Ferdinand

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:

That sounds sensible, as the bathroom is the source of warmth. There is also a towel rail rad, which responds pretty much all the time - but I am guessing that that is plumbed as a bypass on the upstairs rad system. It sounds like the guy who renovated the house did it to follow the ideas of a traditional system. It makes sense, though, in some way as the downstairs bathroom is right in the middle of the house. The flows are indicating about 1 lpm for nearly all of them, fully open. Is that low? Well, having whacked up the boiler temp by a couple of degrees yesterday, but leaving the ufh on 24h on Manual, the temperature measured on the hall thermostat is now +1C at 21C not 20C. I will try a bit of crude flow juggling in teh next week. @PeterW Do you have a good source for those Wunda heads? Sound interesting. May need to alter the design of the screw on panel ! What was it you said before - magnets? Presumably that is the type of magnets used for cupboard doors. I have some Howdens ones left, which cost 70p each. Cheers F

And you can assumptions about the ground temperature from perhaps 1m down. I think a number of say 6C might be alright for calculating heat losses.

Thanks for asking the question. I believe we checked. Will recheck. Will also check what it does, since we replaced a lot of plumbing.

I think you need to look at each item individually. Unless you need a spectacular quantity or something quite technical such as 3G, I cannot see upvc 2G being cheaper to import. It is an inexpensive product, and I would expect a local manufacturer to be competitive. Ferdinand

My general opinion is that you should be able to save 30-70% on nearly everything, You will get 20% on some, but 90% on others. 1 - You need to be willing to accept things "similar" to your ideal. Less flexibility = fewer opportunities. Key question: how flexible are you? 2 - Legwork and being there, offline and online. I have picked up some good bargains at B&Q this year .. but their sales can change every week. 3 - What are you comparing the price with? I tend now to compare with the Wickes unreduced single price - partly because they are my closest supplier that I use most. Does not really work for kitchens, however. I agree that shed headline kitchen / bathrooms prices are meaningless. Perhaps a good idea would be to post a detailed longlist of all the things you need to buy on a thread, and we can see what we can find. eg I now have a set of bathroom suppliers / products I think I am very happy with, but it may not match your bathroom. I am sure others have their own "satisfied" lists. @Grosey's post-facto blogs have some very good thoughts. Ferdinand

Ouch. For a start, what is the "4"? Bricks, feet, metres ... ? Ferdinand

Returning to the tuning of my ufh system . I have left the system alone for a week, and it is running the house at 19.5-20C (on the manual setting of the stat), with heating coming into all the rooms on the ufh and delivering heat far better than before. That is when the general room thermostat (in the hall) is set to 21C and indicating 20C as the actual temperature reading. The individual room stats are all set at 25C+ to take them out of the reckoning. It is possible that the room stat is stopping the heating doing its max at the current setting due to hysteris etc, so my first step is to put that up by a jump to see if we can raise the temp with current flow temp etc. The issues now to be addressed are that the room balance is not quite right, and that is not going to be quite enough over Christmas - visitors will like it warmer. Say 22C or 23C. Am I right that my next steps are? * Juggle moderately adjust flow valves to give a distribution of room temperatures closer to the desired mix eg lounge is too cold, as that is where mum sits. * Set overall timer - 06:00am to 10pm will be a start. * Boost overall temperature by a couple of degrees. That may be where there is capacity on current settings, or can I do that by notching up the flow temp by 3-4C while we have visitors? Well spotted. But the strangest thing is it should really be the space where the room stat is . It's a bedroom according to the schematic. So does that mean that a "bedroom" is always-on or never-on? ie Is the open valve passing water through the loop, or excluding the loop? Cheers for any further comments. Ferdinand

Sure, even after Christmas. While there are different opinions around, we probably all agree that it is a complex subject.

The fitter spent part of a day this week making a small breakfast bar for the Little Brown Bungalow out of a worktop offcut. It is intended to be just suitable for eating breakfast, but also for charging, shopping-dumping, and anything else. The dimensions are just over 1m wide, and about 325-350mm front to back - aimed to be just enough for bacon and eggs, a cup of coffee, and an iPad. It started out at 400mm deep but the first attempt to cut the worktops at the 60 degree angle splintered the corners. The side-wings are attached as straight routered joints and normal worktop fixings underneath, and with a peg-leg from Screwfix. It just needs the end of the batten tidying up by a coat of paint. Perhaps next time I might make the ends of the batten a little shorter and more hidden. I thought it might be useful to have a photo thread.

Happy to debate that, but suggest the other thread...

It seems that Wilko do a Pick 'n 'Mix range of fastenings. The range includes normal sized washers (from ring washers up to 30mm or so), screws and bolts, coach screws and bolts up to about M8 x 80mm, decent sized cup hooks and ring hooks etc. The quality seems OK, but probably not for critical or external applications. You get a big resealable bag for £2.99 or a small one for £1.99 and can fill it with anything Perhaps a good opportunity for anyone wanting to stock up with a range of items, or needing a lot eg if you want hooks for a garage, or a supply of washers. This was £2.99, and is 2kg of assorted washers wing-nus/bolts and other items. I make it about 600-700 washers for a start, which will probably last me years. Ferdinand