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@Temp I also have two fire places and am thinking of installing MVHR. Which unit did you go for?

I’m interested in reviving this thread as I have a similar query, in that I am also gutting and replumbing a 5bed property with three bathrooms. I’m not so worried about an endless supply of hot water, as I think a 250L cylinder will be enough (and I would imagine 300L would be enough for @sendu since bathing water is much cooler than cylinder water so once it’s mixed with cold water, a 300L cylinder of hot water could provide for several baths and even more showers). My concern is more about the long run of pipes making the time it takes for hot water to travel from the cylinder to the outlet as much as a 12m distance for some outlets, most of which is upwards against gravity. A solution that has been suggested to me for this is to have a whati think it’s known as a primary circuit which essentially continuously or intermittently (depends on the setup) circulates hot water to the outlets before the tap is turned on so that the water is waiting for you. There are two ways I’ve been told about how this can be achieved: with PIR motion sensors that activate the circuit when one approaches the outlet, or a less sophisticated solution which continuously runs the water around the circuit with a pump during waking hours. Still investigating which one suits me best: My main concern about the PIR activated system is that it is possibly more likely to go wrong, but I’m not basing that on any evidence. It’s just a gut instinct. It’s more expensive to install, but it should save slightly on running costs/heat loss vs the pump. My main concern about the pump is noise. I hate house sounds, particularly pumps. If anyone could comment about either system and their pros and cons, that would be really helpful.

In the outskirts of NW London, near Pinner.

I need to order about 3000 bricks for a rear extension in the next week. Despite having received lots of samples of bricks made/sourced by the companies listed below, I have still not found what I'm looking for, which is a slightly rustic brick that is principally white with a touch of grey. Many of the samples I've received are either too dark, or they have tones of beige/brown in them, or they are of questionable quality. I'm looking for the cool white/greys. I don't want anything that is cream. Perhaps the closest I've found to what I'm looking for is: -Vandersanden Perla (https://www.vandersanden.com/en-uk/products-and-solutions/perla) but in some lights this looks a bit creamy rather than whitish grey -Vandersanden Lima (https://www.vandersanden.com/en-uk/products-and-solutions/lima) but this has too much tonal variation between the light grey and the dark grey blend -Wienerberger Terca Silver - very nice looking brick, particularly in the photos, but the sample just looks a couple of shades too dark. -bespoke brick company karma white grey handmade (https://www.bespokebrick.com/karma-white-grey-handmade/). The last one is possibly the best colour match, however the samples show the finished surface of the brick crumbling away revealing a buff yellow colour underneath which you can even just make out on the picture linked to above. I queried this with the salesperson and they explained that the buff I am seeing is the clay base of the brick and that the way these are made is to dip those cuboids of clay into a cement mixture which then bonds onto the brick giving it its coloured appearance. I explained I was concerned that as the samples (which were wrapped in bubble wrap!) were slightly chipped, the bricks could easily chip during construction/delivery or just through time/weathering, revealing this buff colour which I don't like. He said that to address this concern he could provide me with some of the the cement solution which i can apply if necessary to any chipped bricks after they are built in to a wall. This just doesn't appeal to me at all and, at least in my mind, makes me concerned that the bricks - which we will see all the time - won't look good either because they're chipped and you can see the buff or because we've covered the chips with this solution but our patch jobs just looks a bit "blue peter". Is it possible the brick I'm looking for doesn't exist??? Apart from the providers listed below (which I've already exhausted), can anybody recommend others that I haven't considered? I'm looking for standard British size bricks, but can deviate from this slightly. To clarify, I am not brick matching as my existing property is covered with white render. -Vandersanden -Ibstock -BEA -Wienerberger -Edenhall -TBS (Traditional Brick and Stone) -ABB (UK arm of Dutch brick manufacturer Rijswaard Baksteen) -The bespoke brick company -GIMA - brokers like Brick Butler and Brick Hunter

The problem is that the hoarding is meant to act as a security deterrent as well. Appreciate any burglar with a couple of tools could get through wooden hoarding, but the tarp at the bottom won't even require any tools to get through.

Amongst the dizzying array of options on roofmaker is the tint I want for my roof lights: none, subtle blue, subtle grey or privacy. Privacy is out because I want to see the sky. The advantages of the coloured tints, according to roofmaker are just that they protect your furniture from fading and take away some of the glare. What tints do people have experience of and are you happy you went for a tint? Thanks!

