G and J

Interesting. We are in the process of our MCS solar dude working out if we can fit 2 rows. If not, as long as these can go flush (sounding unlikely if they are targeted on commercial buildings) then maybe this will be an option.

Not wanting to divert this thread, and truly sorry for your troubles @Mulberry View...my only bit of positivity...you've made it this far, you'll get there. At some point @Tetrarch could you post which roof lights you went with (sorry couldn't work out how to quote into a new post🤔)

Hmmmm, so do flush vents like ergovents get streaky marks round them then?

I do like the idea of a regular meet up, so well done for organising. Monthly is too frequent for me, but please don’t let me stop anyone else. I’ll happily attend every other month. As for format, I felt that the discussion flowed well without the need for encouragement, so I’m happy with just natural conversation.

Our neighbours (god bless them!) applied for both planning permission and a certificate of lawful development for a granny annexe. Exactly the same building/location4construction method. They were refused planning permission, but the LPA "had" to grant a CLD under the caravan act. They are clearly believing they will get planning eventually (just paid over 150k for it) but LPA/parish council planning frameworks would suggest otherwise.

Getting on ok with Northgate so far. We were warned that not all junctions were available as standard thingies (technical term that) and so the nearest would be used, but if modelling was needed it would hurt, cost wise. We have strict instructions re taking pics but so far no mention of an app. When we get our dynamic part O (makes me think of Batman and Robin, the dynamic duo!) in a week or two’s time I’ll be able to comment further.

We have engaged Northgate Building Design in Ipswich for our SAP, and after considering doing our part O dynamic stuff myself with PHPP we decided to use them for that too, which is currently under way. We’ve gone with Vantage for our building control, so far so good.

Snap. One of the attractions of the company we are using is that they measure, make and fit, without it being months and months waiting. But me being me I wanted to ensure we had the best chance of ending up with what we are planning to end up with. No alarms and no surprises please. And especially no surprises with egress windows

I live in a new house with a new oil boiler and everything. We built it in ‘91. So to me, everything is new cos we put it in. And the maintenance of this house provides some of the motivation to build our new, new house. Welcome.

Rightly or wrongly I can’t feel good about designing in foaming stuff. I get that it’s a useful tool sometimes but it doesn’t feel like the best starting point. We are going for as airtight as we can manage, and my head is all full of membranes and tapes. Should I view foam more positively? (We haven’t had the costs back for the frame extensions yet, so if it’s that scary I might be reading up about foam!)

Making good will be a lot easier with the regular small holes/ injection idea. You could try it in one area, and if it works without bloating the plasterboard then fab, if not you’ve only a small area to redo. As an aside, I now realise why our early drawings specified a bead of silicone at the bottom of all skirtings.

I finally nailed down the head tech chap at the window company. He chuckled, agreed with my assessment, and then mentioned that the window system we are planning to use has a thermally broken frame extension option for just this purposes. These add 20mm to the frame width and are applied on both side and at the top, with the cill performing the same function across the bottom. So with these to be added we simply increase the aperture size to suit, allowing 10mm for fitting. Job done it would appear. Sigh. Thank you for all the replies folks. .

I will take you up on that kind offer Nick, thank you.

Downstairs from outside: render 75mm blockwork 50mm airgap breather 9mm osb 140mm stud filled with mineral wool. vcl 60mm battens with RW3 mineral wool between 11mm osb plasterboard and skim. Upstaurs from outside: vertical wood cladding (fire treated) battens counterbattens breather cement board 9mm osb 140mm stud filled with mineral wool. vcl 60mm battens with RW3 mineral wool between 11mm osb plasterboard and skim.

I’m ok with to 10mm tolerance, I’d rather that and a strip of expending foam tape all the way round than having to hack bits out of my timber frame. The spec asks for an R value of 0.65 which equates to 22mm of Marmox multi board - unless there is a better board I should be looking at. If I pad out the frame just where the window is I don’t know if that would undermine the strength of the brackets they use to fit the window. Otherwise it would simply be a case of specifying the apertures slightly oversize and putting 20mm of wood all round.

That was my starting point too. But our SAP report came complete with a document which requires a minimum insulation level on the return. Now I could achieve this with 15mm of PIR, then plasterboard then skim, totally circa 32mm. Marmox multi board comes in 20mm (just under required R value) or 30mm (which would be thicker than the 15mm PIR/plasterboard. These all leave circa 10mm of aluminium frame showing which seems too little to me. What am I missing?

Our brains have overheated trying to fathom how much to add on to our window sizes to set the precise hole sizes. We have a mixture of fixed and opening windows. And the frame width (jamb) is 42mm for the fixed lights and 68mm (jamb plus stile) for the opening lights. We are keen to have sensible anti- cold bridging measures. Our plans show 25mm PIR plus plasterboard and skim totalling about 40mm. So if we set our holes tight to the frame size then on the fixed lights there’ll be virtually no jamb showing. So is it ok to add 25mm air gap round the window frame - to be filled with expanding foam tape (thank you to @Nick Laslett for introducing me to that stuff). If not how much should I add? @craig - J tells me you are the dude to ask this of, just in case you are on here.

Crumbs, that’s a toughy. Would you still want them if you had to pay the VAT? I think we moved in here before final sign off and continued to collect receipts till sign off then put them in en block. We were fortunate not to have anything queried. I guess you could demand your supplier zero rate them. If, when their overpaid accountant looks at that their reaction might be a useful guide. Cheaper than paying a tax accountant for an opinion.

Our current house has a projector in the kitchen, screen above the woodburner. All totally hidden when not in use. A lot of the winter we live in the kitchen (easy chairs round the fire, warmest place in the house, little tv for normal stuff). So deciding to watch a big screen film involves powering up the sound bar and projector, and turning down the lights but not moving room. If we had to move room it would hardly ever happen. This has informed our design for the new pad, as we are replicating the hidden cinema function in the lounge/kitchen area. I’m with @nod in saying go for the basement if it works from a build point of view. But a cinema room? Wouldn’t work for me.

We tend to toil for hours and hours without taking time to reflect on our accomplishments, because we are so focussed on ‘the next thing’. Well done you. it’s good to view one's work and appreciate the achievement.

Dunno, but in our case the upstairs frame is 100mm offset to the downstairs frame, so a ledger board wouldn’t work for us.

I spent ages googling. J took 10minutes to find this which, on investigation, was contained in a document that @ETC posted a while back which I had forgotten about… Boy, do I feel dumb sometimes.

Stinky blue thing it is then.

There are public toilets 150m from our site. Do I really need a stinky chemi potty on site?

Indeed. This was beyond the remit of our architect (the perils of fixed price contracts). No, cold loft, simple trusses, airtight layer under trusses, taped to vcl inside frame upstairs, Tony Tray, vcl downstairs, etc.