Ferdinand

My thoughts @Crofter- I would emphasize maintainability and local service in addition to price, and deemphasie brand if it is at least 'acceptable'. IMO your guests want / need for appliances: a - Simple things that can be used with zero instruction, or no more than a flash card. I do not see them cooking more complexly than say a roast chicken. b - Stuff that works. c - A viable instant alternative if it stops working. d - A repair that will be in place to benefit the remainder of their holiday. On supplier etc, I would go for someone who can mend / replace the same day if necessary. Your guests will be paying £300-£700 a week (?) and it only needs a 10% requested refund once or twice to cover a rapid repair or better service warranty. On (a) and (b), that says "basic plus one". For an oven, for me that implies single, quality, oven, easily controlled and with nothing more complicated than a timer. A fan oven with a decent grill may be good. For a hob that means ceramic for maintenance, perhaps knobs not touch-buttons so easy to see "on or off", effective "still hot" lights and perhaps easy child-lockouts. Does it want a "zone" ring (not sure what they are called)? Given the choice of induction hob or pyrolitic oven, I would take the latter to save cleaning time for me in case they do something horrible to the oven. (c) I think you want a microwave from day 1 for resilience and convenience reasons, perhaps with a grill. (d) Rather than ebay and gumtree I would look at local suppliers on the Island or just off, where maintenance is close. Either a local independent if such exists and can do a rapid response, or a multiple if such exist. I am appalled that no one has mentioned coffee (*). I would suggest a large double walled stainless steel cafetiere (I have ProCook), and an Aeropress, which makes amazing real coffee in a single mug. Both are about £25. Ferdinand (*) PS Apart from @divorcingjack.

I think they are good for studio flats, too. F

Thanks. You can create Activity Streams to watch, or one of the forum gurus may reply. I'll stop there with one further note. IMO one easy way to manage your bedroom overheating will be to have a canopy of some sort protruding at a suitable height and distance to keep the summer and shoulder months sun from penetrating your window, while letting the low winter sun in. It could be a thing which looks like a modern version of top of the kind of 2 storey veranda they have in the deep south of the USA or everywhere in Sydney, or think of the way Georgians did wrought iron verandas in Brighton, or even an awning or fabric. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@-33.8847748,151.2141381,3a,75y,137.36h,86.48t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s0qkmkM0EqYR-QCJx3L3xkw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1 And I'll leave it all there. I had ideas about a double storey boardwalk on that side of your house (wild west hotels / deep south), but the extension makes it mainly moot. Now build it :-). Ferdinand

All true. The window is so stonkingly high that the 6" or so sticking out of the folded door should not be material - you will get enough back in the angled portion. I would make one out of corrugated cardboard or insulation sheet to check clearances. If hinged on the axis suggested with no changes to the opening it will be roughly 450mm one way and then 1050 the other way which leaves a 600 wide triangle at lower height which could bark your shins. That could be managed by eg: - adding 650 to the opening so it would line up, - having a narrow balcony (projecting Juliet) balcony if desired so that the triangle was flush against the side of the balcony and it is impossible to get past it unless you are in the prcess of defenestration in which case you would probably want it there - arranging the fold such that the projection is on the inside then creating a design feature eg built in wardrobe against which the trip hazard would be flush - have a third leaf so the triangular trip hazard folds back on itself. Lots of options . Or making the opening a bit wider and fitting a normal door and triangular fixed window :-). Ferdinand

From the HB&R article I linked: F

Examples of pivot doors. Article in HB&R about pivot front doors: https://www.homebuilding.co.uk/pivot-doors/ 12 Examples leading to patios: http://www.stevewilliamskitchens.co.uk/an-alternative-to-the-sliding-door-12-pivot-doors-leading-to-patios/ Domestic British at the house of Peter Aldington. This has been there since the 1960s. Photo credit: Turn End Trust http://www.turnend.org.uk/charitable_trust/ Frank Lloyd-Wright at Biltmore Hotel I am sure that Frank Lloyd Wright used them in domestic settings in the 1930s and 1940s, and finding some in Arts and Crafts or historical settings would not surprise. F

