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Aside from the whacky surprise it leaves to any future electrician working on it, I'd be concerned fire alarms come with a "test monthly" sticker or similar, and this thing frobbing off so regularly will decrease lifetime of the rcbo and relay base, and increases odds it gets forgotten and not re-enabled

Not exceptionally high, just 225 vs 178, so 47mm higher. Wall hung WC’s on frames tend to have this a lot higher up.

Any loose material alongside / under the pipes needs removing. Attempting to compact anything in this small void is completely OTT and (IMHO) a waste of time and effort. You’re far better off with the whole void fully filled in one sitting, as a single solid mass. Foot traffic is considered ‘light’, so fully encapsulating the wrapped pipes with 20mm over them will be fine. That compound I linked to is particularly well suited to this exact application because it has fibres in it, so it’s very tolerant of the tiny amount of movement you’ll get here. A wrap with duct tape will offer some more protection and ‘decoupling’, which os best practice vs just pouring onto bare pipes. You can do this in lots of little bits of tape and it doesn’t need to be perfect as every little helps.

Are we agreed thos could only ever be used in deep winter time, in a “passiv-esque” dwelling?

A lot of members here have been looked after by Trevor from Cylinders2go, and he’s also my go-to for cylinders and has been for a long time. Mention my username and the forum and he will ‘quote you happy’, minus the HG tax

Madness I know (IRL) and that was my exact concern. If I can buy one thing to be a maybe, or another that’s a definite, and the price isn’t hundreds apart, then I’ll go definite each and every time.

Yes SWMBO (as a fully formed fascist 🤣) is extremely self disciplined and charges overnight without fail. I am a night owl that then falls asleep as soon as I reach the perch, and generally absent minded, which I claim is because what is left of my mind is contemplating greater things - like what building disaster lurks tomorrow, whether the plumber will turn up, and the true nature of quantum entanglement. The other pain with charging cords is that we (well I) end up with them all over the house, and they regularly fail from too much bending about. As you say, a first world problem, compared with that guy in Lebanon some weeks ago whose amazing self build/refurbed house was blown to bits by a rocket. Fortunately rather than worry about that or how to get food, I can reflect on which is larger, a FIFA football, or my own prostate. Come on England ⚽

It’s a fair point if you want it to go off and stay off in the event of the smoke detector circuit going down.

Ours works well as long as you open all the downstairs internal doors to let the heat out to the whole house and as above don't put much wood in at a time. Fill it full and keep the living room door shut and you will be cooking. It helps that we have double doors from the room with the stove to the hall from where heat can go up the stairwell and it nicely heats the whole house. We only have it because we have plentiful wood. I would not have one if I needed to buy wood, and if I did not have one I would be giving away or selling wood for someone else to burn.

My son and I have recessed a wireless charger module into wood. The wood was made of lamination like thick veneer so the coil was only about 3mm below the surface. That worked fine. It's the top of a speaker in which we also put a Bluetooth power amp module and power supply. So it charges the phone while playing music through the speaker.

You need a stove covered in soapstone and a low capacity to slow everything down. After the first year lighting ours twice and melting, we tried the second time the following year. But now only add one small log at a time, turn the air down to lowest setting to still get a clean burn. Now that log lasts maybe 1 to 2 hours, the heat spreads across the whole house, 2 logs on the coldest day is more than enough. NO it leads to depressurisation of the house. You cannot install a WBS in a house with MVHR safety, unless it has primary and secondary air from outside. It is something the OP needs to think about and plan for. Where will they put the air duct, took us an age to find the correct stove

Not sure the price premium is worth it in the short or long term - yes you get a good CoP, but with something like Cosy tariff you can be paying 10p per kWh. A lot of reheats to get your money back. I have been using just the immersion for about a 8 months now. No intentions of going back to heat pump heating. ASHP has a simple life and you size purely for CH. A direct cylinder £450, HG £3000. At 10p kWh and CoP of 5. I average around 3kWh heating DHW - house of 2 people so 30p a day or £109.50 a year. At a CoP of 5 that's £22. So £88 saving £2500 / £88 so 28 years pay back. Add any clipping of solar PV in the summer and water heating becomes free anyway, if you time to coincide with peak solar production. Plus no CH/DWH diverter needed, easier plumbing, less wires. Simple immersion timer.

Thank you again, Nick. I suspect the original problem may be that there is only about 20 mm of cover above the pipes. I've also received advice suggesting that pipes under a slab would ideally have compacted fill around them and significantly more concrete cover above than I appear to have. If, after opening up the floor, I find that the pipes really are only about 20 mm below the existing surface, would you still proceed with the repair using the mortar you recommended, or would you be concerned about the lack of cover? Also, if I discover that the void has been caused by settlement of the original backfill beneath the pipes, would you: remove all loose material and fill the area entirely with the repair compound, or first try to reinstate support beneath the pipes using compacted sand or pea gravel before repairing the concrete above? My concern is whether pouring repair mortar directly onto exposed pipes is the best approach, or whether it's preferable to provide compacted support around and beneath them first. Finally, would you expect a repair with only around 20 mm of cover above the pipes to remain durable in a normal kitchen walkway, or does that depth itself suggest a more substantial repair is needed? I'd really value your opinion given your extensive experience with these types of repairs. Thanks again for your help.

