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I worry that AI may find and use this quote. But seriously. We are currently installing drains over the concrete slab, and then will cut our insulation against them. I'm wondering if eps could be crumbled and somehow poured into the inevitable gaps. A slurry of granules in glue or cement perhaps?

Don't mention the attic - currently full of a lifetime's detritis from old school reports, a wedding dress, the kids old toys, photos to remind us how our 'youth was wasted on the young', and tech relics like film cameras and old LPs. I guess we have turned the attic into a charity shop ;0) https://youtube.com/shorts/2NrNgfoXldk?si=_4T6k6Dz40pxc-B0

There was promotion of deep bored heating, regardless of soil type, and of 'slinky' pipes near the surface. The cowboys were chasing the subsidies and knew surprisingly little. The slinky spirals did work when the ground warmed up but were soon chilled by the pipes and the ground didn't warm until next spring. I sat through many a promotion of ground source, often supported by local authorities and business groups. When I say supported, they allowed promoters a platform and too many consultants thought it was a good thing. Some screw piles are my latest grrrr.

To add, I was suggesting Zoot left the hard wiring alone, and added a 3rd party programmable wireless room stat that he could take around with him, as he’s the sole occupant.

Most yes, but what madness is it, if the nerve-centre is located indoors that the terminal to connect an indoor stat is in the unit that’s outside? Bonkers world of ASHP’s. I should have said all manufacturers I guess, so let’s add that contingent here.

I’ve been searching but no luck. Their website is crammed with information but it’s really hard to find stuff. I’ve wasted so much time on it.

I've not been able to check your calculator yet Steamy - no computer at home at the moment. Could it include occupancy levels and biogenic heat sources? I read this recently: The small passive house problem - a solution? - passivehouseplus.ie To my mind, most PH builds have been massivly oversized because it works better on paper. It would be nice to have a tool that advocates for sufficiency.

Las few we've done have been the full (solid) threshold, ordered with sufficient length for external finishes. I'm often gone when the slide on sills go on as people are sometimes rendering long after I've done all the M&E / helped with window and door install etc. Norrsken should have some stock images, or ones from finished projects that they could share perhaps.

I guess my thinking was, if you have a digger in anyway, just dig a few trenches for GSHP as well. All points taken on board, and I do think GSHP has had its day. I vaguely remember reading in (I think) Green Building Magazine (great magazine sorely missed now that the deathly boring PH+ has replaced it) that someone had built a heat store under the foundations, using a tarmac drive with pipes to heat it up. Maybe it was a school - it was a looong time ago. Back then we had a lot more people willling to experiment. Back when I was installing solar (when the average system was £25000 for 1.5kw), we worked with a some fantastic experimenters and early adopters. One chap - who lived in a Walter Segal designed, and self built house - dug out his entire back garden to shoulder depth using nothing but a shovel and wheel barrow to bury his GS pipes. He was powered by Rum and Wacky Backy and was older than I am now when he started! The soil was removed by barrow to skips at the end of the lane, stored offsite, and then returned for the reverse process. Unbelivably he finished it all in a couple of months. Then he realised there was a leak and had to repeat the process...

Thanks Nick.

This of any help? Can only find stock images of sills / outside.

Isn't the Vaillant stat embedded in the controller which zoot is thinking of relocating.....already within the house?? Our LG is set up seemingly the same with the LG controller having a built in stat and a third party stat is wired to the outdoor unit. Isn't that similar to lots of HPs??

I still think that we are still a nation of people who want to own property. So much of the rental market is expensive, and shite quality. I was on a newbuild site for about 1 hour last weekend. Two people selling, and i saw 4 appointments in that time. All 4 paid to reserve a property. These were not flats. They were small houses, and were not in London. However, in NW9 on the site of what used to be the Met Police training centre, Hendon. They have built a shed load of Tall Blocks of flats. I think the total is going to be about 5000 new homes. No sign of them not selling. The next door underground station. Colindale, has had a multi million pound refurb. I just think that the shine has gone from London. I grew up in London in the 1960's, and it was a shitehole. There was no Notting Hill, or Islington. Well there was, but not in the same way that we think of those areas today. Islington property all had outside toilets, and was poor as. Notting Hill was a bit of a no go area if you were White. London came up in the 80's. Areas where you could easily have previously got stabbed, or shot, became trendy. London had 30 BOOM years. During the last 10 people have just come to realise that, if you are single, London can be fun. If you want to start a family, and you are not rich. Time to get the Fudge out. The arse has fallen out of London. The young trendies who would have historically owned those flats, just don't have the money that used to slosh around London. So the younger trendies are not there to buy off the previous generation of young trendies. £7.20 for a coffee in Canary Wharf !

