Ferdinand

How do those numbers change if you have an in-roof version of solar panels and save 25-30% of the cost of your slate? F

LOoking at this page, suggests 8l from a mono bloc kitchen mixer: https://www.harwoodandassociates.co.uk/faqs/guidance-on-flow-rates-for-taps-showers-and-baths/ Useful looking numbers and I love his quote on showers: That may be true, but it also sounds like a bloke selling showers. F

I have family to stay at present, and we have had a slight water pressure issue, which has prompted me to turn it up a little. the pipe is 15mm. Just a quick qu ... what would a typical max flow rate for a kitchen tap be when everything else if off? it is a monobloc. My first measurement was 8l / minute via the mixer tap with hot and cold flowing. I have now tweaked it and we are now at 9l/minute. The mixer tap set to cold is giving me 8l/minute. Is there a sensible number I should aim for? Cheers Ferdinand

I would test there with a jet washer from a distance. IDeal if the windows are upstairs using the washer to project an arc of water, as there is a horizontal velocity component to the "rain" ... just as if wind blown. I haven't tackled one of these, but shouldn't there be universal robust details for something as common as windows and doors (said the giraffe)? F

Spunds like a report for fly tipping required .... ?

YOu have created an instant hidden door design hinterland ?. IT does sound like a LATER thing, but could be really simple in principle. IT could just be a slab faced bifold with a puh-donk spring thing to nudge the central hinge open, and a couple of magnet plates to keep it closed until prodded. Then decorate or ornament as required. Or a different custom concept may be what you want. F

Here is the first version of that video, with different examples: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9SqWcywqoGE And here is a video of the Scooby Doo door from Grand Designs, which is good but does not meet your need. WHat is interesting is that the bearing is a £7 effort that might be in any Lazy Susan. https://metro.co.uk/video/fbia-embed/1334563/ I think the takeaway is to work from the other end .. come up with something really simple that does what you want to avoid the techno-health-and-safety-thunderbird-2-as-heavy-as-an-elephant-buggeration that we are at risk of chasing up our own posteriors, then design the rest of the wall to hide or distract from it. At its simplest the concept would be to decorate the wall with a row of doors, one of which opens - but to do the same with shelf units or mirrors or panels or cladding or trompe l'oeil or a bit of this. AN example would be a lightweight shelf unit on a slab door on 3 concealed hinges that rotates away from the shelf unit to avoid clearance issues, then build 1 or 2 identical shelf units to one side of it. Use a simpler roller closure to keep it simple. OR if there are elements that have to show, then put the same elements on the similar things that camouflage the door. I quite like the idea of misdirection ... put the door exactly where a hidden door would be expected, but do something else that makes people lunge at another thing that looks like a hidden door but is really a piece of wall. i also like complete concealment in plain sight. I think it was GD that had a hidden door in a row of tall kitchen cabinets at the same face level .. the key was an opening built out 600mm proud of the wall behind. Or use an an element with a different point of interest that is a door as well. E.g. Place a door sized mirror at the back of your shelf unit to reflect a forest print or a window or another shelf unit to make it look as if there is another false room behind the mirror to create fake space. They think it is a not quite perfect visual device due to the shelves, then the mirror turns out to be a door as well so that there is actually a real room there. ANd do the unexpected. THere is a hidden door in this wall of windows on the first FLW Usonian HOuse: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_and_Katherine_Jacobs_First_House#/media/File%3AJacobs_First_House_-_back_02.jpg Which one opens? Actually I beliveve it is all of them. F

I think I'll be starting to plan the next project, which will be a self-do loft conversion in a 191x tall, deep semi. Have not done one of these before, so lots of questions to ask. It is probably a (very) less grand version of the house Paddington Bear finagled himself into in the original stop motion cartoon. And I will be doing some admin. Ferdinand

Welcome. A good time may be when everybody else is whinging about not having anything else to do when they do not want to watch James Bond or the Snowman in Christmas Day, and vanish for a Spreadsheet Nerd-Out with a cup of decent coffee and some nuts. Ferdinand

eg Compare Germany vs UK vs Poland. The difference in wholesale vs retail prices for Germany is huge. Fine - Germany is an outlier, but there are at least half a dozen or ten other not dissimilar outliers just within the EU. Retail 2018: 0.33 vs 0.22 vs 0.16 Euro per kWh. Wholesale: 0.0356 vs 0.0596 vs 0.0442 Euro per kWh. Ratio Retail/Wholesale: 9 vs 3.7 vs 3.6. Obvs there are issues of definition, and extraordinary political shenanigans from time to time or constantly (eg in Spain where retail prices do not seemed to have shifted much since about 2010 whilst retail inflation is about 12-14% and there is a corresponding massive subsidy iirc, never mind all the Solar Tax buggering about), and we do not know where France will end up after their current "Reform"-"Burn-Down-Paris"-"Cancel-Reform" cycle (perhaps exactly where they started). Suspect that the real thing highlighted here is that EU stats are not really "wholesale", but "wholesale after political messing about", and that Germany is subsidising energy for industry - whilst the UK refused to do so for large intensive users and we now have no aluminium industry left. There is also probably the hangover of Frau Merkel's (I think it was Mutti) anti-nuclear spasm after the accident in Japan, but that impact seems to be less than I thought, and perhaps also a residual headache from the subsidies for the now-gone solar manufacturing sector in Germany. Comments most welcome, as I think is probably about elucidation not basic disagreement. F

I'm not entirely convinced by this statement that wholesale electricity prices do not vary that much globally. Here is the graph of retail prices from your link: Here is a graph from the EU of wholesale prices in Europe in Spring 2018, which shows a variation of more than 100% relative to the lower price. (Source: https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/documents/quarterly_report_on_european_electricity_markets_q1_2018.pdf) And here is the "bandwidth" (max/min) graph for the EU countries from the same source. That wholesale price data is a lot of things, but consistent is not one of them. ? It could be the variation in quotes for an identical building job ! Comments on further post. F

Have a cup of tea, and fit a flat roof instead.

