Ian

+1 I'm with EE in a very remote part of N Wales however I get 40MBS download speed and 5MBS upload with EE using a 4G SIM card in a router.

Worth a go at an appeal surely? The appeal itself is free so it's just your Planning Consultants fee. It it worked for me

@readiescards daft question perhaps but have you checked that your hygrometer is working okay?

@Crofter we have no mains gas so I went for bulk LPG and a combi boiler. As I'm sure you know, SAP penalises you if you don't have mains gas so you end up with higher insulation values to compensate.

@Crofter We completed our build 4 months ago. Everything seems to be working well and we're happy with the way it turned out. It's a timber frame building from a local Welsh company clad with UK cedar. Although the insulation levels only just exceed minimium overall Building regs standards and are not up to the levels of some of the fascinating builds I've read about on this forum the U values aren't bad: 0.1 concrete floor (with Hive controlled wet u/floor heating) 0.13 warm (cathedral) roof 0.21 walls (thin walls to maximise internal space) 0.8 windows (Rehau 3g) As it's such a small building energy use is tiny. We're now in the middle of sorting out the site: 1.5 acres of Welsh mountainside but we're hoping to have it all finished by the end of the summer.

@Stones I wanted to keep things as simple as I could. The building is a small (71m2 nett) single storey holiday home

@ProDave +1 on that issue with the Building Regs. On my own build I made an early decision to not have MVHR but it greatly complicates the situation with Building Regs and adds a lot of uncertainty. The min allowable air tightness rate without MVHR is 3 m3/(m2.hr)@50Pa. Luckily I achieved a figure of 3.7 m3/(m2.hr)@50Pa at my first air pressure test which was obviously a big relief but frankly it would have been less stressful to have made an early decision go with MVHR and to aim for a better air tightness figure.

@Crofter I had exactly the same issue that you've got but the plumber sorted it out using an Aqualisa shower with this remote: https://www.bathstore.com/products/41510004120.html http://www.aqualisa.co.uk/showers/shower-ranges/aqualisa-visage™-smart-mixer-shower The extra control is fixed to the wall just outside the shower enclosure and allows you to turn the water on & off and switch the water between the 2 shower heads. The light on the control blinks a blue light until the water is up to temperature then it goes a solid blue. There's a duplicate control in the shower itself next to the shower head which also allows the temperature to be varied. We didn't panel out the side wall of the shower. The thin control cable went through holes drilled in the center of the studs

Just a couple of thoughts: - if if you can make the design work by taking them around the outside of the house why take the risk of running them underneath the floor? Have you worked out whether the saving in materials is worth the extra long term risk of a major problem in the future? - I'm guessing your ground is good and you have standard strip foundations but I know others will be reading this who may have issues such as peat, clay heave, high water table etc and in those kinds of conditions the risks increase.

First decision is whether or not you want it to be a traditional larder (ie one which relies purely on natural ventilation and heavy masonry walls) or whether you want it to be a modern mechanically cooled larder (ie a walk in fridge) The traditional ones have no insulation but the modern ones are highly insulated. My impression is that you want a traditional larder in which case the simplest approach is to design it external to your highly insulated MBC timber frame. Perhaps it could be built as a 'lean-to' type design with access from a door on one of the outside walls of your timber frame. I once designed an old fashioned walk-in larder c/w stone shelves as a small part of a large project for a client who was renovating and extending an old farmhouse in Cheshire and they were very pleased with it. As you quite rightly mentioned, north side of the house in a shaded spot with cross ventilation will help a lot in keeping it cool. Ian

Too much height difference to make up with firring pieces. In order to work the measurement difference for the 2 different pitches you need to know the width of your garage measured between the outside faces of the walls If your garage was say 6 metres wide then the 30 deg pitch roof would need a ridge height that was about 500mm higher than the 22.5 pitch. ian

