ProDave

Can you not do both?

The reason you have been told you can't use spreader plates on metal web joists is because you cannot notch the top of the joists to allow a pipe to pass over the joist, and it would be nigh on impossible to thread the pipe through the joist at every transition. You can however batten over the top of these joists, leave a gap in the battens where a pipe needs to cross a joist, then use spreader plates and normal floor boards.

Before you do that, google spray foam roof insulation and mortgages. A lot of surveyors and mortgage lenders have a huge problem with spray foam roof insulation and many recommend a new roof as the only solution.

Working on job recently New toilet going in under the stairs, with a saniflow Waste pipe goes down under the floor to come back up again about 10 feet away where it goes into the bottom of a tee piece and the tee goes into a strap on boss. Top of the same tee has the boiler condensate drain into it. I see 3 problems: Condensate from the boiler will just drip down and fill the section of pipe under the floor and hope every now and then someone flushes the loo to pump it away. When the saniflow pumps there is a lot of pressure in the discharge pipe. What is to stop some of the s**t going straight up the boiler condensate drain pipe? Even if neither of those scenarios happens, I see no trap. Is there a trap in the boiler? If not there is nothing to stop the stack pipe venting through the boiler.

I can't understand why Australians, with so much space, want to live together in tower blocks. Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast was just the same. Utter madness.

Does little to encourage individual landlords.

^^^ That is why I am not volunteering. It would be more "complicated" if you flooded the flat below.

It might be worth paying a joiner to come and cut a trap in the bedroom to see exactly what the floor construction is, but it's not a job I would volunteer for because it has to be done very carefully. Cut too deep and you might end up with a big flood when you discover the UFH pipes are in fact touching the bottom of the floor boards and you have just cut through one. It needs a plunge cut saw with the depth stop accurately set to just a little under the thickness of the floor boards. Check his Public Liability insurance before he starts.

It has been sub zero here since Christmas. The ground has been frozen solid for weeks. Today it has jumped to +10 and feels positively "warm". All the snow and ice is melting but is not soaking into the frozen ground. It's running off the fields in places it does not normally and running down the road and presently down next doors drive into his garden. Thankfully I saw this possibility and installed a drain channel and pipe to catch the water running down the road and pipe it down to the burn, that is working nicely.

If you have a Howdens account keep an eye on their special offers, they often sell off end of line left over units or worktops really cheap. Just having a look back and they have had odd kitchen units for as little as £10 and 3M worktops for £30. All very much branch dependent I would think.

This just seems to reinforce the impression that as soon as you mention any form of "grant" the prices charged by the installers mysteriously jumps up massively, so most of the grant money just ends up lining the pockets of the installers and not of benefit to the home owner. It is about time this was investigated to see if the tax payer is getting value or not,.

WHY will it end up in the skip? Why not just buy less of the units of your final kitchen for now = no waste? Or buy the units that will make up your utility room, and use them as a kitchen for now? We knew we were eventually having granite worktops so we bought the kitchen units and a cheap laminate worktop. We left that worktop a bit over length for the kitchen and used it, and then later it got moved to the utility room.

Type of property, old, new, how many chimneys, what air inlet ducts are there, what type of stove?

A single house on a 5 acre plot. Surely SOMEONE has thought of the development potential? You can finally get to do your self build Clive, right next door?

Lightweight block used so it can be supported on a thin timber lintel above the internal door.

No chance. I have almost finished self building a similar sized near passive house for just under £1000 per square metre. That is paying a builder to build the shell and doing almost everything else myself over 5 years. Are you ready for such a long DIY slog to get it that cheap? And that is before you allow for cost of materials rising since I bought most of mine. And we haven't even mentioned land, professional fees, getting services on site etc etc

When I was developing our house on a similar plot, it was the building line of both streets that was the constraint with the planners. I started by getting PP for a detached garage, that went outside the building line of both streets, that was because I did not want to use up the best bit of garden for a garage. I won that on appeal. After that the extension, well within the building line of both streets was easy.

What is your location and what size in square metres do you have in mind?

If you are really SURE the sound proofing is in the wrong place, then it is a move out, floor up and re do it job, at the builders expense if it was their error. Get the builders to lift a section of the floor to investigate to be sure (and post pictures of that as well) Can you post a picture of the UFH manifold for completeness?

Where abouts is this located? It looks like a typical design for a Scottish house in the countryside, if so designing out the dormers might not fit with local planning policy.

Why can't they make ride on mowers with plastic cutting decks? Our present push along mower is all plastic, hoping this time it might be the engine breaking down that kills it not the deck rusting out.

I would compromise, put normal windows on the front, a bifold on the end of the dining room, and run with it, taking it to appeal if necessary. Perhaps later, could you convert windows on the front to doors under permitted development?

IF this has been done properly, there will be a proper under floor heating manifold with a pump and lots of valves hiding away in a cupboard somewhere. Have you seen such a thing? This particular heat pump system does seem very basic, very little in the way of controls, settings or readings, even the instalation manual does not give a lot away. Yes agree the above statement about sound insulation and UFH pipe positioning sounds very strange indeed.

Reduce the DHW temperature to 48 degrees. Most of us find that plenty hot enough.

Me and SWMBO spent many a happy hour scraping the horrible stuff off the ceiling of a previous 1930's house. Awful stuff to remove as while much of it was flaking off (the reason for removing it all) much of it was still stuck solid and took a lot of stripping. Wetting it with the wallpaper steamer helped a bit but just ensured it was a sticky gooey mess that came off.