Great_scot_selfbuild

Yes (mentioned in first post) - there's a drain, but it will be plugged to retain the airtightness. Valid point about any connection could spring a leak, but only one room has a tank ready-filled with 300L. Good to hear I'm over-thinking it, but a sodden ground floor with timber walls was my worry.

Question for those who have installed (or had installed) timber cladding… I know we need an airflow behind the cladding, and because we need to fit our shingles onto horizontal battens, we have vertical battens followed by counter-battens. I’ve 2 questions: How large does the gap at the bottom and top need to be? What have you used for the insect mesh at the bottom and top? Does it matter if the top and bottom of windows doesn’t have a gap? Around the windows, our builder has installed double-thickness battens, which is good for the fire stopping, but limits airflow - however, because we have counter-battens, there is still airflow laterally and the windows don’t cover the full wall, so does this still meet the requirement?

We've a very airtight build (timber frame) and the plant room has a dry screed floor. I want to tank the plant room so the if the DHW cylinder leaked / flooded, then the plant room could hold the 300 L long enough for me to pull the plug out of the drain (before laying the floor I installed a pipe that it could drain through); the floor of the house is suspended off the ground, so there's no issue with where the water then drains to btw. The photo shows the plant room floor with the various ducting and airtight tape. I need the tanking area to be 150mm deep to hold 300L, and was going to batten off the bottom of the door area to create a step-over into the plant room. What would you recommend for tanking the plant room floor and up the sides of the walls to the 150mm height? Any other comments / advice welcome (is this overkill? I'm perhaps being over-precautious about having a timber framed house and not wanting to risk anything significant). TIA

Thanks all - really appreciate the advice. BH win again!

Basic question - should there be a rubber washer / seal on this connection on the tap to the HDPE connection (would have thought it would be supplied). Thread dia is 25mm and as the photo shows, even when just nipped up, it’s off centre.

No, but choosing which battles to fight is a skill. Everything about self-build is a marathon rather than a sprint I'm finding. In the scheme of things, this is a small issue tbh. There are plenty of other aspects that wind me up far more!

@Spinny good luck - you deserve some after dealing with all that 💪

Hmmm... I'm looking to re-use the wood rather than the nails though 🤣

Easy to say, less easy to implement, especially if I want to maintain a working relationship for the other bit that I can't do myself.

Have considered this, and even did the maths to work out the most efficient spacing, but it's all a compromise somewhere. That will incur cost as well as time (not just the install time, but it means the exact height of the shingle fixing will vary from row to row, so the measuring and checking each time has a greater likelihood of being messed up.

The horizontal battens have been installed for our shingle cladding at the wrong spacing. After much soul-searching, I am seriously looking at removing, de-nailing (if that’s a word), and then re-fitting at the correct spacing. Grateful for any tips.

By coincidence I came across this too, and then found this useful (clear) YouTube channel which explained how the 2.5mm ring came about from a post-war think tank assessment of how large scale housing could be done whilst limiting the amount of copper needed (well I found it interesting…). This video explained the ring vs radial importance:

@lizzieuk1 I’ve had a great service from Pete at CVC systems with a big discount on my brink system (design & supply only). Huge price difference to the response I had from PaulHeatRecovery. https://cvcsystems.co.uk good luck!

probably end up being about 30-40mm. Foundation is a suspended beam & block floor, DPM, 150mm PIR, Vapour membrane, UFH, slip membrane.

@torre The vapour membrane is below the pipes, the slip membrane on top.