puntloos

So it's mid-2019. After 4+ years of trying to find an 'oven ready' place that suited us, we finally gave up and went the alternate route. Build our own. Found a bad house in a great location. Main downside was the small garden, but you unless you're absolutely loaded you can't have it all. And of course the real estate agreed with our timelines. "Yes, if you buy in may 2019, the design will take you into december, and you can probably start early Spring, and maybe even be done before 2021." Seemed reasonable at the time. * just a small note, I'm not advertising this blog for now, I have no idea if I can muster the willpower to truly build it out, I have a lot on my plate. Let's see what happens.

700W in that case

So I've designed my under-stair cupboard to accomodate a hot water cylinder in the center of the picture below. A 400L class-C cylinder, the one I designed in is a https://www.gledhill.net/products/alternative-energy/stainlesslite-heat-pump/ My contractor points out that "class C" will heat up the place, shedding heat into the under-stair, as well as rest of the house which is Passivhaus spec!. Class A is nice of course, but I could only fit, maybe, a https://www.osohotwater.com/product/indirect-hot-water-cylinder-dgc/ which goes up to 300L "only". Should I really try to spend and fit the fancy one? Or is class C fine, even for passivhaus

Other than the semi-obvious (curtains) - are there any good ways of blacking out a pocket door that has glass elements? We like wood+glass better as a separator between kitchen and livingroom, but livingroom has a projector so needs to be as dark as possible, while we've designed our kitchen with as much light as possible. Any way around this?

Now.. same question for a pocket door? how would you sound-insulate it? Or should I avoid it? FWIW my pretty standard (glass+wood) eclisse pocket door works surprisingly well and it has no deliberate acoustical treatment

As we all know, when building, any delay on one front can blow up schedules across the board and cost time and money. Just want to make sure I tick all boxes. Is there affordable insurance against: (just some examples) - Finding an unexploded WWII bomb or buried chemical dump or whatever "historical inconvenience" that we couldn't have known about and causes massive delays? Can I be compensated for the delay somehow especially if the culprit is nowhere to be found, or in a ditch, covered in petrol, on fire? -Some human trying to tie me up in court over something. E.g. someone, maliciously or no, says there are cross-twitted hedgewarblers in my rear yard and therefore I can't demo, investigation costs 2 months. No matter if they are right or not, if they tie me up in court it costs money.. so: Court/Legal costs Cost of delays/replanning? - Builder goes bust, new builder asks way more than original builder Won't someone pay the difference? - Deliveries get delayed, even though the orders were made at a reasonable time who do you sue?

Not 101% sure, she mumbles something ahead of the critical sentence. But purely due to the nature of the blinds I don't think they could ever be 100%. In particular they are built inside the frame (so they have to match the frame 101% (heh) accurately to let 0 light through)

I find it somewhat surprising none of these shutters mention "light permeability" on any of their feature page. Zee Deutsches Dirndl's 75% is the closest I could come to it..

Yes, I'm pretty sure. I don't think you can block more than 100% 😃 One extra question though: Both for external venetian and standard blinds: Is cleaning a chore? How often?

The lady in this video says that they block 75% of the sunlight. Not amazing, not bad. as

Spoke to my kitchen guy, and he had 2 important points that make me somewhat hesitate: 1/ Our chosen (but can change I suppose) countertop material is dekton, and it is so hard that it is really difficult to cut the right shape to fit the hob into it. Chipping might happen, no beautiful clean edge. -> Should they invest in something better than uncle Gaz with his circular saw? 2/ When you place hob into the recess you bed it down ont silicon around the frame. Silicone over time absorbs grease - like a bad bathroom, soaks up mould. Arguably a hygiene issue but also looks a bit 'eh'?

Phew! I leave you guys alone for 3 days and there's so much discussion I wouldn't know where to start. But in short: Venetians.. quite a good idea, but I am somewhat worried about the amount of light it blocks in bedrooms. I'll have a think. Frankly most external shutters I've encountered in my life also leave plenty of light pouring through. Are proper modern shutters truly blackout Turns out "my brand" - aluprof also has venetians - although they spell it wrong, is that a yellow flag? https://aluprof.eu/en/architects/catalogue-for-architects/external-venetian-blinds/skb-f#/materials/general-information Certainly venetians feel somewhat more flimsy Flush mounted flyscreens.. especially for my sliding doors (to the garden) they'd need to be quicklly openable so perhaps better from the side rather than rolling slowly from the top.

