Gus Potter

Suggestion: Imagine you are the installer.. done the training courses etc. The unit comes in a box and in that box tends to be an install template or a diagram as to how you fix it to the wall. Now you follow the diagram but you don't have time to actually think about how vibration / sound waves are transferred to the wall. Also, you probably won't have been taught about how sound can reverberate off things, or say a fence and excite vibration in say a soil pipe or transfer to a duct. If you think about a wind instrument.. say a saxophone, the reed which is pretty small converts your breath into a change in air pressure that gets amplified by the rest of the instrument. Now think about how a fan unit could be missing some flexible mounting washers, you have ducting that may be amplifying the sound.. sometimes it needs a bit of thought. In some cases it could be that you just need a bit of galve band to stop the vibration growth that we hear.. we call this damping. As SE's when we design floors we clearly don't want them to fall down. But we also want them not to get "excited by vibration" as this can be dangerous but also it make folk unhappy when they are walking over or in them. Often we just need to add a bit more weight.. same applies to ventilation ducts. I would look at the simple stupid first and see if you have covered all of that before blaming the unit. At the then of the day if the unit is faulty the manufacturer is just going to ask the same questions as I am.

Hiya. I was looking at the photos and made some assumptions that the photo was realistic. Anyway @puntloos next time.. ! But for all. Don't put all your busy tiles in the shower enclosure.. design is about balance, scale and light in a bathrooom not least. @puntloos I suspect there is more to this.. have they just done a crap job. If so then tell us and we will give you the tools to get some money back. @nod I would be quite happy to pay you £250 - 300 a day plus your travelling time / accommodation / fuel and van so long as you worked at a steady pace all day. But at that rate I also want you to give me the benefit of your professional experience, if something is wrong then I would expect you to tell me before you start work and once it is complete I want it all in the tolerances and no mincing about from you if it is not.

True enough. It takes many years to become expert in you trade and in return you deserve the reward. For me I used to be a Contractor, and also a self taught trades person. I've installed a bathroom in my own house, striped everything back to the bare timber frame, insualted all that with a timber suspended floor. But I'm also an SE so know how all these materials interact. At the end of the day the materials / bath ect cost about 10k.. but to get someone else to achieve the same quality of work and not make an arse of it would have cost us 30 - 40k. We priced checked all of this, wife said Gus.. I trust you to make a better job and we can't afford that luxury otherwise. The biggies for me were fitting the chipboard on a timber suspended floor over my UF design ( but the UF for me is easy as I know what I'm doing), I glued and screwed that to death. Next was a decoupling matt.. not done that before but @nod etc gave me the confidence to tackle that. You need to take your time with this and use the right adhesives.. which are expensive.. but the tiles we have are expensive. The decoupling matt and extra adhesive added about 15% to the cost of the materials. Probaly one great tool was my glass suckers as I used them to lift and place the place the 1220 x 600 mm tiles. Also I used a tile levelling kit, worked ok for me. At the end of the day I'm glad it did it myself as I had spent the time taking advice. I'm nearly finished that room. I need to make a mockup shower screen to see how far the water spashes out.. it's not an enclosure.. just a bit of glass.. these things are bespoke but within our price range if we think smart.

This is a key concept I like to write some of my own spread sheets for this kind of stuff and really delve into the formulae that back up the industry software. By doing so it lets me manipulate to achieve the best design particularly, at concept design stage on old structures. @saveasteading has referenced in the past recognised research by say Historic Scotland and other accepted data that demonstrates that old stone walls are better insulators than we often assume at the outset. These old stone walls are not really solid, they have lots of air gaps / voids and have a significant insulating effect. Modern masonry walls have repeating joints and tend to be "thin" in comparison with old stone walls where the mortar joints are offset. OK I mention Scotland.. but what about the some of the early buildings in Bath e.g. that were all constructed in stone.. facing stone on the outside, rubble fill with random stone on the inside. This is good design. @ProDave has highlighted issues where if you don't seal the service void it can set up nasty convection currents / drafts that bypass the insulating effect. This is not that hard to do (seal the service void) in my mind if you are self building and want to do a bit of hands on stuff. If you do you'll end up with a great house for often less effort than you imagine. All you need to do is know when you have to say to the kit erector / etc.. hey this is the bit I want to do over the weekend before you sheet the inside of the walls. This is a critical point. BC will look at the job and may say.. this part is new work so it needs to comply with the latest regs. But the other parts of the work are an "upgrade" Depending on each authority you'll get a different answer. Your Architect needs to be right on top of this and should be able to explain how the the BC game is played and at the same time understanding and explaining to you how each design decision will impact on you if it is your forever home. Now if you are only paying your Architect a few quid.. then you'll get an off the shelf design. Pay them the right amount and a bit extra to phone friend (an SE who knows about this stuff) and you should at the end of the day save money in the round. Expect your Architect's fee to double for them to get right into this. Now this might sound a bit scary but if you double your payment then in return they should be able to cover that in practical savings in construction cost (if an experienced Architect / Designer) and more as you have given them time to really do all they are trained for.. you can set them free and at the same time give them responsibility for the overall design, detailing / detailed drawings (very important) and budget constraints. @ETC is that fair comment?

