Russdl

It wouldn’t be the crime of the century.

How do they compare when there’s no snow? I think vertical bifacial is the future if you have the unshaded space.

@Stones thanks for that update/great reminder. Apart from filter changes I’ve not opened mine up yet. It’s been on my ‘to do’ list for a while, as have many things, I’ll put it top of the “things to do when it get warmer” list. We’re only 3 years in so hopefully no big horrors lurking inside.

Why not lower the threshold so that you don’t need the interior ramp?

The corner pieces overlap the straight fascia bits. One of the reasons I had them locally fabricated is that the corner in the picture below is not a standard 90 degree corner but 75 degrees. I designed mine to be fixed through the soffit element (which would be hidden by the EWI) and the top of the fascia element (that would be hidden by the PVC). The hidden fixing bit worked, I’m just disappointed in the finished look - however you don’t really see it unless it’s pointed out so I should get over it eventually!

I got a local metal fabricator to make some for me for my garage roof. I screwed up though as we have an EPDM roof which is finished off with a PVC trim piece. I should have had the metal fascia the full height of the roof fascia with the PVC trim over the top of the metal but I stopped the metal short, pretty much level with the base of the PVC trim and it looks a bit rough. I’ll draw a picture to clarify the above if you’d like.

How about a freestanding carport, half a meter or so away from the house so the MVHR isn't affected. Park the truck the other way round and have a slight fall front to back.

Don’t t discount that option, it brings many pluses. Not least being that the services will most likely be there. Getting services to a virgin plot can cost bucket loads. We were looking for a plot for decades and that’s finally what we found a bungalow that had reached it’s ‘best before, date. It wasn’t falling down but definitely had had its day and we got it for not much more than a virgin plot with planning permission would likely have cost. Good luck, it’s definitely worth the not inconsiderable effort.

@Bramco great idea. Mines still very much a work in progress but the more obscure stuff (Sunamp, Willis Heaters) is covered. And now looking at that photo I realise the house nickname on the spine text is upside down. Damn, back to the drawing board!

We have a fully electric house and could get close to blowing our 80 amp main fuse if everything was on at once, of course it’s not - not normally but on the current Octopus smart tariff I want everything on from 23:30 at night. We use a Willis heater for the underfloor heating (with the ability to use 2 if it’s really cold). If both of those came on at 23:30, plus the Sunamp and the house battery started charging plus the electric UFH and towel rails plus the dishwasher plus the washing machine plus the car started charging then the fuse would go. On the Octopus tariff I don’t have a huge amount of control over when the car starts charging so because of that I’ve restricted it’s charge rate to 4kW (I’m probably starting to use the wrong units now but hopefully you’ll understand). I know not to have everything come on at 23:30 but the next owner won’t (unless they read the Haynes style owner manual I’m writing). In the winter months I probably couldn’t charge a second EV over night, I should have gone 3 phase but I didn’t understand all of this before I made that decision.

How many EV’s are you likely to have on the drive in 10/20 years time? 3 or 4? You may want something faster than 7.5kW charger. I’d go 3 phase if it’s not prohibitively expensive.

Yes. Can’t wait to find out 😃

Doesn’t sound silly to me. Even if the condensate comes from every element inside the box you’d think it would all be herded together so it would all fall out of one pipe. Well I would anyway.

Is that 'standard'? I had no idea, seems a bit odd.

I don’t really know the answer but the Geocell replaces the Type 1 and the standard insulation. Clearly it’s more expensive than Type 1 but how it measures up against standard insulation I don’t know. We used it for a detached garage and it worked really well. If I were to build another house (ain’t/wont happen) I would definitely consider it for the insulted slab over the PIR bucket.

I’ve not looked at the condensate drain of an ASHP in any detail but can you not cobble something together out of guttering for example to catch the condensate and send it where you want it to go?

I got mine from here very pleased with it but it hasn’t had too much hard labour. Mainly spray painting, pumping up tyres and blowing dust around.

That looks neat enough, but it looks like it differs from your plan in two respects: 1. The window board is no wider than the window reveal. 2. The window board doesn’t protrude beyond the window reveal. I think those two points would be the difference between ‘contemporary chick’ and “why didn’t they finish that bit off?”

But what about the entrance to the garage? My slab is ‘thermally broken’ with a GRP box section and the easiest way that was going to work (in my head) was the foam glass route.

That looks like a lot of work for limited reward. I guess you’ll only see the shadow gap when you’re sat down? Also, when it’s finished will it not just look ‘unfinished’. I’ve never seen a shadow gap under a window board before (maybe because I wasn’t sat down?) Have you got example images?

It seemed to be the easiest way to achieve want I wanted achieve, no thermal bridge between the slab and the outside world. I had thought about that, that’s how the house was built, but I couldn’t work out how to do that without the thermal bridge?

The plan looks wrong to me, but I’m far from being an expert so hopefully someone will chip in with better guidance 👍🏻

It would be a long route but can you go up into the loft along the loft and then down on the other side of the beam? We did the same as @crispy_wafer and ran a lot of our pipes down behind a cupboard whose main job in life is to hide those pipes. How come you need to get 15 pipes through there? Are you double ducting each room? Seems a bit over the top if you are. Just looked again on a bigger screen and I see that indeed you are having two runs to most of the supply and extract valves. 4 runs in total to the dining room. Some of the valve positions look a bit odd as well. The kitchen for example, why is the valv not in the far corner of the room away from the outside door?

@gaz_moose Yes, we have a ceiling. The structural element for the door head is a ‘C’ section joist. The door head itself is formed with plywood and the sectional (not roller) garage door is attached to that.

No zinc roof. The pigeons are making a right mess of it, it’s black so probably nice and cosy for them but the rain doesn’t wash their output off very well.