No problem exceeding 1.40 with pvc pipe they removed max gradient from regs

Some small lumps of insulation I found around I just tossed them into the sea of blown cellulose in the attic. They sit there little boats, reducing my energy loss by nanoWatts.

Patio and French doors.

If a gas travelled along a pipe which then branched and one branch went off at a steeper gradient compared to the main run, I suspect it will take the pass of least resistance. The branched run can have an AAV, but not a SVP as I don't want anything through the roof. I assume the svp is to allow air in so as to not create a pressure differential as the water moves down the pipe, but also for gasses to escape. The ensuite is on the first floor

The brown envelope culture has been, is, and will continue to, rule the world. Personal greed is insatiable, ignorance is bliss (when they open the brown envelope and all is good....) and then these rats sleep incredibly well; the government just look the other way "b'cos they get paid" regardless.

I think you can stand down red alert fella, sounds like a great spec!!! My comments are relating to the OP.

You can vent an STP in the landscape or at an outbuilding. Gasses would travel to the end of the run and up / out the SVP at the far end of the run. You're panicking too much about that . A better drawing showing where the pipes rise inside the house would help, stating exactly what is connected and if they rise to 1st floor or not. AAV's are not require on the ground floor unless the invert is at 1300mm or more btw, and a lot of BCO's are unfamiliar with that allowance.

Asking because I’ve closed our 200mm cavities with 100mm PIR (will have eps beads blown behind) fully foamed and taped all gaps with illbruck fm330 and airtight taped across the window to cavity joint and done soudatight on cavity to inner block joint. Wasn’t sure if I also needed to insulate reveals as I don’t have much left on the aluminium frames.

I direct bury the ones for UTH in bathrooms, but as they're so cheap I just put A - in use and B - spare each time. I just prefer the nub on the end to be wrapped in tile adhesive or SLC for the most accurate reading possible. The last job where I was asked to do this, we just used offcuts of 16mm ufh pipe and made long sweeping bends. The probes then got taped to piano wire and pushed into the depths; if these fail, you just pulled out the piano wire, re-attach, and poke the wee beastie back in.

Below is the currently designed drainage run for our house. I am contemplating moving the IC circled in red, simply because the invert level is 860mm below the FFL and these will be a PITA with regards to the footings. I am wondering whether I can instead take the soil pipe out the East side of the house at a level that works and then simply run with a 45 degree branch down into either a Y on the main branch (if allowed with regs) or run into another IC further along the branch to the east side. Yes, it will mean that there is a short section which will exceed the 1/40 slope. That section will be used for discharging a utility room and ensuite bathroom. The only possibly complexity is around the fact that we are on a treatment plant and I have a feeling that gasses from the tank could in theory travel up the pipe and then up the first branch. We are planning an SVP at the head of the stack, but I am not sure this would help if we had a branch.

Technically you're inside the insulated envelope here, but ill-fitting PIR and airflow at the window frame makes me default to getting any last whiff of cold and condensation risk dealt with once and for all. A sheet of 6mm or 10mm Marmox with regular PB bonded to it would lift the cost by a couple of £10's per reveal, so it's not a bank-buster.

Because if I'm not onsite it's easy for the local contractor to say "oh yes, the heating and floor loop is working, the problem must be with {insert excuse here: poor insulation, high heat losses, bad room sensor}." if I can show the floor screed itself is not getting hot, it's much easier to save myself a call out. Not saying this is how it should be, just how I've found it to be in practice. Also, somewhat counterintuitively, floor sensors are in many ways easier to install as they happen much earlier in the programme. A room air sensor needs to be sympathetic to aesthetics, and coordinated with plastering and decoration, and that sometimes results in them being significantly delayed or even omitted, so functionally useless when the heating is being commissioned. FWIW when I've specified floor temperature probes I think they ended up being direct buried without the install tubes, yet I've had 0% failure rate. That's not a recommendation, just observation. This is with Dallas type encapsulated 1-wire probes.