Looks great. Here's hoping you left enough space above for the huge stretch upwards of the Marvellous Mechanical Material substrate when you take it off ! Ferdinand

I would move the door in the “shower cupboard” anyway, on the basis that a 2.5m x 1m cupboard is better in wide not deep format. How many people have double wardrobes oriented end-on? For saving space And hence budget without compromising the essential function I think that there is more potential in optimising the master suite to save space rather than the garage. I have not got my head around it yet, but I think I think that the last 3 sqm of the Hall should be better placed inside the master suite, rather than having that door around the corner. The only reason not to do that is to access the big square storage cupboard, which you are talking about abolishing. I think you could get rid of that corridor-like en-suite, and have the en-suite and dressing room orientated north-south, entered off the space where the end of the hall is now, and have the door to the master suite in an end wall level with the wall of the second bedroom. I think the master suite could perhaps lose 0.5m or so off the north end in that configuration, which is worth a number of k on standard area rates. I also wonder about orienting the master bed east-west backing on to the dressing room/ shower, to give a view and direct morning sunlight. Perhaps include 2 sets of double bed sockets. Do you have a plot lined up for your daughter yet? ? F

PS I see you have one the see thru bit with the doors. Goodo..

I like the design. MOdern and rangey. My comments: - The kitchen feels quite shut away to me. Is there an argument for having it more open to the hall? I would want a view through from outside the front door, which I think can be done by aligning the doors. Or making it wider. - The hall feels quite large .. to me perhaps excessively large, and I am not sure how easy it would be to make alternative use of some of that space should you need. * - If you choose to save your 300mm I would consider putting it in the garage as added width. * - Gut feel but would more sliding doors be appropriate and more streamlined for the design? (*) If this is their potential last house, then perhaps give some thought to frail-old-people paraphernalia. Think, for example, how somebody in a wheelchair adapted vehicle such as a people carrier would approach the house from their vehicle. AT ours, the previous owner used to reverse his 4x4 into the 24ft garage, reverse his powered wheelchair out of the car, then come in via the utility room. AN alternative is to have a future design in your head for a car port or canopy extension to the porch in front of the garage that will prevent them getting wet. In our case, I find that I now have a Sholley and a Folding wheelchair kicking around near the front door all the time. We have enough rooms to keep it all under control but no suitably huge cupboard; that type of use case bears thinking about, and that will probably need to be done by you, Possible solutions are including an area in your porch which could also be your potential bike area, have your hall such that there is an alcove somewhere, or making sure that that hall cupboard is the right shape and easily accessible (full width bifold doors?). Ferdinand

Google thinks it is distinctive. He's already rented it out for the next edition of Psycho. Ferdinand

On more option is that B&Qs often have a free cutting service for sheet materials, so if you can measure up they will slice your sheet of whatever into the right size pieces for you. Then it will also go in your car. F

Given that the architect is from Bodmin, that may be a true statement. I love the idea of the " Quality/Time/Cost triad" - a comparison with bloodthirsty gangsters seems quite appropriate. F

Use your imagination. Fit a plumbed in waterbed.

Welcome. Come on. It's Christmas. It's Henley South-West, not Reading South-East. ? F

Yep, for many. FOrtunately on the main planning application I have done in the last few years, the only potential bat roost was an old oak tree in a hedgerow. I am very critical of a system which makes the organisation which is the main adviser to Local Authorities and Natural England ... and a massive cotnributor to policy ... the same organisation which gets its revenue from training Batmen. THey even run the Bat Helpline referred to on the Natural England website FFS. HEre for example is a course outline stating that the method statement in a British Standard was "taken directly from this course". https://www.bats.org.uk/our-work/training-and-conferences/training-for-arborists-tree-surgeons/bats-and-arboriculture-secondary-roost-surveys-for-arborists TO me that is a poisonous nest of conflicts of interest and the whole thing needs root and branch reform. In the meantime the setup Is imo inimical to the protection of bats. THis account is amusing but sobering: https://www.countrylife.co.uk/country-campaigns/beware-the-bat-mafia-8911 Ferdinand

@Hecateh I think you have now worked this out. There's nothing stopping you stick into a bit of trellis or even a bit of willow hurdle on the fence at the appropriate point to give extra height, either on it snow or with a vigorous climber. The only extra thing I would add is that if you are going to ask for a change via whatever route, it is probably better to do it reasonably quickly i.e. In 3-12 months not 2-3 years. F

I think if you work out your max flow and divide it by the qty of showers that will tell you something. YOu could do that now. Is your electric shower communal i.e. In the common parts? IF it is then I would stick with it as a crisis resource. IF it is not, then I wOuld consider switching to UVC as your emergency routine will rely on your Ts sharing showers, which is not such a good fallback. Personally I think that sticking with an electric shower is a good idea in addition to the others, as for a self-managed property you could be away for a weekend or a week, and in a luxury HMO you would get your nuts roasted. I would go straight for the accumulator, ideally for everything, but there is an argument that says you could just restrict it to a subset of showers, or even just to the eclectic one if the others are OK together. I think that allowing your builder to go on wild goose chases may, when you examine the whole enchilada, be a bit of a red herring ?. Ferdinand

And probably a rule of thumb.