DundeeDancer

I’m enjoying this thread as I have a plan to do a bare bones refurbishment on the apartment I live in. Second floor apartment with solid concrete floor and ceiling. Going back to bare bones to hopeful get the apartment airtight enough to get a good return on the heat recovery element of the MVHR system and to significantly add to the insulation levels as well. Plan is to gut the flat, install at least 20mm of inner wall insulation on all surfaces and 50mm onto external facing walls, new triple glazing, new lightweight underfloor heating, re-wire, re-plaster new kitchen and two new bathrooms. I’ll be looking at a price tag of around £70k. So I don’t won’t want to be investing in “Bogus” technologies. Having stayed in a few places that have MVHR systems installed then I believe they are slightly over-hyped. One place I stayed I noticed the MVHR system wasn’t switched on. I had a decent sleep without the MVHR switch on but the CO2 levels did build up to around 1,500 ppm. When the owner looked at the MVHR system he said that he must have forgot to switch the system on since he last change of the filters about 8 weeks ago! None of his other guests has noticed! With the MVHR system on low the CO2 levels were around 900ppm which were decent. To me it is the cumulative effect of all the following that justify the system installation: pollen free air, less dust mites, less humidity, reduction in heating bills. Adding all that up makes the investment worthwhile I think but to be honest am not 100% sure yet so the plan stays on the drawing board for a little while longer. Definitley need to get it done before I'm 60 and start to really feel the cold nights, so that just gives me a dacade or so to play with before fully committing. ?

GD series 20 episode 4 Hull - underground water reservoir. Inspiring in many ways but at the same time totally bonkers. Volume of living area about 9 times the size of normal family homes. Would love to know what the heating bills would be like to bring that mosnter accommodation up to 22c. Cold bridges galore along with mega concrete heat sinks for walls with no insulation behind or in front. Ideal I guess if you enjoy your environment to be a cool 11c all year around ? Need more details, program should be called Grand Hidden Designs ☺️

My experience with countertop wash basins is it is hard work to get the set-up correct. I planned one with a nice quartz top. Started off order this this one:- https://www.betterbathrooms.com/p/oval-countertop-basin But it turned out to have an extra underflow bit of the bottom so won't fit flat on the quartz top without cutting a big shape in the bottom. So after a lot of hassle managed to swap it for this one:- https://www.betterbathrooms.com/p/pacific-counter-top-basin Was still a hassle as was fitting it into an Ikea cabinet and I had to search hard to find correct plumbing for it. Then it got fitted but because the toilet waste had to run under the counter top cabinet, the cabinet had to have it's legs set to maximum and so the counter-top sits a little high for people to wash there face in. Also selecting the right high tap is not that easy either. I like what I ended up with, it looks great, turned out to be hard work to get there and expensive. See

Back in 2016 I bought Greenwood Desktop CO2/RH/Temp 3 in 1 Monitor with Data Logger Logging, Indoor Air Quality 9999 ppm Carbon Dioxide/Temperature Deg C/F/Humidity Meter. I've found it to be a good piece of kit! https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00MB93GH2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I don't find rooms stuffy until they get over 2,000 ppm although I try to keep the night time CO2 levels down to around 1,200 ppm in my own bedroom by keeping the bedroom door open.(No MVHR as yet but plans in the pipeline) I once felt very sleepy in a hotel room and when I turned on my CO2 logger the reading was at 3,500 ppm! I was OK 10 minutes after I fully opened the window and ventilated the room. I've read in a few places that if the room in use is ventilated to over 800 ppm then your probably over ventilating the area. Best wishes, DD.

Hello Buildhub people, Looking for a little advice once more. ? About 6 months ago in a flat I let out. I had an old system boiler replaced with a new combi boiler and the fitting company said they could take away the hot and cold water tanks and run everything off the mains. Seemed like a good idea at the time but now I'm a little worried that everything hasn't been thought through. The boiler is operating fine. It's the toilet that is the current problem but I'm also worried about the bathroom taps. I think running from mains pressure is possible too much for the current plumbing. The ball-cock fitting in the toilet, when I had the lid off the force of the water on refill caused considerable spray all over me and half the room. I've manage to tweak the main pressure inside the flat's by turning the stop-cock all the way down so only half the force of the water comes out but I'm not convinced this is a long term solution. Maybe I need to consider getting fitted a water pressure reducing valve into the system or changing toilet ball-cock and taps into ones that can handle high pressure. Wonder is the electric show is OK with the increased pressure. Any advice appreciated. Best wishes, DD.

