Alex C

It is really easy to make shadow gap flush skirting look absolute crap by not having the bead and skirting aligning properly and also having a good support for the bead. I have seen loads done badly where the bead cracks away from the skirting and plaster. Depending on your wall build up you may also need continuous plasterboard to fire rate your wall.

You need to double slab the walls and use a trim like this http://www.qic-trims.com/product_category/dry-lining-trims/ Use the R12. Metal trim is much better than plastic. Door linings need to go in before plasterboard and fit the trim to the edge of them. Detail drawings here https://armourcoat.com/en/technical/sss/SSS004

I thought I had read 1.2 m somewhere although I think it may be dependant on drain length and fall on the drain. You are allowed a leak as mentioned above, although really there shouldn't be any on newly laid pipe.

what you need is one of these and a hose pipe. Put a 1.2m vertical pipe on the head and fill it to the brim. See if the level goes down. Job done.

I got a good price from CCF for rockwool slab for sound insulation.

Gopro is the easiest route as the newer ones will automatically export a composited video. I did it the old school method with a digital slr and a velocirometer (programmable shutter release) and then composited it with quicktime pro 7 which has an option to import stills to a time lapse. If you use a gopro you will need attach a power lead as the battery life is not good. If you use a waterproof case you will need to drill a hole in it to fix the power lead.

You need to firstly decide what you are going to shoot, do you want to edit it, and how long do you want your final film to be. Once you have any idea on these you can look at the number of frames required. If you want to stick a static camera on a pole and shoot a build for 2 weeks to produce a film of 5 minutes long it is just a bit of basic maths to work out how often to shoot frames that will be played back at 24 frames a second. If you want to edit footage then you can afford to take more stills and edit out the boring bits. I find static camera time lapses pretty tedious so decided to move my camera around to get shots that would edit well to tell a story although this does take loads more effort. A couple of mine have been used on the home page of MBC. At some point I will get round to editing them properly as they were a bit of rush job, just been snowed under on my build at the moment. I shot a frame every 6 seconds as I wanted to show a level of detail in the construction. Shooting that many frames at a high definition resolution starts to really stack up on memory size after a couple of weeks so you need to be prepared for it if that is the route you want to go down.

@lakelandfolk, it is my timelapse that I have let MBC use. The steel beams and posts are on the inside plane of the wall and are fully insulated around the outside. This is an area where you do have to be really careful, especially with cantilevered parts of the build, or balconies above like I have.

I went to an conference by the Good Homes Alliance a few years ago that was addressing air quality in buildings. The meeting was attended by large landlords and house builders such as the Peabody trust. It was very evident that at the time a lot of the well insulated homes with mvhr being built were by some of these organisations that are renting to a particular demographic. The Peabody trust said there was a real issue with their new flats being overpopulated, full of wet washing and mvhr turned off with no heating on either as tenants thought it was too expensive to run. I am pretty sure this then skews statistics for air air quality in new builds due to the numbers being built, versus well informed self builders. As has already been mentioned, some people are just not able to function in a home in the way well insulated and airtight houses need to be.

Its a tricky one as a good lighting designer is not going to be cheap and will generally specify more expensive fittings. I have used them a lot for commercial work such as retail design and restaurants, but generally do it myself for domestic, unless a client has a massive budget. As has been mentioned above mixing up lighting types is a really good approach. Maybe downlighters that are dimmable for general lighting and then 5amp circuits and spend you money on some really nice floor standing feature lighting and task lights. You can then take this away with you if you move house. I spent £800 years ago on on an Arco floor lamp (which are now over £1200), but it was money well spent for me as it looks fantastic and has been to 3 different houses with me. Dont make the mistake of putting a grid of downlights in a large open plan space. It is much better to think about what you will want to illuminate such as pictures on walls and place areas or lines of them accordingly. I generally don't bother putting rows of downlights in front of full height glazing as it just reflects horribly off the glass . It is much more effective to put lights where they will shine on walls and then the light into the room is reflected from then rather than direct. Dont just rely on recessed downlights in a bathroom as they cast shadows on your face when you look in the mirror and are not flattering.

I have been quoted £6 square meter supply and fit by a tacker so pretty good value.

The metal resilient bar is for impact sound such as people walking upstairs wheras rockwool type products are for airborne sound such as talking or tv. To get the best sound insulation you really need something to address both types of sound. To be honest the top hat section profile you describe sounds more like a standard suspended ceiling product rather than a resilient bar, which is normally a z shape with the top of the z screwed to the joists and the bottom of it screwed to the plasterboard. just seen the link above. the top hat sections rely on being mounted on a rubber bushing for separation.

