Stones

We are planning to use a straight edged metal tile trim, something like this http://www.trimtraders.co.uk/straight-edge-tile-trims.html 9.5mm thick tiles. Question, 10mm or 12mm trim?

I think they generally prefer going underground these days - handing a drum of cable and ducting for the builder to run into their site, saves OR having to do it.

My Osmo oil samples arrived yesterday (a very quick service from here http://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/ ). The two contenders are semi matt and satin finishes, the satin finish being very close in appearance to Danish Oil. Ordering Osmo in isn't an issue, but Danish Oil is readily available up here. One question that did occur, has anyone ever used Danish Oil over a previously Osmo treated surface or vice versa and what was the result?

I looked at pool heaters briefly, (A2W heat pumps). The big problem with them (at least the ones I looked at) was the minimum operating temperature of +8C. Not much use in winter! +1 on the Willis jacket. Simple and cheap in capital terms. And welcome...

Council tax was devised as a sort of hybrid - rates and community charge combined, supposedly taking the best parts from each. Larger more valuable properties would pay a lot less than under a rating system but there would still be a 'progressive' element rather than a simple flat rate applied to everybody. The SNP have taken the easy sound bite way out, rather than the root and branch reform they promised (to busy expending political capital elsewhere I think). It'll be interesting to see how they deal with the little old lady in a large house who can't afford to pay the higher rate of tax, when the press gets hold of a particularly heart wrenching story.

Over the years I've read various different ideas about the best ways to collect the tax take, from putting everything on income to putting it all on consumption. Tax authorities like property based taxes as property is immobile. Fairness is the most often used phrase when discussing who and how to tax. The difficulty is that the word fairness usually means someone else should pay. A difficult square to circle!

Our last house was built using the Supawall system - a 140mm injection filled timber frame, with an additional 50mm kingspan fixed to the outer face of the frame (which covered the sole plate), 50mm cavity then block outer leaf. We had to use hellical rather standard wall ties but otherwise no real difference in how the frame / outer leaf interacted.

I bought something similar to this: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=anemometer&client=tablet-android-archos&sa=X&biw=960&bih=600&tbs=vw:l,ss:9&tbm=shop&prmd=sivn&srpd=4231813452151518785&prds=num:1,of:1,paur:ClkAsKraX29gHg5TgyFrgk5o3eS0iF9Dz4-M_gKr5rg157En04gpoF1kcTlJ7dpB7A44vhZn-Ya4Cwyoo6rcGtWRVrFK4Cj4mtV1HAj0qBodiOMWKTxk-GeyYBIZAFPVH73mKsjVyboDAnM8hUfP7P_wtRwC2Q&ved=0ahUKEwjvhufUt-_PAhWjIcAKHeyLAEoQgjYIlAMwBA for my last build. I fashioned a hood from a plastic flower pot big enough to fit over the ceiling valve, fitting the handheld vane in the base of the pot so that I was effectively changeling all of the air from the ceiling valve through the vane. Working out airflow was then a simple calculation - velocity as measured by the vane multiplied by the open area of the vane. For extracts, the only change to make was turning the vane in the base of the pot over to ensure it was measuring velocity in the right direction (my anemometer has an arrow showing which way round it should be held) It was a bit rough and ready but accurate enough to get the job done.

As the joiners have been making our internal window cills, I've finally got my hands on some off cuts (solid oak and oak veneered MDF) to experiment with. Unfortunately, nobody up here seems to stock Osmo, so I'm going to have to get some delivered. Danish and a clear satin varnish tested. Satin varnish on the solid wood looks very like the finished you get on pre-finished oak doors. It doesn't look quite so good on the MDF veneered cills. Danish oil has a deeper / richer but slightly darker finish on both the solid wood and MDF veneer.

