, the statistics say that even small increases in run above the residential minimum can significantly reduce the risk of accidents. Also bear in mind that angle isn't everything - fewer, higher steps with a longer run can give the same angle, but more space for your foot (but also a higher vertical per step, which may be more challenging as you get older). I used to carry a tape measure around with me when we were planning the house, and measured everything from the size of rooms I liked, to windows, to stair sizes. We eventually decided on a run that was similar to the stairs between the floors where I was working at the time, with a slightly higher rise due to constraints within the house design. This is what we ended up with: Note that the treads are open, so the effective size of each tread is more than 264mm, because your toes can go underneath the overhanging tread. I find this size very comfortable. It's definitely a noticeable improvement over the basic building regs approach. I'd have preferred a lower rise. We could, for example, have added one more step and reduced the rise to ~172, but the extra step would have brought the stairs too close to the door for my liking (although now that we've lived here, I don't think it would actually have made much difference). The only thing that concerns me about these stairs is that it's a long way down if you trip at the top. Given my time again, I'd have reconfigured the house to put the stairs with a 180 deg turn and mid-level landing. Oh, and the stairs are nearly the maximum width you can go without needing handrails on both sides. The max is 1000mm, and ours at 980mm feels very generous.

Welcome to Buildhub! One minor suggestion would be to drop those questions into the relevant sub-forums. Some people only browse the sub-forums they're interested in, and mightn't pick up your questions in an intro thread. Also, it helps others find answers in the future. I will say that rainwater harvesting (beyond basic harvesting for the garden) rarely makes economic sense. I was all for it, but even the most ardent greenies we spoke to in the sustainable building world thought it was a waste of money.

Thanks Jeremy. I do have an adjacent location where I could put a switch, although running cabling there might be a bit of a faff. Probably safest to get the electrician in and see what he says. Unfortunately, the fitter is onsite with the stuff first thing this morning and I won't have time to get my electrician onsite. Things should still be accessible enough to get the wiring where it needs to be though (I hope!)

We finally have our pantry furniture arriving tomorrow. Carcasses will be installed tomorrow, then we choose and install worktops, then the fitter comes back and finishes off some cupboards and woodwork that sits on the worktops. I was just admiring my wife's handiwork after she cleared out the space this afternoon, when I realised that we haven't actually had a socket or wiring installed for the bar fridge that'll be part of this! There are a few options, but before I go too far down any particular road, what's the legal position on sockets for built-in appliances? Is it necessary for them to be remotely switchable? And if not, I assume it's desirable for both safety and practicality? Can two fridges share a remote switch? Our main fridge switch isn't actually that far from where the bar fridge is going, so it's conceivable I could wire both through that, or possibly have two switches at that location but supplied from the same cable. Thoughts? Thanks

Only "reasonably"? I think you're selling them short!

Welcome to BuildHub.

We asked a couple of alu-clad window suppliers whether using standard sizes would reduce cost, and both said there are no standard sizes. Even trying to keep multiple windows the same size makes no difference, as all windows are bespoke, and the minor gains potentially made by having a few windows the same size are completely swamped by the cost of materials and labour.

Welcome Claire. You picked a good time in the process to find Buildhub!

Ooh, cool. Never seen one of those in the wild before.

We're drowning in birch polypores around here. Shame they aren't edible (and I don't sharpen my own razors, so no use for that application either). Do a little research first. The vast majority of mushrooms you run into won't be edible. The River Cottage mushroom book is a good resource. Take a look at this website too: https://www.mushroomdiary.co.uk/getting-started-in-mushroom-hunting/ Honey fungus would be my best guess too. Not many other fungi fruit this gregariously!

The top left one is pretty good, although you only typically get one drawing of each. It covers plants, mushrooms, seaweed, shellfish, fruits and nuts. I can't find my River Cottage mushroom book, but from memory it's particularly good because it focuses on the safe collection of edibles, whereas the others above are more general references. I do a bit of foraging for mushrooms, but stick religiously to those that can be safely identified. We had a penny bun (cep) in our garden this year for the first time, along with several large slippery jacks that have appeared out of the new garden beds (haven't eaten these yet - mixed reviews on whether they're worth the effort): I collect black trumpets from a forestry area near me - amazingly tasty dried. They haven't come up yet this year, presumably due to the lack of rain: I've also managed the odd parasol from a nearby cow field (this is a young one - cap hasn't opened yet):

Already checked by mods and unlikely to be what you're thinking, although I can see what it looks like!

Welcome to Buildhub Tim. I can't help you with this question but hopefully there'll be someone who has some info they can share. Roughly what part of the country are you building in, and what's your project?