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  2. Me as well. SWMBO wanted the vanity as clear as possible as the room is so small. So I plan on having this within the wall, with a window opening. Vanity over the top with the rear cut out so I can access. Sounds ok in theory.
  3. 10/10 for plumbing, but I am very much at odds with the location!
  4. PassivHaus is a means to an end. The goal being to tread lightly on our planet and minimise carbon emissions. In a way it's a little dated in the sense that to achieve that goal it can (depending on situation) be cheaper (financially and environmentally) to put more solar panels in than do some 'heroic' engineering to achieve a set energy use per/m2. (heroic in some buildings who's architectural concept didn't consider passive standards so now an energy inefficient form has to be forced to be energy efficient - not saying that's your case). Being a sealed box is overengineering, building to a passive standard case study of balancing lots of variables and moving forward with the most efficient way to achieve the goals. Over doing it likely just ends up consuming more carbon in building materials and a lot more money in consulting fees. Once you have a target, there are often multiple ways of achieving it. For example, solutions like Aerobarrier can bring low air tightness scores for much less effort than traditional methods. It needs a good base, but the most difficult part of airtightness is the bit that Aerobarrier does in it's sleep.
  5. Update: We got the MVHR, and disconnected the fan part of the shower light so just use it as a light. The house has no damp now, which is great. Takes time to clear kitchen and bathroom compared to extracting directly so it does get misty but not unpleasantly, we should have got a separate boost button outside the shower room but didn't think about it at the time. It's super work in kitchen and bathroom even early morning so very happy.
  6. We are getting slightly more than expected. Btw heat waves can cause slightly lower power - it would best with lots of light but not necessarily lots of heat. We've had an amazing 10 months since getting it installed, nice big payments from the electricity company for export.
  7. I thought it was interesting, do you work in the building trade? Although i do hope your wrong as i have used pir boards in some parts of the house!! I have spent years trying to work out whats best to do, i think not buying an old stone house is a good start lol. Thanks for posting, carl
  8. I may be wrong but walking about my house this summer in bare feet i think the sun is actually heating the water in the UFH by heating the slab so the whole floor feels same temp and my windows are not that big
  9. Beware the great (PH) believers, aka salesman. I fear you may regret this decision......
  10. fit UFH and if you are so sure that you will only need such a small amount of heat then hit a stick electric boiler -they cost well under £1000 and can give up to 10kw depending on size you pick I,ve got one here i got when we were doing a flat--7kw --but that did not happen so happy to sell you it cheap BNIB
  11. In some cases. Definitely easier for a developer, housing association, etc, where the design costs can be spread over multiple properties. Not an uncommon situation. I'd guess the majority of self builders who want to design to passivhaus standards fit in this category (though sounds like your issue with the door is a bit exceptional, either bad advice or just bad timing - needing to meet a specific but also new spec - regs on fire doors have been changed recently and maybe the market hasn't caught up yet).
  12. Yep, even in Somerset. UFH is so cheap to install, why wouldn't you, insurance even if not connected. Good for cooling as well. Passivhaus still allows 10W/m² for heating demand so a 200m² house that's still 2kW heat demand on the coldest day (48kWh). I would rather that supplied via the floor than and electric panel heater being moved about. Sensible in ALL houses
  13. would it be easier to get a handle on it if someone can put number of kW a year for a passiv cert house and a good non passiv house of same size then it would be easy to work out if extra costs are really worth it you can then work out actual costs using a fixed price unit when I have tried to compare other peoples energy bill with mine in the past it always falls down on they run there house colder or hotter than i do or don,t heat all the rooms or don,t have same appliances or use them the same amount so a real comparison is not possible you need fixed temp in the calc in all rooms for it to be meaningful
  14. Can I just use cavity batts cut down in the same way do you think? Or must they been sleeved for some reason? I guess something is needed to stop anything going down there, birds etc. Not that I can imagine how they'd get in once its finished.
