mvincentd

All very interesting, particularly this bit. Not to hijack the main purpose of @sean1933's thread i'm interested in this because you're right about my load diffential between inner and outer leafs there. Outer is the pretty negligible 1 block height, whereas inner carries the roof and all that entails. So my Pozi's were specced and supplied by Crendon working off drawings from my SE which identified that Catnic lintel. I raised a slight concern over it with my SE....he responded; "....capacity of the catnic lintels is actually within the required loadings, so theoretically the lintels should be fine. That said, if they do feel flimsy as per your description on the phone then perhaps we should take note and include say a 100x100x5 angle as a protective measure, almost as a bit of insurance...With lintels we do not often get feedback from site, they are usually just constructed by the relevant contractor and that is it, but since you raised this concern it makes sense in our eyes, to eradicate any doubts, especially if you have sourced some additional steelwork already, to include an additional angle where the joists span onto the lintels." No mention/discussion of 'load ratio' and no references to it in Catnic product details/specs, so I wonder if contractors ever give it consideration....or ever need to, perhaps the standard tolerances of standard lintels is wide enough that it would be a bespoke steel rather than a standard lintel being specced when load ratio is a factor? Overall i'm unsure if my SE was just humouring my paranoia, or was overly casual in his original spec', or genuinely acknowledging in-practice observations deserve a weight of consideration against 'the maths'. In summary i'd agree @Gus Potter not to change SE details without checking with them....but do check, don't dismiss bricky opinions or your own instincts, and don't entirely be slavish to the presented maths. I'd also absolutely go through all pozijoist specs carefully as I suspect the estimators at those organisations likely churn out quotes avoiding direct dialogue with SE's on fine detail....put your pozi quote in front of your SE. (just for the eagle eyed....yes the steel isn't 100x100x5.....my fabricator had some 80x40x5 and the SE approved that!)

Maybe...add a small box section steel above the lintel similar to the blue one shown in pic below....hang off that. Might need bespoke hangers, or fab' hangers into the box section even! That one pictured is a 1.8m wide window below, green roof above, and the pozi's over the window also support a 240kg skylight....the SE didn't spec the box section, it was at my insistance. G20789AC Posi Flat Roof (Higher Roof) Layout 31_01_2018.pdf

Why not scrap the manifold and just drop the T (with two 40mm branches in the sides) straight in....worked for me.

I have as sketched below in various positions on my build....the Marmox block continues the insulation.

With 300mm of concrete in the basement i'm wondering why you need to build a blockwork inner leaf at all..just plasterboard the internal face of the concrete, put the insulation outside...start the upper cavity wall outer leaf on a marmox block to enable the insulation to achieve continuation across to the cavity. Sit your floor on the concrete.

honest answer...i don't think you should place enough value on my opinion on this for it to be worth me saying, sorry.

Well it's tangibly quieter at 35% and i've every confidence the house and air quality would be fine if that's what it ran at....i've not changed anything since it was commissioned to regs'. Be careful how much you conclude from my example....my house is not typical, it's basically a concrete bunker, no carpets, and this likely effects sound transmission. Also it's a branch system of 160mm diameter ducting (reduces to 125mm after 20metres) rather than the seemingly more typical radial systems. The house shape also forces a lot of turns so for example the pic here is showing a forced deviation from what would be a straight run in an oblong house. None of this lends itself to optimum system performance. What i would say is don't obsess over noise...you'll buy a noisy fridge, plug in some gadget or charger that has a gentle hum to it, or have a partner that snores, all of which will render mvhr noise concerns irrelevant.

I have the Draper trim router and plunge base, which appears to have rather a lot in common with that unbranded one ( except about £20 more). Got it from local tool shop and he's now cautioning me against trying to use it in a router table as reckons it will lack the beans, especially with hardwood. I don't have prior router experience to reference against but seems to perform ok handheld, the plunge is a bit grabby.

?....if your cistern is already 'charged' won't that slug just effectively go to overflow?

