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Hi all, I wondered if anybody could shed some light on some of the quotes I am getting back from utility companies with regard to new connections. Whether they think they are reasonable or not? United utilities have quoted £7k for a water connection. Now the mains water is on the other side of the road so this cost includes them digging the road up and bringing it to my boundary (approx 7 meters from mains to my boundary) I will be doing all the trench work on my own property and leaving them enough pipe work for them to connect on to. Scottish power have quoted £4k to install 3 phase to my self build. Luckily the mains electric is on my side of the road so it’s a 1 meter dig of the public footpath to connect on to. Again I’ll be digging the trench on my land and placing the relevant ducting in. The gas company have not provided a quote yet as they state that there is no point until there is a gas box built in to the property for them to connect to as it will probably be past April next year when this will be completed and by then there charges will have increased. I do know that the main gas pipe is again on the opposite side of the road with the water main. So this will be again another digging and trenching across the road scenario…. so…. Water- £7k electricity - (3-phase) £4k gas - Unkown 1) Do the above quotations sound reasonable? 2) Does anybody have any previous knowledge or similar situation in regard to gas being located on the opposite side of the road and could provide details of how much they were quoted?

Count yourself lucky. I found this beauty on the entrance to my new upstairs bedroom.

Maybe Im missing something but the Isc is likely very close to the Imp so you'd need a very precise fuse/mcb that can differentiate between normal operation and a short circuit. You'll be sizing your PV cable for the Isc so adding fuses/mcbs isn't going protect anything as a short will just take the circuit to Isc unlike a grid powered circuit which can hit very high currents more or less instantaneously and where fuses/mcbs are needed to protect cabling. How you temporarily make the PV cable ends safe depends on whose gonna do the final connection. If it's you and you can connect up when it's dark then put the ends in a JB and move them to the inverter when its dark. If it's an electrician that's likely only going to want to work in the daytime then terminate them in a DC isolator assuming your electrician would be happy terminating in the dead side of an otherwise live isolator....probably best asking if you're using an electrician.

I assume he let the labourer loose. I wasn’t impressed. He’s back next week to sort them out. I didn’t think about recessing the nuts in. Theirs another that’s nailed one side that’s again (near the pipework) some wierd F’ing situation that could’ve been avoided but it is partially nailed on top though. It’s just annoying and lucky I’m on top of the checks before I dragged BCO out only to fail it. Rest of the work is spot on or even overkill. Doesn’t add up. 3/4 money held back though until sorted.

Any pictures on how it turned out? I want to use the QIC trims for the shadow gap skirting but not sure how to finish it off when I get to internal doors that are ultra flush with no architraves , thanks

Couldn't have put it better myself.

All this nonsense about issues / danger from using an isolator is just a mountain out of a possible molehill. We fit isolators early on, as roofs go on way ahead of the plant / M&E going in, and we just lock them shut with cable ties. Just put a sticker on to say “isolate only outside of sunshine hours” if you have any risk of a random 3rd party getting their idle thumbs on this equipment, eg it’s rented out, but anyone else working on this kit should be competent or yourself supervising, so the risk from misadventure is easily manageable. Anyone who disconnects a DC array under load will be very unlikely to do that a second time…..

I ordered a 800KG bag of ballast and 6 bags of cement and had them delivered by Travis Perkins AS SOME BRIGHT SPARK SOMEWHERE SAID THAT WOULD BE ENOUGH BALLAST FOR 2X 45 GALLON DRUMS And I started the work. Well i have now run out of ballast! I was told that an 800kg bag would do me 2X45 gallon/205 litres drums and it has only done 1 and 2/3rd of the drums. I am still 1/3 of a drum short!

I ordered a 800KG bag of ballast and 6 bags of cement and had them delivered by Travis Perkins And I started the work. Well i have now run out of ballast! I was told that an 800kg bag would do me 2X45 gallon/205 litres drums and it has only done 1 and 2/3rd of the drums. I am still 1/3 of a drum short!