  15. Update: I received an email today from HMRC requesting 10 invoices, the 9 largest plus, oddly, the 12 largest by VAT amount. It's a bit tedious finding and uploading the pdfs requested, but that's all done now so fingers-crossed it all progresses smoothly from here. 5 weeks to wait if there arte no issues, apparently. On the plus side, HMRC must be satisfied by our answer to their planning query. Also, the helpful agent I spoke to yesterday was spot-on with his comment that our claim was about to be looked at (or else he pulled it from the list and got it looked at, if we're taking a cynical view!).
  16. Very much sort of passive @JohnMo. But we are trying our best to fully buy in to the concept when mentally we're still old school bricks and mortar, heating systems, opening windows - so we're doing loads of stuff that's way outside our comfort zone. Eg We wont have a heating system - which seems bonkers - but we're trying to buy in to the numbers that say it wont be required. As you read, my point about our old house was that as "pioneers" in GSHP we took some costs on the chin but installed something that looked like a good thing to have and would work well for us. Obvs in the intervening decade and a half things move on. Most of that stuff is old hat now and much more "normal" costings. I realise there is a much more economical way - with stuff like @Oz07 and others suggest. But that to me is national Housebuilder approach. What is the minimum I can get away with and still apply a "label". My approach is the opposite. eg The concept demands airtightness. So to me the ideal is airtight. Because that's very hard and as always the few % cost a lot, you can get a certificate if you hit a certain number so why not just hit the number. Well because its possible to do it better than that so why wouldn't you? I'm not interested in certificates or labels I want to experience the concept working at its best. This thread is about the current additional cost of going passiv. Some are arguing its a minimal uplift. I'm saying I'm seeing some huge numbers to make the jump. You're arguing that I'm just being daft and doing it all wrong. All of that likely to be true.
  17. That's probably the passive one i was quoted just over £2k for. That's £5k for a bit of paper. quite a racket! Lathams got the fire safety certificate for me, that shows the "smoke tightness classification" from Moralt in Germnay. It was all in Germnay but building inspector accepted it.
  18. £100 an hour with operator
  19. @MPx is this Passivhaus or "a passivhaus" as certified or sort of a Passivhaus? ASHP is now about £2k for a 4kW Hiaer. UFH shouldn't cost more than £1k. Do a direct UVC for domestic hot water, about £600. £60k is a lifetime of direct electric heating on a decent tariff.
  20. No remote operation away from home, but we ended up with theses or very similar from Hometherm. https://www.hometherm.de/rondo-NG_en.php Fine for us, on 1.5 hr morning and night heating to 50 c dries towels nicely. Main fault is they have to be reset after power cut , no matter how short.
  21. well it is Buildhub It wouldn't bother passivehaus standards or likely building control (as long as the wall was built to the right standard) but for me a concern would be whether insurance then considered the garage part of the house. I want a garage partly so I can do hobbies in the garage that I wouldn't want to do in the house (and I'm pretty sure insurers wouldn't want that either). So for me, keeping a completely separate building has advantages there, far enough away from the garage that if I screwed up in some way and there was a fire in the garage that it would not affect the house in any way (and thus the insurers would not have to worry about that). Edit: If you just want to park a car in the garage I don't really see an issue assuming planning are happy.
  22. Nasty !
  23. I'd be less worried about a garage door needing super u value. I know nothing about passiv but does the raised temp in garage compared to outside mean you can cheat a bit on that door?
  24. I'm digressing a bit but... New place already has existing flat roof garage approx 900mm away from side of proposed house. My idea is once the house wall is built to knock 1 side of garage wall down and extend the garage to make 900mm wider. There won't be a door through internally, just attached. Would an attached garage in this sense worry you? Brick and block cavity so I'm pretty relaxed about it.
  25. Town and Country planning act of 1947. Fix that and all the other dominos will fall.
  26. Cheers guys, I've finished the job. I plan to shutter around the timber for something to tile up to, and then clad around this in edged material like the backer board. So it's an in-wall manifold, if you like. Had to get creative to connect to the incoming mains, but it's all holding pressure. For now!
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