ProDave

Another issue I had on my 1930's house is they had used zinc soakers and they were corroding and leaking.

Bugger. I just paid a man to ship an mvhr from Lincolnshire to the Highlands. I'll bet he would have included a sink as well for next to nothing extra.

Ah, I hadn't appreciated the Misubishi unit and the Kingspan unit were one and the same. I have offered it up into position and it works out a bit awkward. It is fitting into the loft space above the garage, and to get inside and outside ports the right way round ends up with the filter access being in towards the eaves of the loft space. so I have to leave rom to get behind it, down in the low part of the loft to withdraw the filters. Oh how much more convenient it wold be if the filters were on the other side. Lateral thinking mode. What if I put it "upside down" that would put the filter facing out into the loft and would mean I could put it closer into the eaves. It's only a fan after all, I can't believe that would object to running upside down? Or is that just plan daft?

Does anyone have the full instruction manual for the kingspan units? And a simple question, which air port is which, they are labeled EA, OA, SA etc but none of those make any sense to me except perhaps EA is Exhaust air?

Hacksaw.

Energy saving tip for Tumble Dryer haters: In order to get the required "fluffyness" you do NOT need to run the TD for 2 hours or until they are bone dry. 45 minutes in the dryer is enough. The towels still come out a little damp and finish off drying on the airer naturally at no cost, and when dry pass the "fluffy" test

Just one comment about your drainage run along the back of the house. You appear to have a drain joining into the main run with a tee underground. I was under the impression a branch like that had to be made with an inspection chamber?

I will have to cost the anti condensation lining. In theory it's not needed, but would give the roofing membrane less to do I suppose. I wired one house that had a box profile roof that continued as bare metal beyond the edge of the house to cover a verandah. In cold frosty weather, as it warmed up in the morning it "rained" a lot under there.

I think the OP's question was regarding the fact a vented dryer extracts air from the house, so the mvhr will have to input more air than it is extracting hence it will be unbalanced. I am trying hard to make an air tight house so no letterbox, no cat flap, and definitely not a 110mm round hole in the utility room wall.

Thanks Crofter a lot of information there on that link. The only "issue" I can see with my rof at 3.6 metres wide, is they only sell the ridge pieces in 3 metre lengths.

I have a personal hatred of tumble dryers. Their sole purpose in life appears to be to make towels and socks "fluffy" which you can't achieve (so I am told) by any other drying means. I used to loath them because the thought of 3KW of heat just being expelled from the house through a hole in the wall was just "wrong" in so many ways. Thankfully our old one broke, and at the same time someone up the road was having a clear out and gave us a condensing dryer. Now although it still uses lots of electricity to fluff the towels, at least that heat now stays inside the house (the utility room becomes very warm now when it's on) and so I don't loath it's use quite as much as I used to. So condensing is my recommendation. I have to say the extractor fan in the utility room is the biggest white elephant in our house. It is there purely to satisfy building regs and i don't recall it ever being turned on, and we have never had issues with condensation or mould even with clothes hanging on a dryer in their.

There are a couple of us looking at box profile roofing so I have started this thread to talk about it. My first question is where to buy it from. Direct from a roofing supplier? builders merchant? My own roof on a rough measurement is a pitched roof, about 2.1 metres from ridge to eaves, about 3.6 metres wide on each side. Shallow pitch (I need to actually measure it) This is the first box profile roof I have done. It all looks obvious but here are my questions: I want to buy the sheets the exact length I need so I don't have to cut them. I believe the sheets are a standard width a little under 1 metre. I take it it's okay to "adjust" the length by perhaps a greater overlap on one section rather than to cut sheets. What is the "standard" overlap? 1 box? 2 boxes? or more? I assume the ridge piece has to be ordered to match the pitch of the roof. At the end (verge) it is covered by an L shaped piece. I have a 150mm thick timber verge and I want that completely covered by the L shaped end piece. I have seen these quoted as 150mm or 200mm. I guess I need the 200mm one as it has to cover the thickness of the box profile as well as my timber verge. What is the depth of the box section typically?

