Big Jimbo

Have you got a decent set of drawings, showing all the elevations ?

Do you no longer have to provide wheelchair access from the public highway ? I know that about 10 years ago i had to, on Two houses.

Are you windows pre finished. Bare. Or supplied in primer. If you have been warned about moisture intake you need to be concerned. Can you paint them first, and then a light sand, and final coats when installed.

As my old dad used to say. In the bloody 60's we used to build 4 storey blocks of flats on 300mm footings.

They look nice. So even when closed they allow 8.4 meters cubed of air. So you always have some form of background ventilation regardless of humidity ? Bet they cost a fair few quid more than the nasty normal One's supplied.

Be safe and give it 10mm. You can always ramp up slightly. much easier than trying to grind down.

@Conor and @JohnMo where do the sidelights drain to. i assume they are bottom draining ? Both look great.

I would get hold of a cheap wildlife cam, and get your car covered by that. If you catch them, pass it on to the police. As far as neighbours complaining, i wrote to the council via my solicitor advising them that, as they had found out all the calls were false. If they continued to contact me without doing due diligence first, they would be in court for harassment, causing stress, and wasting my time. Not heard from the council since.

@Dave Jones So i know that if i replaced my outside leaf cut block with a marmox block, my thermal losses would be better. It's just so bloody expensive. Apols re your first pic. It didn't look you had anything in the cavity. Lets face it what normally happens is that the perimeter insulation and floor insulation is only taken around the inner block wall, and the void is just filled with bloody concrete. Will you also do some work to improve the thermal losses to the door frame sides, and head. If they are not sitting 30mm into the cavity that is a building regs fail.

If I am sinking my doors into the floor. I usually do like the picture. Because of the depth of cills available, I usually find that door frames end up sitting forward of the cavity regardless of size. I also try and improve the head and reveals. Providing everything is nice and tight, I have never had my screed cracking.

To be honest the above looks like a cold bridge. Screed, 25mm upstand, then through the block, and into the cavity. That picture above shows the door frame sitting outside the cavity, not within it. Expensive marmox block doing very little.

It's good to see that it was put down with plenty of glue. Will clean up using a wide chisel. It will take you about an hour a room. If you are watertight it might be worth asking your builder if he is planning on doing it.

That is tragic. I have had at least 14 cups today.

Cheers @SteamyTea plenty for me to think about. Sit down and get a cup of tea.

You would have to ask the people writing the Building Regs. Passing part O is a total pain. Using restrictors will usually mean you will fail the ventilation bit of part O. I will be having windows upstairs that will be less than 1100mm from the floor, so they will need guarding. None of my first floor windows will have restrictors fitted. My guarding will be a piece of MDF sat on the window cill and extended to wider than the window reveals. Once passed. MDF will be removed, and restrictors will be fitted. Reminds me of back in the day, cutting the chains on door closers to stop them banging.

If you use a restrictor on an opening window, when you are doing part O regs only the portion of window that opens with the restrictor in place can be used in you ventilation strategy.

No idea. Sorry. But the path edge is going to be nice if that helps.

Good afternoon to all the smart people. I have completed the J.Harris heat loss spreadsheet, and it has given me loads of info, none of which i understand. I know/hope that when i have my pre construction EPC done It will give me actual information that somebody else might be able to use for things like working out what size heating, and hot water generating system i will need for the house ? Because i am still waiting for my proper building regulation drawings i can't as yet have this done. I need these because they should show how i intend to improve many of the thermal leaky areas, such as around windows, door bottoms, roof eaves etc. My method of improving these elements have been drawn up by me and wshould be shown on my building reg drawings. In the meantime i am costing things up. For instance i know that i am going to have 4 en-suite bathrooms, and that equates to 1 bath, 3 showers, 1 shower over bath, and 4 sinks. The house will also have 3 further sinks downstairs. (W.C. kitchen, and utility) I want to potentially have the ability for all 4 showers to be used at the same time in the morning, and because of this i am trying to work out what size hot water storage i might need to make this possible. I was also hoping that using the heat loss calculations that i have obtained from the spreadsheet, i would be able to work out aprox what size of ASHP i might need to provide the hot water, and the heating. Any idea how i might be able to extract the heating requirement from the spreadsheet, and find out the hot water requirement with reference to the above and use both the figures to size an ASHP ? If it ain't simple, than i ain't gonna be able to do it. If it can be done, it would help me at least get some idea of a heat pump and tank size required. Is anybody else going to be able to calculate those things for me prior to getting my Building regulation drawings done, and my pre built EPC ? Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Waste of floor space / sense of arrival if an entrance hall. I'm having One.

@ETC They can be lower than 1100mm, but will require guarding

@joe90 I could try. Im waiting for a quote for blown in insulation. One problem is i'm going to have a load of MVHR ducts up there, so i would rather they were under the insulation.

Just wait till all the new builders start getting into Part O. Opening can't be lower than 1100mm or will need guarding. Can't be above 1100mm or wont comply as an escape route. Oh, the fun that is going to be had with Building control officers.

I have a height restriction so i am going to have a pitched roof to flat crown roof at the top. The roof pitch is only 25 degrees. I like a warm roof, but it's just not going to happen. It's going to be a pain to insulate the loft due to the total height of the truss being about 1200mm internally. So the roof is hipped on all sides rising to the crown roof in the middle. I will provide a 50mm airgap up the rafter to above the height of the internal, floor insulation, which will either be fluffy stuff, or blown in insulation. There will also be continuous ventilation equivalent in the soffit of 50mm, and i may even put some ventilation over the facia. I will also ensure that the breather membrane will be a nice air leaky one. My question is do i need to try and do anything in relation to the underside of the flat roof section ? Once the trusses are on, i will use firing pieces above the truss timbers in order to provide a fall on all 4 sides, onto the respective pitch roof sections. The firings will then have 18mm OSB3 on top, and epdm glued on top of this. So providing i can get enough air up into the loft from all 4 sides of the roof will i need to do anything to the underside of the OSB.

@Mr Punter That might not be a bad call. Still a total pain in the arse to do. But might actually be doable. Good call.

Would anybody have any contact details for a blown in loft insulation company, that might cover S.W. Herts. I'm struggling to find anybody. I'm having a cold roof, due to height restrictions. I will obviously protect the 50mm eaves ventilation path. The problem is that thw total height of the loft space will only be about 1200mm. Hipped on all sides, with a large crown roof. I intend having MVHR, and although the unit will not be housed in the loft, the semi rigid duct work will be snaking around the loft to the individual rooms. I will be having a loft hatch, and thinking that having a 400mm layer of blown in insulation, via the loft hatch when all the pipes are completed. It will be a trussed roof so access to get up and lay fluffy stuff afterwards, just ain't gonna happen. Thanks in advance.