I initially drew our floorplan up on graph paper, as I find this the easiest way of getting proportions and room sizes right. I subsequently spent a few hours on Sketch Up, drawing up a scaled 2D floorplan, and 3D renderings of the house which I used during pre-app planning discussions. The decision to go down the CAD route was primarily a pragmatic one, to have plans that were: I used one of the main online free lancing sites to find the chap who drew up my CAD drawings (his details are on the plans linked to on my blog). I sent him my 2D Sketch Up floorplan from which he produced floorplan and elevations of the house and detached garage in PDF and DWG formats. He also did my site and location plans for me.

That would be my first suggestion too. However, if you are considering an alu fascia, try MSP Scotland http://www.mspcladding.co.uk/ They were quite happy to fabricate my window cills and powder coat them to match my windows. Small order, £247 for 265mm wide, 2mm thick folded cills, 18 linear metres worth. I dealt with Derek in sales and very helpful he was.

It's a very good point to be making. The problems Jeremy encountered and developed solutions for will not necessarily be the same issues you might face, even though you may be building a house to exactly the same specification. The answer is to factor in / model additional gains (like solar gain, occupant gains, electrical gains and losses from DHW storage) into your overall heating requirement, which in turn should inform you how much of a cooling requirement you might have.

Are there any pipes clipped / attached to the floor joists? I've had experience in the past of waste pipes being strapped too tightly onto a joist - every time you walked over it the pipe would be trying to flex against the strap but would only move with a bang. When loosened the pipe could move fluidly with the joist.

No, the EWI was fixed on before hand, albeit they may very well have only done just enough to hold it, knowing many more fixings would result from the battens going on.

When you say low heating demand and low DHW requirement, can you put an annual kWh figure to each? I think that would help inform any answers.

Yes a warm welcome. I'm another who has always designed my own houses (currently building number 6). Our current house is probably the most ambitious design we have undertaken. For this build, I employed a freelancer to convert my scaled floorplan to CAD. Cost me £150.

She has absolutely no interest in the technical side. Interior design is her domain...

There are a lot of houses up here with cement fibre slates on the roof, and without exception, every single one I have seen has weathered significantly from dark slate to light cement grey. This particular product may well be immune from this problem but I suspect there will not be any guarantees on colour fastness. Could you fix real slate using this system? Downside would perhaps be that you would have to buy the slates without fixing holes and drill them in the appropriate places yourself. Our timber cladding is fixed to battens which are themselves fixed through 165mm of EWI. Nothing difficult in it, just a very long fixing.

I did consider the prospect of dynamic / spot pricing being introduced at some point, but concluded that I would just as easily be able to program my ASHP to heat / produce DHW during those periods. Having looked very closely into this previously, it makes a lot of sense for low requirement households - heating and DHW requirement each below 2500 kWh/yr. Once your requirement goes over those thresholds, other options start to look more financially attractive. There is of course also the 'problem' of SAP which heavily penalises you using direct electric as your fuel source. I've always been very tempted by the notion of working through a year with a temporary heating system so you can properly assess the actual rather than theoretical heating and DHW requirement, and applaud you for taking this approach. Sadly, I couldn't persuade my other half to go down this route.

That particular system uses fibre cement 'slates'. They look great new, not so good a few years further down the line.

I IRC from the info Jeremy provided, it can quite happily produce higher than 38C, it's more a question of what the flow rate would be. You also need to bear in mind you would need to produce hotter water for a thermostatic shower valve to work.

Agreed, with no PV the figures simply didn't stack up for us, and didn't want to go down the E7 or E10 route. I think it really does depend on your individual circumstances and DHW / heating requirements . Despite my decision, I still think it's a great bit of kit.

When I was looking at it, a single Sunamp PV was £1700, and they were offering two units buy one get the second half price (so £2550).

Overheating is an interesting one. I too would find 25C unacceptable for anything other than a very short duration, but I want glazing to take in the views, which due to our orientation, does mean that there would be some overheating in summer. For me, it's a case of mitigating the impact, and I can do this using the summer bypass on the MVHR. I based all of my heating / cooling requirements on maintaining 21C.

I posted about cost in the 4 cell Sunamp topic I linked to earlier.