Conor

How long are the waste runs? 40mm solvent weld should do the job in most cases and loads of pipes and fittings available from Screwfix.

Welcome First step. Is a 16kw ashp needed? Our house is 315m2 and we are installing a 9kW ashp, which in itself is over specced. If you're heat losses mean a 16kW ashp is needed, I would closely look at your insulation, airtightness and glazing strategy so see how to reduce the peak heating demand. Secondly, 16kW is the max OUTPUT of the heatpump. Check the specs and see what the max power consumption is. If it's less than 7kW then single phase is sufficient.

When I worked with a guy restoring Agas, warped doors and frames were common after enamelling. We used lots of fibreglass rope and heatproof silicone to get a good seal and would add extra lengths at corners that had cracked or didn't align. Temps obviously lower than a stove box.

Yes. For a 7.5mm screw, drill a 6 or 6.5mm pilot hole. I use the 70mm ones from Screwfix. An alternative could be coach screws.

Of all the things I've tried for fixing to steel, the best by far have been concrete screws. The hardened steel cuts a really good thread and the screws stick better than anything else. Probably overkill for this case tho.

The compact P with the ASHP comes in at close to £12k. I dismissed it at the time as thought it too expensive. My chosen install of mvhr and ashp has come in at £11k and a whole load more hassle ?‍♂️

Yep, angle of the sun. Low angle means more is bypassing shading by reveals and overhangs and directly hitting surfaces of your interior.

A few here have done it. Full fill insualtion and lightweight blocks for inner leaf will get you close. Or insualted plasterboard which is the common way down south for getting a traditional build to NZEB. But a 200mm cavity would make things much easier and give you more options. Have a play around with this. https://www.cba-blocks.org.uk/u-value-calculator/ Are you set on a traditional block build then? We're ICF with a total of 250mm of graphite EPS insulation (equiv to about 150mm PIR) that gets us well within passive standards. PIR is still horribly expensive so you'll want to look at blown beads, mineral wool slabs etc. For the foundations that largely depends on your ground conditions. Passive rafts from the likes of Kore in Monaghan are growing in popularity. Your architect should be well up to speed on how to get the best U values for your build. Should be...

In lines of what Dave has said, your argument will be based on massing and over development of a site. PP was granted for one dwelling on a site, splitting the site in two doesn't change the fact that it's the same physical area. I don't think the splitting of the plot really affects the new house as the density of development is unchanged - it's their landscape plan that would come under the most scrutiny. Planners love hedges and trees in conservation areas. If they don't have the space to reinstate lost vegetation as a result of the development, they may have issues. But again, this will be negotiated out and nothing will be demolished or enforced.

Risk is higher with a self build Vs residential, hence higher interest rates, lower LTV and less capital offered. You don't really know how much they'll offer you until you've done all your cost estimates, valuation and application. (I think ecology have us the best offer of the ones we approached)

That's how I got hold of him, he worked on some of our contaminated sites projects.

If you need advice re contaminated land, I highly recommend Colin Cusack @ AES Bangor. I think his survey, report and a handful of probes for VOCs was about £500. Asbestos report was about the same.

A large adjustable spanner that I found in a field years ago. It's been lost and refound a couple times on this build already. It's rusty but a squirt of WD40 and it's back to life.

Installing rigid ducting is a tonne more work. I've just done my install and the sections that needed ridged ducting took a lifetime in comparison to the flexible sections. A simple vertical to horizontal bend takes a couple of hours. I cannot imaging the PITA of doing a 100% rigid install, even if it's PVC rather than galvanised steel. Walk away. I do recommend running the largest diameter to your manifolds and to have the manifolds positioned to minimise the length of the flexible ducting. I used Lindab to my ducting.

I get the impression that boarders would board in their granny in order to get a job finished.

Boarders working flat out this week, I had to quickly finish off some ventilation. Packing up this evening noticed a couple things missing... Rechargeable work light, silicon gun and PZ2 bit and holder now boarded up in vaulted ceiling forever. I'm sure I'm not the first to do this....

Sounds like a candidate for economy 7 overnight water heating and storage heater charging. Lived in an apartment just like you describes and there were only two storage heaters and a small, well insulated hot water tank. Worked perfectly and bills were very low. I think you'll need to maximise use of off peak electric - it's the cheapest and least carbon intensive.

Yes. 50mm PIR, UFH, 50mm liquid screed, 20mm engineered wooden floor. In the basement we built the studs off a course of quinnlight aerated blocks to mitigate the cold bridge.

1. No idea. I'm assuming as there's no point going below the FFL. 2. No idea, but I think the guy doing the metal work got the FFL wrong at the start. Think others are ok. The only Packers the joiner used were little strips of DPC

BC are fine as it's all hidden. Yes, temporary until they board one side of the wall. Nobody uses timber anymore here. We're drylining anyway. Nobody has complained about the metal studs so far.

Take anything a kitchen designer says with a pinch of salt. They are not the experts on electrical or building regs. We were told by almost all kitchen designers that we couldn't have a prep sink within 1200mm of our hob. Completely made up myth that seems to be ingrained in the industry.

SI is spun iron. The number on the label is a valve reference. FF is PE but they've the label below the other layers so it's obscured.

You talking about door frames? They made the C sections ~75mm or so wider than the door openings. They then lined the inside of the studs with 25x50mm battens and noggins either side. My joiners then fitted standard timber door frames before boarding.

We found Internorm (feneco) to be the best value aluclad after baskil. Baskil couldn't make a lot of our sized windows so Internorm was best choice. We contacted loads of companies and virtually none did aluclad 3g. Fyi, the wait for imported windows is about 6months at the minute. Get measured up asap.

Just lightly rub the area and prime. Intumescent paint can be quite tricky to apply, so it's worth getting a well prepared surface for it.