Bramco

We set the heating pump on cooling last year but in the height of the summer. At this time of year though, the roof lights and patio sliding doors give enough draght to keep things ok. Having said that, when we used cooling it was very effective. Cool slab underfoot in the morning.

@Great_scot_selfbuild See the attached photo from inside. The Roofmaker roof lights have an internal lip that the plasterboard fits into, so it's a very clean look. We haven't got any blinds. The roof lights come with remotes but can also be hard wired to momentary switches for up and down. I think they've changed the controllers now. Ours are hefty black boxes, I think the new ones are integrated into their switches. They also do rain sensors. We only fitted one and ganged it to all of the roof lights. We also have one momentary switch in the hall which we can use to put all the roof lights down. Again, this is ganged to all of them.

@Great_scot_selfbuild Not sure if you were planning on cladding, or the roof as well - if you are doing the roof and also rooflights, then look at the roofmaker rooflights. They do triple glazed etc and are motorized to lift up and down. For us, the great thing about the roofmaker roofights was that they were just a flat glass surface outside - they are also very neat inside. We've always hated the bumps at the top of velux and similar rooflights. You can see the 'look' on the second image above.

Not sure where they get the potassium from... From the Sioox website -> https://sioox.com/pro/gb/articles/patented-silicon-formula/ 'The use of silicon technology to protect and preserve wood was already developed in nineteenth-century Germany. We have refined this technology and created a patented silicon formula for a unique wood protection product – that contains no toxins. Our silicon-based wood protection products are based on mechanical principles. Simply put, the product’s silicon crystals penetrate and strengthen the wood, while forming a physical barrier.'

Here's the spec for the steel... Roofing&Cladding_N14-3Sinus.pdf CoatingsPages_GreencoatCrownBT.pdf Data_sheet__GreenCoat_Pro_BT_2021-03-22.pdf

Maybe what we need is a forum topic for sharing specs and images of cladding, so that folks can easily see what the differences are.

@Roundtuit - you're right! Old age creaping in... I remember now! Thanks for reminding me. Need to wash the windows more often and remember to spray the underhangs...

@Great_scot_selfbuild here's a couple of photos - not great but they show the build up.

You can see under the overhang that it is still in the process of greying out - it needs light for the sioox process to work.

We have larch but didn't want it grey. So had it treated with Sioox by Russwood our supplier. 3 years in and it just looks bleached...

@Great_scot_selfbuild We have black corrugated roofs and walls to the 2 storey section of the house - images here -> https://lhc.net/projects/ashcroft-creating-a-low-energy-family-home/ Our son was the architect and specced the tin. From memory it has at least a 45 year guarantee - I think it was Firth steels. We used a company in Leominster to do the actual supply - Thomas Panels and Profiles. They suggested a contractor to do the actual build but we sacked him off half way through and our main contractor finished things off. fastenings were EJOT. I can get more detail if you need it. We found it hard to find examples to go and see in real life - there's probably more around now. You're a long way away in Surrey but you're always welcome if you are up our way to have a look at ours.

We have the same problem at the edge of our patio. Similar blocks that we need to treat to stop the efflorescence. Internally, we've used zinser peal stop but not sure if this would work externally.

Our HP is only on ever on heating. If you set it to both, then hot water takes priority over heating and in the winter, if you want to only use really cheap rate electricity to charge an UFH slab, then you'll find that the HP won't give you enough heat. Our strategy, is to have the HP on for the full 6 hours of O Go Intelligent at 7p doing heating. The PV diverter is programmed to heat the hot water during the same period. We also charge the batteries during this time period. The during the day if there is PV, it goes to the batteries, then the diverter and then to export.

Ours is 2 tiles wide, so quite narrow but having a sliding door gives the impression of more space - had a pleasant hour or so out there at the end of the afternoon today. 2 chairs and a small table - with a couple of cold drinks... Now moved to the patio out the back as the air is still coldish and being up on the 1st floor, you're more exposed to even a slight breeze. And wonderfully there's more cold drinks...

Hi, @James94, this is what we did -> You'll see from the photos, that we did our living space in 3 sections, so we could have sections on or off and dim them separately. There are no central lights in any of our vaulted spaces - you might find that a central light fights against the sort of lighting effect that you get from an upwards wash of light. Maybe, put the electrics in there but try things without first to see if you re OK with just the leds in the coving.