ProDave

So do you actually want a painted steel I beam as a "lintel"?

Drying rack with mvhr works well. Upstairs laundry, you trade taking baskets of clothes up and down, for having to get a washing machine up the stairs. Not I job I would wish to do or regard myself as strong enough to do without doing some serious harm to the stairs. It's good to get some exercise taking the washing up and down from time to time. A laundry chute would deal with the "down"

Do not mix UFH and radiators, it just complicates things with different warm up times so you really need different controls so radiators and UFH turn on and off at different times, which seems to fry the brains of most "heating engineers" used to all on and off at the same time. If you are really building to close to passive house insulation and air tightness you probably won't need upstairs heating. I followed the well trodden path on here of not really trusting that, so I put electric points for a panel heater in each bedroom. Like most that have done this, those heater points have never been used and we have no heating in the bedrooms, and this is in the east Highlands, probably the coldest place in the UK in winter. I can never understand why some people get quoted high prices for UFH. I did all mine myself and the materials are not expensive, and it is not even difficult, just time consuming. If you want to fit it yourself there will be plenty of help here, and there is no reason wy UFH upstairs should be much different than downstairs, though you might need to make some decisions very early on in the design of the building.

So get your architect to make an offer to you to buy the plot "subject to planning permission" Architect then applies for full planning and once granted the sale completes. No more cost to him as he has to do the plans anyway, and if he is quick he gets the reserved matters application in before the PIP runs out. Then he can do the dig a trench to "start" if he wants to lock in the planning for some future build date. Almost exactly what we did with our plot.

What makes you think in X years planning would be refused? Planning was granted for 2 houses when it was a bare field. Now one house is built why do you think it less likely the second would be approved again? So wait until you are ready. If it was refused then you have good grounds for appeal. Digging a trench and pouring concrete does not constitute "starting" as you have no approved plans to build from (reserved matters) and I bet there is a "development not to start until approved matters are agreed" clause.

And I thought working out the pattern to tile our floor with 2 different size rectangle tiles and 2 different size square tiles was complicated.

Bottom left 2 white triangles, bottom right, 2 blue triangles. Should be the same.

Yes that's it.

You have a row of posts down the middle of the house. I presume this is to support some form of beam running down the middle of the house to support joists running front to back of the house a distance of about 10 metres so they would need intermediate support. My suggestion (which is just what we did) is make the internal wall either side of the hall, a supporting wall going all the way up to the roof. then the joists can span the other way. We have 11 metre long posi joists spanning the entire length of the house on one go, taking support from the 2 load bearing walls, so the longest unsupported span is 5 metres. This removes the need for the row of posts down the middle of the house. Okay only 2 would be a nuisance in the middle of a room, as the other 3 are hidden in walls.

When I go looking for something, I just stop looking when I have found the first one, I don't waste further time looking for their friends.

That's what I thought. Not necessary. Make the wall either side of the stairwell a supporting wall, and the walls above it either side of the landing. Then floor and ceiling joists span lengthways the entire length of the building taking intermediate support from these 2 supporting walls. Exactly what we have done. Look to be only a 5 metre span that way, exactly what we have.

What are the row of 5 small squares evenly spaced along the centreline of the downstairs?

Stairs are wrong. To get to the right hand study, you have to ascend the stairs then walk all the way round the gallery to get to it. Put the stairs the other side of the hall so they ascend and finish just before the door to the master bedroom, then it's an easier route to the other 2 bedrooms / study rooms. You will probably need to start the stairs closer to the entrance door so they finish before the master bedroom door and don't cut across the entrance to the living / dining, and will need to re jig the entrance to the downstairs bedroom and hall storage cupboards.

UNLESS it's a basin with internal overflow, in which case the waste has a couple of holes as it passes through the basin and the sealing washer IS at the bottom. A picture would help.

If the roof timbers (and any insulation) has been soaked, then even fixing the leak will not stop the smell. The whole lot needs to be stripped off and replaced. Only then will it be fresh once more.

Well done. Now ENJOY it.

If the ASHP installer just connected the HP to the HW tank in a location not chosen by him, then he is not at fault. It still sounds like an excessively long pipe run. Did you ever do that test when cold, measuring just how much cold water comes out of the tap before the hot water arrives?

Pictures?

When I read the rather wooley description I thought "ah it's just a thermal store" But a thermal store is actually not the best match to an ASHP. I would personally steer clear as I don't like people trying to sell me something with a lot of waffle and obscurity about what it actually IS you are buying.

It can happen even with mains water. Our supply went off a few weeks back due to a local burst main. Shortly after it came back, one of our toilet cisterns would not stop filling. Dismantling the fill valve revealed a similar sized "foreign body" that must have come in with the water jamming the fill valve open. It must have got into the pipe during the repair. Thames water are well known for their leaks, if they actually fix them, the same could happen to you.

Seen on a plumbers van: "Don't sleep with a drip, call me instead" Seen on an electricians van : "Let us remove your shorts"

Yes that is aluminium spreader plates for under floor heating. The UFH pipes clip into an aluminium sheet that dissipates the heat.

If it is dropping pressure slowly, you have a leak, that might be hard to find if it is just a drip. However if you get the heating up to temperature, turn the heating off and let it cool down, and then it drops pressure quickly, it is likely to be a failed expansion vessel. Your plumber will be able to check that when he comes.

The chimney if you look is two pieces one slides inside the other like a telescope. If they won't slide easily is there more paint / ither sealant got in the gap between the two parts? The bottom part needs to slide up, get a screwdriver, chissle etc under it to try and get it to slide. Only when you have lifted it a bit to clear the lip of the lower fixed part of the hood, can you spring the sides of the chimney apart and pull it forward to get it off. Watch out for sharp edges.

You have more issues there. Is there a door in that stud wall separating the shower? If so it is a separate room and needs a separate fan. If there is not a door, then you could just put a glass screen like any other shower in the corner of the room, BUT your issue there is a room containing a shower, all sockets, e.g. for the WM and boiler etc need to be 3 metres from the shower and I don't think the room is big enough.