DundeeDancer

Fan A is to be : http://www.nuaire.co.uk/our-products/catalogue/residential/extract-fans/cyfan/ I'll set it to run in continuous mode and with the side spigot it will ventilate the washing machine cupboard that will also have a rail for drying clothes. Fan B is to be :- http://www.i-sells.co.uk/vent-axia-lo-carbon-tempra-selv-lt-single-room-hrv Seems I am to make the same mistake you made Ferdinand and have a drafty bath area with the room heat recovery fan beside the shower. Hopefully switching to summer by-pass when showering will be enough to keep any chills away and the tenants will leave the fan running.

Not sure if builder has improved my original plan or if we are making a mistake to the air flow/extraction in a new kitchen install. The original plan that I provided has installed an extraction fan that takes 33% of extract air out of a duct connected to the side spigot (Fan and duct marked in orange below). The other 67% of the extraction air is sucked through the front face of the fan which is on the left hand side of the picture. Please note: there is nothing stopping the air from flowing between the cupboards. However what the builder has built so far is below:- As highlighted by the orange and pink circles the air will now not flow so easily around the cupboards. Purple line will be roughly where the duck will run to take the secondary air flow from the washing machine cupboard. I can't make my mind up if the way the builder has built it so far will be a better design for taking the hot moist air along from the hob area, might be if the tenant remembers to switch the hod on when cooking. Or if my original design with more open room for the air to circulate is any better? I'm thinking mostly from the point of view ventilating the kitchen cupboards so they last a decent amount of time. Any thoughts appreciated. Thanks, DD

Face-plates material for the kitchen and bathroom fans to reduce current vent sizes from 150mm down to 100mm. Wondering if I should maybe use 8mm nylon sheet instead of plywood? With all the warm damp air passing by the face-plates might be a recipe for plywood rotting in a short time period. Nylon or Polypropylene sheet probably last longer than 50 years. I can order the nylon sheets from the internet and get them within a couple of days if it's a good idea? It's not to expensive for small sheets of 250*250mm, about £8 a plate but if it lasts a long time it could well be worth it. https://www.directplastics.co.uk/nylon-6-sheet

I like the look of this space saving flexible basin trap but the on-line reviews says stay away. Anyone else used this product? http://www.diy.com/departments/wirquin-space-saving-flexible-trap-dia32mm/136757_BQ.prd Plan A is currently to use this product but it means cutting away a part of the back draw from the basin unit:- https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00LBY9GM2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Draw... Cheers, DD

A big THANKS from me to all you guys. Bouncing the problem in here has really helped. As the toilet waste runs under this unit and needs to be boxed in, if the boxing in is made strong then the basin unit could rest a little on it for extra support. Also to the left hand side there is the main vertical drain that is all boxed in. So if a 30mm bit of strapping was added to the side of that then the side of the basin unit could be screwed into that strapping and which would add horizontal support, that would take away the need to strengthen the back wall as there so never then be any significant forces on the back wall. Phew, I think we have a solution! Cheers, DD

I've suggested to the "Professional Builders" that I am paying to do this job to maybe consider the following:- "Maybe we just need to embed into the plasterboard a horizontal strap of structural wood to give some support where the basin attaches to the wall." I shall await their Professional Bull**** response and hopefully I'll find a way to make them see the light to do the job right so it last the test of time and not just past the defect period.

It's an Ikea base unit like the one below, I also got 2 * 25cm legs for it, another 2 legs might be an option but the toiler waste will run under the unit so not much space down there. As you can see from the picture above it doesn't come with a top so I got a quartz top made up which must weigh about 15kg. Along with the basin to sit on top... ProDave is correct I have heard the builders say it's an eggshell wall, made of panels with little structural supports in them.

I'm having put into an existing bathroom a counter top basin resting on top quartz top sized at 400*500*32 . The weight soon adds up and the wall I've been told is not that strong as it's some honeycomb design with vertical batons every 1200mm. Therefore I'm thinking, probably wrongly, that we could get a single sheet of an MDF shower wall and glue and screw that onto the wall and into the structural timber at ceiling and floor height. That might give something more solid for the basin cabinet to be attached to. The basin cabinet does have 2 legs to help support the weight above but people will still lean again the basin from time to time causing horizontal stresses. I do worry though that the shower wall type material might not be up to the job of supporting the screws which will anchor the basin unit into the wall and if screws are used and it being a bathroom environment then damp could get in and ruin the panel fairly quickly? Wondering if people out there ever tried something similar or had a better way of approaching this problem? The product I was thinking of using would be something like this:- http://www.diy.com/departments/splashwall-milano-marble-effect-single-shower-panel-l242m-w12m-t11mm/258216_BQ.prd Thanks, DD