Thanks all, I think the bin drawer is not a bad option, but I think it's the waste disposal unit route for me. Permanently being able to whip food into the sink (not to mention stuff you've already been peeling, just let it drop from your hands) seems like a very sensible approach. Just have to think a bit about "what if your favorite xyz drops into the WDU"

So, I've been speaking to Aluprof, the most likely supplier of my windows, and sadly their external shutter system - the flush mounted shutter rollers 's flyscreen is apparently somewhat prone to failure. Pity. Does anyone know any other brand of external shutters that is: 1/ Integrated (flush mounted) into the wall 2/ Passivhaus certified, ideally. 3/ Flyscreen integrated, also ideally.

So I'm currently in the process of allocating power and network sockets to my house design. My problem: how do you create as beautiful a house as possible (by hiding unsightly sockets, cables, extension cords) but also predicting where the bed, desk, couches will go, and where they might go. A few examples: - Power sockets would be nicest right under the worktop of a desk (and perhaps a solo one above the desk) but not on the floor - Network sockets go behind TVs - 2 sockets and switches to left and right of the bed. All so simple, right? But.. (we all know what's coming..) What if there's 2-3 possible places for a desk location? Power sockets at (say) 800 on a blank visible wall are pretty obnoxious What if in the future world we don't do TVs but we do spaceprojectors What if I might want a super king, not a king bed. I'm trying to figure out how I balance between making the situation ultra-elegant, just as long as I predict everything perfectly.. and some compromise, or just some super generic design that mostly expects you to just work around any lack of sockets by running cables around the wall etc. One trick I'm pondering - should I create a bunch of powered wall boxes but not actually put the sockets/switches in there and basically plaster over them until I need them?

I'm thinking I could, theoretically, create a full height cabinet with a few power sockets, that would allow me to store "less frequently used" devices while not having to pull them out and juggle them around. Basically just use them inside the cupboard. Thinking of: - Breadmaker - Rice cooker - Toaster Common theme of course is 'heat'. I can imagine that the breadmaker and rice cooker keep in most of the heat, and once you open them you presumably have the cabinet open. But a toaster would unload a ton of heat into the cabinet making it probably a fire hazard.. or? In short, is this a good idea for at least breadmaker/rice cooker or should I never do it under any circumstance?

Fair points, although of course comparing chest with drawer is probably done just leaving the devices closed for ages rather than actual day to day use. But I can see the point around having a few drawers fixing most of the main concerns of 'cold falling out of the freezer'

Watch this video: TL;DR: chest 😃

In this rental we've had some off brand hob that has been treated 'fairly well' but I certainly move pans around from burner A to B (without lifting) and no hugely noticeable scratches @Mandana a very stupid question perhaps but it *almost* looks like you still have the protective plastic film on your hob.... you know, the thin sheets of plastic that you can always peel off electric equipment in a pretty satisfying way... could it be ..? Frankly unless you did something truly unreasonable that level of scratching feels it should fall under warranty..

Thanks @Ferdinandand @Conor this is exactly the sort of detail I was looking for. People tend to be a bit traditional so even if 'the better thing' was found they might resist switching but it sounded too good to be true... I'll keep my research up. Perhaps more importantly the question I really want to ask is how I can have a 'small kid compatible' garden that is ideally low maintenance and environmental and aesthetically pleasing.

Thankfully we're not yet at that stage. In fact the roof isn't there yet 😃 So indeed, going to have to insist on better panels (and perhaps a better supplier)

https://www.ruralsprout.com/creeping-thyme-lawn/ Has anyone ever considered doing this? As far as I can tell: + Much less thirsty + Crowds out other plants in your lawn & fills the space + Much more summer heat resistant + Fragrant + No lawnmowing needed, sticks to 5cm Only 3 downsides: - A little less strong than grass - Uneven (but you could mow..) -(?) when flowering, it means you have bees on the ground, so walking barefoot not advised.

Yes, it seems like a bit of a 'yellow flag' at least, but I don't know what the rationale was. I'm somewhat surprised that the solar market isnt more uniform with panel sizes but perhaps my designer could *exactly* fit that panel and nothing else.. or the price was so amazeballs..

Or if you're "I am a huge computer and electronics nerd" constrained. My best estimate is that my house runs an average of 1000W or 8000kWh per year (which includes modest ASHP and elec car usage) so I'm going to be needing quite a few panels to just reach that based on the assumption I can 1:1 trade with the grid. So while I have a largeish house I am still close to maxing out the roof space (so more efficient panels matter) But yes I am going to have to take a good look at what the optimal dimensions are for the panels (given I need to build them into trays) etc

Great spot, I missed that. Indeed not a huge difference. Frankly the main thing I seem to struggle with is seeing availability. There's a few panels out there, for example @Radian's panels indeed seem to be Available on Tradesparky - 202quid inc VAT each. Doable.