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There's no thermostat in the garage. I'm not sure whether the controller has a built-in thermostat.

So bathed in warming microwaves. Non of us are far from a military base. I used to live and work in High Wycombe, home of HG Air Command. Now I am fairly close to RAF Portreath, and RNAS Culdrose. Would have to cross a 'radiation' zone to get out.

Yes. Read as many Ecology Reports as you can on your LPA's website. Read them carefully, especially where several applications occur within the same area - a square mile or two. And look at the relevant maps at the same time. Look at the author, the language used and the conclusions drawn. The sector does not apply standards consistently. In my case to the tune of about £6000. In haste - here's a reading list

Agree wholeheartedly. Always a very huge way outside my price range. Ultimately had my V twin the across the frame, and no chain! Please forgive the M/C-related hijack!

Depending on the controller it may be configured as the master thermostat unless it's just a time switch. Your sitting room maybe has no zone control it's just an open zone. The controller may be asking the system to do stuff based on what it sees in the garage?

Our house has a calculated heat loss of 8.5 kw at -2 but we put in a 7kw HP on the basis that it would be more efficient as the days of sub zero temps are few and far between and we could always run a fan heater or switch over to an LPG boiler if the HP couldn't cope. The HP has done 100% of the space heating since september and through the few cold snaps we've had recently with temps getting down to a degree or 2 below freezing. It worked very hard and guzzled eleccy whilst it was freezing but I'm hoping that the undersizing will pay efficiency dividends for the rest of the year?? An MCS umbrella/HP supplier wanted to sell us a 12kw unit!!

Fortunately a fair old distance away. However only a couple of hundred meters from One of the golfballs. Radar station about 50meters high. there are 3 or 4 around The outskirts of london. Used to track the planes into Heathrow. My weapons manufacturing son in law advises me that although not public knowledge, the stations are also used by the military. Apparently, that makes it on to the list of first of targets within the UK in the event of war. If that's the case i hope it's a nuke. I don't want to be hanging around. I'd rather be vapourised.

No, it's in the garage. It's a big house (so he says) so don't want to heat up the entire house/floor. Will test and remove the zones as necessary. I did notice this morning that in the Lounge (L shaped), the dining and kitchen were also warm by couple of degrees. So it's likely, I reduce that one zone instead of three.

In my limited experience It was b----y hard to do an 'invisible mend' on patches like that. I hope your patches don't 'show'. My experience was doing it myself. If someone else is doing it for you then they have to try to get the 'invisible mend', and arguably re-do it if they cannot. Again, hopefully the pictures are not 'telling the story', and it's not what I think. EDIT: @Conor must have posted his while I was 'composing'. He got an 'invisible mend' - things can obviously be more positive than I suggested. Good! And good luck.

We had that. Renders put another skim in the affected areas, not noticeable since.

Not on its own, but a few of them on a short circuit scrambling track will sort it out, and you can charge an entrance fee.

Bats are mammals, soft lad

Yes, it looks like it has washed off. A bit silly rendering in the rain.

Only read your abstract of what you intend to do. Does your incoming mains support this, there will be a drop in flow once all them bends in the pipes and the length of the pipe rums is taken into account. Effectively two different types of heating systems. Not a problem as suck, but needs a bit of careful thought re flow rates, flow temperatures emitter areas and the different heat distribution within a room i.e. where the radiators are located. As I am sure you have read from people that run their HPs efficiently, they are effectively 'on' all the time, so room usage is just a distraction. Treat it as a room that is always at 21°C. (maybe a slight setback at night). Fit as much as you can by all means, the marginal costs difference is minor, and maybe negative. Don't think there will be need for additional wiring, but it does depend on if it is an AC or DC coupled system. Initially get a suitable inverter for your capacity that is acceptable to your DNO i.e. how many amps you can connect per phase. Worry about battery storage when you build the second house, the energy market will have changed (again) by then. You have to fit one, so no point fretting about it. If you put the cabling into conduit, you can fit another cable into it for battery storage (EV charge points are usually in a garage, where batteries may go in the future). Bet that is (expletive deleted)ing noisy, fit quadruple glazing. As an after thought, and replying to this This is why some of us have to do the right thing, we cannot rely on others. It also stops them having to know anything.

