ProDave

It is very variable. Our stove was just under £1000, ex display model on sale at less than list price. The long length of twin wall flue cost over £1000

Why would you spend £3K on a stove or does that include the flue as well (which is likely to cost more than the stove)? Our Mendip Churchill makes those sort of clicking noises as it heats up from cold but once going and stable that all stops.

Steel wire armoured cable, buried direct if you like, at each light point bring it up to a waterproof junction box and loop on to the next one. you need a big enough junction box to get 3 waterproof glands into the bottom.

But my point is why do it this way? In our house, and many others I have worked on, the posi joists span onto the top of the wall. Whatever is above sits on the top of the posis joists. Only in a few select places is a short length of glulam inserted to fill the space between joists, for instance where the cripple studs supporting the ridge beam land. The construction in the OP is elegand and simple but makes it a bugger for services so somebody at the design stage must have thought about that and have an answer. Ours probably has 150mm studs due to the height of the upper section all the way up to the ridge beam.

I agree with the others above that you should consult the engineer that designed it. Several things seem odd to me about that construction. The Glulam is not acting as a beam in the conventional way with a support at each end and a load in the middle. It appears to be in compression (vertically) supporting the load above down onto the load bearing wall, and that bit of it to me suggests you could cut a dirty great hole in it without anything falling down. I would want to know why it was done like that. In a similar situation I usually (and in our own house) just see the joist ends extending onto the top of the wall, not being hung from a glulam like this. It seems to make the construction more complicated. I would want to know why. As i said before you are going to want a lot more than just one soil pipe through there. The other thing that strikes me as odd is the supporting wall is made of 89mm studs. That seems very small. I wonder if this glulam beam is what enables the load bearing wall to be so thin and that is it's main purpose? Was there a reason for this wall to be made so thin? (our two internal load bearing walls are 150mm)

That's very neat, I would have been happy for that as the control cabinet for a small machine. Just make sure you document it all or the next owner will not be speaking highly of you.

I would say yes. In a similar situation in my own build, I don't have the solid glulam there, just isolated pieces of it directly under point loads like the supports to the ridge beam. You are probably going to want to drill that a lot more for cables, pipes and MVHR ducts.

Mine is working just fine with 48 degree hot water feed.

For me, the deal is good news. I will hopefully shortly be ordering the windows for our Sun Room, something I was unable to manage in 2020. I was not looking forward to the prospect of having to pay tarrifs on windows imported from the EU. Hopefully this deal means everything remains the same with no cost impact on our window purchase.

If you have the water temperature set point at 40 degrees and it's only currently achieving about 35 degree flow, then the compressor will be working flat out trying to get as much heat in as it can to reach it's target. And if the air temperature is only just above 0 with high humidity that is the worst condition for icing and the need for defrosting. Perhaps lower the target temperature a bit until the slab has thoroughly warmed through to make it work a little less hard? It's well below 0 here and strangely icing becomes less of an issue as there is no moisture in the air.

Ah yes microwaves. When we chose our appliances, we wanted an oven and a microwave that truly matched the look of the oven. Now when you go looking for "built in" microwaves there are 2 sorts. Those that are just a free standing microwave with a face plate fitted to make it look a bit like it is built in, and they look carp. The only other sort you can get is the "combination oven" that is a microwave and will operate as a normal oven. So that is what we have so it looks right. BUT there is no bloody turntable. I could not find a combination oven that has a turntable, and using it as a microwave you soon find out why someone thought it a good idea to put a turntable in a microwave. It certainly is possible to have a turntable in a combination oven as I have seen old ones that had them, it's just that they seem to be omitted from present ones. But why can't you just buy a microwave, on it's own, that is designed to be properly built in with the same appearance as an oven?

Google "the long wave goodbye" and you will see why.

12.5mm plasterboard is okay spanning 600mm centre joists with no support. At 300mm battens you do not need the OSB there unless it's specifically to fix something to.

On the subject of complicated ovens, I had to fit a new oven in a rental property. I recommended a mid range one from Howdens, the Landlord said "it's too cheap and basic" so I sent him to Howdens to choose and he chose one twice the price but boy it was complicated to use. the tenant said "why could he not just have fitted the cheap one?"

A bit like the loft ladder I just installed. Okay I was influenced by it being cheap, but all the reviews were good, I have never seen such a dangerous poorly designed thing. Once you lower the door and start to tilt the ladder it starts sliding down towards you and you have to be lucky / adept with the pole to stop it sliding down and hitting you. the last one I fitted had an elegant simple catch that meant it did not slide until you unlatched it. It never dawned on me someone would ommit something so basic and essential from the design. I made my own mechanism to secure it and make it safer.

Our vaulted warm roof has 200mm of Frametherm 35 between the rafters and 100mm wood fibre board over the rafters (as the sarking board) you don't hear the rain on the tiles, but you DO hear the rain on the velux in the en-suite.

Did they alter the flue? i.e. did they pull the flange of the flue forwards to allow for the brick slips, or did they leave the flue untouched and fit the brick slips around it? It is almost certainly condensation inside the flue running down and leaking out. What was on the wall before? Are you sure it was not leaking but just not so noticable before?

If water is regularly coming out of the tundish, you have a problem. The "solution" is not to change the tundish, but find and fix the problem. Most likely related to the EV.

I will just add to the thread the question, WHAT is the heat source? I only ask because if it is an ASHP they can sometimes be a bit more complicated and need extra wiring. My philosophy was to install the cables you know you need, and then one spare bit of 3 core & earth between each location for the bits you might have forgotten or add later.

A bit like this, but without the change of angle of the tiles at the bottom

Don't try creating a separate roof with a valley, extend the existing hip roof sideways. If you want to go less wide to keep side access then fine, just build less wide, and take the extension further back and wrap it around the back over the kitchen @Onoff picture above shows how to do the roof.

So now you are going to spend the 20 minutes and fix them all?

Yes he has used more cable, introduced more chances of cold air getting in, and made it hard to add extra sockets.

I seem to be in the minority of electricians that routinely runs cables horizontally around the room at socket height. As long as you have at least 1 socket on each wall you can run the cable all the way round at socket height meaning if you want to add another socket later at any point, the cable is there. I even had a stand up finger wagging argument once with a joiner working on the job who told me I could not do it like that and the cable must only come up or down to a socket. The main thing to get right on a job like this is the detail. As the back of the insulation will be open to a cold space, you need to be sure the insulation cannot fall out the back, and be sure there are no gaps in the insulation to let cold air in. It is very disappointing even on a new build today to find a howling blast of cold air come out of a back box when you remove a switch or a socket due to poor detailing.

That round black "plug" to the right of the fuse. Does it unscrew or otherwise pop out? If so it will give access tot he screws for the earth wire and there will be knock outs to the right of it. At least that's how the old style cut outs work.