I have large format tiles, but installed them myself. They are tricky. I was particular as I wanted all the joints to line up with the tiles on the floor, took myself and wife ages to not get too heavy a pattern, just like you have noted. At the end of the day even though we had some technically 37 different configurations of tile pattern we had to make some compromises. But I think you may be ok.. remember the job is not finished yet! I can see a recess on the RHS of the photo and assume that is where the shower will go? Once you get all the screen, tray, soap dish fitted etc the wall should balance out as you are going to introduce "some busy stuff" on the RHS. What we didn't want to do in the shower area was to have too much density of pattern in the shower enclosure (makes it dark) as we know that once all the bits are fitted the shower area could appear to be a "black hole" without the "woke" you now get on Dr Who that of course brightens our life up considerably. Clear the room out and do a trial fit of all the stuff you are going to install in the bathroom and see if it makes any difference. report back.. I hope you have a nice surprise!

What a find! Nice approach as plenty others chipping in on the Architectural side. I'll limit mine to some SE stuff and some of the history of many of these types of Miner's cottages. I've done a few of these in the past.. here are some of the things I have learnt along the way. Mine owners built these houses at the lowest cost possible using the cheapest materials and labour cost.. just enough to keep their workers working. It's fascinating subject to research. I'll assume these are coal miner's cottages. Often a byproduct of coal mines is clay.. (they often had to dig through this to get to the coal) used to make bricks. the good bricks got sold, the "seconds" were used on the cottages. The good coal went to the big houses and for ships boilers, iron works etc, the low grade, full of sulpher coal was supplied to miners to keep the houses above freezing. High sulpher coal creates not least sulphiric acid which rots the mortar in the chimney's something awful. You have some cross walls but the mine owners didn't send their best masons to build the cottages, as they we often employed building the "manor", wool and jute mills ect. This means that the bonding of the cross walls is likely very poor. Also the external walls tend not to be that well bonded, the good stone went else where as did the best lime for mortar. My inclination is to look /ask.. on a fag packet what happens if we strip out all the internal walls on the original part and replace with thinner walls on a modern concrete slab with UFH. How much extra square feet are we going to generate? If that fag packet sum looks any way favourable then now we have a blank canvas to work with Architecturally.. a big open space. The new walls get tied back into retained external walls to provide any horizontal stability we need. How much easier / cheeper is it going to be to just cast a new insulated slab in a one go cf navigating round any internal walls? What savings can be realised by having a blank canvas in terms of abour / servicing and so on? It would be interesting to know how the existing walls really are constructed and what they are resting on. Until you know this you can't really make informed design decisions. Everything you do will hinge on this; the approach to insulating the external walls, you want to vault the ceilings?.. this will often introduce point loads.. you could end up wasting a load of cash if you don't get a handle on the existing construction in detail. Can you tell us more about what you know about the existing ~1800c construction and the later 1970's one, is it a cavity wall, how wide is the cavity and what are the walls made of. The good news is that hopefully the two storey bit will be heavy so that can be inspected for movement.. if it is sound then you have the makings of a benchmark.. you can say.. well that bit has been sitting there at two storeys for 50 years.. good indication of what the ground can carry sitting on this type of foundation.