No idea, though you make a good brilliant point. I'm in a slightly uphill semi detached, and this neighbour is my attached neighbour slightly downhill and north from me. It is only just a hill though, hardly any incline really. So if there is a northerly wind, they would be getting all our dust. Luckily for me though, according to wise folk at google the prevailing wind direction is "west-southwest". Brilliant point for me to deploy if they keep pestering me about this. I hope not, as we are day 2 of a project that is due to last most of 2021!

This is a good idea, particularly as tarp is cheaper than OSB. Actually, builder thinks he won't necessarily use a chute, because the shape of the house doesn't lend itself to this. Not sure i follow, but as all the loft work is happening much further down the line I'm not going to worry about this for the time being.

yeah, this is why my builder quoted on the basis of 2.4m.

I suspect if I do that, neighbour will complain that dust is coming through underneath. Agree my neighnour is OCD though!

This is all very helpful. Thank you. I will investigate these options and report back.

The party wall agreement says that at the back (where we are building a rear extension) we need a minimum of 1.8m high hoardings. The agreement does not specify what is to be done at the front. We are doing some internal demolition and will also demolish the rear wall for the extension. Neighbour is concerned that when we come to do the loft, the chute for the debris from the loft will cause lots of dust and has asked for 3m hoardings at the front. They obviously didn't read the party wall agreement, because if they had they would have specified this then. There really isn't any heavy demolition going on at the front, so builder has based his quote on providing 2.4m hoardings at the front, mainly for security reasons. Is neighbour's request that I pay to increase this to 3m reasonable?

Slightly overwhelmed with choice. Architect has specified 1 fixed rooflight and 4 openable ones, all 2G, without specifying any further details other than dimensions. With the fixed, it isn't too much more to go for 3G, so I think I will do that (although it's a non-standard size, 3700mm by 100mm so need to actually check 3G is affordable... it probably isn't!) My question is, for the other four roof lights, do I really need them to be openable? I describe the size and location of each, they are all being fitted in what will be a brand new tiled roof (probably concrete tiles), so insulated to current building regs. We are not building to passive house standards, just doing up a 1930s house as best we can without going too crazy with the budget. 1: 1000mm by 2000mm In the master bedroom, part of a flat roof, not directly above the bed, but pretty close. It's towards the side of the room near the room's rear window (which are going to be 2G with extra solar control). The room is west facing and my main concern is to avoid overheating (we sleep on a tempur matress which can get quite warm), so the better U value with 3G would obviously help with that, but if it is to be openable, that gets very pricy. The ceiling is not too high, so wouldn't necessarily need automation to open it, although that would be nice, but I'm wondering whether if we go for 3G fixed, we will miss being able to open it? It's so close to the window anyway that if both that and the window were open in summer, I'm not sure we'd get a throughbreeze anywhere in the room other than between the two windows; does anybody have experience? The two external walls in this room are: (i) an upgraded 1930s solid single brick wall, containing no windows; and (ii) a rear cavity wall, west facing, built this year to building regs with the 2G windows. 2: Two windows close towards the top of the house, either side of the roof's ridge. One is West facing the other is East facing. Both are above a central stairwell and are intended to bring lots of light into the middle of the house. The East facing one is 1500mm by 1500mm, whereas the West facing one is slightly smaller at 1500mm by 1000mm. These are so high up we would definitely need remote motorisation to open them. But should both open or is that overkill? Will I get too much overheating with 2G? 3: A window on the East facing side of my loft conversion (converted to current building regs), but on the pitched part of the roof, also quite close to the roof's ridge. 1000mm by 800mm, though should possibly be bigger given this is at one end of quite a long room, with west facing windows at the other end. I will definitely go 3G for this one for the extra solar control as this will be my office and I work from home 2-3 days a week (even in normal times). In terms of other sources of ventilation in the house... we are looking at possibly installing a MHRV, although to get a really quiet one we've been told we need to spend £3k - £3.5k plus on a Zhender Q450 (and that doesn't include the installation of it!) which isn't really something we'd budgeted for. If the answer to my queries above is: if you have a good MHRV you don't need openable rooflights, then that would be an easy solution as the savings on the windows will pay towards a big chunk of the MHRV. But I'm not sure that is the answer, because the MHRV doesn't cool a room as far as I'm aware. Any help much appreciated. I need roof windows delivered by 16 March, so don't have heaps of time.