If I was in your shoes Hecateh, I would feel out my depth so would be looking to get some independent advice from some with extensive residential building experienced that could come to site and run through the plans and costs and sanity check things over. Maybe some with more Project Management experience could give guidance. Might cost you another £300 or so but you might be able to sleep easier at night. Best of luck! DD xx

Many thanks Ferdinand for your insight. Very interesting to read that you find the noise acceptable. It therefore makes me hopeful that it is my particular fan. As the fan is still in warranty I have asked for a replacement. I will therefore go to the effort of switching it over to see if a difference occurs. That will mean me wrestling with fitting the fan again but brings another opportunity to get it aligned exactly right with the fan body and sleeve pipe in the core hole. That had proved more difficult than I had anticipated. I think the problem being is I put the fan holes in the faceplate before the sleeve pipe was in place. Should have done that part the other way about but to be honest not much tolerance to play with so a bit of a testing job fitting these units. The Tempra is marked in green in my plan as Fan B, so it's in the bathroom and nothing nearby to reflect the noise. As you mentioned before it does produce a bit of a draft when someone is bathing or showering but the fans couldn't be configured any other way due to pipe works in the black-box. Maybe in 15 years time when the fans start to show there age I will replace with an MVHR system but that wasn't in the budget/schedule for this round of works. Cheers DD

Finally got Nuaire Cyan and Vent-Axis Tempra fans operational after installing them on top of my own constructed face-plates. In trickle mode the Cyan is almost silent but the Vent-Axis Tempra is quite noisy, so noisy that I am starting to think it might be faulty. The Tempra specification says at 6 liters a second trickle mode that the sound produced should be 20 dB but it's much louder than that. I loaded an app onto my phone and that thinks it is around 33 dB. Anyone else found the Tempra noisy? Ferdinand?

I’m on the lookout for a trades person than can properly install a single room Heat Recovery Vent into a 2nd floor flat. I put details about how the job is around 7.5m off the ground in this thread:- I thinking on using one of the “Trust a trader” type sites from the following list but unsure what one to try first:- www.trustatrader.com www.mybuilder.com www.ratedpeople.com www.myjobquote.co.uk I did try and go with a recommendation but the person said they would come the next week to check the job out and then never returned any of my texts after that. Any tips or recommendation appreciated. Thanks, DD.

@MikeSharp01 There is not much of a relationship left from my end. The build contractor has made it clear he feels he has finished on-site with handing back the keys even though we are still to go through a 3 months defect fixing period and the Architect seems perfectly comfortable arguing against anything I say, even if it is the same thing he said 2 minutes earlier. I've been pretty good at logging any issues in an "issues document" and emailing it to both parties every week which the Architect took great objection to saying it was to much to read. Well if the builder spoke to me say one a week or fix the problems then I could take items off the list and there won't be so much to read. I did email them on 15th of January to say "For every extra week the project is delayed in effect means another £200 in lost earnings for us with the flat not being let out." So I set a marker down back 4 weeks ago, so that would be £800. It's not so much about the money and more about being fair, honest and treating people with respect. I'm not happy with being taken advantage of and them not caring that their actions (or lack of actions and carelessness) have an effect on me and my good wife. We are not cash cows to be milked.

@Ian LAD aren't ruled in or ruled out in the HomeOwner contract. Not documented at all. Seemingly this is done to make such occurrences a negotiation point instead of heading straight for the legal teams. This link explains it a bit more :- http://www.recordassociates.co.uk/news/just-how-good-is-the-jcts-home-owner-contract/ @Ferdinand Considering the option of withholding a reasonable amount but don't think I would have the nerve to do it without seeking some professional legal advice first. Really hoping some form of sensible negotiation occurs to get to a point which is fair to all.

Wondering if anyone here has successfully claimed / negotiated for unliquidated (i.e. actual) damages for late completion of one of their projects? The contract I entered into was the following type:- Homeowner Contract (with Consultant) 2013 Edition for use in Scotland. The Joint Contracts Tribunal 2009. My main grievance is that the build contractor failed to achieve practical completion by the completion date set out in the contract. In the contract it specified that the works would take 8 weeks. “Prestart meeting notes” which came with the contract pack, it was written:- Possession Practical Completion Building Control to carry out final inspection. CO to provide Electrical Completion Certificate and GasSafe Certificate. CO to provide any Form Q information for SE. On Tuesday past it was 18 weeks since the first day the builder came to site and I still haven’t seen the Electrical Completion Certificate yet. The architect has not issues a Practical Completion certificate or for that matter a certificate of non-completion. The Architect has said on the phone that Practical Completion doesn’t really exist in a Homeowner Contract but I feel as I don’t have any certificates yet the late clock is still running. Building Control have inspected the property but have not issued a Completion Certificate yet and at the time of the inspection requested the build contractor to send them an electronic copy of the electrical ECIR certificate. Now the Architect/consultant is putting pressure on us the clients to start agreeing to final accounts and to pay up as the builder could do with the money. Even though we are one of the builders smallest projects which the builder left pretty much unattended for the last 12 weeks when they went off to finish off some of their bigger projects in the pre-Christmas rush. As we are planning on renting this flat out as soon as we get the carpets down the 10 week delay has lost us 10 weeks of future rent which would total £2,000. I wonder if I have any hope in getting some of that money back from the contractor who was busy making profits elsewhere. I wonder if there are any success stories out there and any golden nuggets of advice to consider. Maybe I should get my wallet out and speak to a lawyer; £2,000 doesn’t go very far in the legal world though Many thanks, DD

