ProDave

The basic problem is the upstairs is a smaller footprint. It creates a difficult / more expensive to build building which is ironic because the function of that difficulty is a smaller house. I would look at the planning permission carefully including all correspondence documents you can find. Was there a ridge height limit? If not I would re submit making the upstairs the same size as downstairs which not only gives you the extra space you want but makes the building easier to build. The downside is the roof will be deeper and so the ridge height will increase. Looking at the text on the plans, this is already a second application increasing the size of a previous application so look at what the planners say. Is there any reason they would reject it if you tried to enlarge it again?

Personally I would strip out what you have there right back to the pan and start with a standard pan connector and work from that.

At the back edge, the tongue and groove is intact so you slot the groove of the hatch into the fixed tongue of the adjacent board. Then, to get the hatch to drop down, you will find the tongue that sticks out stops it dropping down, so you cut the front off the tongue until it does drop down into place I don't have a picture, but I have done it many times.

I am making the "box" around the window end flush with the inside face of the cladding, and the cladding then continues down in front of the "box" with the bottom edge of the cladding ending lower than the "box" and cut an an angle with the lower edge t the front.

Think about a breathable membrane on the stone wall side of your timber frame, and an air tight membrane on the inside of it.

Cut the hatch as you go. Make the hatch a full board width and cut half the tongue off so it can lift out. It it runs joist to joist that's your ends supported as well.

This is one of those houses that even if you were given a plot of land for free, I doubt you would be able to build it and then sell it (in that location) for more than it cost you to build. There is plenty I don't like about the layout.

Have a look for this type https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/154475706253?hash=item23f778378d%3Ag%3A9e4AAOSwG1BgtfLN&LH_ItemCondition=1000 We have a few of them that we used to keep the static caravan warm during the build. Cheap as chips, 3 power levels and a thermostat. They can also be wall mounted though they will not look very pretty. These seem to be exempt from the silly LOT20 rules that now demand fixed heaters have over complicated controls that nobody can understand, in the name of saving energy. You should be able to find that sort on sale in your local hardware shops etc as well though probably not as cheap as you can buy on line. P.S that link was just to illustrate the type of heater. Search a bit harder and you will find them even cheaper.

I don't use a hive, just an ordinary central heating programmer, but the same principle should apply. The ASHP senses water temperature with a temperature probe which is supplied with the unit, this is just a thermistor. So I uses a single pole changeover relay. The normally closed contact puts a fixed value resistor in place of the thermistor. the normally open contact puts the thermistor into circuit. the relay has a 240V coil and is switched from the programmer. So when the programmer says "hot water off" the fixed resistor is in circuit in place og the thermistor which makes the ASHP think the water is at 85 degrees and hence hot water is satisfied and never turns on. When the programmer turns on the thermistor is switched into circuit and it reads the true water temperature and turns on when hot water is needed.

This won't help you but mine came from stone Source in Inverness when they made the kitchen worktops, upstand, gable end and hearth for the stove.

I think the wording is they should all be the same with no stated allowable tolerance. Hope your BC inspector does not notice?

I suspect this house is a money pit in so many ways. It reminds me of a large country house I used to do work for which was operating as a care home at the time. That was heated by a big LPG fired boiler and speaking to them the annual heating bill was in the order of £10K I doubt you will lower the heating bill much just by fitting a better boiler. The pipes are large for a reason, if you think you can heat a house of that demand with all 15mm pipe work you may find the results disappointing. LPG with an in ground tank has tied you to one supplier so no chance to compare prices and shop around each time like oil, and no chance to buy all your years heating oil in the middle of the summer when prices are usually lower like you can with oil.

Report the no hot water to the landlord, his job to fix it. And ask for a current EICR for the electrical installation as rental properties should have now. While you are at it check the provision of smoke alarms. When was the flat actually built? If only a couple of years ago it should have rcd protection on everything.

Yes. A previous house I had, had square pipes. The brackets did not grip the pipes and the pipes had a habit of slipping down out of the joints and fittings. I only "solved" it by drilling a small hole in each bracket and inserting a small self tapping screw to grip the pipe. A round downpipe, most brackets will close around the pipe and grip it properly. This might have been just an issue with the particular brand of pipe fitted rather than a fundamental problem with square.

Option 2 is all I have ever seen and no problems with a nail gun.

If the pump runs continuously it is never going to freeze. How will a relief valve work to protect anything if the water is not flowing? It will freeze even if vented to atmosphere. There is either something extremely clever here, or I just can;t see how you can avoid antifreeze in the pipework to an outside unit.

I got all my services in with one road opening, Scottish water did the road opening (actually their appointed contractor) and were happy for me to lay in ducts for electricity and telephone before they filled it and closed it.

My own decking I dug the narrowest hole I could (ladies spade) about 500mm deep and used about half a bag of postcrete per post. I don't know where you get 7 bags per post from.

Care to explain how it works?

Use your rough boards as the bottom layer, you won't see the edges when finished. Use your good square boards for the top planks. I used 150mm planks for the bottom layer and 100mm planks for the top layer. Very little gap between bottom planks except where spacing between items makes it work by spacing a few planks to fit a particular gap. I painted all my planks first coat before fitting then second coat once on, so if a top plank shrinks it will not expose bare wood. Because they were being painted I used cheap 4mm by 50mm gold screws. You only see the screws on the top planks so space them nice and evenly and paint over them. Only first wall done so far.

This thread is like watching paint dry.........

Progress moves on slowly. The first wall of the sun room has been clad in timber. The easiest wall, with just the big sliding door. This might not be everyone's idea of timber cladding. But we were both agreed we don't like untreated timber left to go silver / grey, mainly because it usually does not do so evenly. And we were agreed we don't want it stained / treated in some shade of orange. So it is painted. It took a while to choose the colour and then a while to find a source. The trouble was we wanted the walls of the sun room (and other garden stuff) painted the same colour as the decking and steps. If you start looking at the very few options of both paints in stock colours, you have a choice of brown or grey. We wanted neither. In the end this paint came from the big orange DIY shed where you can get a variety of different paints for different uses, in a wide range of colours mixed in the shop. so we chose "Willow Green" Because it was being painted, the choice of what timber was not a big issue, no point paying for some fancy expensive timber and then painting it. So this is cheap softwood treated "sarking" board sold in 100 and 150mm widths and in this case 22mm thick. Each plank painted with it's first coat of paint before being fitted and then a second coat after it was on. The area under the door to the left of the steps will be clad later. My philosophy is never cut a load of short lengths from a full length of timber. Cut all the rest of the long lengths first, and then cut the short lengths from the leftovers. So as and when suitable leftovers become available, the short bits will get done. And the very left hand plank is missing as that forms the corner so won't get fitted until the back wall is clad and that corner ready to be detailed.

Yes a condensation analysis was done on my wall and roof build up.

So what do I have, warm roof, cold roof or something else? Mine has insulation above the rafters AND insulation between them. It just makes sense to me, part of my philosophy that the entire wall and roof structure should be adding insulation, no "wasted" gaps with no insulation in them.

Surely the most efficient (in terms is insulation for the thickness) will be something like I have, 200mm rafters, insulation between them, and 100mm solid insulation (in my case wood fibre) above the rafters, then membrane, battens, counter battens then roof covering. You certainly don't want any roof structure with uninsulated gaps and certainly not a cold roof demanding a ventilation space. And for the roof covering, box profile steel will give a lower profile and work at a lower angle than tiles. This type of roof would normally be supported on a ridge beam, but your challenge will be engineering support for the ridge beam without a great thick pillar for it to sit on. I just accepted a great big pillar between the windows