MortarThePoint

Its plain clay tile. Is that because it has to fit to tile coursing?

Having the bottom of the velux window at or below about 1225mm would allow me to see down the drive whilst sat at a desk which I think is really useful.

Above the garage we're having a home office with large windows at the ends (1800 x 1200, top about 2175 above floor). The front and rear roof pitches will have velux windows on and I can't decide what height to have them at. If I align the top of the velux reveal with the top of the end window reveal, the velux is pretty high, and the bottom of the glass will be above eye line when sat down. Is it going to look bad to have the top of the velux reveals lower than the end window top as shown below? picture shows velux frame outline in dark blue:

An outside shot would help then as different finishes will likely call for different approaches

Do you think the water is just penetrating the wall or is there a leaking gutter, roof etc. Waterbutts can create real problems if not done carefully as my inlaws had an issue with theirs. You may want to get a dehumidifier in there whilst you sort something out

It always frustrates me that we effectively have to check that what we want to do under PD is OK and the incurs a cost and wait. Feels a bit like asking permission, but nobody wants to get caught out so... If you have some hand sketches you might be able to find someone on fiverr.com that can knock up a drawing for you. I couldn't believe how good the 3D renders I got made for £20 were.

The LABC guidance looks to have an aluminium cavity tray lower down: Lots of places I look, except the NHBC guidance, has 2 levels of trays: LABC: We've got a chimney at the wall edge and one at the junction between a flat room and a pitched section that comes down from the flat roof.

We'll have a package sewage treatment plant about 30m from the house and then there are currently two SVP outlet vents specified by the architect. This one is the one furthest from the plant, but the soil pipe will separate at a manhole outside the house. This position is approx 25m pipe run from that manhole and the other approx 12m.

Haven't fully known / thought about an AAV before. Floplast have an exterior one. Can they be used anywhere a vent is needed? They only mitigate against a vacuum, not a positive pressure.

Below is a sketch of what I am thinking of. The red is 110mm soil pipe and the two blues are 50mm(?). If required by the regs, the light blue could be 110mm I guess.

It would have to wrap around the soffit/fascia or punch through it which isn't so ideal. Nice to have it hidden really.

Architect originally had a the waste pipe from the bathroom going down through the floor in the corner (green arrow) as this aligned with a wall below. We have removed the wall below and are moving the waste pipe to the red circle as its tucked away there. The plan is that it is on the outside of the house through the GF and then on the inside through the FF. I'm wondering where to put the SVP tile outlet as having it near the chimney is likely to be difficult. Is it allowed to have the waste pipe in the red dot position and then a pipe leading up to the SVP vent outlet in the original green arrow position. I can't imagine why it wouldn't be OK, but building regs are often a surprise or there may be something I am missing. Can the pipe to an SVP vent outlet be narrower than 110mm, e.g. 45mm?

A toilet seat is interesting because it has a bottom on the top

You could always splash out on a more expensive one.

It could double up as a rather enjoyable panic room filled with bottles of wine

You might be able to find a cheap second hand tank, but not a septic one ? A plastic tank could have the advantage of providing a mould for the concrete as that is poured around it. Filling the tank with water first would stop it collapsing during the pour

The beams of your beam and block are going to have to have something to bear on near the hole so that probably involves pouring something even around the concrete rings. I wonder if you could so anything clever with a plastic tank?

I've been looking at the NHBC guidance for all chimneys and hoped someone could help. The page shows three drawings of DPCs in chimneys, two of which are on pitched sections of roof. I am understanding this as two alternatives, not that there should be a damp tray at the top junction and at the bottom junction. The one with the tray at the bottom 'junction' is on the eave of the roof. Can you use the other approach at the eave instead? Does anyone have a preference for which of the two approaches is adopted if it is a case of just one? "In areas of severe and very severe exposure, the following details should be used. In lower exposure zones, the tray upturn may be on the outside of the flue liner. All other details are the same." We're near Cambridge which is a 'Sheltered' exposure zone I believe. Generally I have found understanding damp proofing one of the hardest aspects to get right as some of the best practice / requirements are not so clearly defined.

That sounds a good rule of thumb. However, I don't think WiFi is the correct wireless technology for home automation anyway. Definitely a sledgehammer to crack a nut (>10Mbps to send essentially 1 bit of data every few minutes at most). I do want to run a lot of Ethernet cable about the place, but that's not regulated (is it?).

The walls are mostly 100mm blockwork. I will take a look, but I think Part A limits chasing to "Vertically not deeper than one third of the thickness, horizontally not more than one sixth the thickness of the wall" [1] That's plenty mind you for plastered in wires. Thanks for this. I think (??) you can use conductive conduit outside these safe zones and as such could have it in skirting board if the skirting board was deep enough to enclose conduit, or was itself conduit.

We're not using insulation in the first floor make up. The screed will probably be thick enough to bury a reasonably sized conduit. As a moderate commitment-phobe, I'm not so keen on the finality of burying things though.

We're not having MVHR so no ducts to worry about there. Wet plaster seems to be OK on the precast:

Happy new year everyone! I'm deliberating on where to route my services and most significantly the wiring. Water is concentrated at two ends of the house, so I can do all that routing vertically and via the roof space. Electrical wiring on the other hand needs to go to all rooms. I am considering a very bold move of having almost no wired in light switches and using home automation for almost all lights in conjunction with wireless light switches. The reason I mention that is that it saves routing wires down from ceiling lights to switches and therefore makes the majority of the consideration around sockets. We have precast concrete ground and and first floors, so I see the following main options for routing the mains for sockets: False ceiling, would have to chase down to the sockets Conduit buried in floor screed, would have to chase up to the sockets Chased into wall horizontally and vertically Within skirting boards, would have to have screed conduit for doorways Avoiding a false ceiling has a load of benefits. The architect has included false ceilings, but I'd like to rethink that.

I have a crane coming on Monday (07/12/20) and we only need it for an hour or two. Does anyone need the other half of the day?

So does that mean if you have Isokern pumice liner and leca infill like I do you can have trusses very close to the chimney's brickwork? That would be good as otherwise I have to solve a small truss that has gone in at 45mm from the outer skin of the chimney. (my chimney is 175mm Isokern, minimum 95mm Leca, blockwork, cavity, brickwork)