All Activity

Not sure how useful that is in the real world. I currently have my compressor restart hysterisis set at 4 degs, any lower than that you don't get a successful restart because floor slab has then equalised in temperature and the heat pump has no where to dump the heat. So at a flue temp of 20, in real world you need what ever you are heating to to drop temperature down to 16 - that just will not happen. My WC curve calculation says I need to flow 22 degs at 10 OAT, but I think realistically I may need to set a higher temperature. It's programmed like that for now, if we get a mild day any time soon I can test it. I always find ensuites difficult to heat. We have the bedrooms cool, so heat from the ensuite just bleeds onto the bedroom. But even at around 20 they are comfortable as floor is radiating heat at you anyway

Well you will be by the time it is completed! Plan it carefully. Incorporate drainage along the back and through the wall. Design depends on height, what it is retaining and aesthetics.

How much is the huge fee from the planning consultant our was about £4000 and she worked with us for 18 months getting the plans passed. your not mixing up all the survey fees and other documents with her cost are you. the rest of the fees took it up to £16,000, but the actual planning consultant I felt was very good value.

Thank you, that makes sense. Wasn't sure why it has been factored in to an architects/planning consultants quote along with planning statement!

Your builder and their contractors should provide you with RAMS (risk assessments and method statements) for all hazardous works (work at height, demolition, lifting operations, machinery operations, manual handling etc.)

No machinery available There is some topsoil. Also gravel over, as poured when the build started to allow access for large vehicles. I will need to get whatever i buy poured and then thrown about by me. Done all my money building the house. I might reluctantly attempt to build a brick retaining wall. I am not a bricklayer.

That souunds like a good sollution. I was somehow fixated on using a timber batten as a bracket which aboviusly they where not happy with. Your sollution with a steel bracket I didn't even think of.

As above to my response. No mention of asbestos at moment but then we haven't got that far.

If it is for asbestos, the builder can get this done. What did they quote for?

No one at the moment. We are in the process of getting architect quotes, this is all new territory for us. One specific Architects wants us to use a planning consultant, which part of her huge fee is a demolition statement. This hasn't been mentioned anywhere else up to now and that's why I am curious when it comes into play. We will be employing a builder once the time comes to demolish the existing bungalow before starting the self build. We will not need a party wall agreement as neighbours are further than the 6M away.

It is easy, if named after someone i.e. Mr Watt, then in is capital W. Only use lower case capital, w, when using the full word watt, unless it is Mr Watt, or at the begining of a sentence.

If you put a bit of DPC behind the bracket, and a squirt oif silicon in the screw hole, how is any water going to get to the timber frame ?

I'm going to need a coach, if i have toget that many bods in. If anybody wants brown sauce, they have to bring there own. I would be sooooo much fun. The first drive would be spent with @SteamyTea trying to get me to get my w, and W,s the right way around.

It's to take the known (or anticipated) weight of the tiles, as it's going to be bathroom I spec 400mm cc or for the walls at 600mm cc to be sheathed with OSB. Usually the OSB option is favoured, as it means that anywhere you go to put a screw of fix a towel rail etc, there's something to screw into. It's also a bit better for sound deadening too.

Could that be designed a bit differently with one dealing with the majority of the space heating i.e. lower temp output, and the other predominantly for DHW and occasional higher temperature input to the space heating.

Hi @TerryE, yes, I remember you getting in around the same time as us. Good to hear you're both still enjoying your home. I don't know about you, but we feel ours fits us like a glove, and all the little things we did in order to ensure we can stay here as long as possible are proving their worth. Sadly, though Mrs NSS's lungs have stood still, her mobility has deteriorated significantly, but the house was built with the knowledge that that was likely to be the case, and that's paying dividends now. Many of us self-builders are 'past our prime' but if there's one piece of advice i could give, even to those who are fortunate enough to get the opportunity to build their dream earlier in life, it would be to think about what you may need in the future, not just what you may want now.

A couple thoughts on this: KNX is not a smart home solution, it's a communication protocol. If you want automations and phone or voice control, you need a home server / controller of some sort to run the Smarts, and it can use KNX as one of likely a number of protocols of varying levels of standardisation to control devices. (Dali, DMX, Modbus, 1Wire, and wireless things like Zigbee, Bluetooth, Thread and of course Wifi/IP are all possible) Once you've selected the smart home controller, and figured out what use cases involve it talking to the ASHP, the integration with the ASHP may be via KNX but I'd be happy to bet that's an uncommon and awkward pairing compared to having the controller talk something more natively supported by the heat pump (most often modbus RTU or eeBus) As others say, the use-cases for integrating the smart home and heat pump are not that compelling so it's definitely not something I'd prioritise over getting a robust self-contained ASHP install from a reliable installer. Here's a few things I do do in my install, but they're all in the nice-to-have bucket: Load compensation, SW tuneable weather compensation based on a forward looking forecast, TOU optimization, automatic "away" mode, automatic DHW boost when more people are staying in the house, remote monitoring and error reporting with automatic fallback to immersion and resistive heating when the ASHP fails (needed more often than I'd like; see above comment about prioritising a robust installation!), energy & COP monitoring. The one thing I *do* value is having the controller (Loxone miniserver in my case) coordinate the heating and cooling requirements across the house to avoid systems fighting each other; this can cover shading, passive stack ventilation, active boost & MVHR bypass ventilation, aircon, UFH, etc. But this doesn't need a very deep level of integration with the ASHP, on off control (and a way to switch heating/cooling mode, if supported) is sufficient.

To avoid leading any pentrating water/moisture that comes through the brick to the timber frame as per BCO demands.

+1 to Thanks for the update. We're all growing older. Jan and I are into our 70s now. We moved into our house a couple of months after you did. Overall we are delighted with our house, its environment and performance. We have mode one change: we dumped the SunAmps for a decent UVC, and Jan is now keen to do a partial refresh of the kitchen, because some aspects of the design really grate. I hope all goes well with you both, all things considered. It would be good to get any further updates; A few of us are genuinely interested. 🙂

Why don't you want to attach it to the wall?

Didn't say it couldn't control well with silence - it can, but you still have flow temperature distortion. That's ok in a mixed system with a reasonable flow temp difference but not in one with only a couple of degrees. Electronic offer zero distortion if you want it, so radiator demand goes, electric mixer become an open piece of pipe.

Who are you paying to do it......don't mean to be flippant but will depend on contract you have with whomever...if none of them has included, who is doing the demolition? For info we did our own statement for our party wall agreement You'll also need to get a demolition notice applied when the time comes.

We are currenly insulating and external wall with a timberframe and a cavity to the studwall, the goal is to not to attach the fram to the brick att all if possible. The crux is that the wall is under a window and then it ends at a door so no ceiling nor no side connection. Does anyone have an idea on how to build this without making it super wobly? I guess we need to attach it somehow to the wall but I'm not sure how to do that and make it BC compliant. To the left and above the window we have steel that we can potentiall connect to. Is there any spacers that can do the job or can the window board just do it all? Though that doesn't stop the wall from movin away from the brick wall.

Sorted.

Ugh. The only way I know my way round that one is - acceptance and then to become absorbed in something else. In my case self-deportation to the North Pyrenees and a couple of months walking west to east along the GR10. @Pocster's post earlier mentions his variant of the same thing.