Vinyl installer thoroughly recommends against varnishing the ply so going to go with no varnish.

I'm getting ready for the carpet fitters to come deck out the property. In the kitchen and bathroom the floors have been prepared by putting down sheet plywood that has been untreated. The intended floor covering is standard vinyl off a roll. Wondering if it would be a good plan to put down a layer of varnish on the plywood to make it more robust against dampness before laying the vinyl on top. Any thoughts? Thanks, DD

I wonder what the reading of the main rolling register on the meter was on the first day of install? It may have been for example 5000 and now the rolling register may be something like 8423. So you may have only used 3423 kWh of electricity which the monthly totals are showing you but the Supplier (Good Energy) is trying to charge you for the full amount i.e. 8423. The Meter Operator who installed the Meter should have told the Supplier GE what the "initial reading" was on day of install, you can ask the supplier/GE for that information and see if they know, they might be silly enough to tell you that it wasn't zero

I'm trying to get installed Heat Recovery Vent into a 2nd floor flat http://www.i-sells.co.uk/vent-axia-lo-carbon-tempra-selv-lt-single-room-hrv I need a little of the harling chipped away to make the bottom of the existing core hole a little wider and then a PVC plastic face plate screwed to the wall. The problem is that this work needs to be done at height (approx 7 meters as red circle below shows) and I'm not sure if a builder would need to erect a scaffold and platform to do this work or if it can be something that could be done by safely and legally by someone who is proficient with using ladders? If scaffolding is required then any ballpark guesses at the costs for erecting a small tower for the day?

The water pipes are able to be wiggled by 3 to 4mm in either a horizontal or vertical direction. As I now know the pipes are not under any stress, I now feel a lot less stressed myself and I may come round to the idea of living with the set up the way it is. Thanks for the idea of a wiggle test, sometimes just looking at a problem is not enough, sometimes you've got to get your hands on it and give it a push and a prod

Thanks for the reply Nick The 2 top and 2 bottom height adjustable brackets are no longer being used and the 20mm square height adjusting fixing plates for these 4 brackets are no longer on site so I've asked Ikea to ship out new ones (They appear to be doing it for free from Sweeden, way to go Ikea!). Seems to be the case if the person on-site at the time can't fit the part then they dispose of the evidence The fitting manual for the basin unit also now lost So the unit is not bolted to the wall in any way. I'll do a finger nail check on the clear adhesive to see if it's glue or silicon to gauge how strong the bond is. I'll then try the waggle test on the pipes but I suspect they will be slightly under load and will not budge. This renovation project was pretty much at practical completion just before Christmas, a few minor defects that have kind of been fixed/hacked in the last few weeks in preparation for the Building Surveyor to come out and do an inspection and hopefully issue the completion certificate. So I'm going to try and hang in there and just grumble a little and try not to blow any fuses at this corner cutting contractor. Consultant architect to give his opinion later in the week but the relationship between the architect and the build contractor is a close one; I shouldn't have taken the architect's advice to use this build contractor, a sore lesson learnt! So glad we did this small renovation project before we start on our main dwelling renovation, so many lessons learnt! You're correct about the holes on the left hand side, shown below

I went for the following in the kitchen area instead of down lighters:- https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01FDKG636/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Surface mounted and quite small.

Hello from DundeeDancer Welcome to the forum.

That was suggested by my brother in-law but it has the drawback of weakening the unit and the cross bar is basically chipboard with some form of shrink-wrapped pvs/vinyl cover, cut into it and the bathroom vapor will slowly make the exposed chipboard swell fairly soon. It would solve the issue of the weight of the unit not pressing on the pipes though. So it's a cheap hack but considering the unit was shown to the plumber on-site before the brand new water pipes were put into position on the wall then really it is a first fix problem that the plumber should have avoided and should fix at his own cost in my frustrated opinion. The plumber was a grumpy sub-contractor so that adds in a layer of complexity to the mix.