No, I think I took the stance of not getting drawn into all the 'marginal gains' add-ons....i'm happy enough if it does it's core function well.

I'm 200sqm, the attached screenshots from the app show currently it's shifting 194cubic m by using 50% fan duty. My commissioning cert' says medium supply-54.6%, high supply-72.2% I'd assume like you re' the q450 though so if space and money is no issue.....but i don' think you NEED it.

Your 1.5x2m floor has a surface area of 3sqm. This will require 1 standard bottle of wine to totally cover it at 2.5mm deep....assuming you spill it in the farthest corner from the door and get lucky with the puddle pattern. A standard general purpose bucket is typically 14 litres ..or 18.6 bottles of Rioja. So whatever method of arriving at a waterproof floor you use, the doorway will need to stem the flow to a height of 46.5mm and i guess it'll have to be a kerb because a sealed door would have to remain closed. I agree with you that @AliG's suggestion is the best...but because it'll do what you NEED and deal with a bottle. Do not misunderstand... ...as meaning it'll do anything like what you've specified.

My q350 is mounted to concrete wall in utility room, 4 metres as crow flies from where i'd sit on sofa. I've concrete floors throughout too so sounds do travel in the house. Sitting on the sofa in the dead of night with mvhr on 197m3/h 50% fan speed the DecibelX iPhone app' measures 29....i hear the mvhr but not from the unit directly but from the 3 outlets that feed the living/dining area. Turning the mvhr up or off makes an audible difference but doesn't shift the decibel reading. Nowhere in the house reads lower than 28.4 on the app'. Standing in the utility room 1 metre from the unit it reads 32.5 and nobody could fail to notice it on entry. I dont think my install is the quietest....the supply and return ducting directly out of the unit could have been done better (i did it!). The utility room isn't quiet..i wouldn't want to sleep in there.....it would be like a hotel room with an aircon unit running, which i hate. I do sleep in the living room (when i get in trouble) and am aware of the mvhr, but it doesn't bother me...the fridge will kick in soon enough with some weird noise anyway that totally overshadows the mvhr! I wouldn't let noise concerns prevent you from siting it in your utility. If you are hypersensitive to noise then you could potentially tune into air pushing out of bedroom outlets anyway (depending on how your system needs setting up).

Interested in the outcome here, sorry can't offer any useful advice. Please do update results.

Currently wrestling with pretty much the same scenario. Seems many stair makers argue a tread made from a single solid piece will always give problems. Its also heavy and expensive at 88mm thick. I've been looking at iwood for oak, they say the bigger single piece you want the more expensive (not just proportionally) it is. With iwood roughcut oak is max 230 and planed all round drops to 224mm, so the 50 measurement drops to 44 I think....2 of which glued together gives you your 88....at a cost of near £75 a tread and still needing a 26x88 nosing !

I can't think of a better 'bang for buck' tool through my whole build than my £99 ebay lifter that I subsequently sold for £50. It initially inspired fear, looking like it would buckle and snap with tensioned wire pinging everywhere. Reality is it made a job that would break my back on day one wholly solo-able. Add a collated screw gun into the equation and your laughing.....well, you're not, 'cos it's still a lot of arms above head work.

My ufh is in my structural slab which is 300mm thick in half its area and 200mm the rest. It sits on 200/300mm xps accordingly, with 100mm up the sides. I have 11 loops but have only used 3 as it seems to be all the house needs...we like cool bedrooms and towel rails warm bathrooms. With the ufh coming on for 90 minutes at both 5am and 5pm the house stays pretty steady....if we want a half degree boost from here it takes a good half hour to feel it (we put 32 degree water in).

I have a Zehnder q350....quick search today on google £2296 inc vat. My designer offered the zehnder as an upgrade to either the; Titon hrv10m....quick google today £1633 inc vat or Vent-axia sentinel kinetic plus....£1536 inc vat So that halves your notion of the Zehnder premium on the vent-axia BPC have an Airflow Duplexvent BV400 at £714 inc vat. It says for houses up to 250sqm, has bypass, frost protection, humidity sensor and claims 93% recovery.....so statistically comparable. Is the vent-axia worth the 115% premium on the Duplexvent? Not a clue! All I can tell you is my mvhr system is one of the best things about my house...but i've no idea if i'd still say that if my unit was a Duplexvent.

