Thorfun

afaik you need to have some kind of expansion gap so butting boards together probably isn't a good idea (although I'm no expert!). we had the same dilemma about painting battens and in the end chose the shadow gap route on both our charred and standard larch. looks similar to those pictures you posted so I'm pretty sure they're not butted up but are a shadow gap profile. if you've already got boards on-site then I think board on board might be your best option. unless you can take them to a timber yard and get them planned to a shadow gap profile?

Google board on board cladding to get an idea what it's all about. also there are threads on here on the subject as well. I think it looks good and you don't have to worry about crawlies getting behind your cladding.

as @markocosic alluded to, you need a UV membrane on the outside of the TF if you're having a shadow gap/rainscreen profile regardless of whether you paint the battens or not. we have friends who had shadow gap cladding and mistakenly had a silver membrane on the outside of the TF. they put another black UV membrane on top of the battens but they checked with the manufacturer to ensure that it was ok to have the 2 membranes. we chose neither paint nor a secondary membrane and had the tongue and groove shadow gap profile for our charred timber cladding.

This is exactly what we’re doing. 👍

Our AC supplier offered us a first fix price as well as second fix internally without external unit price and a price for it all done. Gave us the flexibility depending on remaining funds.

If you’re going for the tongue tite screws you can get them online much cheaper than Toolstation. I got mine for our cladding from https://tradefixdirect.com/stainless-steel-screws/tongue-tite-plus-stainless-steel-flooring-screws-35-x-45mm

Friends got around painting the battens by putting a black membrane over them. Obviously after confirming with the manufacturer that it was allowed as there was the silver membrane behind the battens on the outside of the timber frame. although I guess that would reduce the effect of the shadow gap somewhat

That looks expensive! I got my shadow gap Siberian larch from a local Jewsons for around £5/lm. It’s probably gone up a bit since the war started but it surely can’t have doubled in price!?

200mm is loads. are you looking to get the minimum your regulations allow or do you want to go in excess of that? yes! can't drill holes through VIPS. If money is no object then you could look at using spacetherm aerogel. it has a lambda value of 0.015W/mK so is better than phenolic so can get a better R-value for the same thickness.

so, if you need to get an R value of 3.8m2K/W then with the phenolic insulation you can achieve that with 70mm of insulation. so that's half the thickness of your natural product. even using standard PIR you only need 84mm to get the same R-value. if you're that worried about space then phenolic is your best bet. I wouldn't be using VIPS personally. they are extremely expensive and although you only would need around 25mm of insulation to get the same R-value I think the risk of puncturing the vacuum and the cost to save 45mm of space just doesn't seem worth it. how much space are you willing/able to lose in the property for insulation? ps. I'm all for natural insulation and I agonised for ages over the decision to use natural hemp or glass/mineral wool and, in the end, the mineral wool won due to costs, better lambda values and narrower walls. over the life of the building I'm sure the energy and carbon I will save will more than cover the initial carbon to create the mineral/glass wool**. **please note I have used no scientific evidence or research to determine this conclusion!

the problem you have is space. natural materials will require much thicker insulation layer to get the same level of insulation as non-natural products. so if you need the best insulation possible for the least possible thickness then natural insulation is not an option. the other 2 products are vacuum packed so will be very expensive. also, if a panel gets so much as a little pin prick the insulation loses it's vacuum seal and all it's insulating properties. Personally, using that on a wall would scare the cr*p out of me as I can guarantee that no matter how careful you are you will damage some of the panels during installation. or, more likely, a trade will come after it's installed and drill a hole through the wall! for best insulation you should be looking at phenolic boards which has a thermal conductivity of 0.018 W/mK which means that you can have it half the thickness of the natural stuff you linked above and still get better insulation levels. it's not cheap though!

we used Eleni Shiarlis (https://www.eslightingdesign.co.uk) for our lighting design concept. love the ideas she came up with.

I don't know if this is what you're after but I found this while looking for shower tray formers https://www.victorianplumbing.co.uk/orion-wetroom-shower-substrate

both great ideas and avenues for research @ProDave and @Russell griffiths. and sorry @Carrerahill I seem to have inadvertently hijacked your thread!

so I 'should' be able to but we had our joists designed to a max deflection of 8mm and they have 300mm centres with the posis being 122mm wide. so they are very close together. the problem is that, with the fixed shower trays, trying to find one where the waste outlet fits directly above a space between the posi-joists. it's about 170mm gaps. but, reading up on the Schluter system it seems that I could get a preformed sloping tray and position the waste over a space between posi-joists and then fill in any gaps around the preformed tray with more kerdi board. I believe this will work but I need to do more research on the whole system and it's depths and sizes etc. I will also speak to the plumber about it all and get his take on it.