If you just want to do the window as is, here are three more types of door which would work fine ... 2 and 3 are perhaps much more straightforward than anything suggested so far. Both could be fabricated in steel or hardwood, and done in hardwood by a local skilled chippy with DG units from a local company (I would go laminated to be anti-shatter just in case). If you are sensible you would have a vertical glazing bar where the fold or pivot occurs for robustness and stiffness, and have 2 DG units - or do very careful calcs. The company I linked upthread may have the kits. Phone up and ask, then if they say no ask who does have them. 1 - Concertina. Bad Idea. 2 - Offset pivot - basically the hinge is part way across the door. Make larger doors more manageable. One issue is that your resulting opening is only 18". My solution to that would be to enlarge the opening to line up with the one below. Work really well paired as narrow French doors too. 3 - Custom bifold. You can do offset bifolds, where the track leaves the door more outside than inside or vice-versa. Again, completely normal. But I still say that you need to think carefully about the whole scheme first not the window.

I think there is value in displaying the island OS map, too, so that they can plan their day like Magnus Pyke, and see where they went. F

Interesting.

@ThePoplarsBrief responses to your suggested options. 1 - Rejected 2 - A door on a sloping hinge is a nonstarter imo, since no BCO (and you will have BCOs as a balcony is involved) will touch it. It will weigh a hundredweight - 50-60kg, and when open the corner will be 4ft out and 3ft in the air. You will need assisted opening (hydraulic or power or winch) and it will have to be failsafe and industrial strength, since that lot collapsing back could cripple someone. 3 - Rejected. Also UPVC would not imo be adequate for a door that size and you may need to do a lot to your wall structure to support such a weight. 4 - I think a modified 4 is one of your serious options - with enlarged opening, a normal door and a fixed light on the right. 5 - You could get a custom door from your local UPVC glazing company, a local chippie, or someone like Crittall (remember those steel 1920s-30s windows?), who are still going - or any other number of companies. If you have someone like Crittall your 10k budget for the whole shebang will not last very long . 6 - No comment. I think there is a very good reason why Velux only make them the size of a single doors width, and give you 2 or 3 if you want it wider. 7 - Out and Slide or Top Hung and Glide door. This could be done, using standard components when you find them. eg Barrier Components supply kits for patio doors and pocket doors and other things. http://www.barrier-components.co.uk/ But that would commit you to a 4m wide balcony. As to advice, you will need a Structural Engineer and maybe an Architect on board anyway, so find one early and ask them to use their knowledge. I think you need to consider more than just the window, and are perhaps focusing too tightly on that one element. Perhaps muse on how it fits into the facade, what overall look and feel you want (eg idiosyncratic, modern lived-in like Aldington *, or Shiny Shiny We Are Obsessive like some Grand Designs, or something else), and what else you are going to do, and then focus back on the window and what it needs to look like in the overall picture. If you don't look at the slightly larger picture I think this project could expand sideways of its own volition, and you may end up doing that anyway. To me at the moment that window looks uncomfortable. It cannot decide whether it is part of the upper half of the facade, because it does not match the cladding in colour and with that horribly untidy set of truncated panels to bodge the grid into the edge of the window frame; or whether it is a unit with the patio doors, but the sides of the opening are not in line and nor are the glazing divisions. I have a few design thoughts which I will put in a post later with the aim of provoking your thinking. And I wonder what is under that cladding. Why did they put cladding on just the upstairs .. to hide something? That is often why people render or clad things. Ferdinand * I listened to a presentation by him last week, and I am still reflecting on it.

Noted :-). We have a big freecycle group here.

If £10 (plus VAT?) is a TP price we should be able to beat that. Is there a Seconds & Co for EPS?

+1 Or a TR form will not be complicated for a man of the world such as yourself and you have plenty of time to wait for the LR to catch up. (Transfer the newts the other way?)

I cannot see an easy way. There is no reason why she should do it as any pruning will make her situation worse. The only option I can see is complete removal and provide her with a hedge or fence which blocks the view. Ferdinand

Not usually imo - because trees are acknowledged to grow. There is, however, a right to cut the roots back (subject to TPOs and you cannot seriously damage the tree), and a responsibility on the tree owner to be responsible for damage once the culprit tree is proven and if notice was served before the damage occurred. F

Or Aucuba (Variegted laurels)?

