PeterW

Yes you can apply it at any point - it's how much run off you will get onto the tiles in the interim that would cause problems but I doubt it's much given the design

Got a cheap arrow shaped one that has done most things (including glass) and is fine. Take it slow and use a spray bottle with water in to keep it cool

Watch out for covenants on the titles that may give certain rights to the cottage.... been bitten by that one ! Shared water is fine, you will find if you ask ST to split your feed they will do it at the boundary so most of the cost will be yours anyway. Unlikely they are on a shared electricity supply, phone you will have to deal with Openreach so good luck with that....

I know this is a random thought but.... If piling needs to go down 2.5m through the made ground, can you not dig a hole and have a nice basement instead..? With a passive slab..?

They apparently are slightly more thermally efficient - not much but it depends which ones you get. uPVC has come a long way but it really is horses for courses. If its only a plant room does it matter..?

As long as its not complex you can do it yourself - get a square piece of OSB that is a perfect right angle (pythagoras is your friend...) and place it flat against the wall about 150mm past the new wall edge. Get a tin of marker paint, pull your line taught and stick a peg in. Do the same on the other side and you've got your trench edges - do a corner to corner measurement to make sure its all square. Measure 600mm in from your lines and thats the inside of the trench. If its a standard square then it should take no more than an hour

so they used LoopCAD which you can download as a trial and do yourself ... There are are ways of sorting that although it took me a couple of hours to get my head around how it works - looks to have been done using the auto layout function. Seems to be a lot of zones though which does cause problems - was that your request..? I agree - it doesn't seem ideal and I would be really annoyed if I paid £210 for that..!

Brita filters are eye watering for cost ..! I've looked at inline ones from Wiltec.de as you can get a decent twin unit for about £25 and the replacement 5u and activated carbon block filters for less than £6 each. For scale removal your only choices are : - house water softener - Siliphos inline unit - electromagnetic thingy.... One changes the water, the next binds to the calcium compounds, the third ... Well I dunno and some say they work and some say they are complete rubbish ..!

Looks like wifi is your only option if it's the other side of the road. We've done some stuff with Ubiquiti before and they have (had..?) a range of directional wifi repeaters that you can "focus" on a spot to give maximum signal strength etc

Yep basically you plug in the power supply somewhere near the router, feed a standard network cable in one side and then the one coming out the other side becomes PoE.. There are lots of different protocols but the simplest form is that you use the spare 4 cores of the 8 core Cat5 to carry power - usually at 48v. The device on the other end then uses this to power its "stuff" whether it be access point or IP camera. CCA cable doesn't do as well for current capacity as full copper cored hence the suggestion. If it's not far from the house router to the external wall then sometimes a pre-made patch cable (up to 20m is not that expensive) is cheaper than buying cables and plugs and tools to make connections.

These are pretty good as they are PoE so as long as you use copper Cat5 not CCA cable then they are fine. We had one at about 110m through trees and no problems at all https://www.ballicom.co.uk/ap150wn1x1og-startech-com-outdoor-150-mbps-1t1r-.p999295.html?ref=PLA&gclid=CjwKEAjw8da8BRDssvyH8uPEgnoSJABJmwYoTL4bvw_rxdiXajE5tx4bRBCNRRjlmMzqKSl5J1QbXxoCeWLw_wcB

Toolstation have a silverline one for about £16..? Depends how long you want it to last..??

The problem you face is that most of the MVHR systems don't have enough fan pressure to quickly clear smoke, and in the way they operate - with the sole exception of a kitchen - the risk of fire breaking out in the extract rooms is minimal. Increasing the flow into the bedrooms etc will not give a huge boost to clearing smoke etc. Smoke extraction systems use vastly more powerful fans to clear rooms. The fans in MVHR units tend to be balanced cage type fans, not axial fans which give a higher pressure and volume flow. The other issue would be smoke particles clogging the heat exchangers very quickly, reducing the effectiveness of any extraction. You could potentially "bridge" the main extract and intake ducts after the MVHR and before the main plenums and use one large fan and a manifold of some description - this could vent straight to the outside air however it would need to be balanced to ensure it didn't draw more air into a fire than clearing the smoke. I think a cheaper and better option is a range of smoke / fire detectors and sprinklers in exit routes.

I'd be expecting a discount from the warranty costs if they wanted to do that ..!!

Pipes get pinned to the insulation. And fibre is cheap these days but I would watch out as it also makes the concrete less liquid.

Anyone got a link to a structural engineer who understands timber ..?? I'm trying to engineer out any steel requirements for a number of reasons, but can't seem to find an engineer who doesn't use the words "just put a steel in..." Loads aren't huge and the rafters are simple - it's a 3.5m roof section and it can't be that hard ..!!! Anyone ...?

Just check in the grooves that there aren't holes in the side of the groove. I'm sure they just pull straight up but can't be sure

Nope but I've looked at them too at that price !

And repoint using 1:3 mix of 3.5 NHL lime to building sand..!

Soda blasting would do it as it's quite gentle but it makes a mess ..!! You can buy kits to do it yourself with a decent compressor but the media can be a bugger to use as the air supply needs to be perfectly dry. Sand blasting will be too harsh and it's not fun indoors and you end up needing an air fed mask ...!

He could dig a dry dock in the newt pond to build and then test it ...

Sterling Build list them - have a whole load last time I looked but not sure you can specify no trickle vent ..??

That's correct - this probably helps a bit more with the make up of the roof. The VCL provides the air tight layer in this model [from http://www.greenspec.co.uk/building-design/unventilated-roof-insulation ]

You can get a pre-insulated rigid sarking board which has PUR insulation already bonded to it - its designed for the situation you describe. What's unclear is why you would do it that way, and not go with sarking > rockwool > PIR insulation from outside to inside as that removes the thermal bridge and also puts the least permeable insulation on the inside as the vapour control membrane.

Congratulations ! Did you use Buildzone for BRegs and Warranty....? How did you find their surveyors..??