Thorfun

our place is being skimmed at the moment and drying times have varied even within the same room! i think it depends on so many factors you can't really put a number on how long it takes. i wouldn't mist coat until all of the walls are light pink though. i don't believe you want to mist coat if any dark areas are still showing.

I’ll see if I can get anything between the MVHR ducts. Might just be easier to do it in timber though. Will speak to my chippie

I’ll measure the width tomorrow but pretty sure it’s over 1.2m wide.

I’m think I need to fit a dropped ceiling but can get fixings to the joists above due to MVHR manifold and pipes. Was hoping that the grid system didn’t need ceiling fixings. Will have to go with timber I think for this small area

@Pocster. a serious question for you. does your office block grid ceiling require attachment to the ceiling above at all? or is it only attached to the walls?

welcome. i've asked loads of simple questions and am still welcomed here!

I can recommend Norrsken which we had and they handled installation as well. not sure if they have any to view in Scotland though! but give them a call and ask as there might be a customer up there who's ok to visit. otherwise, check out @craig at Ecowin as mentioned above. He offers a few price points for triple glazed alu-clad windows. (at least he did when I spoke to him a few years ago!)

our SE specified a Kore system. i gave it to our ground worker who decided to just buy EPS300/EPS200 as specified and make it up on site. was a bit more mess and waste but was cheaper. in this blog post you can see they built shuttering and then cut and laid the EPS to match the SE drawings maybe another option if you have confidence in your ground worker?

i have a LuxPower AC inverter and Greenlinx batteries. seems to work well but is limited to 13A emergency backup in a power cut. but that should be enough to power some lights and a couple of sockets but, most importantly, the pumps in the basement sump!

sounds like you're after a form of hybrid radial system with one big pipe to a room and then tees off from that to each tap. I have run a 15mm pipe from our plant room to every single tap for hot and cold. that's why my manifolds are so big and I have so many pipe runs. I did consider the hybrid approach but I really didn't want all those joints behind the walls and also wanted to be able to isolate from a central location an individual tap/outlet if required rather than scrabbling about behind/under units to try and turn an outlet off with a local isolation valve.

+1. I normally use the search function to find previous questions on a subject first.

here's mine quite a lot of useful information in the thread about hep2o plumbing and manifolds as well as other examples of manifold systems too. plus lots of other aspects of plumbing. I've a feeling I'll be adding to it soon with more question too! I didn't insulate any pipework after my manifolds. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing and the house isn't finished yet so I probably won't know for quite a while yet.

I bought a load of Intello plus and tescon tapes direct from https://www.daemmstoffhandel.de/Shop_neu/gx2/en/. I don't remember the duty costs but I am certain it was cheaper than buying in the UK! although, @ToughButterCup's contact might be cheaper than you can find online in the UK.

Thorfun 1 v Pocster 0

Maybe not. But you are the master!

he said 0.5m deep. you just missed the '.' before the 5. 😉

sounds like you dodged a very expensive bullet there! we don't have any bats living at our property any more (latest emergence surveys proved that) but because they once found evidence of a bat here we have to spend a lot of money of surveys and licences. luckily the great crested newts in our area skirt around our plot otherwise it would've been even more expensive and troublesome!

be aware that ecologist reports expire! we had to 'renew' ours as we went to planning as the originals were a couple of years old and were done before we bought the property. but we were lucky and used the same ecologists and they did a 'refresh' survey so we didn't need a full load of surveys done again. basically, ecology costs a small fortune once they find existence of protected species. on-going surveys, licenses etc.

sadly that's the cost of ecologists. i don't think £900 for 2 x dusk surveys is too far off the mark in my experience. it depends on how many ecologists are required. we had 3 on-site for our surveys. also, they arrive an hour or so before dusk to setup and then spend a couple of hours monitoring etc. so working on an hourly basis of around £50/hr when you factor in travel costs, company profit, insurance, producing the report etc your quote seems about right.

music to @Pocster's ears that.

if you buy Intello Plus and Tescon Vana from Germany it's a LOT cheaper! the intello plus is damn good stuff. really tough as well and the Tescon Vana tape is super sticky and definitely recommended. around the windows you'll probably want to use the Tescon Profil as it's split to give you the return on the window edge. personally on the airtightness stuff i wanted the best products so i bought the best. obviously everyone has different requirements! bought mine from Latzel Dammstoffe and can definitely recommend them.

I'm one of those and can recommend them especially if you're having an insulated slab. probably a question to ask the SE when you find one. it might be that the trees are far enough away that the SE won't care but if they're within a certain distance then they'd probably need to know the species and distance from foundations etc.

The gel crimps aren’t for the cabinet. Thank you! Very useful and I’ll study it in detail.

Much to think about. But I’ll definitely make a start listing out cables and what they need.

I honestly don’t know! It just seems that they’re what people use. I’ll have some time over the next month to do a lot more research while the plasterers crack on in the house.