Carrerahill

This is an oldie, it went very well, been in and working since not long after the posts, away just now so cannot photograph but will get some taken and post. The light quality is excellent, no shadowing anywhere, all surfaces well lit, and the walls and floors all have a nice wash of light over them from the whole ceiling "reflector".

I had never done a roof before I built my garage and extension, its simple. Follow some typical details and you have a perfect roof, I actually claim my roofs are better than roofers due to additional steps I took. If he was a builder claiming to be an electrician or heating engineer I would worry but roofs are not complicated.

Speak to a commercial roofer, sounds like your roofer is a bit more, domestic, and not used to this, common for commercial roofs to be covered in plant. Bauder recently did a roof on a project I was involved in, between my mechanical colleague and I we designed loads of stuff onto the roof - PV, air handling units, AC etc. and as long as the contractors used the approved methods and materials the whole thing was given a 20 year warranty!

Deadly things, they are banned in places, were meant to be banned here, can't remember. I would not even own one. Edit: found this again: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-safety-alert-issued-for-angle-grinder-chainsaw-disc-attachment I believe, having searched, no reputable vendor will sell such a thing, only the Far East import and tat vendors.

Seasoned for 18-24 months they are fine. I usually burn oak, or birch but have some Larch and cypress - the Larch I specifically collect as it is good starter fuel or for a quick active fire with reduced heat output. The Larch and Cypress get 18-24 month seasoning and its great. Even after 1 year of good seasoning the Cypress can be a bit resinous. A good idea with Cypress and Larch is to get it get wet once cut. The rain actually helps the early process of removing the resin, I am not sure of the science behind it but an old Swede told me this years ago and I have to say, stuff that has been undercover more or less since felling, vs stuff that had some time in the rain was quite different in resin content. I agree it sounds counterintuitive.

Geocell?

The makeup will be 0.18 - the block on its own is not as good as that. If you can, use thermalite blocks on the inner, that will help too. 100mm con block, 50mm cavity, 50mm PIR, 100mm thermalite block gave us the requirement on a recent build (signed off last month) and we are in Scotland with more onerous targets to hit. I realise the whole thing is in connection with the floor and ceiling, but nothing we had was too bad to comply.

We have Solis, Solax and a Goodwe, they all make various sounds and whines. The very nature of inverting DC to AC involves taking it from the DC side, to AC, to achieve this and to make things more stable and keep the current down (higher voltage is easier to deal with than lower voltage and high current) they often have a circuit block which takes the voltage up to perhaps, 1000V AC and high frequency, that can then be smoothed and worked with, then dropped to just above grid voltage (or else the power would not leave the inverter). The circuitry at the higher voltage and high frequency block will whine, its basically an electrical buzz at 15-20kHz.

So within the draw-pit (you won't get a man in there!) you can disconnect the service, pull it back, dig down and form a duct, feed it in and remake. I believe any phone cable in there will now be dead, as VM switched to phone over the Coax network, so you don't even need the little silicone filled 3M crimps to re terminate, just undo the Coax. They usually used a shotgun cable, 2 side by side black, 1 phone 1 coax.

Go and build a system up yourself at Midsummer Wholesale and just get an idea of what the costs are. Or Solar Sparky - I think it is high. I think the survey should be excluded for an install that goes ahead, so should admin.

Underslung insulation is a term I use, and hear used, so I am going to say yes, even if not, I guess the term is technically 100% accurate even if it is not an industry standard term. I also hear face fixed, but I always think of a "face" being vertical. 25*50 would be nice, make sure the battening out is within the warm zone and cannot in itself create a draft zone diminishing the effectiveness of your main boards, you can do this by ensuring the insulation envelope encloses any open areas. If I had the chance to build some my building projects again, the single biggest thing I would increase was my insulation, I just don't think you can get enough, so anything you can do to make it the best, I think is money well spent, we don't heat our extension really, I never installed the radiators, the pipe tails are under the floor if I ever desire, but the insulation is good for 350 days of the year, so that tells me for a small % increase in cost at the time, I could have made it 365 day proof!

Isolate the hot water while on holiday? You could put a 15mm electric valve in, I have that to shutdown my garage supply on the cold feed so I can switch off the water (connection is under the floor so I could not easily add a valve) in the winter.

300mm reinforced concrete slab... for a BBQ? Seriously? First, the slab is too thick, not needed. Secondly, if you build the slab properly, the slab will be a raft found, the BBQ will move with the slab, therefore the tree/BBQ should be OK, as the tree does its thing it may move the slab a bit, but it will move the slab and BBQ construction as one. I think for this I would be happy with a 100mm slab, A252 or A393 mesh set centrally with 50mm cover top and bottom obviously, and 50mm cover at all edges or you risk it rusting and popping and a C20 concrete. You could stick in another 25-50mm if you want, but 300mm is madness.

I would dig out and expose, there may be an F-Connector under that draw pit that you can unscrew (might need a spanner), and pull the cable back to protect, then dig out, add some conduit, proper stuff would be nice but just use some uPVC 20mm conduit or flexi or something, and cover over. I am confused as to why the draw pit is there, is that on your land or what?