Hiya. @gaz_moose and @ETC solutions can work well. Just depends on the type of detailing you want to do to finish off the roof. Cold flat roofs used to be common I (many worked fine) but now we stuff loads of insulation into and under them and BC etc.. and myself are not that keen on them for houses not least.. but.. Being pragmatic. It's not a kitchen, utility room or a bedroom where folk are sleeping in, thus the level of water gas generated should be relatively modest most of the time. Many of these older types of cold flat roofs relied on cross flow ventilation, usually via soffit vents. Most of these older types of flat roof are attached, say an extension which can inhibit the ventilation of a cold flat roof. A quick bit of rough theory, I have left out a lot but hope I give enough to let you understand the principles. To achieve cross flow ventilation on a flat roof you need to generate either / and or : 1/ A difference in air pressure between the windward and leeward side of the roof and / or have a sufficient slope in the roof to induce air convection currents. You get the best air pressure differential when the walls on the leeward and windward side (your roof joist / air gap span direction) are low and wide compared with the eaves height. This leads the wind to flow up and over the roof rather than round the sides of a structure. By promoting this type of wind flow you'll create the most favourable conditions to vent a flat roof. You have an advantage here as this is a stand alone building so avoid the problems typically associated with a cold flat roof extension. 2/ And / or induce air convection currents within the cold vented space we need heat.. that comes from the internal space in the winter. But that is lost heat which we are now keen to avoid. This goes some way towards explaining why cold flat roof were ok in the past but not now. I think this will work if you are careful, when partying.. leave a window open. Also avoid adding log stores and other paraphernalia / planting of trees etc that inhibits air flow round the building. Yes, you want to stop beasties getting in to the vent void as they will very quickly fill it up to make a lovely home for themselves. Mitigate by providing other habitats; bug hotels, bee habitats, bird boxes etc that you'll be able to see and enjoy. Don't know if you have frogs but you could do a bog garden from the rainwater run off and top that up with the garden hose if need be?

Hello there. What a delight to see your post. I can see you have out a lot of work into your post so thank you for that. My first question is can you show us some pictures of the views you have from the site. If you do then post and mark them so we know which way we are looking. Next would be.. do you know what other folk find cost effective in Latvia. Clay is clay but methods of construction are often driven by labour cost and available local materials. For example I think you have access to better quality timber than we do in the UK. Can you give us some tips on the things that are critical to your design? As a first glance your design seems like it needs a bit more work. But unless you can tell us more about where you live and so on I don't think you will get the best value out of Build Hub.

There you go.. plenty feedback for you to work with.. all the best.

I see this often. it's not unusual. Some folk really take the piss.. but some get away with it so you really need to watch out and be on your toes. The planners can and will drop the ball. You can't rely on them to protect you. Don't assume that the applicant's agent will be playing fair. On some planning applications I get paid to sail as close to the wind as possible. I always stick to the rules but if the opposition is less aware them hard luck to them. This is business. Think about it this way. The applicant maybe only pays a fee of £300.00.. what level of service do you expect from planning for that small some when they have many other things to do? It sounds like tough love, not trying to deflate you.. just trying to help. There is lots you can do. First thing to do would be to post a more detailed diagram with measurements. You'll get loads of help from folk on BH.