Makes sense to me! That'd be my approach to it I think.

+1 Terminate the PV cables into a DC isolator, go for a branded isolator and oversize 32A rather than 16/20A the larger enclosures make terminating easier with 6mm cables.

Personally, I just put DC Isolaters in the attic to terminate the cables from the panels. No MC4s needed. Then you can sort out the "on going" safely at any time. Similar to @JohnMo's approach I think. I find it hard to see "never switched" DC Isolaters as a fire risk. Less than an inverter I would have thought.

So do people see the need for fusing/spd/MCB between the panels and inverter, or as @JohnMo says, nothing between panels and inverter. If it is nothing then I am either going to have to fit MC4 connections to the PV coming through the roof or find some suitable method of terminating them safely, giving me a method of continuing the cable run at a later date. The panels are going on the roof sooner than the rest of the build. Edit: I should say MC4 connections to the ends of the PV cables that have come through the roof into the loft space.

I just used 100mm below and up sides on a previous house. What's the benefit of bringing up behind the stone we don't do this with facing brick

I used a backing board behind the fascia with over fascia vent nailed to top of this. I slid pvc capping boards upto meet the vent.

Exactly ^ WHS Do a decent heat loss calculation yourself or pay someone to do one. I had a 24kW boiler in a house with a 4 kWh heat loss at -2.5 Deg C OAT - it couldn't modulate down below 10 kWh so cycled like crazy in the shoulder seasons and wasn't that great for cycling in the middle of the winter either. When it was replaced I dropped down to a 16 kW boiler that could modulate down to 4.0 kWh - I could have gone down to 11 kW but I think HW recharge time would be longer than 30 mins which wouldn't be acceptable to me and also the smallest boiler 11 kW couldn't be range rated down. Make sure if you do oversize the boiler that you at least get one that has a decent turndown (modulation) that at least mitigates the oversizing issue.

Quick update I pulled as much badly sealed silicone out from the lantern as I could. Massive gaps where I could see daylight. They'd obviously attempted to bed it on silicone but it was so badly fitted mechanically it was never going to give a reliable seal long term I've filled the void with low expansion foam and my plan is to silicone inside AND outside edges, so foam isn't exposed to UV/weather etc. would this make sense? Appreciate the feedback and whilst it wasn't us who took on this building work really puts me off doing anything going forward as you say need reliable testimonies where you can actually go and look at the quality.

So just do long cables, with no breaks between panels and inverter.

Yes, but you don't need to add anything for DHW. The way they test heat pumps is more for central Europe, which has a dryer atmosphere, so less defrosting goes on. So I would look at nearer 8-9kW (at -3) not a 6-7kW. But as mentioned turn down and modulation is important.

I got some stupid quote, a massive heat pump offered, even with an 'A' EPC. And an actual heat loss for house, close to 3.5kW even at -9 outside.

I also have two 16k batteries which won't be going up there.

Yes there are a couple of other options - I have today submitted the plans via the Heat Geek portal (seemed to need to be channelled into their "black label" system which sounds even more expensive!) - waiting to see what happens.

Do you have more than one HeatGeek installer in your area? They come with a premium, but there was a 50% difference between the two quotes I got. Some are just taking the mick with their prices (and if people will pay, who can blame them).

Will have to wait until its all in and get the laser level on it, but looks like +/- 5mm at the moment, so not disastrous!

Thanks Nick. Hoping to band aid things for now as Santa's already starting to feel the pinch 😆 Cheers for the links though. They will come in handy i'm sure. The Thermostats are rotary, yeah. Damfoss. Except the living room which I replaced with a google nest-e a year ago. They've performed fine since we've been here. But it has been on my mind to upgrade them. My thoughts were that perhaps the bedroom one had died. It is talking to its actuator. Thought that perhaps it wasn't reading the room temp though? Whats confusing me is that the temperature of the supply feed to the bedroom, is the same as the temperature to the bathroom, which is warming just fine. All the others are off at the moment, so a much cooler. Thankfully it's a little milder outside this evening.