Conor

Resurrecting this. Looked in to mounting on the revised garage roof, however will will still have shading issues in morning and evening. The best solution seems to be pairs/blocks of PV panels on the various roofs. I am using an insulated roof panel system that will then be counter battened slating. If I use the likes of a GE in roof mounting system, where would the micro inverters go? Can they go in behind each panel so to be accessed from outside for maintenance? In below the insulated roof is not an option.

http://www.totalfloorheating.com/more/on/details/00331 I've been meaning to call down to them and get an all in price for the ashp, manifolds, cylinder, ufh system etc. I will report back.

I've found a local place that does Mitsubishi 5kw ecodans for £2.2k delivered. I'm 6 months from needing to buy. http://www.totalfloorheating.com/more/on/details/00331

There was an episode of Fully Charged a couple weeks ago that featured pop up charging units installed in footpaths in residential areas. One possible solution. Another is fitting boxes to the side of the many millions of street lights. I think the issue is being a bit over hyped, the electric grid in Europe is ubiquitous.

I'd also add the the "in car" lifespan of current LI batteries is anywhere from 15-25 years. After that, they'll have another useful life of another 10-15 years as static storage. Eventually when it's no longer usable, 100% of the lithium and cobalt can be extracted. And we're at the beginning of the curve, things can only improve with further R&D. Compare that to the lifespan and recycling of an ICE unit... The arguers against EV technology are beginning to sound like the typical climate change denial stuff. they conviently forget about the embedded energy in ICE units and the collasal environmental impact of oil exploration, refining and distriburion. IICR the embedded carbon in petrol by the time it gets to the pump is about 25% on top of the tailpipe emissions. There's more education required. But I can't believe how rapidly things are changing... A year ago nobody (in causal circles) was talking about EVs... Now it's a regular thing.

I think my QS estimate was so off as he only had the planning drawings... So no construction detail or spec to work on. Rubbish in, rubbish out. It gave us a starting point for the mortgage application, would never be accurate enough to budget a project.

Cape May, New Jersey. Never figured out if this was deliberate, a huge cock-up or if the building subsided.

Make it smaller than you think. I made one with 1.5m long timbers and ended up chopping the legs off as it was too high. You want it to end up about waist height. I also added an extra pair of legs at one end, so would be able to cut short logs. This is the design I based mine on: https://www.firewood-for-life.com/sawbuck-plans.html

Thanks Jeremy. Even if it can't be fitted to the bi-folds, it can at least go into the fixed panes above and the panes on the living room and bedroom... So that would be more than 50% of South facing glass controllable. And no ugly and expensive bris soleil.

I've seen sage glass being mentioned here a few times. We've a bris soleil in our plans but after some online quotes, and chats with engineer it could end up being costing a couple grand or more... Anybody any idea how much sage glass or similar is compared to standard triple glazing? And can you install it in bifold units or do they need to be fixed units for wiring? Thanks.

Get a QS estimate, then reduce it by about 30%, then you'll be in the ballpark. You can also get some fairly solid quotes quite quickly by firing off your drawings to peopele, e.g. for Windows and doors, roof tiles, heating systems, foundation slab, intermediate floors and ground works/services etc. You can use those to fine tune your QS estimate. That's what we did. Got our QS estimate down from £390k to £250k (£1k/m², self managed project), and architect and bank were happy with it. Groundworks and services are the biggest risks and variables. Can be anything from £10k to £100k. Where you are has a huge impact on cost. In SE England it seems you start at £1500/m² and go up... Here in northern Ireland it's almost half that due to much lower labour and quarry material costs.

@tongfather I had exactly the same in my rental. I just used silicone of the same colour and put in in the gap where the glass chip was.... The guy never noticed it when doing our moving out inspection. Happy days.

Is there a gap between the underside of the glass edge and the worktop surface? Seems to be the way a lot are installed. Glass is crap under compression so a prime failure point. I put a good thick bead of sealant around. The edge of our hob. So far, so good...

Depends on what you want to do. If it's for just planning and visualisation, then any of the free online apps would do. If you are talking about actual design drawings for building control, engineering or construction.... Then that's a different ball game. Most professionals would use autocad or the architecture version of it. It's great, once you've spent a year or two learning how to use it!