I'll chip in as the Philistine. I've said for years that all these complex controls on UF are a waste of time. They work fine for a few years, break down and then no one can fix then at a sensible cost. After while even the folk that have installed them.. yes even you BH folk then forget how they work and the nuances of your wiring up of the controls. I've designed a few UF systems in the past, always go for the simple stupid. Here is a knock up manifold made on my most recent house (photo is from 2020).. still working and have just extended it. It is a lot bigger now I have added more circuits and some basic controls. Now I know some may say you can't use gate valves.. I say they cost a couple of quid to replace if they start to weep. I know from experience that, as I did the same 20 years ago and times since, that this Flintstone stuff works, and folk can understand it. Lately I've added some extra electronic controls but these are not related to the pipework! Happy to take the pelters for my views.. ! You may think I'm bonkers but it was just something I know would work and made from fitting I had in my plumbing stock box. The biggy though is the blending valve. I have fitted an few of that type for other folk in the past and I know they are reliable. Also It's a 28mm blending valve so oversized to some repsects as it going onto 22mm pipework.. but my thinking is that any gunge will pass though it so I paid more for a bigger 28mm valve. My big mistake was to have some HIVE controls.. little did I know that I would have to keep updating the software and that if I move house I can't take them with me or some other shite like that. I learnt a lesson.. these are fundamental part of the house / structure.. DON'T trust them to third parties.. you could devalue your house a lot. Hi Marka. Before you start mucking about make sure your filters (nowadays mag filters) are clean and working ok. You probably have some kind of gunk / blockage coupled with those controls that we are all told will work for more than 5 years, the life of the system, like I stilll believe in Santa.. You don't want to shift the problem and say block your fancy heat exchanger on your boiler. Just before start to muck about incease the pressure in the boiler circiuit, say to 2.5 bar and operate the safety relief valve to clear that out and give you piece of mind. I would be tempted to isolate the manifold and connect a garden hose to the return (cold) drain cock at the RHS of the manifold, disconnect one loop at a time and back wash it.. You must back wash as if you get this wrong you'll really have a problem on you hands. You'll flush a load of crap out of some of the loops and it will make you feel good. Your average Plumber just can't spend the time to do this... you can! Now a few ball park sums: I think the pump you have can at top end with negligeable flow raise a column of water to about a 6.0m head. 1 bar of water pressure is about a 10.0 m head, thus your pump can deliver about 0.6 bar. As a bad case your hose pipe can deliver about 1.0 bar say.. this is should be enough to push back some of the gunk that you have loitering in the pipes. Try this first as it's a great feeling to see crap coming out the pipes. Connect it up again and see if it works. Now the thing with the hose pipe.. it gives you confidence as you know the pipes runs are clear. I tend when back washing to run the flow into a bucket so I can see how quickly each loop fills the bucket. If you know the loops are clear and now clean.. you have not just narrowed the problem down but given the system a good clean in the process. You can also time each loop to fill the bucket so you can then compare that to the flow meter in qualatiative terms. While you don't know pressure from the garden hose it allows you to compare flow rates against the hose pressure. If you want to get tecky the bucket flows should correlate to the differences in the flow meter readings. The main thing is to keep a note so you can then tie that back to any problematic sticky valves. I have mucked about with loads of these systems you have, flow meters / valves etc, for a few days they work and then break down again.. it will drive you nuts. You need to get it clean, then you can identify the sticky bits / valves which will give you the best chance of a long term fix. I'm sure you can do this .. but you need to be patient, set aside the time to do it and enjoy the investigation process. At the end you'll fix it and have a much better understanding of how it all works. If you are going to take things apart the use a non setting jointing compond to put them back together again. https://www.screwfix.com/p/flomasta-gas-water-jointing-compound-250g/7619J?tc=IT5&ds_rl=1241687&ds_rl=1245250&ds_rl=1249404&gad_source=1&ds_rl=1245250&ds_rl=1247848&ds_rl=1248151&gclid=CjwKCAiAp5qsBhAPEiwAP0qeJgeoDPCPpzi5pclPe4Z7WOvVn2L3w6jg_YEaMtCIxGTkJzNUkg39uxoCZGMQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds To conclude.. your system probably has a bit of crap in it, each time you try and tinker you'll probably shift the problem somewhere else. The flow meters and complex controls are probably not playing the game. Clean it out yourself, have fun, and save loads of cash!

True enough but rights are shared in accordance with the deeds.. between the Highways and the land owner if that is the case. @ETC agree also and not least access and rights can be shared. The Highways may own one part to which you have rights, and you own another part to which they have rights. The main thing is to nip it in the bud early before folk start thinking they have timed out the planning system or start agueing the have some servitude (also called easement in England) rights. In Scotland we have a road, the A83 that has gobbled up tens of millions of pounds due to land slips and the delay has trashed the local economy.. The Scottish, they call themselves a government, read big town council,still have no solution. All the big Engineering Consultancies (some of these are the multi nationals have had a shot at fixing this) .. but see the little road at the bottom and the bit on the other side of the Glen away from the problem.. it belongs to someone who has clout and they are not going to let the amateures in Edinburgh run rough shod over them. @mid-ulster N ire One of the secrets of this is to lay down the markers, reference some research, provide evidence, contradict the evidence submitted by the applicant you are objecting to and then chuck the ball back in the Planner's court.. but essentially always ask for a response and give a dead line. You need to pin them down, make them run up the clock, cost them money and that concentrates the managers of the planners you are having to deal with minds. Make sure you put all this in writing and copy in someone "of standing". An easy way is to just bung you laywer a few quid just to keep the copies of the emails and let the Planners see you are copying them in.