Hard to tell from a photo, but based on what I seem to see yes, I think I'd be a bit concerned. The 'bald patches' look like... well, bald patches, where the grit has not spread evenly. But maybe I am seeing what's not actually there... Are the 'bald' patches smooth?

A bit off topic, but I know of no instance where a domestic dwelling in the UK ever suffered structural failure via steel losing strength in a fire.

That's because the design, installation and commissioning is shite, not because heat pumps don't work. Unfortunately, you only really hear about the bad stuff, and the made up nonsense about how they don't work. I recently did the design and installation at an old house where half of it has 600mm uninsulated stone walls and the other half okay insulation badly detailed. They were having a load of renovation work being done and when the owner was telling the trades including plumbers I was coming to fit a heat pump, they were all negative saying it would never work bla bla. Did the install and the trades came back to do the finishing work and never stopped commenting on how warm the house was..... the owner is delighted saying the house has never been so comfortable. I know I'm blowing my own trumpet but there are plenty of genuine good installers out there that do a proper job and leave their customers very happy. However, I understand your worries. I'm here now as a designer and installer of heat pumps because I couldn't find anyone I could trust to do the design and install in our house. I first went down the route of installing a gas boiler myself and have just swapped this out for a heat pump. I have to say, the heat pump is just so much better by a mile. With your calcuated heat loss you can have something very simple, as @JohnMo says, and it can be very efficient. Now, I know that the BUS Grant is a prickly thing here on BH, but the idea that this just leads to price gouging by installer is IMHO, just nonsense. People need to properly run through the figures to understand why this is nonsense. For example, in the job above, the materials list for the whole job came in at more than £11k ex VAT without any uplift for me. If you're getting someone in to do the whole design and installation, the extra £7500 is something worth having as long as they're a good installer.

Part ex that for a husqvarna robot mower and sit back of an evening with a cold drink and think of the poor bastards going up and down with the racket of a 2 stroke, having to stop every few rows to dump the grass out of the hopper thinking every time - that piles getting bigger, what the hell are w3 going to do with that....

So the first house you build is a spec development. Buyers will not be very interested in the heating system, EPC score or airtightness, just location, what it looks like, number of bedrooms and price. People are used to gas boiler and rads, so unless ASHP and UFH are cheaper, think twice. You will need a design stage SAP NOW! This will inform the minimum level insulation, heating system, hot water and airtightness needed for you to get Building Regs. Do it for as little money as possible.

You might want to ask the builders merchants for a price on the Keylite equivalent, probably quite a bit cheaper and still good quality.

It's a job for a ride-on brush-cutter, a walk behind rotovator is unlikely to handle it and leave you a lot more work to do to get just grass growing.

Not sure how far this chap would travel, but he was very reasonable for me. John Dobson, Essex Mammal Surveys. (He does bats too) https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-dobson-1a7b315a/?originalSubdomain=uk Alternately, look for other surveys submitted for applications on your LPA portal and go with someone not to grand, that tends not to find anything that requires further investigation.

Why do vented cylinders need pumps? Other than the circulator in the boiler/HP there's no additional pump needed because the cylinder is vented??

Thanks @JohnMo That's much more in my language. Thank you.

I'd like most of it to be short grass, i did buy a ride on mower after all. The wife wants a wild flower meadow for part of it. The land slopes right to left slightly and away from the house also. Its about 50 metres down to the bottom of the garden with fabulous views across the Beane valley. Yes sort of. Where the previous grass & brush cuttings have not been cleared away and just left in clumps randomly they have then sprouted up from those piles. Its now too difficult to get a mountfield ride on mower over it effectively. Hence me thinking a large Rotivator might chop the clumps up.