Three and a half years now and still 2 bathrooms, a kitchen and a staircase outstanding plus minors like all skirting, architrave, handles. Not sure I can honestly claim to have done even 51% of it myself but been here for and contributed to every day of work thats gone into it. 5 days of plasterer and 2 of electrician is the only paid trade in the last 15 months, ie since we moved in. Running out of cash and moving in before finished really slows things, any little job becomes a big slow job because speed and efficiency just means the expensive trip to the merchants happens sooner. Also the realisation living here that the temporary kitchen is kinda minimalist cool and functions fine, we dont need 3 bathrooms, and the temporary staircase gets us up and down 100% efficiently...i've become immune to its squeaks. The house overall is possibly more interesting now than it will be when fully finished. My other half would not agree!

Top of plasterboard inside skylight well got a bead which the skim finished neatly too...nothing done about the top edge though. However never seen any condensation (that was suggested by Building Control officer). Fixed a basic vapour barrier to top of skylight frame down to turn under surrounding joists. Best I could do but leaves an unprotected route the width of the upstand where the 2 vapour barriers fail to meet. No immediate problems apparent though.

Possible i'd guess but will now be left with previous holes....whats annoying is that on the inside the handle IS very much like that one on the garage personnel door, but Horman don't offer it for external of Thermo65. Yes, I spent months chasing matching Garage and house door...who would think it should be so difficult. To me my 'near miss' is worse than intentionally distinctly different colours.

So a caution re' 'harmonious' garage and house doors by Horman. I used a high end supplier fitter who Horman says are fastidious and fit more units than anyone in the country. I was clear that I wanted matching doors. After wood was ruled out my compromise was as pictured below and it's disappointing. The thermo65 with square profile frame doesn't use the same horizontal panel effect but I was accepting of the 'mimic'. It can't be fitted with the same handle as the garage personnel door and only offers a choice of pretty horrible handles. These things I knew and accepted. The colour of all products is the same, but the metal surface finish is marginally different on the Thermo65 product......when installed side by side on the same plane, as I have them that colour manifests vastly differently.

Have been down exactly this road and concluded the only solution is to get spendy! With Thermo65 the external frame isn't flush with the door so assuming you want to over clad the frame you'll have to build the door cladding out to get that 'concealed' look....at which point you're mitigating weirdness at the door edges particularly when open, and needing to avoid fouling of cladding when opening. The external lock face and door handles will need adjustment too, and while Horman talk a good story re' offering bespoke solutions I didn't feel they had much flexibility in reality. It all becomes a very considered design worthy of expert input....so the bill creeps. I had 3 doors on the same wall face that I wanted to unify, one of which was the garage door, and this added further (financial) complication in wood. If the rest of your build is going well and you have the energy to pursue this door detail it's certainly a nice aesthetic, but I couldn't find a way to achieve it economically. Might be worth looking at rkdoorsystems rather than Horman, but will still probably be closing in on UrbanFront prices.

I'm Dorset so maybe different but couldn't get anyone to even come and look at it...i had 160sqm to do but it wasn't worth anyones effort! Maybe if you commission the pour also it'll be a different story.

The pipe from my hot cylinder to my manifold is over 20m. From manifold to kitchen hot tap is around 12m. With the hot return off it takes a totally unacceptable several minutes for hot water to arrive in kitchen. With hot return on it is absolutely instant. The hot return is one of my favourite things in the house and would be even if my layout didnt make it essential. The pump is likely the most expensive bit so run the pipe anyway and try to live without it, then when you realise you cant, buy a pump. Don't B'regs oblige you anyway on the grounds of water wastage if hot runs have over about 8m of dead leg?