I’m in the process of having a new window opening and window installed into a 2nd floor apartment I own. The workman for some reason forgot to install the DPC cavity try along with any cavity blocker i.e. the items underlined in red in the following picture. The builders didn’t tell me, I only noticed as the expanding foam they tried to plug the gap between the window and the lintel with shrunk before the plaster board when on so I could see into the gap that nothing had been installed. I took it up with the boss builder who was very reluctant to come out on site that week and only came to site after I demanded all work was to stop until we had an on-site meeting to discuss the missing cavity tray and 10 other issues with the build. The contractor and the architect both came to site at 8am on Saturday morning and agreed the DPC Cavity tray, Cavity barrier where missing and that they needed to be installed. To do this they said they were going to leave the window in place and take out the inner lintel, then fit the cavity tray, then put the lintel back in again. So I said fine if that’s what you think best. Sunday afternoon I checked the flat at 5pm and nothing had been done. Monday night I come back at 4:30pm to site and it’s all been plaster boarded over. I have the sinking feeling they haven’t installed the cavity tray but I don’t know enough about building to figure out if not having the cavity tray is a big problem. Will it mean possible damp problems in the future with this window. It’s a UVPC window so at least it won’t rot but damp might now creep across the cavity void and seep into the inner cavity leaf. Trying to weigh up how important this fault is? Is it worth fighting to find out if it's been fixed or are these cavity trays just a nice precaution against damp but not having one doesn't mean there will be a future problems? Thanks in advance for any advice. DD

I suppose in reality the contract will be valid. The draft contract has been emailed by the Architect to the builder and myself. I have signed and given back the final contract to the Architect and the builder should be signing it ASAP. But even if he didn't and turned up on site, it would be like him accepting the contract by default, I would hope. Else what is he doing on site? Starting to vandalism someone property if an agreement is not in place. Maybe I need to chill the beans. I just like my t's crossed, my i's dotted and contracts signed. Just getting a bit uptight as if the builder come on site and breaks something how would the insurance company view it all? hhhhmmmm....

Very good point Jack. My emails don't seem to be penetrating into their thinking to deeply anyway. Maybe a softly spoken reality check in broken record style will work better.

Thanks for the options Ferdinand. I've nothing to lose by delaying the project and finding another builder. He seems like a nice guy, just been on holiday (might be an excuse), has multiple people and multiple projects on the go. When I offered to take the the contract over to him to sign he was like, I'm too busy, I'll do it at the Architects office on Thursday or Friday. Just can't see it happening, so it's going to be a show down soon. I just think it's a really bad idea to be signing the contract on the day. First job is for subbies to erect scaffolding, so they are booked in already. It's just a little strange and annoying.

Back feeling twitchy again, build contractor doesn't want to sign contract until they are on-site! I clearly expressed in an email 4 days ago that contract had to be signed at least 5 days before work started. Today is the day I need proof that contract is signed, sinking feeling it won't be and I'll need to start emailing ultimatums. First one will be if contract not signed by Saturday noon then 3rd of October start date is off. Second one will be if no contract signed by noon on Monday 1st then they won't be my builder. This is the builder the Architect recommended and they live very close,and done many jobs before. I can't figure it out, I just find it stressful. Do most contracts start in this stressful way? Thanks, DD.

Hi Temp, you had me excited there for a moment but the trickle flow is 6 l/s maybe it was the 1.1 watts that caught your eye.

Thanks for checking my cals Mike, I had did my first batch with a room height of 240cm which would have given 8160 L of space. Anyway the TLC site gives calculations for intermittent extract fans so a different kettle of fish altogether. Came out as 43 l/s HAHA it's just the one bathroom I'm trying to vent not every room in the 6 apartment block. I think these fans companies have a deal with Gas and Electricity suppliers the amount of energy they want us to throw out the back end of these vents.

