Ferdinand

Imo you either make it impossible for them to get under eg slab, sharp gravel, or wire the ground; and have no gap. Or perhaps box it in for storage. Or you make it big enough that you can get them out easily with eg a power hose, and it does not feel like shelter.

ASAP probably does not have a place in the construction vocabulary. ASAPB, now ... " ... But ... " is probably quite familiar to us all. F

Has @Onoff got his windows in yet? Can we defenestrate him for that joke? On LPG, we used to have one for cooking .. family of 4 on electric AGA with gas hob ... and it was roughly one bottle a year. I think it was the red one.

Interesting. I have found my local Howdens pretty good. Very solid units, and factory built saves time and makes it uniform. I find their (room not kitchen cupboard) doors relatively expensive, and I have not tried pricing their skirtings as I have a wood place locally that beats the best online prices. But I am really a customer with a trade account, and I have been doing only one or two kitchens a year rather than a lot. I think we need to clarify what solid backs to units means ... I am used to seeing hardboard backs where the construction is more like chassis plus glued panels rather than glued monocoque, and I have some units from a former Swedish company called Kalmar that date back to the 1970/1980s and are still very sound. Long story! But my current Howden's Kitchen has MDF backs of either 4 or 6mm in 18mm carcasses. Solid backs? Ferdinand

Intrigued by what a 'working Appendix' actually does. /nitpick.

Come less often and fly Business Class :-).

Is there a link as to what your Genvex does extra, @JSHarris? Do I just go blog digging?. Just set the LBB to 20c with the heating on continuously for the next week, and taken meter readings which will give me some numbers. F

North Falkland.

But spray hosepipes are so mch more fun...

@JSHarris - do you have a link on a recommended model?

No. It is in one of the houses done by Peter Aldington at Turn End in about 1968, which is listed and so a basically original interior. It is a piccie from a rental advert two years ago. http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-47209429.html TBH I would not yet be confident that it would rent easily around here - I think Ts are generally very conservative when house hunting unless it is a very tight market. I love the style, and talk about them too much ... I need to visit far more other ones :-). I'm trying to find money and a place for a weekend hideaway, which I would have more fun with. But .. like everybody else ... plots and money though it is less tight around here than some places.

300 is still only 1/8 as it is an average width of 350. Hope he means tapers to 200. (Sorry.)

Hmm. Where do the other 10 spare loo rolls from that bulk pack live? Will leave it alone until Sat, but one significant issue is where is your plumbing and soil pipe going to come out? The easy way may be to flip your entire staircase so that this cloak is next to the kitchen or the bathroom above. I cannot see any problems with that. Otherwise it it will cross the stairs, and require very careful thought about maintenance and noises.

Don't want to cause trouble but 400 tapering to 375 is 1/32 ie 3.4%, not a quarter, fewer bricks - unless it is not so high. If he has told you it is a quarter less in bricks or money, you are doing well if they stick to their forecast. F

I think there is actually plenty of space for a loo, washbasin and shower / broom cupboard. Philip Schofield too, if you like. It could also be made 900 x 1700 or so by dint of a bifold door and slightly longer wall part way to the end of the stairs. Speculating, now that @Hecateh is building a scale model of Hadrian's Wall inside her bungalow, I am wondering whether she will be doing anything interesting with it. That downstairs loo or kitchen would be quite cool with the stepped back brickwork exposed to carry a collection of something. Especially with the addition of a few coloured or glazed engineering bricks. Shades of rediscovered prehistoric tube stations in the North Midlands. I suspect that the retaining wall is behind insulation, however. There is also probably something about cool built-in furniture in that sofa alcove, just by dint of half pushed-out bricks, hunks of wood, and a futon mattress. Could also save a little money. Will have a play in Sweet Home 3D over the weekend on the loo / shower, whilst trying to avoid the stuff I should really be doing. Ferdinand

Do you have to meet stairlift regs on those stairs - looking at the plan you put on the other thread? How have you done it or is there an exception eg provision for a lift somewhere?

Doubtful whether it meets regs but at that size you could perhaps have a shower as well . Loadsaroom ! I think. A generous wet room might be an option. Can you post dimensions plus options for the door location plus where pipes are coming from, and we can knock one up. Have you not already got a bathroom on that floor?