so I've watched some videos on the Schluter system using Kerdi board and shower tray and curb etc and it all looks pretty cool. but, I'm not sure that's exactly what I'm after. I don't really want a curb to step in to our shower rather I'd like a wet room type affair albeit I might need to step up in to the wet room area. so I was thinking of building a false floor about 100mm up from the existing floor and then putting some form of waterproofing system and preformed wet room shower tray on top of that which should give me space underneath to be able to route the waste pipe to between a joist! I feel a lot of research coming my way as I've only just started thinking of this and the plumber is due to start first fix in a month so I need to get cracking! still following this subject with interest though as it's already sent me down a few research rabbit holes. 😉

Following with interest as this is something we might need to do as our floor joist are so close together finding a shower tray with out to fit might be hard!!

what have people got against a large utility room? having lived in a mass built new-build with a pokey corridor type of utility room where you can't walk past if a cupboard door is open I would (and we have!) go for a large utility room. I see no issues with it if you have the space to do so.

we have attic trusses and cut roof for our vaulted entrance hall. having to insulate using PIR over the trusses I regret not just opting for a cut roof throughout! would've made the insulating a LOT easier not having to cut out around each truss etc. such a pain. maybe something to bear in mind if you're doing your own insulation.

yeah, I get that battery storage is currently expensive but I still think it works, financially if you go for a more DIY type expandable solution rather than the PW2 or SE solution that @pocster has. I have gone down the LuxPower/Pylontech (although they're not actually Pylontech batteries but Pylontech are very commonly used it would seem) route. I was offered a 12.8kW system which was 4 x 3.2kW batteries and the Squirrel Pod inverter for £7102.50 + vat. sadly our budget didn't stretch that far as the current material prices has really made a dent in our build costs. so I scaled it back and got the Squirrel Pod and 2 x 3.2kW batteries for £4102.50 +VAT. I thought that was a reasonable cost for the system that 'should' help me store daily produced electricity for use at night. if I fully filled and emptied daily I'd be looking at saving £700 a year @ 30p/kWh and if I manage to claim the VAT back I am looking at approx. 6 year payback time. if I'd gone for the bigger array at the off then I'd be looking at a 5 year payback period. that's just fine as far as I'm concerned. so after 6 years and assuming no hardware failure or replacement I will be getting free electricity produced by my PV array for use overnight. and once the build is finished and I have disposable income again I can easily add extra batteries to increase the capacity of the system, or add a second squirrel pod to increase the discharge rate to up to 7kW. yeah, it was a big outlay and I'd have liked to get a bigger capacity from the off but I'm ok with it and it'll help me for now. if you want information on the Squirrel Pod you can check it out at https://www.infinityinnovations.co.uk/?product_type=lux-power all of the above is caveated with the fact that I haven't actually installed the system yet and am quite a way from finishing our house. so I'm actually hoping that it all works out well in the end. 😉

I get it that people's situations do differ and I apologise if I came across a bit aggressive! it wasn't meant that way. I guess you can think of Solar PV as paying for your electricity up front. so even though it's a big outlay initially, after 10 years (and some solar panels offer 25-30yr guarantee iirc) you're basically getting the electricity for free. it seems like a no-brainer to me IF you're planning on staying in the property for that length of time. if it's a build and sell job then probably not worth it as you won't recoup the costs on the sale price but that could all change as the price of electricity rises and solar panels then become a massive selling point.

why does everything on this forum have to be about payback period? how about doing something not for financial gain/benefit but just because you want to? even if it was about payback then after 10 years @pocster is getting free electricity for the rest of the lifetime of the panels and batteries! sounds brilliant to me and if I get that I'd be very happy. but I didn't do my solar PV and batteries for any kind of payback but to reduce my reliance on the grid. but each to their own I guess. I know that not everyone is in the fortunate position to be able to afford to do stuff just because they want to or for another reason that isn't financial. anyway, @pocster is still the absolute b*llocks, as his signature reminds us.

u da man!

Intello Plus is the bees-knees but there are many on here that have had great success with other less expensive brands. I bought the Intello Plus (and the Tescon tape) from Latzel in Germany following advice from this thread: there are many threads about different VCLs on the forum. do a search and have a read and then decide which is in your budget!

welcome. very nice looking build. a few points.....make sure you think about shading with all that glazing! doesn't look like there's space for external integrated blinds with the roof line like that so maybe Sage glass would be useful? what is the cladding going to be? can't tell from the rendered images but it looks like the walls carry on up to the roof and so is the same material? no solar PV on the renders. is that part of the plan or are you not bothering? love the green roof. we have a much smaller sedum green roof and I love looking out at it, will love it even more once we've finished the house! good luck with the purchase and I look forward to seeing how this progresses.