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Hello, Can anyone help with the positioning of bifold doors within the thickness of a solid wall aperture please? (i.e. towards the room side, middle or exterior side of the aperture). I can see there are various considerations, although I can't find much advice online for solid walls. I'd like to maximise the internal space in the room if possible, whilst maintaining good thermal properties, rain resistance etc. I've attached a screen grab of my architect's proposal (plan / overhead view). He has the exterior glass of the bifolds inset 225mm from the exterior face of the brick, thus the overall bifolds unit is closer to the room side of the aperture. Note the blue steel column / I-beam immediately adjacent to the frame. I'd like to move the bifolds a little towards the exterior side if possible to maximise the internal room space - I'd appreciate any thoughts anybody might have on the various implications of that please, thermal or otherwise. Thanks.

Apart from a lick of paint and a recent bathroom, the house is pretty much unchanged since built: Gas warm-air heating (ducts, and lots of 'em) with electric immersion heater for hot water Parquet floors to lounge, hallway and dining room which needs resanding, filling and sealing (plus filling the gaps left when we remove the warm-air heating outlets) 1970s kitchen, including sliding-door cabinets! Our aspirations are: Immediate - Convert current tiny utility and the end of the double-length garage into a new dining area flowing off the kitchen, plus new utility and (probably) downstairs shower room Immediate - Roof lantern and bi-fold doors onto garden in new dining area Immediate - Replace warm-air heating, ideally with something more environmentally friendly Medium term - New kitchen (self-fitted) Long term - Replace tiling on gable ends with cladding (possibly cement board e.g. Marley Eternit) Challenges are: Three-gabled (T-shaped) chalet roof limits possibilities upstairs unless we put in dormers (which we don't have budget for and which would be tricky anyway due to multiple gables) No space to add a shower to upstairs bathroom unless we make the small bedroom smaller still. Possibly considering downstairs shower Existing ground-floor spaces are concrete floor with no inbuilt insulation Garage floor is about 100mm lower and so when we raise floor we'll have to raise the roof too Extending heating to the converted area of the garage - warm-air ducts can't be extended (and we don't think we're fans of it anyway). Garage floor isn't low enough for UFH and necessary insulation, and we don't have budget for lowering it, so it's going to have to be a combi-boiler and rads Asbestos throughout (we've had a specialist survey) including soffits, boiler flue, roof tile underboard, boiler cupboard door, utility ceiling, Marley vinyl floor tiles in kitchen (only the last three of these areas are likely to be touched though). No asbestos in warm-air ducting - confirmed by survey. Budget for immediate stuff is £30k. Conversion could be £20k, leaving only £10k for heating changes.

In a 1960s Comic, this would be under "Droopy's Drippy Questions", but are they? I was just reflecting on big bifolds, and whether they would actually be necessary, bearing in mind that lift'n'slide windows only half open, anyway? I might be more inclined to have a 3-ply bifold, and a big window. That must be worth £1200-1500 off the cost (or could be spent on slide and turn). But is anything lost by so doing?

I think that the pleasure of living in a house is at least as important as its design and performance. The ability to get that right in advance from mere conversations with a client seems to me to me to be the core skill of a good architect.This ebuild blog is a conversation around this theme, named for a famous quote from Ludwig (really) Mies van der Rohe.My conversation starters will be details of buildings, but also details of how things are built, that I find interesting or attractive. My hope that others will respond with their agreements and disagreements.I have started the blog after a pointer from an article "Whither Fashion" by Caliwag from July 2013 to a book "A Garden and Three Houses" by Jane Brown and Richard Bryant. The book is about a small scheme called Turn End by an architect - Peter Aldington - who was unknown to me. Peter and his wife Margaret built their house themselves in 1963, and have lived there for half a century.My own project is to find out how to build an energy efficient 2 or 3 bedroom studio bungalow as a viable build-to-let, which is also a home prospective tenants want to live in. I have one that works well already, which I will write about in the future, but can one be built for a reasonable budget in 2014, and how? This is also a process of finding the right details and setting them in the right context.To add some meat to the first post, here's Peter Aldington himself talking about the house he and his wife built in 1963 and have lived in for half a century.Watch out for the discussion about sun and light, but also their perspective on sleeping in your living room for 50 years. And that hanging staircase goes to a storage loft.Here's a frame from the video. Yes - those are bifold doors 1963-style. Ecclesiastes was right, there is nothing new under the sun. (Note: I will embed the video if I subdue the technology, but for now please follow this link).