Thorfun

at the front of the house between the front door porch (which is the to right in the photo below) and the side door (the glazing at the left of the photo). so access is pretty easy. how do you begin to calculate that?

that was my other option, forget about the mesh and just clean out the filter more regularly! but swmbo is worried about spiders getting in even though I've explained there's a filter in the unit they wouldn't get through. I think the thought of 1000s of spiders dropping down through the MVHR vents while she sleeps is weighing on her.

thanks. I found this thread on here where @Gone West was purchasing 1.67mm mesh and it was deemed that wasn't an issue. that's why it's all so confusing, there seems to be much conflicting information out there.

ps. I can't take them back now as I've painted them black! so I might just have to bite the bullet and purchase my own mesh.

interesting and thanks. I will speak to Linda. that looks rather large mesh openings though, not sure if that will stop any form of insect though will it?

greetings. I have fitted the supplied Lindab 250mm grills to our MVHR intake and exhaust vents and it seems apparent that maybe I should put some insect mesh behind them as it sure does look very open for insects and spiders etc to find their way into the system. the 250mm grills attach to a 250mm -> 200mm reducer and then we have 200mm ducting to the Zendher Q600 unit. I was wondering what size mesh would be best to not limit the air intake/exhaust but that would be effective in stopping insects entering and setting up home somewhere in the system. I found an eBay site that offers woven stainless steel mesh in the following mesh size. I'm thinking the 20 mesh count with a 52% open area would definitely stop insects but is that too restrictive? maybe the 10 mesh count would be better but at 2mm average hole size it seems large enough to let insects in? anyone got any suggestions/recommendations/comments?

Best advice I had when deciding on natural timber cladding (Siberian Larch vs Western Red Cedar for us) was that it all ends up the same silver so get the cheaper wood! 😉

yeah, so if it's charred reworking the profile just isn't going to happen! if you still want the open rain screen then your assumptions are correct. check with the manufacturer of your chosen black UV breather to ensure that it will work in this situation though. or, look in to @Russell griffiths previous suggestion as an alternative.

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!!