Hope this helps. You starting point is the probably the Highways guidance. In Scotland we use the "Designing Streets" document. It's worth looking at this as it will help you navigate the English guidance. Without a detailed drawing it's a bit hard to comment properly but several issues present, I list the ones that spring to mind initially. 1/ Did the applicant miss represent the facts in terms of the drawings and statement of land ownership. 2/ What are the conditions on the approval. 3/ I suspect that they may be relying on achieving a visibility splay over land you own. You could if you wish plant or park something in the layby? I assume the Highways own what would be an extension of the verge, the first metre and you own the rest. Visibility splays often require a 2.0 m set back or a 2.4 m set back from the verge line.. so looks like they will need visibility over land you own. This could put a potential burden on your property in terms of maintaining a clear visibility display. If you don't and there is an accident then you could find yourself liable.. Look VERY closely at the visibilty display requirements. 4/ The two access' seem to be very close together.. normally they are much further apart. Again, this could put a burden on your property, not least in terms of maintenance but keeping say gravel off the highway. If the neighbours don't maintain their "bit" it could spill over and you get the blame too if there is an accident. 5/ If the site behind has potential for further future development potential then you don't want to lose control of the access.. as you could miss out on being able to negotiate a windfall payment or just stop any further development if you so desire. I think it's great idea to get on with your neighbours but the problem often occurs when they move on and you get a plonker moving in. @ToughButterCup did a post recently about what can happen if you don't nip things in the bud early, can be painful. I can't find the link to the post but other folk will know how. It's well worth a read.

Nearly.. but someone has not planned it out right. My gut feeling is either the Architect or SE has not thought it through, or you have a brickie that it going to swing the lead and be even more lazy later on. Probably all are at fault by not talking to each other. Maybe the Architect, probably the SE by not positioning the movement joints in the right place and then not properly not specifying the bond required, mind you this is covered in parts of the BS 5628 codes, BS 8000 series for good workmanship etc. Blocks behave differently from bricks, bricks are shorter so the bond length is less but you have three brick courses for every on standard block laid on edge thus the bonding effect is enhanced with bricks cf blocks. Lucky you have the benefit of her intuition, I suspect there may be more to this and she has smelt "manure"? The below is the right way of doing it. Corners are essential as they can resist the bending forces in the wall which your SE may have designed for, a well constructed corner saves the day many a time.. but they must be constructed properly. For 100mm block the cut closer will be as below. For 140mm block the cut is a little shorter. The main thing is that you work out from the corners... the strong points of the wall and position any movement joints, debonding ties accordingly. You don't do a rubbish corner and hope the rest hangs in there.

Chewing the fat at my end. I like your train thought George. The big problem with big bolted space frame trusses is the bolt slip as the bolt ends up mostly working in shear and the second order effects that they generate. If you weld them then that problem partly goes away. But the cost rockets. Round about Glasgow they have loads of old bolted trusses, got one of these on my books at the moment. I'm trying to tempt you George into PM'ing me on your research and in return I hope to reciprocate. That is my offer, no point in mucking about. Gus.

Hi George. Can you let me know any more about this? For all.. when you get into truss design it becomes a very complex animal. Even more complex when you start to use cold formed cee sections. The nature of trusses often suggests long spans. If you have a truss with bolted connections.. these connections can often slip as they tend to work on a 2.0mm oversized holes and in shear rather than tension and shear on say a standard steel portal frame. This can lead to unpredictable behavoir. Once we enter this world as SE's we start to worry about things collapsing with no warning. Buckling of the frame, not just the individual bits but .. rafters / column interaction as a whole becomes a big issue. We call this in plane buckling where the whole structural frame buckles and falls down suddenly. Now this may seem like me being a bit geeky.. but if you are converting a portal frame barn shed in England, I think you call this class Q.. you do want your SE to understand what in plane buckling means? Ask them if they know about it. If they don't then point them to the SCI guidance and start to wonder if they are competant to undertake this kind of design. I have various bits of software to model structures. Some is main stream off the shelf that all SE's use. Some is more bespoke that I use when analysing complex problems. I have some pretty high end stuff for FE modelling, and cold formed steel design, don't often use it these days as my current Client base can't afford to pay for the analysis. It can take at least a week to set up a good FE model that you can present for other Engineers to verify. But always I do some hand calculations to make sure any computer model is on the ball park. You NEVER trust what the computer says and you NEVER trust anyone else's computer model, always check by hand to make sure the forces / stresses and material resistances are within the range you expect. A good SE / Architect / QS etc can look at things and say.. that looks odd.. if it does not look right it probably is not.. only a human can do that... smell the fishy stuff. Now AI is miles off being able to replicate what an SE does, Architect's etc are safe too. SE's, Architects spend many years learning how to make things work.. but a big part of the job is being creative and design things that are buildable.. AI just can't do that as it will always be behind the human curve. It won't know how to make things buildable unless we tell it how.. for every job and every different set of circumstances. Even if we could then market forces.. prices of materials, labour availabilty and local cost. The complexity of programming for a relatively small market I think will make it not viable finacially .. it ain't going to happen any time soon where AI takes over our jobs, mind you it it can make invoicing folk easier.. quite happy with that.