@ThePoplars How tall is it? How wide is the opening at the top? Is the full size of that frame on the right required? Is it currently upvc or wood? Is there a limit to the budget ? Answer these and I can do a fairly thought out answer.

It is a holiday let not a rental, and they may be different. Having said that, in most places annual checks are advised but not necessarily required. Usually kicking in in year 2. One reason to go integrated is that that prevents any arguments about 'portable' and designs out any requirement for those items if it does exist. One way is to go on the short course and DIY the tests, which is I think easy. Personally I never supply portable appliances in rentals; when I have they are gifts so T responsibility, as it saves the buggeration. Nearly all family Ts here have their own standalone white goods and you end up with nearly news in the garage for years; it is either integrated for e.g. young and pensioner Ts or a hole in the kitchen. @crofter are you still after comments on this thread ? Ferdinand

Where Jeremy has said "optimistic" some of us might say "overimaginative"

In our house renovated by the previous owners have wet ufh downstairs, with rads upstairs, and Elecric ufh in the bathroom and conservatory. In my view the reasons are: 1 - Simpler to do upstairs. 2 - More suitable for rooms where use will be intermittent. 3 - In the conservatory we added because it was cheaper and easier for an addition, and as a "heated conservatory" selling point, and backup for the adjacent kitchen/lounge should we lose the gas. We are well insulated but nowhere near passive standard. Ferdinand

Unless you tell him what to do :-). Particularly you may have information that he does not, or things in his standard methodology that you do not need. If you need to magic up cost savings from thin air there really is no alternative to sweating the details of the spec and build ... which is exactly what you are doing. Two suggestions: 1 - Keep an eye on things you can do or specify which will reduce your contractor's risk, which will then feed through into reducing the extra risk premium he has to put on individual elements. 2 - Watch for areas where you can safely go for standard rather than bespoke solutions and features. Ferdinand

Which is a flag to invest a little more time investigating further so that you can identify the way you want your house to be built. That is something that we attempt to help with here. One suggestion is to spend a few weekends away staying such in houses via AirBNB or normal B&B. At any time there are eg a number of Grand Designs houses offering B&B. Ferdinand

Since the conversation has broadened, I have changed the title. I have accounts at TP, Wickes, and B&Q and the usual "identify yourself" at Screwfix. Of those I spend most by far at Wickes, where discounts are reliable, and Screwfix. B&Q are useful for a wider range sometimes, but their discounts are a lottery. TP have better charges for small order deliveries for me (£5 vs £25 for under £200 or so order). I also buy a surprising amount of smaller orders via Amazon, nearly all under £100. But i have Prime, and bought a fair quantity of gift cards when Tesco had an equivalent 9% off offer on the cards. For me, Wickes are also much closer ... about 4-5 minutes vs at least 10-15 for the others in the same direction. When grabbing stuff in the day that makes a difference. I have never really engaged with Jewson's as their closest decent size one is further away. I could probably do a more thorough job. Ferdinand

If you need to find the mini water stop tap cover then why not try a metal detector?

I am curious as to what items they sell in Builders' Merchants in Lancashire, if not bricks? The story is that I need about 20 matching bricks for the 1960s Little Brown Bungalow for various chips, vents and flues to be removed and filled, and be spares for the future etc. As it happens Buildbase has our widest local selection of bricks .. perhaps 40-50 or more types in stock in the yard. It is a family company which is also a Buildbase. About a month ago I finally matched some 1978 brown bricks for a friend who had let her gutter leak and wall spall. Both me and the builder were driving around with a sample in the car, which I matched finally to something like an Old English Traditional Russet Rose (or similar words in a similar order) which BB had bought in for a customer who had failed to collect. So I had 100 or so at about 50p each. I still have the 1970s brick in my car so I went back as it us close enough. But BB have sold them, so I have borrowed a few from the former purchase.(*) So .. yes ... in Buildbase in search of a brick. * innocent face * F * The chap said he had actually sold more than he had got, which I guess means he forgot the ones I had previously.