Getting prices back on a tender for a full refurb of a 1930s semi, together with double storey rear extension and loft conversion. Big variation in price for upgrading the the existing subfloor of the first and second floors (the second floor being the floor of the loft). As much as £10k +VAT difference. I had specified that first and loft floor joists should be inspected and only replaced if necessary, and that the joists should be reinforced with noggins and additional joists in one of the bathrooms (because heavy stone bath tub in that bathroom). Although those joists will be 90 years old, there is no damp/rot (as far as I'm aware), and so I don't see why we should necessarily replace them. One builder has said that in his experience joists this old always need replacing and given the amount of changes I'm making to the floor layout (I'm moving the stair case, for example), it's going to be easier to rip everything out and start again with new joists. He therefore thinks I should budget for this at the outset, rather than work off provisional sums depending on what is revealed when we expose the subfloor. A separate point is that the "subfloor" is already exposed in the loft, so if he wasn't being lazy he could just go up there and show me why he thinks the existing joists aren't good enough. Thoughts anyone?

I agree that this is the legal position, but in practice it's illogical and silly. To give you an example, we have planning permission for a first floor extension. We would like to convert the loft at the same time as building the extension. Architect has said we need to build the consented scheme first, and only once that is finished can we build a loft under PD. But builder is saying that will be more expensive as he'll need to get specialist scaffolding and somehow protect the first floor roof (which has a lof of glass) from the works above if he can't build the loft first. He says it's just better common sense to go for a top down approach, and I agree with him. So it just seems like silly bureaucracy for the Council to say that building the loft under PD first would invalidate the consent in respect of the rest of the project. Does anybody know if it's likely enforcement action would be taken against us if we were to ignore this seemingly ridiculous rule? Can anybody draw on relevant experience?

Great looking project! Post some more over the next phases of development.

Nice windows! Where are these from?

I’m struggling to find an aluminium window company that can reliably get me a quote for new double glazed windows for a whole house. I need about 18 units in all. The system I like is the aluminium Heritage System. Two months ago I requested quotes from 3 different companies. Despite chasing, only one of them (Jennyfields) have got back to me, but even getting edits made to that quote is like drawing water from a stone. I imagine the pandemic has put a spanner in the works for some of these companies, but it is still crazy that I am offering to spend tens of thousands on a big aspect of my project and suppliers don’t seem bothered. When the pre-sale service is this slow, it really didn’t fill Me with confidence. Any recommendations, greatly appreciated. I’m in NW London.

I’ve also found the Veissman Vitodens to look very good on paper. But both a heating engineer and a builder independently said they preferred to fit a Vaillant because they are more reliable and easier to fit. Which magazine rates both brands highly though, so not sure if it’s just that Vaillant are more commonly fitted in UK homes and Veissman is still to break into the residential market.

I want to lay underfloor heating but also create a firm feel underfoot that doesn’t transfer footstep impact sound below. TorBoard RdB looks like it might be the perfect answer, though it’s pricy. Does anybody have experience with this ufh board product?

How durable is a P5 chipboard product going to be vs ply? In ten years’ time, won’t the chipboard soften up slightly and start to be a bit springy compared with an equivalent thickness of ply?

PeterW that’s really helpful, Sorry for being so dense, but what is 50mm PIR? And will this still allow the walls to breathe? I asked my builder today about installing an insulated plasterboard which is 52.5mm thick to the inside of the external walls and he said he wouldn’t recommend it because the walls needed to be ventilated. We have pebbledash painted white on the outside, that looks pretty old. He said pebbledash is not good for walls, and if I add insulated plasterboard I will make it worse.

All these suggestions sound very sensible. Thank you. I will definitely insulate all external walls. Can anyone recommend an insulative plasterboard that won’t cost me more than 50mm in lost depth, but will still give good protection against heat loss? We are also going to try re-render externally, both to conceal the existing pebbledash (which I hate) with something smooth and also to improve insulation, but this is cost-dependent.

Unfortunately we've already checked the existing walls of the house and they are solid - no cavity.

Sounds impressive! I'm trying to achieve something similar in my renovation project of a 1930s semi. I'm extending most of the rear of the property and coverting the loft, so will benefit from high levels of insulation in those walls and the loft, but the front and side of the house will still have a 1930s wall with no cavity. How did you insulate your UFH and house generally?