Big Jimbo

Just buy a cheep One. For the minimum work you are doing it's not worth spending money.

Ỳou defo don't want the sausages rolling off.

On another note, your house and setting looks fantastic.

That is a great result. Now you only have to imagine all that muck away, followed by tonnes of concrete. I bet that result made you smile.

I think wet plaster will cost you more, but may sound better when you give them a thump.

I doubt the Bricklayers would give me the time for that. But i could do the inside.

@SteamyTea That's not a bad idea.

@SteamyTea so that puts a bollox on an early air test before plastering. I could always seal the walls with some of that fancy air paint, but the prices are eye watering.

Thanks @JohnMo. I have built in Masonary previously and acheived 1.8 on my airtightness. I'm planning on HVMR. My question related more to if i was to ask a company to size an ASHP for me from paper before the house was built. My only thought now would be how leaky my Medium Density internal block walls would be before plastering.

@JohnMo So lets say im building a new house, and i know the floor area. Know the window sizes. Know the room volume. Know all the u values of the walls, floor, roof, doors, and windows. So knowing that a new house has to achieve an airtightness of 6, I assume that all of the above figures are used to calculate what size heat pump you will require for heating. For the DHW side of things, number of showers, baths, sinks etc. If you then go above and beyond with your build, and get say an airtest result of 1.8 will that mean that the chances are you air source heat pipe is sized too big ? If it is then does that mean that cost wise, it will be more expensive to run than a correctly sized unit ?

You have said that both of your properties are the same, or were before the property next door was extended. That would suggest that the wall hard up against the boundary was built 8 years ago when the property was extended. If that is the case, his building will have had to comply with building regulations. That means that the building inspector will have inspected his trenches / foundations depth. You may well find that you will only be digging down to the same depth as the bottom of his foundations. If that is the case then the PWA will not apply, and you wont need One. To start with, i would dig a hole in your garden, alongside his building, and find out how deep his foundations actually go down into the ground. That would be a good starting point to enable you to see if the PWA will even come into play. If you can avoid it then it will save you several Thousand Pounds. Providing you can avoid the waste of money that is the PWA, the only other thing i would perhaps consider doing, is offering to have the condition of your neighbours wall recorded by a surveyor, (photos etc) before the start of work. This would protect you from them saying "You caused this crack etc" as all that would be logged before any work started on your side.

what ever you do don't put the washing machine valve behind the actual machine. Better behind a cupboard next to it with an access hatch.

Sorry, i can't help but try waterworld. I think they are online. Just don't do what i did. I wanted a stream across my old garden with a bridge. Sump at one end where it looked like it was going under the fence. About 2 meters wide. I wanted the other end, which was a wall covered in Ivy, to be where the water was coming from. I went into Waterworld, and said i wanted the biggest pump and pipe that i could drop in my sump end. They wanted to know things like my flow rate required etc. I told them not to worry about all that, and just give me a huge big pump. The pipe was about 75mm diameter. When i fitted it, and turned it on, i wanted a right good trickle through the Ivy. If i recall, i hit a house about 100 foot away. it was more powerful than a fire hose. So whatever you do get it sized properly.

I did think about that. I wonder what sor of U value a concrete lintel would have in relation to say a medium density block ?

Thinking about solar. My southish facing roof only has a pitch of 30 degrees. I'm looking at solar to see if it might be worth adding to the roof when i build the house. Is 30 degrees too low to make it worthwhile even considering ? Are there any websites that would give me some idea of the suns movement, and potential solar power generation. Is East or West facing solar panels even worth considering ? Thanks for any help.

Anybody got any idea if i will have to close off the top of my masonary, full fill cavity wall, before it enters the cold roof ? I would have liked to have ran the insulation through to join up with the loft insulation.

Thanks @eandg i will check that out.

Just a heads up. I'm planning on building in Block and Block rendered on the external bottom half, and clad in Hardi plank on the top half. Now the medium density blocks are not flamable, and neither is the cladding. However, the cladding will be mounted on timber battens and will therefore have a ventilated cavity behind it. My understanding of the current building regs is that i am going to have to have a fire stop in this cavity. Because the cavity has to remain open, i am going to have to get something like Tenmat FF102/50. For me to put a band around the bottom of the cladding, and a band around the top, i'm going to need about 150m of the stuff It's blinking £25 a meter ! That's about £3750.......Yikes, that is going to be painfull on the budget. Can anybody tell me i dont need it ? As a second question. Do i now need to close off the top of my cavity ? I'm having a cold roof, and have read that moist air in the cavity can rise into the roof, and cause damp/condensation.Is this the case even though i am having a full fill cavity ? Thanks for all your help as usual.

Nice job @Temp One I knocked up a few years ago for my daughter.

That to me looks like a kind of underlay that seems to be made of crumbed rubber. It is often used within the recording industry. Bloody heavy if i remember correctly.

No idea if this helps, but what about Solfit. Panels link together, so no trays required. Might be worth a look. British Company i believe.

@SteamyTea has posted about that Joe [Merged from another thread]

@SteamyTea So do we in GB have anything similar ? Or are we being left behind ?

Very interesting read. The only thing for me is you are again tied into a big company for your hot water and heat. My preference would be for us all to be able to supply our own power for the running of our properties. Solar, wind, or whatever comes next.

If it is the water trap then it should be fixable from below. (Hole in the ceiling)