Examine the detail of this closely. It does work and often design this way myself in principle but use PIR between the rafters and an insulated plasterboard under with a vapour control layer. Under the tiles is usually a breathable (wind tightness) membrane, say Tyvek, part of it's function is also to resist wind driven snow. You seem to have that. But note.. the detail shows timber on top of the rafters.. NOT OSB3 for example as it is not vapour permeable enough. Usually I do something like this with a 100mm timber sarking board with a 5.0mm gap between each board. The timber sarking provides stiffness to many of the roofs I do so as it has a structural application anyway. Ideally we want to leave a 15 - 20mm gap between the top of the insulation and the underside of the sarking. This is an unvented space, not like the 50mm vented space you have traditionally. You could partially fill with Dritherm 32 in principle so long as you leave the 15 - 20mm space above it so long as that space is breathable. Don't know how warm it will be though so best check. I would also check the location of the air tightness membrane as you could get condensation on the underside of that... bad news. The bottom of the joists will be cold (they are a repeating bridge) so that is where you'll get bands of condensation. I would put the vapour control layer just above the plasterboard.

If you have masonry cavity wall construction then is there any potential for external wall insulation (EWI)? Often the gables are a good target area, lots of exposed masonry, less hard detailng around windows. Just check though that the space between the wall and the boundary will still comply with the regs if you added say 110mm of EWI + render etc. Also you need to check the detailing at the eaves and check it's not going to foul any other ventilation slots, say in a soffit for example. EWI can look unobtrusive if executed well, but if not.. Next would be the attic, lot's of heat lost here, is there enough insulation and can you get more in? I always like to start on the outside and see if there is a good line of first defense against drafts, is the mastic good round the windows for example. What are any soffit vents doing? .. are they venting say the attic as intended or are they encouraging other drafts and convection currents where they are not supposed to. Get up in the attic and check the eaves venting detail. The concept is that each layer of fabric provides layers of resistance to the air flow.. a bit like adding up the cumulative resistances of layers of insulation /materials to get an over all U value. This is a bit of a technicality but on timber suspended floors you need to have external brick vents at 2.0m centres to align with the NHBC requirements. Link is below. https://nhbc-standards.co.uk/5-substructure-ground-floors-drainage-and-basements/5-2-suspended-ground-floors/5-2-10-damp-proofing-and-ventilation/ You live in a windy spot thus a reasoned argument could be made to reduce the effective area of the ventilators. You could consider / experiment by partially blocking off some of the vents on the predominantly windward side. This would tend to reduce the air flow but as the leeward vents are more open it could reduce the air pressure under the floor which would mitigate drafts forcing themselves up through the floor. Now some folk may have a hairy canary at the thought.. but practically.. when we are doing the insulation calcs for suspended floor insulation we take into account exposure, the solum space and so on as the amount of air flow under the floor impacts on the performance of the insulation. You may want to open up again in the spring. Air tighness is a key, partcularly downstairs. But remember the more air tight the more risk of condensation if not controlled. In some ways you need to rule out the things that are not causing a problem. It could take you a bit of time but well worth being forensic. In the round it's worth thinking, cost wise is it easier / cheeper to add things compared with deconstructing parts and then replacing?