I need to get my plant room lined (cupboard off the bathroom) so I can install the mvhr ducts and fix them to the manifolds. I won't be able to get at it to plaster afterwards so need a board that I can just paint or perhaps leave unfinished, and also needs fire resitance as it will form part of the ceiling on my upper floor. Any suggestions? Fermacell, supalux. Would be good if it also has sound deadening properties to stop any mvhr noise passing into the adjacent bedroom.

The window damage is just small dents. They were complaining about the finish being hard to match (it is the white washed timber). I know I am more fussy than average about finish, but the repair was something anyone could spot straight away.

General builders just don't read drawings, they do what they know how to do and thats it. Anything else seems to be an exception to the rule. I have been involved in commercial interiors for 20 years and it has only been the really high end tradesmen and specialists like electricians and plumbers that seem to bother. I was speaking to an 85 year old architect recently who said exactly the same thing.

I had another magic man out today booked by ecohause to try and make repairs. He was not successful. I have now been promised replacement for any damaged windows if they cannot be repaired properly. I am finally getting somewhere, but to be honest it should have all happened much quicker and been escalated to senior staff at an earlier stage. I read yesterday that ecohause expanded 30% last year, and it is quite clear they don't as yet have the staff to support that kind of expansion. Hopefully it will be all resolved, but it has caused a lot of stress and wasted massive amounts of my time.

I was advised to not let my window installers fill that gap with silicone, as it can crack away over time. Instead I foamed flush with the front of the frame, trimming it off neatly with a knife and then fitted Siga Wigluv tape, which is designed specifically for this type of job. the tape is expensive at about £1 a meter, but I think the £280 I spent and few days fitting was time and money well spent. My windows are set back into the reveals so potentially is more of an issue as water can sit under the cill and track under the window.

My installers worked out at about £500 a day per person. I think the margins probably are not that great on the windows, but then fitting gets loaded as this is where all the problems can arise. There seems to be some sudden movement with my suppliers and their fitters with a rush to try and sort stuff out, perhaps they read this forum. I will update next week.

I have Ecohause Internorm windows. The installation was a rip off at over 8k, which I accepted as I thought I would get a premium job with easy comeback on damage or problems. The installers were subcontracted idiots who fitted windows badly and damaged nearly every window. I have just had magicman out to repair them, which he has been unable to do. Just to make it really clear Ecohause Internorm have been terrible to deal with and have offered an expensive and substandard service.

I should also add that it took Ecohause Internorm 4 weeks to produce their sign off drawings and then the contractual maximum of 14 weeks to manufacture the windows. You might well of guessed that I am not a happy customer. I had to get their first set of installers to leave my site as they were completely incompetent and damaged nearly every window. All windows and doors had to be refitted. I am still awaiting refitting of items and re sealing around glass as none of it was completed to a satisfactory standard.

The only information Ecohause internorm would give me was to say they needed a 30mm recess in the slab, and when pushed for weeks finally said ok to my section detail. MBC did not give any information on how to create this detail, although I think this level of information is very dependent on the individual who is doing the design work. I had to do all of the work myself for the window and slider support and produced my own drawings. My blinds are from Internorm, although Ecohause Internorm knew less about their own product than I did. The installers had never seen them before.

I have just been through this and have flush internorm lift and slide as well as front and back door. Internorm will want you to support as much of the aluminium extrusion at the base as possible (well actually all of it). I have attached my sections that everyone eventually seemed pretty happy with. The issue is actually managing to shutter the slab accurately on site to get a level step down detail. My installers from Ecohause were not only expensive, but also terrible, but after several attempts managed what seems to be ok. When you say approved detail, who do you want it approved by? No-one is going to sign on a dotted line with anything other than full support to the slider or door base, but obviously that will be a massive thermal bridge. window gf06 section.pdf sliding door section.pdf

Your not going to get much of an expert in any field for £50 for 90 minutes onsite , even £150 sounds cheap. Factor in travel time for them as well. Maybe what you need is an architect who has a lot of site experience. I'm not sure an architectural technician or surveyor is going to cover everything you want, unless you are very lucky with a particular individual.

Fire extinguisher, not store flammable items in the building, no hot works in the afternoon. No smoking in the build. Keep the place clean and tidy, it is often rubbish that burns first. Make sure you keep local kids out as they are the most likely cause of fires. I worked on a timber frame build where the fire brigade was called by neighbours as some rags that had linseed oil on self combusted over the weekend. Fortunately they were in a barrel, but it shows how easily fires can start.

If there are so called unusual items in a build all a QS will do is stick in a very conservative estimate. You are best off getting quotes for the separate parts of the build yourself. I don't see how a QS package can make savings, it will only help with cost certainty. A QS normally is not the person to be getting best prices for stuff, that would be a decent project manager, or yourself.