Gone West

Hi, welcome to the forum. Whereabouts in Kent are you? We didn't go for ali-clad windows in the end as the price was too high but others on here have fitted them and I'm sure they'll be along soon.

I think the people around here have sussed that our house was built on a budget as they've seen us slaving away for eight years building it and now another three months dismantling the old bungalow by hand. Wendy says having an eleven year old car in the drive also shows we're not in the GD league.

I bought our expanding foam tape from https://www.affixit.co.uk/Expanding-Foam-Tape/ https://www.affixit.co.uk//EXP6-Expanding-Foam-Tape-Compriband-TP600-Alternative.Html?search_in_description=1&keyword=tp600&cPath=182

I guess it won't help with your problem but there are self regulating electric UFH mats that are limited to 28C.

It's bigger than mine .

An alternative to reducing centres or increasing depth is to increase the chord width of the metal web joist. Our maximum span is 5.9m at 254mm depth with 400mm centres but much wider chords.

If we were to fit PVs we would want all black panels with micro inverters which is not the cheapest system. I used PVGIS to estimate output many years ago when we started our build but our electricity usage is lower than we had anticipated hence the doubt about fitting them. If we ever sold the house it would seem that PVs would be expected so we are still wondering.

We also are procrastinating about whether it would be worthwhile fitting PVs on a similar sized area. Our electricity usage during April to September is just over 1kWh a day. If we had an EV we would fit them but is it worth it when most of the electricity would be exported to the grid. Everyone seems to think a PH should have PVs and are surprised we don't.

Our house has a 350mm timber I-beam frame with Icynene insulation.

Hi Nick, welcome to the forum. Yours sounds like an interesting project. We have built to PH standards and are just coming to the end of the bungalow dismantling.We have survived and are coming out of the other side a lot more knowledgeable and a lot poorer.

We bought all our bathroom equipment from Bathstore. We got it in the sales and because we have three bathrooms we got extra discount for buying three of everything.

I used frames for two of my basins and for the other basin I used a Fischer fixing kit screwed into a strengthened area of stud wall. https://www.toolstation.com/shop/Screws+%26+Fixings/d90/Fixing+Packs/sd3310/Fischer+Wash+Basin+Fixing+Kit/p86297

Hi and welcome to the forum. Good luck with your project.

Welcome to the forum. We didn't have experience of house design or build but we designed and built our own house to Passivhaus standard. Whether it was all fun I wouldn't like to say .

@j_s Well done, sounds like you're doing an excellent job. It's a disgrace that a ten year old house is so poorly built.

That's good to hear. I hope it solves your problem. They certainly sound like a good company. I guess you'll have to wait until next year to find out if it works.

Where we couldn't send physical samples we sent pictures. They were fussy about colours etc.

Are you sure, are you positive, you know it makes sense

I don't have any separate record of the roof window details so I've looked back through my PHPP data and it is a FTT with 3g and clear reflective outer glass. It looks like it's a U6 but they may have changed the spec. as mine was bought in 2010. https://www.fakro.co.uk/products/all-products/roof-windows/highly-energy-efficient-windows/# Sorry for the confusion.

https://www.fakro.co.uk/products/all-products/roof-windows/centre-pivot/ Those are ours with 3g and low transmittance glass. I don't know the cost of ours as it was lumped in the the frame cost.

Wendy was referring to your heating needing to go on. No need for me to break into my Emergency Annual Heating Fund yet with current electricity usage of 1.4kWh per day . 1.4 kWh is wrong it's 1.1kWh for the last reading.

Our neighbours were told they had to fit a permanent access ramp before sign off. We devised our ramp as part of our landscaping design. The first part of the paving is flat up to the edge of the house then it slopes gently over the next 3.5m up to the porch door. The BCO was happy as long as there weren't any steps greater than 15mm high.

Wendy says time for the heating to go on .

We have a Fakro centre pivot opening roof window that is non vented.

Well done, I know what it's like having dismantled our timber bungalow. We've been lucky and given most of the timber away on Freecycle/Freegle and the rest we've taken to the tip. We had to pay to have the asbestos removed but we're still within our budget for demolition. It's taken three months to take it down and dispose of everything but it's satisfying to do it for nothing and everything takes us an age.