Thinking on putting one of these smart D-MEV continuous ventilation fan into the bathroom of a flat I plan to rent out and all the D-MEV fans on minimum settings are way too high in my opinion. The bathroom is 1700 * 2000 * 2300 = 8160 Litres of space. The Scottish Domestic Ventilation 1st Edition states:- Bathroom / Shower, continuously operating mechanical extract rate needed is equal to 0.5 ACPH with 25-50 boost. So the calculation I come up with is:- Volume of air to be change in hour = between 50% - 100% of room volume so that is between 4080 - 8160 L 1 hour = 3600 seconds. So per second the rate should be between 1.14 - 2.23 l/s. The lowest throughput fans I can see in the market are 5 l/s. Which is 440% more air than I want to push out the window, unless I’m overlooking something? Anyone know of any continuously operating bathroom fans that only push 1 to 2 l/s ? Thanks, DD.

On-site meeting revealed Architect plans to write up a "Home Owner Contract with Consultant contract", feeling less twitchy now

Thinking of using ADW myself in a few months time. Sounds like they did good.

Another snippet of information is that this medium size project is the pre-cursor to a much bigger renovation to our main apartment where we are thinking of making much more energy efficient, MVHR, triple glassing, more insulation, the works. So the plan is to do up the rental place to a good standard, then live there ourselves for 3-4 months while our main apartment gets fixed up. So this first project should not be a hit and run but building a working relationship to go on to bigger and better things. Will need to get a blog going on here soon to track progress to share the experience. Best wishes, DD.

Hi Ferdinand, I'm fairly new to the practice of being a Landlord (a few years in) and this will be my first renovation project. I seem to be thinking along the same lines as you at the moment i.e. a practical home that tenants will enjoy living in and won't mind paying a little premium to live in. So no square toilet seats or square bathroom sinks! I'm just looking at the "Scottish Conditions of Appointment of an Architect" agreement...Small Project Version ASP/2005 (Apr 2015) that we have with the architect. We are pretty much at the door of "Progressing the Build" 7.1 Administer the Contract But I haven't yet seen a contract document and at a previous stage "Preparing to Build" it says the following:- Work Stage 5.0 – Construction Documentation 5.1 Advise on and agree form of Building Contract, including Contract Administrator. So I'm starting to get a bit twitchy. Anyway onsite meeting tomorrow with me, wife, architect and builder. I'm sure all my worries will be resolved, one way or another Thanks, DD.

This is a very interesting thread to me at this moment. Within the next 3-4 weeks the builder will hopefully start on my first renovation project. I have created a plan with an architect/Principal Designed role to change the apartment into having:- an open plan kitchen lounge, a new opening for a new window, a storage cupboard converted to take a washing machine and all bathroom fittings to be replaced. The architect suggested we get a quote for all the work we could possible want done, turned out to be around £20k + vat. We don't want to spend that much on what will be a long term rental flat, so we have suggested reducing the scope of the changes to get the price down to £15k + vat. Going to go and discuss on-site with the architect and builder this Friday the proposed works. Hopefully will get a steer from them what kind of contract they would like to use, have dropped hints in a few emails recently but they have been a bit quiet on the subject of contracts and price. I can see the benefits of a firm priced contract for the client, I will do some digging into how hard they are to set up. Many thanks, DD.

Thanks for the replies so far. Won't be me making the holes, it will be the building contractor I get in. This is investigation work into the layout of the MVHR system that I am discussing with my architect. Due to the 200mm central concrete wall down the middle if the apartment. Plan A is making 5 or 6 holes for the 75mm ducting or as my architect is currently suggesting Plan B two separate MVHR systems running all the time. So 3 to 4 hours work doesn't sound to bad for the new holes. If it was going to 20 hours plus and really tough going then Plan B it would need to be, but Plan A is currently still alive

Hi, wondering if anyone would know roughly how much effort/cost it would take to core a 80mm hole through a double thickness concrete block wall. Might need up to 6 cores done to make room for a retro-fitted MVHR system. Structural engineer thought it would not have an impact on structural strength on building, so from that viewpoint it can be considered. So now wondering about cost and effort. Thanks, DD

Yes I've already been in contact with BPC and they gave me a price for 2 different MVHR units and some prices for ducting. No plan though, I'll give them a nudge maybe they were going through a busy period. The Paul supplier in Rosyth is also catching my eye https://www.paulheatrecovery.co.uk/ will see if they can propose anything as well hopefully at reasonable designer fees.

I'm looking to have a MVHR system installed into my apartment and I have drawn up my own design but I have no idea if it really would be a balanced system and what really makes it balanced. Wondering who and how much a MVHR designer would charge to take my design and prove it works or show the weak points/failings. I take it these designers have air flow modelling systems that should show up system flaws? Any recommendations on a designers to use most welcome. Thanks, DD.