@George, elegant and practical explanation. As an aside a lecture of mine made his own Glulam beams, think they were curved. He was a keen woodworker and would get big hardwood logs off a Tree Surgeon. He a had one of these big chain saws that ran on a track and would saw them into planks, season them all and so on. I remember he wanted to do a contemporary type oak frame with these curved beams and had got a frightening quote. I would give it a go myself if I had the tooling, space, time and importantly have a use for them. I think there are about three ways off the top of my head of doing it. 1/ Set up a jig and dry fit everything using a long furniture clamps. Pilot drill and counter sink each plank. Then mix up lots of structural glue and put some overalls an a hat on. Lay down the first plank and hold in place. Next secret screw each plank to the next using plenty glue. The screws provide the compression to the glued surfaces. Scrape of the worst of the overspill, clean yourself up and wait. Once all has taken up get the belt sander / electric plane out and start finishing it off. 2/ Dry fit as above but pilot drill each plank as you go for an M12 / M16 rod say spaced at 400 - 600 centres at least the overall final depth of the beam. Here I think you need to use an oversize pilot hole to cope with the curvature , that you won't get right first time. Start fitting it all together. Maybe do 4 planks one day then another set the next day and use the rods and big washers to clamp them. 3/ Go for the more industrial look where you use a steel plate top and bottom to act like a big long washer and try and turn the beam into a steel / timber composite section. You can get standard stock flat plates at 6.0 - 6.1 m so for a long span beam you would need to couple the plates if going for long lengths. Could be a job @Onoff would tackle as he has the cad and fabrication skills? Technically things need to be CE marked for structural steels but as this a bespoke item then there could be room for manoeuvre to deal with the paperwork.

Agree with Kelvin, and as you know it could be a stunning space. My first thought was an Orangery type roof using the existing structural opening. This type of option cf a lantern can have particular features if done in timber that can't be so easily achieved with say aluminium profiles. Could fit well with the existing Architecture? There are diferent schools of thought in terms of number of say roof lights. One valid point is if you have a few huge panes of glass and one fails = costly to replace. This is something on my mind for my own house. When you look carefuly many of the glass unit manufactur's only guarentee the units for 7 years. If using the Orangery / pitched roof type lantern you have more scope to get opening roof vents in, not saying you can't get opening flat roof lights mind you. It looks a faily sheltered spot so you should reduce any risk of them leaking when windy after a few years of use. You may find the existing structure is ok, maybe needs a bit of beafing up. Probably the most challenging bit will be to get the flashing details sorted out as you have lots of awkward shapes around the edges of the flat roof. You'll probably be doing this anyway but look at doing the minimum and see if you can leave the existing flat roof as it is, just give it a bit of love. Then work you way up in terms of complexity vs return on appearance / improved insulation.

@Nickfromwales Jilly has forgotten more than we both know!

It's because, I think you have many years experience as a Contracting Engineer, you are widely read, pragmatic, thoughtful but at the same time your head does not zip up the back, just like a lot of folk on BH. I enjoy BH as I would rather spend my time sharing what I know and I do feel that lots of other members feel the same, you give, receive and learn. @Declan pulled me up for putting BH at risk from spammers, I learnt from that. Sometimes it's the small things that matter, maybe the odd kick up the arse at times helps a lot. I'm in a slightly different space. My PI insurance covers me for free advice I give and opinions I express. That allows me to use my own name on Build Hub so long as I'm not daft. That is why I don't have to caveat every post I make. I pay a bit extra for free advice I give in my premium and that includes BH and other social media. I use my own name as I feel that if you can't stand by what you say then zip it. Also if you want to pipe up then expect some folk will disagree with you. If you can't handle that then.. zip it. Many modern journalists are a disgrace to their profession, they have no moral fibre, many are pathetic individuals who will sell themselves to the highest bidder, but we already know that.

