Kelvin

They don’t really work in heavy rainfall. Wife’s uncle has them on his Huf Haus. Nice looking things but slightly impractical.

Exactly. In fact the compromises have forced us to make decisions that have resulted in a better outcome. Necessity being the mother of invention.

Standard trench using insulated foundation blocks with insulation on outside and inside upstand and concrete slab.

Ours are formed from Jakoboard. It was hard trying to find formed alcoves to fit the space. They are taped, tanked, sealed then tiled and sealed again.

Think in terms of whole tiles and plan it back from there. These are ours. Are you tiling it yourself? If not my tiler didn’t want me to make the alcoves all he asked was for enough space be left behind roughly where it was going to allow him to dwang it and give him some leeway when making it. Remember it needs a fall to drain any water. Our tiles were all 600x600

You really want to keep this as simple as possible with the water going to one place ideally if that’s possible. My previous house was part of a converted series of barns. The barns opposite us had a relatively complicated roof with several valleys and flat bits. Rather than try and get all the water to run in one direction at either end they built so it ran down and in several directions and off the building down 4 different downpipes. Consequently they ended up with multiple weak points rather than one and all of them leaked. The worst was a downpipe that ran inside and between the walls of two of the houses. That inevitably failed and both houses ended up with water damage. The eventual fix was remove everything they had done rebuild the roof to get the water to drain into a single deep gutter either end of the building. This was also all done in lead as I remember. The only issue was access to clear any blockages. See picture below. This was after it was re-done. Every single hopper also failed at some point as they were made out of wood and painted.

I quickly worked that your local merchants only stock what they sell most of (if that isn’t stating the obvious). They might say they can order other stuff in but often they can’t or won’t as there’s a minimum order quantity. I had this at the start of our build with 300mm insulated foundation blocks. They aren’t stocked in Scotland as demand is tiny. I even contemplated dusting off my HGV licence and collecting them myself but couldn’t get anyone to hire me a suitable lorry. In the end I talked a local merchant into shipping me 7 pallets of blocks from his usual weekly supply from Mannok in Ireland.

I think you need to shift your focus from maximising a few mm of floor space to the best wall build up for moisture mgt, air tightness, and insulation. Those are the three most important factors.

Worth reading this as it explains how humidity changes over the year and the impact on your building. Obviously it’s flogging their product too. https://proclima.com/building_science/why_airtight/intelligent_airtightness

If there are no downsides, you can’t sell it, and it’s in the way why wouldn’t you?

While it’s best not to change designs especially something this fundamental sometimes you have to. We ended up in that position due to a major balls up by the kit erector and had to make a significant change to our floor build up 1 week before the screed was poured. It worked out ok and our ffl was bang on but not an ideal situation and extremely stressful but doable. Therefore if you have the time then take the time. You’re also not changing floor height you’re changing the build up to get back to the same floor height?

😂 It won’t disappear unfortunately. Fit some mirrored doors. 😂 But darker colours help hide stuff especially if it’s already a bit shaded.

Pretty much the same here. I’m not sure how well trained or experienced the desk based planners are. The impression I got was not very or it was variable depending on who you dealt with. Ultimately you need a firm designed quote and then work from there. I did find SSEN very helpful though.

Anthracite would work too as it ties it to the roof tiles. I’d also paint the timbers anthracite. Our whole garage is anthracite, which is quite big. Being dark it disappears surprisingly well. Attach a trellis and grow something up it to hide the painted bit.

Well moisture risks and how buildings move it through the materials over the course of the year is something worth worrying about. Arguably it’s more important than the overall tightness. I was also concerned about this so used Intello Pro Clima as the humidity variable check layer.

Paint the roller doors white and leave the brick as is for now. That will tie it to the house. Something like this but check with the supplier/manufacturer https://www.rawlinspaints.com/products/5158-tikkurila-panssari-akva.html

Not all electricians agree on these issues. Ours wouldn’t have installed the ovens on the ring for example. The Quooker can be plugged into any free socket. Ours happens to have its own circuit just because it’s in the island so separate from the induction hob.

Have you spoken with your electrician to make sure they are happy putting the oven on the ring main. While some electric ovens can go on the ring a lot of manufacturers state in the specs they need their own protected circuit. What else will be on the ring main?

Quite. It is what it is so has to be solved that way.

You can use the OSB sheathing some folk have achieved good results using it. However you’re cutting into it and fitting backboxes.

Where us the airtight layer going? You’re cutting through the airtight layer to accommodate the backboxes?

Is it running out or spraying out? You can buy hinged ‘flaps’ that attach to the glass panels.

You need to get them back to sort then.

Cost to heat such a place will be horrendous no matter how you heat it. Sell it. 😂 I’m inclined to agree and stick with oil and rads.