Thorfun

might have some offcuts left but not enough to fill that void along the length of the roof! what are you thinking/worried/concerned about with the air gap?

well done. a lot braver than us! 🙂

yep, the frametherm goes to the apex. re: cables, I was just going to fit a service cavity under the PIR and airtightness layer as in the rest of the house for lights/sockets etc. will again result in a lower ceiling height but as it's just going to be storage I'm not worried about that. we'll end up with about 2.1m ceiling height once boarded so it's not that bad anyway.

I will be doing that as shown by the rectangles in red below. my question is to the gap above the horizontals as circled in red below?

hello, starting the internal PIR in our roof which has attic trusses. my plan is to simply screw the PIR to the bottom of the horizontals at the top of the attic trusses leaving a gap between the PIR and the mineral wool between the trusses. like the photo below: is that air gap going to cause an issue with my U-values? the loft space will only be used for storage so I'm not worried about the loss of head height I just think it's easier to attach to the bottom of those horizontals rather than trying to fit PIR above them in the small gap! there is 190mm of Frametherm 32 between the trusses and the PIR is 100mm. PIR will be covered in Intello Plus and taped where required to continue the airtightness layer from the rooms below.

we can't wait. at the moment it's in a box in the basement but every time I flick the kettle on in the current house I think 'one day I won't have to do this!'.

we picked up our Quooker at Grand Designs Live the other month. got 20% off which was a massive saving! and then I can claim the VAT back to make it even cheaper.

thanks Joth. something to consider then. thing I like about the Squirrel Pod is that I can easily add and extra one later on to increase the discharge amount if we find that 3.6kW isn't enough.

thanks for this. we're having a Quooker tap so kettle usage doesn't really count for us! 😉 money is quickly running out and so it's things like battery storage that are going to have to take a back seat but if I can get a small 3.6kW luxpower and a couple of Pylontech batteries as a starter then I can add to it over the years if required.

Hi all. a few questions on duct sizes please. 1. What size ducting should I run from the cabinet on the boundary that houses our 3-phase head to the plant room in the basement? 2. is twinwall ducting ok for this job? 3. I want to be able to run Cat6/6a cable back to the electricity cabinet on the boundary and from there I can run it to the driveway gates or other locations if required. can I run that in the same ducting as the electricity cables or should I run a separate ducting just for the network cable? if so, I assume the standard BT ducting will suffice for that?

do you find the 3.6kW discharge rate sufficient for your needs?

ahh...we've had this discussion many times before Nick. we're not doing it for any financial reasons or payback period or anything like that. we're doing it so we're less reliant on mains water. Also we have a constant stream of water running under ground around the basement to our sump which, even in dry weather, means that the RWH tank will be filled so, for us, the 'no rain in the summer' argument doesn't stack up. Also our header tank is fillable from mains water in case of drought as the system uses a 'brain' to manage it all. it will also flush out the tank if no use is seen after a period of time, e.g. on holiday, to replace the rainwater with mains water so the rainwater isn't sat in the tank for a long period of time. it's all rather cool. so, remember, it's not always all about repayment periods for everyone. Also, we can't buy more PV.....roof is full. 😂

we're having RWH with a header tank in the loft for our toilets so the toilets will have separate feeds from that tank. this means that when I'm having a shower and someone flushes the loo it doesn't affect the water or temperature!

good luck!

all makes perfect sense. I'm using 2"x1" roofing battens for my service cavity battens and so will be fixing the OSB/plasterboard to that so all I have to do is ensure I hit the 38mm timbers with the battens and then I've got 45mm to hit with the plasterboard screws! 😉

My whole house is 38mm thick CLS!! 140mm external and load bearing and the rest 89mm. seems pretty standard for TF companies.

Do you need wider internal walls? Our TF company used 89mm CLS for ours. if your joiner prefers CLS is he likely to charge more to use non-CLS as it might make things take longer? If so it could negate any savings on materials. just a thought.

what does your joiner say you should get? I'd be checking with them first!

not me. our architects were very reasonably priced and we think they did a great job. the Architect designed the house and then, after planning, the Chartered Architectural Technologist did the BR drawings (although his desk was next to the Architect's so I'm sure there was a lot of discussions between them). but, I think some Architect's ARE expensive and they give the rest of you guys a bad rep. 😉

if you're building timber frame then some timber frame companies will do the structural engineering and building reg drawings for you as part of the package, so if you're going that route then might be worth checking. other's on here have used architectural technicians to do the BR drawings with good results too. we used our architects and a structural engineer who worked together well with the timber frame company and civil engineers to get it all planned out ready for construction but our build was quite complicated with a new culverted driveway entrance, basement, timber frame and green roofs!

forgot to mention that there is no laitance as it's a cement based liquid screed (Cemfloor)

it did make a big difference but that's it for progress in the basement now really. once the house is finished and we're moved in the basement will be worked on a bit at a time as funds allow but I wanted to get the basement to the stage it is now so that the plant room would be ready to accept equipment. and, yes, the basement has tall ceilings (approx 3m). we didn't want it to feel like a cellar down there as there's not a lot of natural light and, in the grand scheme of things, digging down an extra 600mm to give the higher ceilings was not a lot extra so we thought it worth it.

+1 to this! an invaluable tool

yep. fair point.

Dpc is cheap. Why would you not just add it under internal walls? Our internal walls have a DPC and they’re above a basement! TF erectors just said they install the DPC as a matter of course.