Conor

Could you insulate between the floor and bottom of the cabinet? E.g 50mm of polystyrene?

I gave up on compact foam and instead just cast a concrete door block. The door fitters hated it and insisted on concrete for the 4.6m bi-folds and massive front door. I'm reducing the cold bridge by fixing aerogel to either side of it.

Knock 'em all down and start again Would love to see the government contract documents for that. But seriously, we do it all the time in utilities. "Condition Assessments" are standard and there is always a point where an asset is no longer worth upkeeping and it's better to demolish and replace with something new. That's because we're looking at 50yr timeframes. I think somebody needs to take the same look at our hosing stock and make the same calls. I doubt any politician would think that far in to the future - short term votes are all that matter to them.

He's a counter argument for bi-folds. We had 3m ones in our last house and loved them. They were open far more than even we thought they would be. Having the full width open is ideal if you want to use the space as an indoor-outdoor dining/social space. Which was exactly what we did. That's the main reason we're going for them again in this build. The frames aren't an issue for us as we don't have a view as such, and they do frame what is there. Another factor that is unique in our case, is that we have matching fixed units above, and there is a room divide at the second frame. So sliders would never have worked for us as we wouldn't have been able to align the frames above. But that's not a consideration for most people I suppose.

Must be for the double gazed units. Ours are definitely less than 1.

Our 2650mm tall and 4600mm wide solarlux went in last week. Triple glazed and class 4 airtightness. 5 figure cost to go with it.

I was told to spread out a layer of sand before laying the boards down. That sounds like a lot of work over 115m². I've found a local company that does an insulated liquid screed (similar R value to EPS). Think I'm going to put 50mm of that down, ufh, then 50mm liquid screed

Our excellent roofers used code 4 for everything. Think it cost me about £500 ?

All info should be on your LAs planning portal.

I can almost guarantee you that the sewer pipe shown is not where it is in reality. Dig a trial hole where you intend on building and find out.

I'm similar to Jack... 315m² over three stories, peak heading load of 5kW. Ive no idea on the style/shape of your build, build method, insulation etc... But I wouldn't hesitate to spend another £50k+ on passive House levels of insulation and airtightness. That'll get you down to a single 11kW ashp.

It's on the connection form (for us here anyway). But if you're already connected and supplied, I don't think I'd bother.

We did. We actually ended up making a major change a month after our NMC was rejected and just rolled it in to that. If you're just changing the type of window and it's not visible from the road, I'd push on without it.

Yes. But if the changes are beyond the scope of an NMC/NMA, you'll need a full application. That's exactly what happened to us when we changed a couple windows.

We had a battle to get our house derated until we were allowed to demolish. You might be able to pull the widows out, remove heating, bathroom and kitchens. But this may not be enough and you might need to remove a wall or part of the roof to qualify. At that point you may get in trouble with planning enforcement for starting demolition without permission... We had extra complication of being in a conservation area, so even partial demolition was a big no. We ended up paying rates for two years on an empty house in North Down, and our current house at the same time ?

I would be installing a course of blocks on the founds, DPC a treated timber sole plate, then your stick frame. Also a basic concrete or screed floor with DPM. Got somewhere for roof water to go? What length are the roof joists?

Our house is 315m² and basically split in two with a central hall/stairwell across three stories. So two units is a must. I've two Salda units ready to fit, each one 400m3hr capacity. I'll have 160mm ducts rising from each through the house with manifolds on each floor. It's a lot of kit!!!

Engineers here aren't used to working with glulam. Our bifold supplier wanted to use a glulam head as its what they are used to (Dutch). By the time I would have paid my engineer to recalculate and spec for a glulam beam, I would have been able to buy a steel beam for the same cost, before we even think about the cost of the beam.

As above, our roofer included leadwork in his slate laying rate, I supplied the materials. Why not a dry ridge system?

The fan I used didn't. I just had a flap damper which was useless. If I was doing it again I'd go for an actuated damper. At that point I'd ask my spark to figure it out and wire it up for me ?

For us the overall performance of the unit was the priority. Ours have quite chunky frames at 65mm or so, but we've gone for tilt and turn and we're packing out the reveals on both inside and outside so you see very little of them. Our bi-folds are aluminium and have a narrower profile to the aluclad. It's costing us £12k lol

We got Internorm 3G Aluclad units for much less than that. Our quote came down by about £10k through the process. Never accept the first price, there's decent margin in windows. I'd definitely look in to alcu clad uPVC, you'll be able to go to triple glazed and still come out cheaper than all alu units. What price is your front door? Ours was quoted initially at £6k but came down to £4k with "free" fingerprint scanner smart lock thingy that supposedly costs £700... C

You usually go +2mm for resin setting.

Quite a few here have. Monobloc ashp and a pre-plumbed cylinder is simple enough. I say this with a ashp on order, not having really looked in to this yet...

Don't be afraid to haggle either. We got an extra £2.50 off per tonne just be asking.