MikeGrahamT21

Has he ever done any extensions under PD before?

One cause of black mould is aspergillus, naturally occuring, and also can be commonly found in buildings, insulation and the like. Its been known to infect healthy adults, though its unlikely to kill a healthy adult it will make you very ill. If the mould spores settle in your lungs, they can grow. If you have any sort of immune deficiency then you are at serious risk. Clearly it is difficult to know whether it is or isn't aspergillus, which is why you should take serious precautions regardless. My wife suffered from an aspergillus infection, she was immune deficient, she developed an aspergiloma (a bit like a tumour) in her lung, they successfully treated it over the course of a year, but unfortunately not long after she suffered from respiratory failure from the damaged caused by the fungus. Its really not worth not taking precautions. If it infects your body, it releases a chemical called aflatoxin, which is both toxic and carcinogenic.

be extremely careful with the black mould, wear a good fitting mask when doing anything with it, and cover the whole thing with bleach first before doing anything else to get rid of it. Its extremely toxic, and can give serious health complications to fully fit normal people.

How about using resin based fixings? Another one to try is helical fixings, these are brilliant for aircrete, and may work for your situation too, perhaps get some samples to test, as they can be quite expensive. Thor helical is one manufacturer.

I suspect if someone else is building it for you, and you want something specific, or its a complex build, these plans are probably your guarantee that things will get done right, or leverage if they don't. Don't spend this much just for BC, as long as they see the bits of text they want, they'll get passed. I've always done my own plans for BC, but I build the stuff myself too, so i've only my own brain to rely on. I also do the meetings with the BC inspector myself too, I've known him for a long time, you find that as you get to know them, they trust your ability more, and know you will have done stuff right because of the quality of your work in the past. You may want to consider a local draughtsman, as soon as the word 'architect' gets put in, you may as well add £2000 to the bill, architects in my opinion are only required when there is something non-standard, out of the ordinary or overly complex, if you are planning something straight forward that fits into the surroundings, if you don't want to do the plans yourself, the draughtsman will be more than adequate, and will be sub £1000 for the plans through to a successful application.

Yeah I've had that recently too on a hotpoint washer, they seem a bit too much of a tight fit, in the past they used to just pop out.

Same solution still exists, but has moved on a little, there are now things called Zero Clients, which is basically just an HDMI adapter which plugs into a monitor and a network port, powered by PoE, and they tap into a backend VDI solution, so probably saving another 30 or 40W of power over the thin client solution. Zero clients have no Operating System, just a set of tools to be able to connect into differing infrastructures. "Another advantage of zero clients is their lower power consumption. Thin clients have mainstream CPUs and often graphics processing units, but a zero client usually has a low-power CPU (or none at all), which cuts down on power consumption and heat generation."

I think embodied carbon is the least of the problems for Solar PV and the rest of the Electrical sector... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur_hexafluoride

The only problem with that is, to get a roof window with 0.83U, you don't have to pay a 'bit' more, you have to pay a 'LOT' more, which means the OKPOL or ECO+ are really good value for money, just factor in the vent blank and all is good.

Yeah it was likely me, company is OKPOL, Sterlingbuild and Sunlux rebrand them as their own. I agree the trickle vent isn't brilliant, hence buying the vent blank, but otherwise these OKPOL are far better build quality than the Velux i've got. A bit more fiddly to fit, more components, but I suspect thats where you're money is going, for easy fit. EDIT: OK maybe not me lol!

I know this is an older post... I have some Velux 2G standard windows from 2010, so cerca 1.8-2.0U and found they perform fine in the winter, but in the summer the glass panels on the south side can heat up to around 60C, making for a very uncomfortable storage heater. In comparison, the 3G Okpol Windows I have on the same orientation, which are 1.0U (these are now standard 0.83U, they've made some further improvements), and these top out at around 35C, so makes a huge difference in the summer! Okpol are the same as Fakro in terms of handle at the bottom, they do come with a vent, but I have bought vent blanks at a cost of £50 each to block these off. 55x98 window from Okpol (Sterlingbuild ECO+) is around £350 with all of the collars and everything included, which for a 0.87U window is very good value for money I think

Had a little free time this afternoon, and a new laser measure turned up that i ordered, so decided to crack on with the floor plans, all fully measured and scaled. The keen eyed of you may notice that its grown slightly too, just seemed to sit better with an extra half a meter length. Next job is the elevations!

No worries, yeah I’m not sure it’s doable with such a pitch, but I do like the idea.

Sorry to hear you are a member of the club no one wants to join too, life can be so harsh at times! ive always enjoyed the build, probably a bit addicted to it if I’m honest lol. Tell us about the therapy then... but yes I agree it is good for the mind and body

it’s going to be a pitched roof, lean to, angle could be tricky though as the roof tiles which match state minimum 30 degree pitch, I need to work out where that will end up, I’m hoping reasonably high as another reason for the EWI was to hide some damaged brickwork from a porch which was on the house before we bought it. I’ll have a think about the courtyard, utility has an apex roof and the junction between that the garden room and the house was quite awkward when I did it, I think as you said only a flat roof would be able to link in, but I don’t want a flat roof for the extension as I don’t think it will fit in well with the rest of the house. Will ponder that one though! I often find ideas come out while drawing the plans too

