vivienz

There is some leakage through mine, primarily keyholes and openings. I noticed most when I was spraying the mist coats and had the windows masked off with drapey plastic that billowed. That said, our build retains so much heat that we're still leaving windows open during the day and have only just started closing our tilt and turn bedroom window overnight. A bit of window leakage isn't a big deal for us.

I've got the answer! For any other electrical numpties like me, an IP44 is fine. That would explain why the soffit lights I'm looking at are IP44 rated. Duh!

The gables over our bedroom balconies have downlights set into the soffits. Would an IP44 rating be sufficient for this or do I need IP65?

I believe that exactly this set up was done by @Weebles. They may be able to offer some advice on how it has worked out for them.

I would argue that if you have double Ds in constant rotation, it would reduce the amount of cupboard space you need. My old dishwasher and the one in the new house both have very shallow drawers at the top specifically for cutlery and do away with the need for a basket in the main internal area. Far more efficient use of space .

Here's a rubbish picture of the novy in situ with the extractor on the lowest height position. Each hotspot is in front of the slider control, i.e. parallel with the line of the extractor. I have found it to be very effective; my MVHR extracts for this room are also located about 1.5 metres back from the hob so rising steam isn't a problem. I'm very pleased with it.

I'm also going to be coy on price, just in case OH should stumble across this thread, but the German price will need all extraction kit and accessories added on, in true German car purchasing style. I came within an ace of buying a Gutmann and looked at Bora but was seduced by the Novy. Cleaning- just the hob is a 30 second effort but novelty value is still present having had gas hobs all my life. I will get bored with cleaning very soon. Guaranteed. Distance of pans from the extractor - the zones are in a line parallel to the extractor and so are equidistant. The extractor has 3 height settings and I opt for whichever one matches the highest pan.

Wilko durable matt emulsion 2.5l currently down to £9 from £15. Using it now at the old house and it's decent stuff.

I splashed out an outrageous amount of money on a Novy panorama. Whether the price tag is justified is a very subjective question, but it was for me. Fabulous functionality on the hob. The controls are sliders but highly responsive and accurate. You can have a super-power option on one spot to bring pans of water to the boil quickly, you can set it to maintain 3 different temperature levels and the bridging function works well. The recirculating extractor is quiet and powerful; even searing steak on a hot skillet doesn't let grease vapour escape. Cleaning is a breeze; including the extractor, I can have the whole thing wiped down and cleaned in about 2 minutes. A squirt of kitchen spray, wipe with wet cloth then wipe with a microfibre glass cloth. I'm not a fan of the bora - I did try one out in a kitchen studio but the novy is in a separate class (with a price tag to match, it must be said).

I think she paid about £950 for 2 x 3m x 645mm and 1 x 3m x 950mm. She subsequently also bought upstand. My own laminate worksurfaces are holding up very well in new kitchen and have turned out well.

A friend is having her kitchen done shortly and has purchased thin solid laminate from Worktop Express. Beautiful and harwearing with a very contemporary look due to the thinness of it.

For information, the FENSA registration cost is £45 whereas the building inspector fee is £165 (for Bournemouth), so the former doesn't seem such a bad deal now.

Well, I never. Many thanks, @Temp

I'm snagging our old house to get it on the market and one of the jobs is to replace a roof window in the loft conversion. The old one was fitted as part of the conversion but poorly done and it has collapsed/rotted/died and so must be replaced. A guy has just been around for a look to quote and has said that the new window must be registered with FENSA or some other trade body to indicate that it was installed by a registered installer. Of course, this comes at a price, £45 in this case. When I objected, the guy said it was either that or have it signed off by a buildings inspector as it was a building regs requirement for replacement windows in existing buildings to be registered or approved. Is this the case or do I get a whiff of something bovine and smelly?

It turns out that I don't have enough data points in what will be my home office/room for doing stuff. I need a minimum of two - one for my old PC that needs a hard wired connection, and one for my voip phone connection. I need to have the two together as I still need to send faxes on occasion (our rubbish bank insists on them for certain transaction requests) and use a modem on the PC. I've looked at D Link and Netgear ethernet switches - does anyone have any experiences or particular recommendations?

Thanks all, very enlightening.

That was my experience, in fact. The ATs I spoke to listened far more carefully to our desires for the build whereas the architects all told us what we should have. I explained that the rural site and potential for developing the gardens was a project my hubby had wanted to undertake for years; one of the architects said that he should also be allowed to design the garden, even though he wasn't a gardener and didn't have a clue what any of the trees or plants were called but knew what they should look like!

Thanks chaps, useful stuff. Joth your thought process is very interesting, thank you, and will help me consider further. Certainly, adding further non wired speakers is food for thought.

Some of those words meant something to me, but not sufficient to make a whole intelligible sentence as far as I'm concerned! Consider me lacking in skills.

The speakers and wiring to a location in the loft are already installed. The idea is that I can stream music from a computer/internet connection to the speakers in whichever room I choose. There are speakers in the kitchen and dining area on the ground floor (I have a tv with soundbar and subwoofer in the lounge area) and each of the bedrooms upstairs. As well as my phone, I want to be able to control the sound from any connected device in the house, i.e. tablet or laptop. Everything associated with the amp and electronics of the system needs to sit up in the loft, along with other stuff like that. I didn't so much choose sonos as it was highly recommended and chosen for me; I'm no music geek and never bought a diamond stylus or gold plated hi fi leads when things were analogue and I haven't upgraded my tastes since. I have no brand loyalty or desire to flash a label - the sweet spot between function and price is what I usually seek with most purchases.

My house has been wired for sound, so to speak, with ceiling loudspeakers wired up to a location in the loft where an amp and all that fancy electrickery will be located. I was originally talked into a Sonos system, but due to issues and time delays with my supplier I want to look at alternatives. Does anyone have any specific recommendations or ones to avoid?

FWIW, someone came out to supposedly commission my MVHR at the beginning of the month. He made a complete balls up of it, didn't notice that the inlet and outlet on the MVHR unit itself (or some other mucho importanto pipework) was the wrong way around and there was no fresh air being circulated at all. I'm currently considering doing this myself given the lack of support for it as my faith in the 'professionals' is lacking at the moment on many fronts.

I think I may not have been clear here, @AnonymousBosch , as it's not an additional SA in its complete form that I have requested but just the electronic controller unit.

It wasn't so much a great nervousness about SA that prompted me to request an additional unit so much as our experience at work. OH and I run a small manufacturing business and our machines are all varying degrees of old. The mechanicals themselves are robust and have stood the test of time very well but the thing that leaves us most exposed is potential motherboard failure on one of our bought in brush making machines as the electronics go back to the late 80s and will no longer have manufacturer support in a few years time. I was pondering this whilst discussing the SA with Nick and it struck me as an obvious and easy to achieve way of time proofing the SA unit as one can never be sure how long manufacturer support will be available, particularly with a relatively young company who's owners may want to sell it one once established.

I can't add anything to the discussion of the circuitry itself but I asked @Nickfromwales to acquire me at least 1, preferably 2 spare control units for my SA that will be installed very shortly. Given the projected lifespan of the PCM obsolescence of the unit is far more likely to occur through failure of the electronics than other matters. Given the direction that SA as a business seems to be going in, there's no guarantee that spares will be available in a few years' time, so I would far rather pay for a couple of spares now and mothball them than find myself with no way of replacing them in the fullness of time.