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yes, i think @gaz_moose you are right, and I will just go with plastic. As much as i hate it, wood/bamboo is just more expensive and more hassle. Anyone know of a tray that fits a 900mm wide blum drawer that is designed specifically for kitchen utensils as opposed to cutlery? I've found the right size here, but many of the compartments will be too small for utensils.

This was my thinking, but the guy that fitted the new sockets is a highly competent foreman. He’s been working on site for 18 months now, almost everyday and is very good at everything he does; he is not an electrician, and has hardly done any of the electrics, but when he does do the odd thing, he does it under the guidance of the sparky who is also excellent. He didn’t actually fit sockets per say, he fitted back boxes and wires to them. So not yet usable sockets, not that that should matter. Very strange. Raised it with the main contractor who called the electrician and called the foreman. They spoke for a bit pointed out that that work happened on Thursday whereas the malfunction kicked off on the following Monday. Then electrician showed up, reset the boiler, reset the wiring centre by simply raising the temp above room temp and then lowering it again, showed me that everything was working as it should be then said it must be a problem with Tado, and told me to raise the issue with them. But I find that hard to believe. It has worked fine for the last few weeks and I’ve lived with Tado before and never had an issue.

Came home from holiday to a surprisingly warm house. The largest UFH zone in our ground floor slab was on and the majority of the ground floor was 28C. Checked my gas usage and it appears it’s been on since yesterday morning. The heating schedule on the thermostat was off, yet checking the little LED lights on the wiring centre that zone is definitely on, even though the thermostat is definitely off. Only way to switch it off is to shut down the whole system or the boiler, but both options would kill the hot water - unless I run that on the immersion element. I don’t think the thermostat is faulty, as it’s a Tado and I’ve never had problems with their devices, and have owned them for a few years (this particular thermostat is only 6 months old, and appears to be working well otherwise, though just in case I will swap it B out for a regular thermostat to test it). One thing that happened whilst I was away was that the plasterboard was opened up on the wall where the thermostat in question is, and two additional 13A sockets fairly near to the thermostat were added. Is it possible that some wires were crossed in the process and the thermostat is incorrectly wired? Very weird. Will speak to the site foreman in the morning and report back.

I really think Option 1 isn’t bad. My suggestions were just to improve it, and if you can move the gym either underground or to the garden, even better. A small outhouse in the garden, surely will not add more than £6k to the cost of everything else you are doing, if you exploit economies of scale/scope. There is probably a modular/off the shelf Option you could look into.

Option 1 is definitely the best of the two, as you make the most of the views, and the layout is ok. To improve it, I would consider whether you can increase your budget slightly. For example, I don’t think you need additional planning permission to build a small outhouse in your garden that could act as the gym. Look into whether that can be done as PD after you build what you have planning permission for at the moment. A higher budget way to achieve this would be to put the gym in a basement, which could still have windows and a light well, though my preference would be in an outhouse in the garden. Either of those options would give you more space on the ground floor, which could make the kitchen/dining and utility slightly roomier and possibly give space for an en-suite shower room to the guest bedroom.

I’ve only had mine for a couple of weeks, but I definitely don’t regret it. It was expensive, but it will keep the house dry and smelling great, which is impressive for a building that has had damp problems in the past and is almost 100 years old.

If you are using imperial units of measurement, you have greater issues.

I can’t see the orientation of your “previous orientation”. That shows the direction of the views, but your first two diagrams don’t. Could you clarify? Also, how important is it to you to have a view from the gym?

Interesting, I have potentially a similar problem in respect of a couple of Windows and I’ve just checked and the company that supplied and fitted the windows have this on their website: “We are also members of FENSA which is a self-certification body that ensures that our windows meet the requirements of the relevant building regulations.” Good to know.

I’m just surprised that we don’t already have a legal obligation for ALL new builds to have all or most of their energy as self sufficient. Through changes to the regs, Builders could be mandated to install a heat pump (with a choice of air or ground source) and PV.

https://www.ft.com/content/b81307f1-94cc-4b0f-9b64-1ac072dfe9dd

This Shelley tech does look good. I was surprised however that there appears to be a Shelley smart socket for use in Europe but not a UK equivalent. I guess the rational is that you can just fit something like the 1PM within the socket?

don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to be contrarian or stubborn. I just want to understand why this is the case, particularly with a gas boiler: Praise be!!! Someone has finally said it. This haas been my advice to clients for a long time, even more so where the source of DHW is from PV or an ASHP. and what heat losses I would sustain if I were to run it constantly for the hours we use hot water.

I disagree. All the pump will do is circulate the water that is in HW cylinder around the secondary loop, thereby increasing the ratio of surface area enclosing the hot water to volume of hot water in the system as a whole, thereby increasing heat loss of the system as a whole. So whilst the secondary loop will be nice and hot, this comes at the expense of the hot water in the tank retaining heat for as long as possible. Now it may well be the case that this is only a theoretical concern because the volume of the secondary loop is so small compared to the volume of the tank. The loop is made of 22mm buteline. This has an internal diameter of 17.6mm so a radius of 0.88cm, which works out as one litre of water for every 4.11m of pipe. I think my secondary loop is approximately 20m long, so we are talking about c. 5L out of the full tank capacity of 300K, so 1.67%. I figured out that of the three speed settings on my pump, the lowest is more than adequate to keep the secondary loop hot. Not sure what that speed is though, but maybe my concerns about heat loss in this case are overblown.

It can be helpful for the architect and the SE to have a prior working relationship, as if you want a good design outcome it’s important the SE works with the architect to conceal RSJs as much as possible, without making them cold bridges. Although our SE was painfully slow, we were pleased with the outcome as he managed to conceal some pretty enormous RSJs.

Because I don’t want to waste heat by having the pump circulate hot water all the time. Are you saying that if I were to have it on continuously 2h in the morning and 4h in the eveningthe heat loss will be minimal. As for waiting for warm water to get hotter, surely with thermostatic tap mixers, this wouldn’t be noticeable other than a slow increase in flow.

That’s insane. I’m in London and the install alone was about £1600 plus VAT.

Just refreshing this in case @Nickfromwales (or somebody else) has time to respond to this:

I don’t like plastic cutlery trays. Would prefer oak, but can only afford bamboo. Want something with sides that are angled outwards, like this as this will fit better into my DIY kitchens drawers: but the range of sizes available from ikea is not great. Any thoughts on alternatives? Need inserts for a 600, 800 and 900 wide drawers.

Your kids will be grown ups by then.

I’m fairly sure that it’s shear strength is not strong enough, so you can’t use it as a structural floor.

This is the setup on my new Bosch which was a Which Best Buy and quite expensive. I think it’s really clever. SWMBO hates it. She says it’s much more fiddly to fill and it reduces the height available for glasses. Funny how two people can disagree so strongly on something so mundane.

I’m confused why you would need T+G boards. Is it because that is meant to act as a structural floor? i would consider speaking to an SE to find out if a mesh of steel/rebar grid covered in a further 30mm of screed could act as a structural floor, and if so pour that and lay tiles directly onto it 30 days later.

Depends on the tiles. It needs to sit on something that is heat resistant. Porcelain is sufficiently heat resistant but only in certain thicknesses. Not sure what that thickness is though. If your tiles are porcelain but not thick enough, you could perhaps double up the tiles to create a hearth of tiles on top of your tiled floor.