Tom

Ah yes, birch, not beech. The quote's I got from stairbox etc was about £500 for the sort of closed stringer/standard bullnose sort of stairs as per your pic. The cut stringer, box-profile stairs as per my pic were a shade over £2k! As above, the cut-stringer type stairs were £2k each from stairbox (and weren't in birch ply)

Hi All - I need to install two staircases that go up to a mezzanine. Up until now I was just planning on getting something really basic from one of the online retailers (stairbox etc) and then possibly cladding it in ply myself to make it look a bit better. I've been getting quotes of about £500 for a single run, closed stringer with pine treads/risers. A simple staircase like this would be "OK" but now it's actually coming to decision time I'm wondering if there are better options. I would ideally like a cut stringer with a square-edged tread/riser detail - see pic. This looks quite simple (famous last words) and I'm now thinking perhaps I could make it myself out of beech ply. Perhaps I need to take a cold shower instead, but is this feasible? Has anyone on here made their own stairs before? Re balustrade etc, I was thinking along the lines of the scaffold pole stuff that is used for interiors.

Stick a barn on it, allow the neighbouring farmer to use it for ten years after which apply for change of use to residential - and then knock it down and build a house?

I know. They said they could come back and do it but there would be a charge - merry f'ing Christmas!

Oh, and the installer said it wasn't their job to insulate the external feed duct, ffs. It's only a short run, guess I just need to wrap in rockwool?

Many, many thanks for all the helpful advice. I've turned the humidity limit up to 85% and the the thing's as quiet as a mouse. I might have to go and check it's still on...

Well that was a fun evening, managed to get the c9ndensate all hooked up with 22mm pipe, dropping through the floor and connecting to a McAlpine trap:

What sort of trap do I need? If the drain hose is sucking in air then would it allow a dry trap to open?

The pipe along the floor would form the U bit of the U bend, as long as the downstream end of the U is lower than the upstream end, then water will flow through it, like any U bend I guess. I can drill through the floor closer to the unit and drop the pipe through though, which seems less of a bodge.

The unit is only ~100mm off the floor and I have a ~50mm high piece of trunking for the hose/pipe to go over before it can drop down in to the plant room, so not much wriggle room.

My idea above, with the hose running along the floor then up and over some metal trunking would effectively make a trap - and this is unavoidable as the metal trunking is between the unit and the hole the hose needs to go through. I could add a trap nearer the 32mm pipe I want to T in to, but there might be an issue with having two "traps" in series?

Good idea, I'll have a look at it. The manual suggests the sensor is set at 70% humidity to trigger boost, and the house is pretty much over this everywhere according to the Wunda thermostats

T into this 32mm pipe, tundish just above

Stub pipe as it is now, gurgling and draining in to a bowl

I need to plumb in the condensate properly I think. My plan is to attach a hose (essentially a washing machine hose) to the stub that comes out of the machine, run this along the floor, up and over some metal trunking and through a hole in the floor to the plant room below, then T into the pipe that takes the tundish from the UVC. Does that sound reasonable? Running the pipe up and over the trunking would effectively make a u-bend.

Yep, it has that, but it seems to be boosting continually now, even when no one's had a shower etc.

They said it was up to my plumber (ie me) to connect up the condensate drain. The problem is they are a commercial ventilation installers rather than domestic, if that makes a difference, so perhaps they see their remit slightly differently

There are no boost switches, just the internal humidity sensor and the manual overide on the front of the unit

Yes, I agree. Strange that I can't seem to turn the boost off though

It's hung off a blockwork wall, all very solid and no vibration

Right, I've investigated further. I've actually had it running with the condensate drain not attached to anything, just draining in to a bowl. There seems to be lots of air being sucked up the short length of corrugated pipe, and this seems to be causing the gurgling. If I put my finger over the end and then take it off, some water drains out. I did this a couple of times until no more came out and the gurgling stopped. It seems that the constant flow of air up the drain pipe was preventing water from draining effectively. Is it normal for air to be sucked into the condensate pipe? I guess when I plumb the thing in, a ubend/trap would stop the air flow and the water would drain more freely? Anyway, I've switched the thing off for the night as there is clearly a problem.

Wider angle...

Yes No. Its quite a short run and I could easily wrap it in mineral wool though. Another complication is that the unit is currently running at boost and I can't seem to turn it down to normal flow. It seems to be gurgling inside so I wonder if there's some trapped condensation in there tripping the humidity sensor. What's your opinion on the plenums? I'm assuming they shouldn't be making a noise?

We moved in three days ago and so fired up the MVHR unit (ventaxia sentinel kinetic high flow). It's recently been commissioned, air flow set at 30% with 9l/sec at the terminals. When I finally sat down in the sitting room at the end of the day and things were quiet I became aware of a background noise, hard to describe, with another noise like a running stream, which eventually I realised was coming from the supply vent. This noise seems to have got louder - or perhaps I'm just more aware of it. I had a fiddle with the flow controls on the ductwork, and when I open fully the one for the living area the noise reduces. I did notice also that the plenums were very noisy themselves, there was an air leak detectable from the supply plenum and both sounded like a running stream inside. It seems this noise is being transmitted to the terminals - which in my mind seems counterintuitive for a plenum. Attached is a picture of one of them. It does seem small for all the ductwork going in to it, so I can imagine the airspeed must be high with lots of turbulence. I paid a lot of money for this install but I have yet to pay the final invoice. Am I being too picky - or is this all to be expected?