Ferdinand

What's the plan for the house? If you or relations plan to live there then I think you will regret *not* doing it, as it will inflate the heating bills forever. And this may be your only chance. With Building Control, you are probably best asking them directly. I would just make a phone call to them and ask without mentioning the address. My BCO is quite sympathetic to constraints. Someone here may be able to advise on how to do it from the outside tout disturbing the plaster, and without costing too much. Presumably this is DIY - getting other people working on your roof is always expensive.

Don't forget the passive cat-flap.

I am hearing quite a lot about difficulties with people who have installed Solaredge. Are they there yet as a reliable supplier, who's product does what it claims? ( I already have Solaredge optimisers and rectifiers in my existing system.)

FWIW I have usually bought my units on price, and the best value has been somewhere like FastLEC. They are a very generic boxed product so I would just buy on price subject to a reasonable expectation on reliability of supplier.

Hmmmm. My comments: I wonder if any of that is a margin for your builder. Howdens branches compete with each other, so perhaps get your own account at another one and get a price yourself for the same thing. Perhaps tell them you are a small developer. I recently replaced a oven and ceramic hob for a rental, and they were a lot more than Appliances Direct. OTOH I once got a £1800 (in Currys) Rangemaster Range Cooker from them for £950 (*). I would not be using Lamona own brand (if it is that one) in a posh kitchen. But their normal (as opposed to granite etc) worktops were very good value; previous T had put one burn on each of them. I was charged £55 plus VAT each for two textured carbon-grey 3m x 38mmpieces of worktop. But that's a different market to yours. I've always found them good for my market, which is one or two levels up from the bottom but nothing like your level. It depends who you want to use. I'd suggest getting your own appliances unless there is a reason not to do so. And, if you want to use Howdens expect them to beat the comparable price; they are a volume business. You also need to consider your relationship with your builder. Ferdinand * - still in the garage if you are interested 🙂 .

It now has what it calls an intermittent mode (which is new to me), which sounds like that. I bought them initially for the trickle mode, which only uses 3W on low trickle vs 15W on boost and 20W on 'intermittent', and their third-off the price "carbon reduction week" where there is an 80% efficiency heat exchanger and separated as far as possible inlets and outlets. There's also some burble about maintaining a slightly reduced air pressure relative to the rest of house for something something something reasons, which I think is probably half burble but also a minor effect. https://www.vent-axia.com/range/lo-carbon-tempraselv And having a PIV at the other end of the house helps resist eg towels on radiators or the "what? windows open?" tendency. F

Welcome. You are the person who found the self-build plot near Oxford? 🙃

TBH Ioana, we are overwhelmingly residential not commercial here, so you are unlikely to get any takers. Perhaps try one of the Landlord or property forums with a commercial section? ATB Ferdinand

I've only just seen this. I'll add that I have been fitting the Lo Carbon Tempra P version (not the SELV one) for years in rentals (first in about 2013), paired with a PIV Loft Unit to give a throughput, and I have never had any complaints - except fitting a HRV in a bathroom. Because the air incoming is inevitably slightly cooler than the outgoing as efficiency is never 100% - so it is perceived as a cold draft by people just out of the shower. So a PIV might be next step if you need a gentle throughput for the whole house. Interestingly had a comment from a T today who pointed out that her unit has a Hi/Lo/Boost switch on the outside, which the early ones don't - and that her kids put it on boost, and that she notices the lower power used on her Smartmeter by turning it down. F

Budget: 835k. Build cost 2.2m. Plot 935k. Eventual sale price in 2019: 2.75m. Now estimated value by Zoopla at +1.4m over that. Bit of a bloodbath, and a rather tragic story. GD overreach. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/property/article-6959659/Grand-Designs-Isle-Wight-modern-house-price-cut-1M.html (TBF, that is about the same amount of cash that the Wagatha Christie libel case has cost, and not much more than the leader of Unite threw away going for Labour MP Anna Turley.)

Alexa says it is 12:05.

