G and J

It’s a bit like the loft conversion debate really. Loss of floor area to stairs vs usable floor area gained and all that. Thankfully usually there’s more important overriding factors that determine the plan…

When we built our current house we received many comments about wasting space in the hall. We could easily have made it much smaller but we liked the gallery landings (which makes it sound much grander than it is) and the sense of space it gave, and we were happy to have less space in other rooms to compensate. I think in the vast majority of cases the site and the preferences of the dudes that the house is being built for dominate the design, which is how it should be.

Yes. Did it help in any way? Ah, now there’s a question….

Thank you. The drawing is fine from my point of view - it helps me confirm my understanding of what we are needing. We’ve got two flat(ish) roofs to sort out, one on the house with a parapet and one on the man cave down the garden, so I need all the help I can get.

Golly, that’s a very good point.

We are in the middle of finalising our flat roof design. The architect suggested a cold roof with less insulation than I would like and less than ideal allowance for services and airtightness (if that’s a word). @Big GI would be grateful to have sight of your warm roof design.

If the Wi-Fi one is cheaper (all other things being equal) and it saves me having it on my mind what the hell, why not? And trusting a known make is something I understand.

OK I give in, I’ll buy a bigger ASHP so I don’t have to put up with the noise.

How the bloody hell did you discover that?

Or how about a 5kW heat pump and a woodburner? ……….runs for cover while giggling!

No.

Ah, understood, thank you. I’m wondering if putting in a 6” insulated flue for a stove that needs 5” is my normal overengineering/overthinking thing (again!). My thought process is that lots of stoves need 6” so if we dislike the stove and want to swap it (we have done that before) then it will give us more choice for very little cost. But this is a stove we may hardly ever use. Such a puzzle.

Interesting. What does that allow for?

Would be interested to understand why this model? They also do Wi-Fi water softeners I have just seen - is that so they can message you when salt is needed?

We are currently planning to install a Charnwood Aire 3 with direct air kit. To attempt to future proof I’m going to price up converting immediately above the fireplace to 6” twinwall insulated flue. The top section will go in as early as I can and before roofing as I want the roof on and scaffold down pronto. I will be doing the instal myself as I can under building regs, no need to pay for a Hetas dude. I talked through the instal with a technical guy from a local company that I’ll use for supply and I understood I have to ventilate each void, section by section. But from what he described as long as I ventilated each section there is no need for sections to interconnect. So I’ll be putting a metal ceiling closure plate just below my cold loft, thus preserving my airtight layer. Unless of course, I’ve completely misunderstood!

Because it’s not just a battery, it’s an ac coupled battery. Imagine a box with a battery, a battery mains charger and an inverter all linked by some clever software so that spare mains can charge it and it can help run the house or export to the network. Inside the box is indeed dc connections to the battery.

The soil stack can terminate at a ridge vent. Yes it’s a penetration of the airtight layer somewhere but at least it’s not unsightly.

I suspect that if you generally leave the doors open that will take care of warming the upstairs. Apart from the fact that I like Ms Swift I wonder if there’s a formula somewhere that calculates sound transmittance as a product of (joist depth x frequency of dance steps divided by insulation density (lumps per m3) minus floor nail length to the power of weight of dancer in kg). Such a formula might indicate that Slimming World membership is more cost effective than further insulation. Or maybe you could lighten up and join in the dancing. Hope that helps. 😉

I’m guessing the AAVs are more than adequate in letting air in to prevent a vacuum be created behind a flush. But, sewers can back up and when they do air needs to be released from the sewer pipes or potties can start ‘burping’ which would not be nice. Even without a blockage I would imagine (though don’t know from direct experience) that localised raised pressure can occur in sewers. Maybe cup final half time all your neighbours go to the loo at once and all flush at the same time? Whatever the cause you want back pressure to waft harmlessly away rather than pushing stinky smells back into your lovely new home. So I’m with your architect on this one.

I put a lot of time into scoping and pricing SIPs construction vs open panel (both on site and panelised). The theoretical u value vs wall thickness is attractive, though not when cost is factored in. For our modest 150m2 build diy SIPs cost at least £20k more than open panel builds. But the hype power is huge. The worst cases SIPs added at least £65k and the sales pressure was enormous. So, @Bigdeadbadger, share for all to balance the playing field a bit. Think of it as a public service.

I like that level of complexity. I’ll have one of those please!

And I like that idea, but I want to keep the automation to v simple, off the shelf bits of kit only.

How do you make that happen? It sounds like a really good idea.

I wonder if at least 83.7% of the difficulty stems from the fact that it’s been awkward in the past and you are expecting it to be a pain. Often, I find, the more I think about something that harder it gets.

On mine I turn the spindly bit with me fingers to get it started, dead quick.