Sounds like marketing BS, as Mr Harris says, all resistance electrical heating is the same in terms of efficiency and running costs. No different than using a 30 year old electric oil radiator. Only differences would be the rates at which heat is transferred from the element to the environment.

Thanks Declan. Yeah, I think we'll go for the raked out look. Will have to check this all with the engineer tho. Thanks Tony, I did Google but never found that site. Bricks will be easy to clean, weak lime mortar. Already taken a couple walls done and the mortar crumbles away. Thinking it would be a good way to use a portion of the 25k bricks we'll have piled up at the back...

Doesn't really work like that. Yes, you have to calculate how much static and live load a part of a structure must support. E.g. for a floor span in a residential setting, it would be in the region of 3kn/m² . But for foundations and a floor slab, the job is to transfer the building loadings safely to the ground below. So it's not just compressive strength of the concrete.

Anybody have any idea what the cost comparison is between block laying and brick laying in terms of labour only if everything else equal? This is for single skin, finished quality internal walls for our basement. Is brickwork double? Triple? Have a choice between dense blocks with pointed mortar then painted, or reclaimed red brick, pointed. We have a limitless supply of redbrick from the demolition, interested to know of this will end being comparable to a dense block wall (not bothering rendering the walls in the basement, cheap n cheerful finish). Thanks.

standard would be C25 or C30 concrete mix. Would be either 100mm or 150mm thick with steel mesh about 50mm below the FFL. Ring beam would be a bit thicker with 12/14mm rebar and eps300 under it. All depends on your wall makeup and ground conditions.. Heavier the building, thicker and wider the ring beam needs to be. I'm looking at 900mm wide and 300mm thick for my ICF build. Rest of slab will be 100mm thick with just mesh and EPS100 under. With a timber building, you may not need anything more than just the 100mm/150mm thick raft. Ensure slab is properly protected from temperature extremes during the curing process to prevent cracking if it's your finished floor.

The meter will have a small pinning dial that represents 1 litre per revolution (normally). Have a gander. But that leaking toilet cistern is barely over a couple litres per hour. There could be a more significant pipe leak somewhere outside or under the property. A quick test is to turn off the stop tap under the kitchen sink and have a look at the outside meter dial. You'll know instantly if there is an issue.

All things being equal, you get a higher flow rate through a 22mm pipe than a 15mm pipe. But in your case, the combi boiler won't be able to produce enough hot water to make use of the extra capacity in the pipe. When I did my bathroom, I ripped out all the old 1" copper and replaced with 15mm plastic. Venturi effect is something completely different. It describes how a sudden change in fluid velocity has a corresponding change in pressure.This is how those wine aerotors / guzzlers work. A small hole at a narrow point in the tube where you effectively have negative pressure, draws in air from the outside. Going back a century or so, this is how a lot of large water meters worked. The ratio of the lengths/diameters of two opposing cones would produce a predicted pressure change depending on the flow rate. So by measuring the upstream and downstream pressures, you could calculate the flow through the meter. Genius. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Fluids/venturi.html

We're in a strange enough scenario... We bought a house to renovate but it just needed too much work. So we currently have a residential mortgage on it. In order to knock and rebuild, we needed a self build mortgage. The only company that would offer us an 80% LTV on the site (luckily the site cleared with FPP is worth same as what we paid for the house) was ecology. They'll then pay out in stages as the build progresses. Only NI bank that would do similar was first trust... But only offers 50% LTV. Where are you building? I can highly recommend FMK architecture in Ahoghill if you don't yet have an architect.

That's actually pretty reasonable and typical for Northern Ireland. Land, labour and quarry materials are far cheaper than in rest of UK (e.g. I got a quote for pump suitable concrete at £60 per cube). I'm budgeting £1k/m² as well but aiming to come in lower.

Sell your current house and rent for a year while you build. Get a self build mortgage with a high LTV (e.g. 80% from ecology) and make sure you've always enough cash for the next stage, so you are never totally dependent on the next draw down. That's exactly what we're doing. Yes, renting for a year will cost us about £9k, but it's giving us access to £80k cash that will mean we have over 50% of the build budget in the bank, will always have a buffer during the build. (I'm in NI as well, and all of the local banks were pretty much useless, so we went with Ecology)

That's why I'm waiting until the weekend... Need some help lowering it down!