That's another issue than the fire protection, but a chunky beam that is inefficient in normal use can then use that extra stiffness. Next time you're in a big warehouse , reasonably modern, if you look up at the rafters, they are likely to have diagonal struts. They're not for fire but show how stiffness can be provided. Likewise if a floor is built in line with a beam, or a wall into a column it won't distort.

Fixing it in the open position will guarantee to make your house hotter during the day. Bypass should only be used (and should automatically turn on) when the outside temp is below the inside temp. Your MVHR shouldn't ever be delivering 31 deg air. In normal, non-bypass mode, the MVHR will work to maintain any existing temperature difference between inside and outside. In summer that means it will transfer most of the heat from the incoming air to the outgoing air, significantly reducing the temperature of the air delivered to the house. So if it's 30 deg outside, and 20 deg inside, the air delivered into the house will be something like 22 deg, depending on the heat recovery efficiency of your unit. Summer bypass only comes on when it's cooler outside than inside. Depending on the unit, you might be able to adjust the temperature at which it kicks in. To maximise effectiveness: Reduce airflow when it's really hot outside, cooler inside, and you want to minimise incoming heat. Turn it off if you like, but you risk a stuffy, humid house. Personally I'd avoid that. Summer bypass won't operate in these conditions. When the temperature outside drops below the inside temp and summer bypass kicks in, bump up the flow rate to maximise purging.

Unfortunately I followed the advice. I told my so called expert planner that I should probably reduce and he told me in his expert opinion that the design was fine and to resubmit (this is the ex head of planning for a different council). anyhow that turned out to be hogwash, as I suspected so now I’m doing my own thing and reducing the footprint. I’ll see what the preapp comes back with. That seems to take just as long as a full application. the wheels of local government move very slowly…….. thanks again for the continued feedback. Much appreciated.

I'm hoping we have enough headroom in the attic for a conventional cylinder - something like the heatgeek HG230B6 which is 211l and 1560mm high - spec looks very nice but the price less so which means we may look for another option that gets close to that. Yes WBS is fed via an external air feed through foundation!

You just fit a room sealed WBS that sucks air in from outdoors. 👍. Sad fact is, folk spend thousands fitting one, suffer silently in protest whilst roasting to death, and then it’ll eventually become an ornament. The further irony is the several hundreds of thousands spent making an airtight, well insulated home, that requires next to no heat at 0° OAT, and then fitting the most fierce heat source that you can lay your hands on….. The heart and the head are two very different things

Not helping your question I'm afraid, but I have one of my own for you. We would have liked a wood burner in our Passive std house. I never considered the issue of the flue and combustibles...we canned it on the need for airflow to the fire. Is the MVHR capable of supplying enough air to meet the fire regs? Last time we fitted a woodburner we had to have an enormous air brick put into the lounge wall to get the installation signed off - not really on in PH!

Thanks, now purchasing a CO2 monitor.

waiting for 5 hr limit to reset whilst drinking chilled wine next to the pellet smoker. THAT IS A LIFE! (or perhaps need to get one?) TBF if Claude was a bloke I'd buy him a drink or 2. If she was a woman well....

I feel the same way, it seems weird to bring 26°C air into a 23°C room - except my CO2 meter quickly shows that the air quality quickly worsens if the ventilation is turned off. So I set it to the lowest possible that keeps the living room under 1000ppm CO2. This really isn't a lot of air, so I don't feel it heats the room up that much. As you mention, external window shades have made the most difference for us. We now have some form of external shade on all the windows, I'm sure it would be far hotter in here without those!

All well thanks…..SSDD……

Depends on how much time you spend in there? The kitchen / dining / living, open space lifestyle puts folk in that area for socialising quite a lot, whereas at mine I’m either behind my desk or I’m perfecting my ass-imprint on the settee. I have USB’s everywhere, house with 6,7, or 8 occupants at a time, so just leaving wires everywhere (lightning and USB C) seems to be useful here.

This toilet is worth remembering as it has an exceptionally high outlet at 225mm: Armitage Shanks Contour 21+ Back-to-Wall Rimless Toilet https://www.idealspec.co.uk/catalogue/bluebook/toilets/back-to-wall-toilets/contour-21-back-to-wall-rimless-toilet_p4015.html https://www.aqva.co.uk/Bathrooms/233963