@DH202020 unfortnately I think the answer is no as that's too much of a difference. One possible solution which I've used successfully in similar situations is to use a profiled fibre roof sheet under the clay/concrete tile. something like this that is BBA certified for use at the low pitch you need: https://onduline.co.uk/downloads/ee7f03ac-55c2-42f5-9b6c-06d6f6495100.pdf

Bricks come in various grades of durability & frost resistance. You'll need a F2/S2 grade brick which is the most frost resistant and lowest salts content (they are sometimes referred to by the old F/L classification)

We've got that same issue at home. It was resolved (by the original owners) with timber decking with an air void underneath which means there's no interruption to the air flow to the air bricks in the house wall.

The Tata Confidex warranty is excellent if thats available with your product and it also covers the issue with corrosion at the cut ends of the sheets

Re the high winds - are you specifying the narrower 300mm panels then?

@Barney12 I'm a bit confused about the dimension of the ventilation gap you will be left with if you counterbatten? Your drawing shows a ventilation gap of 50mm but your text suggests that you want to reduce that to 25mm - is that correct? As long as your counterbatten runs on top and in line with the rafter and you also have eaves and ridge vents then 25mm will be be okay however If your counterbatten is at 90 degrees to the rafters then you've potentially lost your ventilation gap which is no good. Separate issue re corrosion: I've got a fair bit of experience in using this type of colour coated steel roofing sheets. If the location is in a built-up city environment or near the coast then in my experience the sheets are vulnerable to corrosion at the cut ends of the sheets above the gutter line and on any lap joints (its best to avoid lap joints altogether). I've seen the cut ends of this type of metal sheet start rusting within a few years of installation. If your location is in the countryside well away from sources of salt or polloution then you'll be okay. The last time I specified this type of sheet it was for a factory extension where we needed to match the existing roof. I specified that the cut ends were to be painted however all it did was to delay the inevitable and the cut ends started corroding within 5 years of installation.

the main issue is the potentail for rising water levels if you are using it externally as it will want to float.

They are understandably nervous as 75m3 in 4 hours would mean ensuring a full size 6m3 mixer delivery every 15 to 20 minutes of those 4 hours. (About 20 years ago I was working as an in-house architect for a manufacturing company where I was responsible for a continuous pour floor slab for a new factory. It involved a 24 hour pour of concrete with a 6m3 delivery arriving on site and being laid every 15 mins of that 24 hours. It took a lot of organisation but was done that way to avoid daywork joints in the slab - all the movement joints were saw cut after the complete slab had been poured.)

@Gorlando typical cavity tie spacing works out at 2.5 ties per m2 of wall area.

@Gorlando yes, you'll be okay with that spec.

for anyone considering full fill masonry cavity walls there's a useful guide inc maps and diagrams to the geographic rain exposure limits v types of wall construction in Part C of the Building Regs. The link below is to the English Regs and you need to go to pages 32 - 36. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20151113141044/http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/uploads/br/br_pdf_ad_c_2013.pdf

@Weebles Our situation was very similar to yours. Believe it or not a local water diviner found our plastic water pipe for us after a day's searching with a digger had failed (we'd been looking in the wrong place!). I honestly thought divining was bunkum but when you see it work with your own eyes - well.... (the guy said he had worked as a water diviner for the National Trust)

@Gorlando If you do opt to have a cavity, building regs require that it is at least 50mm wide. Usually the deciding factor on whether or not to have a cavity is the geographical exposure factor of your site. There's a map etc in the building regs which shows the areas of the country which are subject to the worst driving rain

@JSHarris I've got the same Bio-Pure 1 as you Jeremy. My pump is the Secoh JDK-S-60 and it's located in a separate blockwork cabinet outside and well away from the house. It's very quiet to the point that I can't hear it going at all unless I open the door of the cabinet. Much louder than the pump itself is the sound of bubbling water from the Bio-pure unit although you have to be within about 5 metres of the lid to really notice it. Ian