I have done both methods, a combination of both and various others. First off, I would highly recommend insulating it now, as you suggest you will do, because it will make your life so much easier and healthier, PIR in a enclosed room is no fun, working with an open roof structure will be good. I would probably work from the outside and fit, as best I can, PIR of 75% depth of the rafters, cut the sheets to max width, then with the help of a handsaw encourage the PIR down between the rafters using the rafter as a guide for the saw, then, a small bead of expanding foam to seal. Once complete, internally fix PIR to the underside and foil tape to create a insulated diaphragm. I would screw them up with long screws and washers and pull them in flush, you only need 4 or 6 if your going to be PBing over, more if left along and less important to get flush fit. If plasterboard needs to be screwed up make sure to mark timber locations or you will have a fight to find them. Depending on how thick the underslung PIR is will impact how I would proceed next, 2 inches (because you have more in between the rafters), I would just fix the PB up through it with 100mm board screws, if you go thicker I would put the PIR in, couple of screws to hold, then add battens fixed up into the rafters or you may have screw pop issues in the future as the PB is sort of floating on a PIR base and the screws are acting more like suspension points - ask how I know. There are of course many other ways too, but this is my methods. It also all depends if that is going to form a boarded ceiling or not and if headroom is important. Mean, you could also put 200mm PIR in underslung, I'd then use lag screws and battens to clamp the boards in.

Could work yes. My OCD is currently getting the better of me though!

The existing one fits so I assume will be OK... I think I will fit a whole kit, I have checked the Velux code and although it is a 2001-2014 model, it will still fit the current EDT (I think) flashing kits. I have had another look today and think I will be OK for the summer, but I will schedule it in for early autumn for a full kit. I might even chase down a sale kit at some point.

Yes, there are, tile up to 14mm, 40mm, 120mm, slate, recessed. (Figures a off the top of my head). Its an easy mornings work, less, but don't know if I am being OTT!

We had the roof replaced, I went up to check it and noticed I could see under the tiles at the Velux, it looks like the original foam weatherstrip has disintegrated and as a result, although the roof has been made up properly, I can no see under the tiles and a strong wind could blow rain onto the membrane, it should all still be watertight but not correct. So I confirmed with Velux that the weatherstrip was indeed the part missing and I need to order two lengths of this foam (tray not included). They come in 2.2m lengths, I need about 2.4m for the sides and 600mm for the top. Total cost delivered will be about £35-40 depending on where I get it, a whole new flashing kit could be picked up today for £80. Might sound mad, but I am thinking of taking out the whole Velux and fitting a brand new flashing kit. Am I mad? Work involved would not be mad, undo the tiles left and right, push the top ones up, undo the top flashing sections and remove, undo the Velux screws, remove the unit, remove the flashing trays, make any tweaks to get the best seal, fit with new flashing kits and reverse of removal. Maybe hour of work, £80 total, and hopefully a fully weathertight brand new flashing kit in a brand new roof. I should have bought a new kit and insisted it was fitted at the time the roof was done, or done it myself when the roof was at membrane and batten stage.

Agree flawed for retrofit - less so for new build and I hope it works as that is how heating is sized!

I won't read the whole thread, out of laziness, but, the way to size heating systems properly is to do heat loss calcs for the building, then size the emitters (usually with 10% margin) then size the source. I have a spreadsheet which you key all the figures into and it spits out the heat loss, you key in your U values for walls, glazing, floor & ceiling, there is a column for infiltration and that's you. We are doing some 3 bed flats at the moment and the heat loss for the whole flat is 4.9kW. Therefore the ideal source would be about 5kW, yet in plenty of flats like this you will find a 20kW boiler (I understand the water generation argument there) but most sources are oversized.

If we were doing it, but a trade will take a day-ish, per phase.

The house I grew up in had had the original woodwork, throughout, painted when my parents and I moved in, my dad wanted it all stripped back and varnished, the old painter chap who undertook the mammoth task of stripping some 20 odd doors, all the balustrades, stair panelling, all the windows, fire places the works, the whole lot used original Nitro Mors and it left the wood in good condition. I must have been about 3 when it all kicked off as I can remember standing watching from a great distance as I was told the stuff would burn me. Looking at the wood work, to this day, it looks great and you would not know it had been once painted. I have however seen doors which were treated differently and damaged is present. So, +1 for the NitroMors - I would, remove all family from house, open all windows/doors, get a good mask with the right rated filter, 3M masks with the Kidney shaped filters are good, you then get the A1/A2 blah blah filter units which click in with a bayonet connection and can be stacked with FFP1/2/3 filters etc. or even other chemical/gas types.

So no sarking boards? Membrane & counter batten and batten whole roof - 1 day Load the roof for tile - 1 day Tile 1 day Ridge and verges 1 easy day. Add another 1 day for gutters and things. Max - 1 week for 1 roofer + labourer, but expect them to be short days. I really think that could be done full in 3 days if you get a roofer who will just crack on and do it. I did a roof 6.4m x 2.7m on my own for most of it (only had help loading tiles onto roof) in a weekend and that included fully OSB sheeting the whole roof. I did the verges, ridge and gutters over a 3 evenings after work. Seriously, if you start tonight you will be done by Sunday.

What is that, 8m long and 2.9m eaves to ridge?