After years of less extreme renovation, i've decided to get back on the waggon and build the third extension on the bungalow where I live. The last few years have been really tough, some of you will know that my wife has been seriously ill, and that eventually led to her death last June, for a good while doing anything more to the house just seemed pointless, but I see it as a way to focus my energy on something positive. After many years of having in mind to install EWI on the gable end of the bungalow, i decided to think of other things I could do, to perhaps give more than just a warm wall. I calculated roughly how much the EWI was projected to cost (around £2500), and then calculated how much a small extension would cost (around £7000), and it instantly made sense to me that I should go down this route, whilst I will still need small areas of EWI, they will be very small compared to what might otherwise have been. I've done a rough 'fag packet' drawing at the moment, just to have a think about different things: So the intention is to make a larger dining room, and bathroom, and creating a courtyard infront of the utility for things like bins, water storage, and the inevitable ASHP equipment, which will keep it all out of sight. Making use of the already ample openings, will save any major structural work, however the roof timbers on the extension (which is going to be a mono-pitch lean-to style roof) will likely have to sit on a steel lintel, as the bathroom window opening has no lintel on the outside brick layer, the dining room opening has an angle iron, but who knows if its strong enough to hold a load of concrete tiles and a triple glazed roof window, I will be putting all this through a structural engineer to get a final decision on this. Having the side extension also fulfils another thing which is to prevent overheating. That side of the house faces south, but in winter doesn't get hardly any sun as its shielded by the house next door, so having the side extension with only roof windows facing south (which can be covered with awnings), should prevent a lot of overheating which was become very common on the hotter days. Construction is going to be block and brick cavity, but going with Xtratherm CT/PIR full fill PIR insulation in order to achieve sub 0.16U on the walls, and this is a true self build, as per my other extensions, even the foundations i'll be digging by hand, as where its situated is where all of the foul water drains are, which all need unpicking and re-routing, about time I had some exercise! lol. Going with a large roof window in dining room, and a small one in bathroom, with large window in dining facing to the left hand side (which is the road side), and no further windows in the bathroom, unless planning say i've got to, roof window should give enough light in there. As I've already used my 1 free pass for permitted development, this one requires planning permission, so my next task is to draw up some plans, and submit them at some point this year, QCAD being my tool of choice. I used to use draftsight, which I was hoping to do again, and just build on what I had, but turns out they've revoked the free version, and the files it generates don't open in anything else annoyingly, so its a start from scratch job! Would love to hear any opinions on if you would do anything differently, always like considering different ideas. Will post the plans for both planning and building control when completed, to show an idea of what is required to get approval (which may take several goes, its been a few years since i've done any plans!)

The 32 is a denser product, and IMO a much nicer one to work with, cuts nicer

I look forward to hearing the results, I have a pending project to put in MVHR (my need isn't as desperate as yours, certainly not for damp), I intend to buy a CO2 monitor, air quality is probably most important, as I spend probably more the 90% of my time in the house, even my work is home based, so could make a huge difference to health.

Would be interesting to know if it does have any impact on your space heating bill, often hard to compared though as no two days are the same, but you should know if the average use drops quite a bit. Obviously not expecting any drop at all, but just interested to know.

I would say going through the wall will be fine. Circular holes are the best for structural integrity also.

22mm chipboard everytime for solidness, or if floor height is an issue like it was for me, 18mm OSB3, which will give the same effect.

Firstly, those holes are likely too close, as you've stated. I don't see how it could cause any issues myself, the weight of the chimney will be focussed on where the stack vanishes inside the masonry. Secondly, any chance of removing those air bricks and use those holes instead? Saves drilling If you are concerned, perhaps consider the roof tile vents instead.

Yeah absolutely, what I meant is I won't go out and blow £2000 before I know I definitely need it. Soon as the airtightness works are done, I'll leave a couple of windows on vent, book an air test, and if it shows its low enough, then proceed straight away. System design and spec has already been done from a few different suppliers, so I know what I'm buying, just a case of adding to the basket and hitting order.

Everything came from this place: https://pswtradesuppliers.co.uk/ I used 16mm MLCP as I found that products such as Hep2o, and JG, although having an oxygen barrier (very important in a CH system), they only seemed to be viable up to about 50C, which is no good for CH, hence why I chose to use 16mm pipe and the relevant euro cones, which I found very easy. More importantly, the eurocones actually fit inside the normal TRVs/Lockshields, so instantly become compatible with little outlay. Oxygen barrier is very important as it will protect your radiators from corrosion. I have a few radiators which are about 10m away from the manifold, and haven't noticed any issues without a pump, get a solid 2ltr/min flow on all of the rads when all are fully open.

My wet plaster is straight up on the blockwork, so there are no gaps for the tent effect. Ceilings have coving all round which is free of cracks, though there is always the concern that there could be a route through to the wall/ceiling joint, will have to see what shows up on an air test for this. Ive paid a lot of attention to round the windows and doors, and as I live in a bungalow, there is nothing to cover in between floors, and the loft isn't of concern as its a cold loft, which is currently ventilated, i've made sure any gaps between the living space and the loft are sealed, such as spot lights and wire entry points. Hopefully it works as planned anyway ? time will tell, but I won't be installing MVHR until there is a need for it, ascertained by an air test.