My gutter brackets screw directly to the fascia and allowing for the thickness if the brackets,it's probably 10mm from the fascia to the edge of the gutter. funny enough I am looking to order my box profile roofing soon so we need another thread to compare noted and see who can get the best deal. But my thinking is to base my measurements on the roofing overhanging the fascia by 50mm, AND at the ridge, the two sheets not quite meeting with say a 50mm gap between them. That gap will be covered by the ridge piece, but will also allow a bit for "adjustment" of the final eaves overhang if that makes sense. Let's discuss that further on another thread so as not to take this one off topic.

Remember you only "need" this if you sell within 10 years. After that, any warranty would have expired and therefore it would not be an issue. I paid for NHBC solo for self build on the present house in case we sold it. That expired last March so was a "waste" of money. I enquired about the same for the new house and the costs had gone up a lot, so on the basis we are building as a retirement house, not to sell, I have not bothered. The only bit of paper I am interested in is a building control completion certificate.

There are definitely regional variations. Up here they still give you SWA phone cable and tell you to direct bury it in the ground. Other places use soft cable and put it in ducts. (the only place I used a duct was under the road crossing)

Looking at that plan again: I would speak to No 12 and No 10. If they would let you run the pipe under their front garden and connect to the spur that runs up alongside No 10, then that would avoid all the road opening and traffic management fees. Start by offering each of them £1K for permission to cross their land and the disruption caused. Making good a front garden after the work has to be cheaper than re surfacing a road and the cost of the works should be less. Alternatively lok at the same crossing No 14's back garden and into the end of the run behind No 16

Yes look at what No 14 does. Presumably the plot originated as No 14's garden. Are you ion the process of buying the plot or have you already completed? Id still negotiating (and assuming you are buying it from No 14) make sure you get a right to lay services under no 14's land and connect to a sewer connection on their land if possible.

Do I take it, the answer from the "issue" you had a few weeks ago was the "wrong" result?

If I did that here, the hole in the ground would fill with water every winter if there was the slightest pin hole in any tanking membrane.

I have UFH (upstairs and dowsnstairs) with a Firebird oil boiler (basic non condensing) Never had any problems and I can't say I particularly notice the boiler short cycling. The blending in the UFH manifold mixer seems to take care of everythign and ensure a reasonable return temperature to the boiler. Unless you have insufficient under floor insulation, there is no reason UFH should be any more expensive to run than radiators. How long has it been running and how much oil do you think you have used?

LPG in 47 Kg bottles is VERY expensive, Just filled 2 of mine (used for the gas hob so each one lasts nearly 2 years, so long you forget to check until BOTH have run out. oops) and that was £150. I would not be using it for hot water or space heating. We only use it for coking because nothing beats a gas hob. An electric boiler on E10 actually makes sense, you can pretty well heat a well insulated house real time just by heating in the off peak times with no need to use any peak rate electricity for heating. If you are going to be moving 47Kg bottles about, get a gas bottle trolley. I still favour heating the DHW tank to about 45 degrees with the ashp and using an in line modulating instant water heater to raise it to final temperature if there has been insufficient solar pv to do so already with the immersion heater.

We had a SE involved in the design and BC approved their drawings and calculations,.but the SE is not in any way supervising the build. BC have inspected the completed bare shell and agreed they are happy it has been built to the approved design and don't want any further inspections until completion. so it appears you don't "need" an engineer involved to supervise the build.

It's not just random guesswork. the designer of my house did a moisture analysis that shows there is no condensation risk. It also shows a thermal time constant of 13 hours so it should not heat up / cool down to quickly. (interestingly the analysis shows on a hot day, the house will reach peak internal temperature about midnight) u-wert-berechnung (10).pdf

I never got a price per sq metre for the wood fibre board. the builders that built the shell supplied it so it was lumped into the price of the shell. As it happened I had to lay them off due to lack of money so I ended up fitting it all myself then employing the guy to render it. Yes the wood fibre board costs money, but in my case that is offset against not having to pay for blockwork and someone to lay the blocks, and simplified foundations. the fact it can be DIY fitted is another saving in labour of you choose. My argument was a blockwork skin and cavity on a timber frame adds very little insulation. This wood fibre skin adds insulation, and helps impiove the air tightness of the build on the outside.

Yes that's me. 100mm thick wood fibre board (Pavatex) over a timber frame, and a lime based render system straight onto it with a silicon top coat. There's more on my blog, but apologies I have still not copied over the early entries from the old ebuild blog. So a couple of pictures here for you: