Gone West

Welcome to Buildhub and good luck with your build.

Yes my frame is a timber I-beam portal frame and was cut and joined in the factory except for the largest frames which were made in two halves in the factory and joined on site. These largest ones were actually erected by hand and the smaller ones lifted in by crane. This picture shows one of the first being lifted in by crane.

I fitted one in the bungalow when I was letting it. It worked for a couple of years then packed up. There was no way of knowing if there was a fault without switching it off and on.

We didn't check out our TF company through Companies House we just asked them if we could visit some of their builds. They were happy to arrange that and we were happy after speaking to the owners who gave us the low down warts and all.

Welcome to Buildhub and good luck with the planners.

@vivienz Congratulations, it's all looking very good. I like the all black PV panels, what make are they?

The housing for the air pump for my system can be either surface mounted or semi buried. I fitted ours semi buried and bedded on sand with the air pump standing directly on the base of the housing. The hum from the air pump can't be heard more than a couple of meters away and we live out in the sticks where it's pretty quiet.

Yes we used Lacomet for the dormer apron and frame. Good for flat surfaces but not malleable will only bend in one plane. It's two thin layers of aluminium sandwiching a layer of non-metallic mesh.

I was accidentally filmed at a Flog It programme in Canterbury many years ago. I was in the auction rooms and the presenter, Paul Martin, decided to stand next to me to do his introduction.

We used Bluclad board with the Wetherby detailing which is for render or brick slips.

We went for pre-app advice, which was free many years ago in our area, and it was a complete waste of time. As has been said on here, and what we were later told by the Planning Dept., is that Planning Officers have different views on applications and therefore there will be different outcomes.

You're going great guns. It took us eight years to do our build. It's taken us over three months to dismantle the old bungalow and we still have the back garden to do.

Welcome to the forum. Sounds like a very interesting project in a stunning part of the country, so lots of pictures please.

When I fitted my WPL Diamond DMS2 over eight years ago it came with a Secoh EL-100C rated at 110-120W. I've noticed that the latest technical information for the DMS2 states that the air pump is now rated at 80W. Whether they have changed anything else I don't know but I could probably fit a lower rated pump without problems.

If it's like mine the whole of the front comes off but it's not heavy. Mine is held on with hex bolts so it can be undone with an allen key or hex head on the screwdriver.

This is a condensate drain isn't it so can't the drain be filled from inside the unit by taking the cover off?

My air pump is in a box under the ground and can only be heard when a couple of metres away.

When doing jobs like that I always put masking tape along the tile edge and then when it squidges out it's easier to peel off and it means using less wipes.

In a word, grim.

We have used fused connection units (FCU) with flex outlet plates for all our kitchen appliances. I don't know of any safety reasons why you shouldn't connect two cables to the flex outlet plate for the fridges, but I'm not an electrician.

@lizzie This is quite common when connecting EU to UK wastes and just needs an EU/UK 40mm waste adapter.

Our neighbours new bungalow has been with the current estate agents for around a month and has now sold subject to contract. There has been a lot of interest in it and we have spoken to some of the prospective buyers. They have not been put off by the ASHP and UFH and have liked it's position with good views and the outside appearance of the building.

Hi, welcome and good luck.

I am considering fitting these to my lift slide next year, don't know if you've seen them before. https://solargaps.com/

Our house has 50mm Rockwool RW6 on the outside of the OSB3 racking on our timber frame. We then had to have a 50mm air gap before the rainscreen cladding.