tonyshouse

Cracks if you can see them, if not then they might well be letting in draughts

Sounds good to me

Mesh should not be necessary at all. If you are rendering over a vertical straight join. Over wood or where joistor beam ends are poking through yarn mesh first.

Reasons aircrete cracks - brittle. muck too strong, Slamming doors, lintels. Thermal movement, window openings, internal walls, structural movement, poorly laid, bolted into, stairs, door openings,

I used thin clean cover-up poly but cut v slots in the windows for ventilation, lasted 6 weeks at Easter down south ten yrs ago - need some ventilation

I have been saying it for 40 years, 35 with posts mostly on GBF as a builder I stopped using aircrete widening the cavity instead in the 80’s, medium density blocks, no cracks or call backs better quality, only ones who moaned were the brickies

Last one I did we did with the walls lying down, dead easy to stand them up, building was 12m x 20m single storey 2.4m high, all insulation batts, sheet insulation and vapour barrier 2 days three men - add a bit for walls standing up - take off a bit as we stood our walls up too

Cedar on plastic battens

Night time cooling is a good option - basically running ventilation system on high through the night and letting it cool the structure then Keeping the sun out during the day

If you haven’t done it yet then try to design out the need for any cooling, building physics model will inform such a design reasons, expensive to install and run, higher than necessary energy demand, might be outlawed at some future point. I like MVHR and love EWI, skylights will need shading to prevent losses and gains where external shading is a must. looks like great plans - hope it is a cool success in summer and a warm one in winter like mine is ?.

You will need foundations, let’s say 450 deep, concrete, and I think protective railings on each level, I would dig a soak away 3m back in the middle 2m deep and run land drains back to it that link to perforated pipes that run behind the bottom of each wall. how about Gabions, plonk em down, done, cheap, easy paving slab steps between two of the.

Corner trim in the corner for me. Did the tart have upstands? I prefer to stop the panel 8mm off the tray with a 30 degree chamfered cut if it was mine I would take the door and frame off and stop the panels with edge trims exactly on the outside of the door frame profile

Clay/terracotta flower pots

Panel degradation is an accountant thing - the only thing that stops a PV sell working is a hammer or a cosmic ray. Cosmic rays travel clean through the planet without hitting anything. I saw a PV panel from a North Seay buoy 30 years ago when it had been out at sea for 25 years, it measured efficiency was 98% please note it think that you might mean kWh not KWh

Failsafe design is the only way to go

Ten years ago my basement including g/f slab structure cost 35k 80m2 diy plus 50% of brickies and labourer and jcb

My house http://tonyshouse.readinguk.org/

If it has a room below and above then no insulation or ventilation necessary. Sound insulation might be a good move, rockwool batts fitted tight new builds require sound insulation between living rooms and bedrooms in houses

I used 300mm of r32 May as well do the best you can while you are at it, making sure it all gets installed properly Makes a huge difference too.

No real issues, very badly done job but it ain’t falling down, likely to be made into a mountain, hopefully not though

Good on you to do all this stuff before you build it re planning, I think all the insulation, eco features etc should be designed in before planning. my wall plates have 400mm of insulation over them. Most modern builds still only get 50mm if that. Raise the roof a bit or use false skeiling full of insulation

A piece of orange string, set out front of building first then the critical side square to it then c/l of trenches then the rest of it I mostly used ancient Egyptians 345 and double checked by measuring the diagonals os any rectangle ?

What are the Target U values for walls, floor, ceilings, fenestration, target air tightness, have you done a thermal model looking at overheating in summer and/or informing smaller windows, shading of windows and reducing dangerous for overheating West facing glazing. integral garage is what I call an in-house winter cooling system so would try to design that out how big does an office need to be ?

I used medium density recycled aggregate blocks, hate aircrete, too many cracks