KayleyH

We are at the stage of putting in the underfloor heating for our extension. Have considered nu-heat and polypipes but wondered if anyone has any recommendations. Many thanks.

Has anyone got advice on a particular brand of water system, good or bad experiences, what to watch put for. Many thanks in advance.

We have a 8 x 5m extension, things are progressing nicely and we are doing the bits of work we can ourselves. It is mainly timber frame (oak frame company) with a mix of brick walls and weatherboarding. And the 2 gable ends are weatherboarded. We are trying to find insulation to match the details given on our building regs drawings but are really struggling with the u-values and trying to find a product that matches the requirement ... has anyone else had this experience or know whats best to use .... details from build regs drawings as below. Many thanks for any advice. (W2) Wall Construction - Habitable Insulated Walls U-VALUE: 0.18 W/m2K Finished externally with horizontal larch, Douglas fir or cedar cladding fixed back to 46x72mm battens. 9mm ply layer fixed to 38x90mm studs with 90mm PIR Insulation between. Internally finished with 62.5mm insulated backed plasterboard to achieve minimum U-value of 0.18W/m²k.

That is very helpful, thank you 👍

Yes

Haha, yes 8 x 2.9 is one side 🤣 currently just at rafters, so battens and membrane still need doing.

We are doing an extension which is partly self-build and partly getting contractors in. Have planned to tile the roof ourselves but am wondering how much it would roughly cost if we paid roofers to do it. The roof is pitched, 8m x 2.9 m and we have all the materials, so would just be paying for labour. Any ideas on what sort of amount it might cost? Many thanks.(we are in the south east)

Can anyone recommend a lead roofer to do a flat roof for us? We are in West Sussex. Many thanks.

We are planning on having underfloor (wet) heating for our extension (approx 46 m sq). We will lay the pipe ourselves but will need a heating engineer to connect it to our existing boiler (radiators). Has anyone got an idea of how much a heating engineer would charge to link up the manifold? Many thanks.

We are having an extension which is an oak frame with some full glazing panels and some cavity brick walls. The oak frame company has recommended not using mortar to bed the dpm in. The sole plates just sit directly on the dpm. We are doing some of the block work ourselves and feel a bit confused with the idea of not bedding the dpm in. Has anyone come across this before or got any advice? Many thanks.

For our extension which is mainly timber frame but with a couple of brick walls, the timber frame company and building regs have calculated double skin bricks with 50 mm cavity filled with 50 mm rockwall. I don’t know anything about building, but presumed the reason you have a cavity between the 2 layers of bricks was so that water couldn’t cross from the outer bricks to the inner bricks … so I have queried it, and all the advice I’m getting it that it’s fine and water doesnt cross with the rockwall? Anyone had experience on this one way or the other … am hoping I am worrying for no reason, thank you in advance.

Further to my previous query we have had our foundation plans through for our extension (yay) and it looks like we will need to make a decision about an instruction on it. I will of course chat with the buildings control officer, architect, ground works people and structural engineer about the most suitable option, but that will take a little time no doubt as everyone is very busy ... so thought I'd get some advice from here in the meantime. Our house is very old, around 400 years old, timber frame. It had a small existing sunlounge which was added in the 70's. We have taken this down in preparation for ground work as and when. There is an instruction on the foundation drawings saying to check the existing foundation under original house and if less than 600 mm (which I'm sure it will be) then we need to either 'underpin the adjoining wall, use a suspended timber construction or use a ground bearing floor slab (with BCOs approval)'. To my (uneducated about buildings) eye it feels like the ground bearing floor slab would be the least invasive for our poor old house. Can anyone explain the pros and cons of these options. When we took the original sunlounge down I suspect it was on a ground bearing floor slab, as there was about a foot of concrete under the whole floor area. Very grateful for any information anyone has. Many thanks.

Thank you, that is really useful.

We had lined up a structural engineer to design the foundations for our extension and while they have all the info they need and have done a site visit the weeks are passing and they won’t answer the phone or return emails so we are losing confidence. A bit of a long-shot but has anyone used a structural engineer in West Sussex that they would recommend? Many thanks.

Realised I have put this in the wrong section !