When I was visiting @jack in 2018 I took these piccies of a company installing modular lofts on a series of houses on his road. There is the name and phone no of the specialist company in one of the piccies. How have they weathered, @Jack? My hint is that you can consider gabled upper stories as well as normal roofs, which give much more space. Mine has one front to back down one side which is gable-gable, then one with sloping roofs and roof windows at rights angles to it. So I have 2 big doubles (one very big like 10ft x 16ft), a single, and a family bathroom upstairs. Ferdinand --------------------------- Bonus piccie:

Well, since you asked the only luxury is probably the Handpresso. 1 - Aeropress. About £25, and fantastic value. 2 - The Gaggia was advertised about 8 years ago as "local collection only" from .. er .. Beverly, which limited the Ebay auction to about 0.1% of the population. ~£100. Then they turned out to be happy to post it. 2 - The De Longhi marketing strategy last year was to have 2-3 different models each month reduced by about 60% online and the rest more or less full price. Cue allegedly £930.machine for £399. Not cheap, but difficult to grumble. And it auto-froths beautifully. I see that this month their largest discount is 45% off a £499 Magnifica machine at £265. https://www.delonghi.com/en-gb F

I have several different types: - a Gaggia Classico, - something from De Longhi called a Dinamica which is for lazy people, - my second Aeropress (think the rubber perished on Aeropress 1), - and a heavily engineered thing called a Handpresso that you operate like a bicycle pump. Quite appropriately I take the last one out on the bike. F

I'm feeling picked on here. A modern kettle *still* requires several espressos' worth of water to cover the bottom. And no one has mentioned hard water, which causes an old kettle to take longer to boil. There's quite a funny desperate essay on Huff Post explaining why it is being misrepresented: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/boris-johnson-offers-cost-of-living-crisis-advice_uk_6310ad54e4b0dc23bbef84de Boris's problem is that he has always had a mistress to make the tea. Mrs Boris' problem is that after some time on the words-and-waffle lecture circuit, and the mush-for-brains Yankee-Doodle celeb circuit (see Harry and Meghan), he will be able to afford a whole quiverful of alternative blondes. Slow Cooker: Check. Excellent. Air Fryer: not yet Worktop Pizza oven: Yep. Excellent for everything from sausage rolls to home made dough balls. (*) F * Recipe: Make dough. Cut into 12 gram balls. East with home made garlic butter (**). ** Recipe: Melt butter in pan. Add a lorra lorra garlic. Allow 15 minutes to steep. Put in small ramekin dishes. Put in fridge.

Ah McCloud. There is a certain incongruity about the setup these days.

Wasn't that chap an Accountant?

I must have been making Espressos which require several cups' worth to cover the element. 😛😛😛😛

I generally agree on Arts and Classics graduates and numbers. For some reason it de-educates them out of their 4th Form Maths - which is all most people need. However, my insulated kettle did save money, as it cooled back down less for the next cup of coffee or tea, and the temperature control allowed me to do coffee at the correct 90C, for example.

One suspects that that 1.7 mil would not stand up under oath. I'd guestimate that it is more like £2.5 million. I'll be streaming the last Tory party hustings first, not having watched any of the others, so I have some idea what La Truss is actually promising to do. What's this new transitive verb "to muff"? Perhaps I should not be asking, as I can think of lots of meanings unsuitable for Buildhub. Rather like the name I have of an online cycling acquaintance who is known as "mungecrundle" - which means nothing but sounds like an escapee from Rab C Nesbit's youthful love life. I'm aware of the intransitive version, but what is the other? Or did you mean "miff"?

I'm not taken by that one. I think the original subterranean 1st certified UK passivehaus (the one with built underneath the barn) is more interesting for that genre. Though the 'may partner was off work so rendered the outside' is good and quite Buildhubby. Ferdinand

Very interesting and comprehensive article from Carbon Brief: In this article, Carbon Brief sets out how and why UK household energy bills are due to reach historically unprecedented levels this winter, shows how the gas-fuelled increase in bills will push household energy costs towards £200bn and looks at the options to manage the crisis. https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-why-uk-energy-bills-are-soaring-to-record-highs--and-how-to-cut-them/#reduce

This is a claimed energy bill I came across today for a small cafe in Leicester: Picked up by the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-62727814

In the EU market both gas and nuclear are defined as climate friendly energy sources, following a mud-wrestle between Germany and France earlier in the year.

How will that play with the 2 years out price? I'm still of the opinion that this may blow over far better than the worst predictions - eg £6k price cap and so on - but still quite rough. I see that bits of EU stakeholders have started talking about a cap on the European gas price, and decouple the European electricity market from gas. I think that would be possible in some measure here, for a limited period, but needs careful handling - for national reputation for future investment. I wonder, given what France has done to EDF, how they will get on attracting investment in future? F