Normally the loft. I think it has been pointed out previously that the heat capacity of dry is here air is relatively very low. If it is humid that is much higher. Does anyone have a calculation of heat loss for say 10 cubic m / hr at say 40 and 70% then. So the effect should be smaller than we might think. But that is one reason I go for HRV.

Imo not a problem, as it is constant ventilation so most of the time the air being pushed through will be relatively low in moisture .. unless there is an utterly constant source of moisture. Or you can turn it up to setting two or three or four.

If you need you should be able to get some way under 1 sqm. Go looking for layouts, corner loos etc . Useful discussion on this thread, and a few resources - albeit that is about tiny bathrooms. The design sites tend to cover both. Do you need to do this later ... if you add it now will you need a big disabled access one due to regs? In a tiny loo, it feels much larger if you have a comfortable wash basin that both hands fit into at once rather than a finger bowl. It is a bit like the psychological difference a larger shower tray makes to a tight ensuite .. which need only be say 1m x 800 vs 760 x 760. F

I have been using Nuaire PIVs since about 2012, and in the right circumstances they are excellent - of the PIV units they are relatively inexpensive, reliable and British made. I think there are more than a million units fitted in the UK. The famous product of the same type was called "Lofty". There are a range of Nuaire PIV products from basic (go in the loft to change the setting), "Hall Control" (change a switch on the vent in the ceiling), and various types of remote sensor / controller eg humidity. There is a model with a heater (500W iirc) in the outlet. They can be dramatically effective in condensation situations, and with single or old double glazing in an old house they can add enough background ventilation to make the problem just go away, or recede significantly. For example it may prevent pooling of condensation on windowsills in the morning, but it relies on the leakiness of the house to let the stale air and humidity escape. If you are well sealed you need to make provision to get the air out effectively. They cost pennies to run. I now have them fitted in nearly all my rentals, usually paired with a trickle / boost HRV fan (normally a Vent-Axia Lo Carbon Tempra) at the other end, just to make sure that there is background ventilation as an insurance, and the atmosphere stays fresh, and condensation doesn't happen. The supply cost of a Hall Control Nuaire PIV plus a Lo Carbon Tempra is together from about £400-£550, depending on model - plus fitting which is easy. For real crunch-budget you can fit a DHEV trickle fan or two rather than a Lo Carbon Tempra. Remote sensors of gewgaws, or the thicker-wall version of the Tempra, does add up to a couple of hundred more. The ones in the LBB were £280 + £150, because I went for the Nuaire PIV which can have a WiFi "is it being turned off" monitor fitted later (for £100 or so). But I did not get the extra module since I have never had the issue raised. For a larger newbuild or renovation a different strategy might be best. I think I would pre-install MHRV ducting and put the PIV where a future MVHR outlet in the landing ceiling could replace it once you have the budget in a few years. You need to decide whether you have the right circumstances, and how the costs stack up. Ferdinand

They are in and the architect and builder came for Christmas drinkies ?

You may find this 6-minute solicitor timer useful . Bail out at 5 minutes or 11 minutes. http://www.online-stopwatch.com/timer/6minute/ For this reason: http://skepticlawyer.com.au/2006/04/23/six-minute-billing-units-2/

Hmm. I make that about £7.5k just for the 13,000 bricks - assuming 21 high x 4 wide x 5 bricks per metre run x 30m x £600 per thousand. Where to start to reduce that and the overall cost? Tricky. That would have taken Winston Churchill three months to build (apparently). Since it is at ground level, can you mix the concrete with a big cement mixer or mixer bucket on a mini-digger, and use the other option? It will be more time, but may be under 20k. Or could a mini-mix lorry get on site rather than a full size concrete truck? It would take more labour but that should be under £10 per hour, surely? Ferdinand

What are you going to do with this, @Barney12? I for one would probably enjoy it. Perhaps a Kitchen thread and a Bathroom thread, saying what you want ideally and what flexibility you have, would be good, Starter for 10: these Wickes Everest Porcelain 600x300mm tiles have been available at about £9 per sqm all summer (13.49 per sqm + normal Wickes discounts + sale). And here is something very similar though not identical but from the same source in @Grosey's ensuites on the floor: