ProDave

Qwality work there. Send him this link. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4-WOODEN-LEAD-BEATING-TOOLS-ROOFERS-TOOLS-PLUMBING-FLASHING-WORK/154308428457?hash=item23ed7fc2a9:g:GkgAAOSwfz9gEZ5V

Can you post the actual quote and any diagrams they sent (suitably redacted) so we can understand what they think needs doing? Did you ask for a specific power of supply? or just see what they offered?

Take a moment to work out what that actually means. If your UFH temperature is running at 30 degrees and it's 0 degrees outside, your 7 by 7M floow will be losing 7 * 7 * 30 * .21 = 308 watts of heat through the floor all the time. I don't know the total heat input required for that 7 by 7M room. but if I applied that to my house, it would mean nearly a third of the heat I put in went straight out through the floor.

Our last house was TF with rendered blockwork outer skin. I can't say I noticed ANY shrinkage or movement between the frame and the block skin around windows or doors. And only minimal movement at plasterboard joints.

When we had our water connection, the trench in the grass verge opposite also uncovered the electric cable we needed to connect to. So I asked the SW guys not to fill in that bit and I enlarged the hole to 1 metre square to make the connection pit for our electricity and saved almost £1000 by doing so. Did I tell you that SW nearly gave up as they could not find there pipe, it was not where the plan showed and they had already dug further than they should. I found it for them with my divining rods.

Yes another one who wants to see the pictures. When they prohibit "work" above their assets I am sure they are worried about mechanical diggers or building works, not a gardener doing an "archaeological dig" to carefully locate the pipe. I guess the plan is to locate the pipe, mark it accurately, then mark the 6ft away from it line and see if that gives you enough room to do what you want? If what you want to do ends up slightly less than 6 feet would they let you put foundations built 6ft away and then a cantilevered build so the build might not be 6ft away but all the load imposed by it would be?

If this pips is able to be damaged by a man with a shovel hand digging a hole, then it is defective. I would not worry about that. I would not want to try "locating" it with a digger.

Have you thought about making this a warm roof? For that you put a layer of insulation on top of the rafters, i.e. between the rafters and the battens then tiles. Then you can fill the entire thickness of the rafters with insulation.. Much easier to detail, much easier to get more insulation in, much easier to detail the air tightness.

I ran cat5 to every room, but so far only one is actually used, for a hard wired ethernet to my desktop pc. Everything else, firesticks, game consoles etc just connects to the wifi. The network cables are in the wall behind socket boxes not terminated at either end, ready to be fished out and put into use some time in the future should the need arise. Same with phone cables. What a quaint idea thinking every room would need a phone point. Yet more cables lurking ready to be connected should someone decide a hard wired landline phone is actually a good idea.

If they won't let you dig carefully by hand to locate it, then the onus should be on them to locate it precisely.

Yes, very pleased with our Rationel 3G windows. no problems with draughts or poor seals. But get used to condensation and ice on the outside of your windows, because not enough heat escapes to keep the outside glass temperature above the dew point in certain weather. If noise is an issue then you want MVHR to eliminate the need for trickle vents in the windows or any other vent e.g extract fans, with the MVHR intake and outlet on the opposite side to the road.

I would say do it. It is not difficult unless like our land you find a "stone" that is simply too big to lift by hand. Talk of using hole diggers suggests you are thinking of digging a very narrow "fence post" hole. Don't. What if you miss the pipe? Narrow holes are the hardest to dig, which is why you need those gadgets to get the soil out, and a real pain when you find a big stone. Instead dig a large enough hole to stand in and dig down, so say 1 metre square. Much easier to dig with just a shovel and if you hit hard ground, break it up with a fork first. a larger hole means more chance of actually finding the pipe.

Not your target location, but I live in the eastern Highlands, probably one of the coldest parts of the UK, and I am running at sub £250 annual heating costs. That would no doubt be a LOT lower if this same house was in the SE. I would not have achieved such a low heating bill without mvhr. Summer overheating is very likely to be an issue with all that glass in the SE so I would be wanting lots of PV so at least the inevitable active cooling can be run for free in the summer.

It certainly helps being in the building trade and knowing other tradesmen. You build up a mutual trust of each others work. You also get to know the ones you would not want working in your house. I can think of some plumbers and joiners i would not let loose here.

Thanks for the heads up.

The G3 is all about the cold water in connection to the UVC, the pressure reducing valve set and over pressure valves, and the drain pipework from that. It helps if you are friends or at least know the plumber. I routed the drain pipe (as it was built into the fabric of the buildings) and photographed it. did all the pipework up to the cylinder cupboard and he connected, tested and signed it off.

We did ours after fitting. But they were just being oiled. I suspect painting might be better laid flat?

We look back on it as "character building" Ours was the winter of the Beast from the East. Thank god i put a WBS in the caravan. Keeping up the wood supply was challenging. The "highlight" of the winter was when the hot water froze, because a mouse had eaten about a foot of the pipe insulation, and lying on my back under the caravan at night, during a blizard with a hairdryer to thaw the pipe.

I could not get XL doors in the size I wanted pre finished so I just oiled them myself with Osmo door oil. Very good doors, pleased with them.

My memory is poor who is doing what, but was it you proposing a 100mm timber frame?

@patp Do you have any drawings from the architect or designer? If you have them on your computer as some form of file pdf for example you can attach them to a post. At the moment I still don't know if you have a solid floor built up off the ground? Beam and block or timber suspended? What the designer has proposed as insulation, how much and where? Without this guessing where to put a membrane is meaningless. If you can't post a picture or file, then describe in words how your proposed floor is constructed and what layers it has starting from the ground upwards listing every single layer, what it is and how much.

That's just the standard G98 16A per phase limit that they cannot refuse. So it sounds like they WOULD play hard ball if you want to go above that.

Even easier on a laptop. Find the picture you want, highlight it, press Ctrl C or right click and press copy. Go to writing a post and press Ctrl V or right click and press Paste.

You need to get the detail right including enough insulation in the right places. with UFH is is more important than a normal floor to get plenty of insulation. Posting pictures on here is simple is is literally copy and paste them into a post. You must have some drawings from the designer?

I took my Landrover out for a drive one day and a mouse poked his nose out from behind the speedo pod.