Being a newbie to this building game I am unsure if a basin unit resting directly on water pipes would be considered a defect/worry to experienced builders/plumbers. The basin unit has been installed as follows which looks basically OK before considering the instructions I gave to the builder before installation. Instructions emailed a week or so before installation were:- "Basin unit I was looking at how the basin unit would fit in to the space in the bathroom and I think it best there is a 60mm gap from the box of pipes on the left, that’s 50mm if measuring the gap from a tile. I think the basin unit needs this space to give comfortable gap for the basin bowl to settle flat on the counter top. Also the cold and hot water feeds from the kitchen into the bathroom for the basin tap need to be 50mm lower as currently they are at the same level as the back support plate of the unit. Please see photo below:-" So the first attempt of installation of the unit left a 5 mm gap to the left hand side of the unit and the unit cross bar supports resting on the pipes. So I emailed once more to my build contractor:- "Owners note that structural baton on basin unit is resting on water feed pipes which is stopping the unit from rest on boxing in below as previously agreed. Water pipes should be moved lower so unit can be moved 8mm lower to rest on boxing in. Also shadow gap to left of basin needs to be increased to at least 60mm to allow for access for cleaning gap." Then the basin unit was then unbolted from the wall and moved to it's current locatio where there is now a 100mm gap from the left hand side of the wall but STILL resting on the pipes as shown:- My main concern has always been the fear of a plumbing fault causing a flood; with the weight of the unit considering it's a quartz top and porcelain bowl on top (20kg) + water in bowl and people leaning on it (maybe another 30kg) that the unit should be firmly bolted to the wall and not resting on the pipes, as over time I fear the weight of the unit on the pipes may causes one of the pipe joint to fail? I fear that I might worry about this set up until it is rectified. Do other builders/plumbers here consider the cross support bar resting on the pipes a defect that should be fixed or would they not worry about it? The unit also now seems glued to the wall with some clear adhesive instead of bolting it to the wall, which I guess might be OK in the short term but not convinced adhesive is a longer term/10 years+ good plan. Your thoughts will be appreciated, DD

If a hob fire did occur and it was so bad that flames where going up inside the chimney hood, then it is probably time to get out the flat and in the panic if the person can remembered to switch off all the electrics by the main switch in the hall cupboard next to the front door that would be a bonus for the firefighters. I'm more worried about down the line the fan in the hood might give up and need to be replaced and then someone will need to use that plug point that by that time may be well greased up and damp. The problem can be easily fixed by extending the 2 grey wires by 2 foot each to take that socket well out the way. What would that cost to cramp on two small 2 foot extensions, 30 minutes of an electricians time. £40 in total maybe? The hood over the hob extracts just into the general kitchen but the kitchen fan is just 3 feet to the left of the top of the chimney hood. The kitchen fan has 2 uses, it takes 77% of the air from the surrounding area and 33% from a duct, the silver duct runs along the kitchen wall to the hall cupboard where the washing machine and a little clothes drying area are placed. So I'll set the nuaire CYFAN to trickle mode to keep both the kitchen and washing machine cupboard hopefully fairly moisture free. Having the aluminium flexi-ducting replaced with 50mm pvc pipe as someone bound to put a finer nail or tea tray through that flexi-ducting.

The electrician who the build contractor got in to do my renovation electrics has fitted the fuse/plug point for the hob fan just at the top of the hood chimney and I don’t know how safe or unsafe that is? I guess there won’t be much dampness or grease getting through the hood filters but I have no idea if this configuration is contrary to any building regulations or just me being nervous about not a lot. I have suggested that the main grey leads should be extended with crimps so the plug point could be taken a foot out to the right hand side but the build contractor is no too keen to get the electrician in just for this little job. So I’m trying to judge how important it is. Comments appreciated. Thanks, DD Hood area:- Looking down into chimney hood:-

I did float that idea with the architect, builder and plumber of cutting slightly into the wall but all of them were not keen on the idea. There is nice tiles on those walls and the walls are of a cardboard/honeycomb/egg shell design so the tiles probably give the wall extra strength and cutting into the walls may weaken significantly so took the compromise of a shorter bath. The Tempra that I have bought has slatted vents on the bottom underside edge that a push button lever closes. That will stop most of the returning fresh heat recovered air back into the room. Pushing that level will hopefully stop chills when showering as in effect the unit would just be running as an extractor fan. Will soon find out The drawing package I've been using is "Sweet Home 3D", it's free and very easy, very quick to use. I did upgrade to the paid version from Amazon for approx. £15 and got extra widgets to play with, I'm just amazed at how useful it is