Hello @openthegate Welcome to Buildhub. I can see you have spent a good bit of time crafting your post, it's appreciated by me. There is loads of info on BH, it's a friendly place. To provide a bit of context and further encouragement. I'm "in the trade" but I always learn something new when I log in. There are a load of other folk that are like minded, we want to share what we know and in return we want folk to reciprocate. This is a good site as folk will tell you.. I did this wrong and here is what went well and this is how I did it. Ok to kick off I've copied and pasted you post and added some initial coment inline with your text. We are still getting plans ready for the planning application. The house is going to be built into the side of a hill (with a gap of around 1.2m between the house and retaining wall.) It works out best for the views (and light) to have an upside down house with bedrooms on the ground floor and living areas on the first floor - where the front door will open out to the roadside. Like the idea of the upside down. The light on the North/West sides is quite limited and it makes sense to put the plant and utility spaces here. Agree but if using ASHP would you get more bang for you buck by facing into the warm prevailing wind from the Southerly direction? You want to extract warm air from outside.. is it a good idea to site it in the coldest spot? Attached is an my initial thought on the layout of the plant/utility space and where to place any ducts - the plan is go for a fabric first approach which includes ensuring all the external connections go through the slab rather through the walls to reduce the cold bridging. In principle I can see what your are doing. But in buildability terms when the pressure is on and the rainjis puring down the less slab penetrations you have the better. My rational for the layout is: ASHP on the north façade - placed the un-vented hot water cylinder much further into the centre of the house so the bath/shower/washing machine are all close to minimise the hot water pipe lengths. By moving this to the Utility space I though it would then be a sensible option to have all the water centric kit (washing machine/dryer/UHC/UFH) separate from the electrical kit. Placed the inverter externally to avoid over heating (as suggested by Jeremy H) - it is not in sun light and there is a cover over as well. If you post some elevations and a few more drawings you'll get a lot more response as it means folk don't have to second guess you.. it's much more efficient this way and then we can get down to the nitty gritty which is chipping to help you achieve a good buildable design at a sensible / affordable cost. In return you need to share what you learn... so all the folk an BH learn, it's not a bad deal and the Mods (who have worn every tea shirt going pretty much) keep everyone on the right track.

You're brand new Nick. I was wondering if you could retro fit a two and quarter inch Surrey flange to an unvented buffer tank, but was worried about the immersion fowling a modern coil/ plates My intention was to see what you could do as a stop gap to get @Nially over the Christmas holidays without having to burst the bank, use the existing cylinder and not do something that you can't reverse later.. or may be of use later. I'm still thinking.. you need to know where the coils / plates are inside so you can get the electric element in. Maybe if thing go wrong it would be advisable to order a 2" 1/2" blank plug and pretend it never happened. Fitting a flange of that diameter and getting a good seal I found is tricky. I used to do them when I was young but one mistake on cutting the hole and the cylinder is finished. Also the link I posted has a cork seal..I think. I'm not sure that would work with an unvented cylinder say potentially working up to 3 bar before the relief valve kicks in. Mind you in the old days I used Boss White and horsehair, still do at times (and is in my plumbing box) when working traditionaly on DIY but most now I use a non setting jointing compound for any threaded fittings. Yes I know an electric immersion is not probably cost effective in the long term but in the short.. it (the leccy) is about the cost of a crappy bottle of port in Surrey.. or in Newcastle 6 good sized bottle of Newcastle Brown.. or two bottles of Buckfast tonic wine in Scotland. Now ask do you know how much a stamp costs to send a Christmas card?

On the upside, the Cambridge neck of the woods have challenging soils, not run of the mill stuff, exciting but you need to have your wits about you when entering this den of underground terrain.. not common bed time reading but for the keen. Cambridge lies roughly on the edge of the Gault CLAY formation. It's a thin band of a particular soil that stretches from Swafham, East of King's Lynn, thickens (on plan) aproaching Cambridge to Oxford, thins out and ends just to the east of Bath. At the Bath end it tends to be a bit less expansive as it is siltier and more sandy... but at the northern end (Cambridge end) is becomes a wolf in sheep's clothes. I'm trying to introduce some drama as it's nearly Santa time. The Gault clay can trip you up as when you dig as it can appear quite firm / hard. But when the weather changes is becomes a highly expansive soil. This can trip builders and designers up. It is quite a unique soil for the UK and in a thin and variable band so not often encountered. I can in some ways see why maybe design changes were possibly made late or on site. Now there may a be a bit more to this as Gault clay can also contain elevated levels of suphuric acid and sulphates that can attack concrete... and all that impacts on any steel rebar reinforcement in terms of rebar cover. It may be that the heave thing is exacerbated by the durability of the concrete and rebar cover. Maybe someone has said.. hey it's not just the heave thing but your cement content in the concrete / rebar cover is under spec for the soil type. Now that would impact on any concrete piling potentially. Anyway. At least no one has got hurt, it has been picked up, a lot of folk will have learnt some lessons.. the insurer's will pick it up and we the punters will pick up the tab one way or another.