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Are you meaning like a tray that sits under the door to prevent water going further back under the threshold of the door, or standard threshold/extended threshold that projects further out? Is it an entrance/side door, lift and slide, French door (inward/outward)?

Thanks for this. We have just ordered. We are hoping we’ve got everything right with the window sill choices. I will check using your advice! I just have an issue with not seeing the door sills. Norrsken seem thorough re end caps,widths etc for windows depending on finishes. We have render with some walls. Cladding on others. I feel comfortable with that. I just would love to see a photo of a slide under sill on a door. I think it may look ugly or flimsy 😏

We're using thermowood battens for our cladding (russwood). Our roof battens were "gold" SIG roofing, which we also plan to use on the man cave cladding

Needs to be highlighted I think. It is why 'scientists, get a bit despondent when talking to lay people. No matter how often limitations are stated, these will be ignored and the 'in the real world' 'facts', based on a sample of 1, for a very different scenario, will be quoted as the truth, loudly.

That needs to be in the small print of... everything really.

I'm just saying start low (ish) and work your way up if the house remains cold - I have this irrational fear that you will start high, pronounce the house too hot, can't sleep and turn it off again People tolerances are different - I'm "hot" above 19 - Mrs Alien - different kettle of fish less than 21 is freezing!!!! Well we can start there - what size and type are the rads and what sizes are the rooms - we have enough knowledge on here to start piecing it all together and come up with a reasonable punt I have a gas boiler and I'm running it like an ASHP - CH 24/7 low flow temps (between 25 and 35 Deg C based on weather comp) - when doing HW it raises the flow temp to heat the tank. I could replace it with a 5kW HP tomorrow and know it would work perfectly - this was the point of my rad upgrades and insulation improvements - get HP ready without leaping into it and then finding all my calcs were wrong and I've got a problem.

I have used plastic lumber for below ground. Over twice the price of timber and may not have good fire rating for cladding but it does not rot.

Yes. Dura Composites, who sell very nice, expensive cladding, will sell you some special aluminium batten bars.

Not really as it is not about houses per sec, it is about form factor ratios, fabric thermal properties and ventilation losses, for a simple cuboid. The real world is very different.

I mean the ones they say you can turn in manually yet will support an extension. There were two such at Buildit Live. 1m long costing £35 each. I'm happy they can support decking or fence posts but they say 'extensions' too. That is naughty and scary. There were substantial screw piles there too, from Canada. Hardly an unmapped feature. Plenty of surplus heat in there. I wonder what opportunity these useless contractors are currently messing with. Probably solar or superfoil.

I've ducked out of purchases that require this, even if getting it delivered to SE England. And told them why. Of course they have no idea that Inverness has roads, and a railway, let alone an airport. I suspect some of them are profiteering, but most are in need of geography lessons (or their chosen couriers).

@scottishjohn can you not get a cheaper off peak tariff? We’re all electric. Fill up at 7p export at 15p (soon to be 12p) if there is anything to export. We’ve used very little peak rate electrickery over winter

Having monkeyed around with some blue 'graded' roofing batten a couple of days ago I was unimpressed - a pilothole-less screw driven through it would cause it to shatter. Is there a better quality of batten? e.g. What are the people with fancy cladding, cedar, larch etc using as battens for their nice hard wood rain screen?

I,m electric only heat pump and UFH Ishould aslo say the house is 400sqm floor area

Thanks @SimonD, it's an Ecodan ASHP (monobloc so no indoor unit) and the cylinder is from Tempest designed for ASHPs. I have entered the installers menu on the Mitsubishi controller and see that you can set one parameter "max temp drop" which is set at 10deg, research today indicates this is the hysteresis. So, with this set as it is, it should mean the cylinder doesn't call for heat unless it has fallen by at least 10 degrees below the set temp. However, as above, mine does - so I'm wondering if it is the lack of a second temperature probe - the one further up the cylinder - that is causing the problem and making the controller always believe the tank is >10deg below target.

Have you bought it? I have about 20 metres of ME508 available (100mm depth).

What is your external reveal finish? Brick, render, cladding or a mixture? Cills/Sills are pretty straight forward, minimum 20mm overhang but recommended overhang is 30mm and a max of 50mm. From the known window position count from the front face to the external finish, then add 30mm for the minimum overhang. Then add 16mm from front facing of aluminium, to the face of the timber of the window and an additional 8mm for the rebate in the frame (check this is correct with Norrsken about the 8mm). The rebate will sit back a further 8mm (maybe more, but 8/10mm is standard). Sills are always the same width as the window, unless specifically requested otherwise. Now choose the right end cap, they will likely offer 2, straight up (brick), straight up and over (render/cladding). Make sure they supply the right one.

Useful. What is your heating system? Storage heaters? Direct electric panels? Heatpump? I'm currently using my batteries (15kwh) to store E7 electricity and that runs my (gas heated) house pretty much all day on low cost elec - the exception is days when we do alot of washing and there is not much sun, then we end up using a few hours at peak rate. Overall using 95% cheap rate elec. Am on standard octopus outgoing which was more or less thr same as import (14p cheap rate import, 15p all day export). Unfortunately the export will drop to 12p, but it's not a big deal. You may be able to get more use from your batteries by switching tariffs and tactics.

Understand the logic in this reply. But even so, that doesn't answer my question of basically "what do I set mine to?". (Unless you are suggesting "set it to 30*C Flow temp, that is a general medium number, for UK households"). I don't understand whether I have optimal rads for here, sub-optimal rads for here, I don't know if you're privvy to a plethora of U value calculations to know abc, xyz. Furthermore you have a gas CH system. A HP system is by nature a different way of doing things: generally speaking bigger rads that output lower than gas CH systems. This therefore is perhaps going to mean a fundamentally different Flow temp.. I mean isn't it? Thanks, Zoot

A developer actually drilled through into the Northern City line near me (site is close to Old Street). They were piling foundations. Could have been very nasty.

put solar on the new house last year and now having had a winter can say that i didi it wrong i went for 13.6kw of panels--no problem but went for 17kw of batteries -iwa going to go for only 4 batteries in the stack --but when they found they could not fit 30 panels and had to fit only 26 the deal was i get another battery instead the bottom line is that when its all working on a sunny day then the batteries fill up quick but in winter get nothing with the intelligent octopus tariff they pay you same as they charge you for electic ,so once batteries are ful it goes back anyway at 27p a unit and the batteries then discharge between 16.00 and 20,00 hrs at 29p sounds good but it will never pay back the cost of to many batteries I am electric only so I am always importing in badmonths so better just to fill smaller batteries sooner and just take the 27p for the rest of it -the 3p extra form storage will never pay for the extra batteries the other thing that happens is it priorities filling batteries ,so like today I am paying out for import even though its charging batteries -yes iget 3p more when selling back -but not the point If doing it again yes all the panels the roof will hold .but do not go over the top on batteries ,unless you are dual fuel and then you would store and use it later

Talking of screwpiles reminds of another GSHP project in London; They were using a machine to fit a vertical deep-bore heat pipe. TFL arrived and asked them to stop - less than politely but for very obvious reasons -when it was pointed out that their back garden was directly above part of the Norhern line...

Hi Rick, bottom of the stairs, actually IS in my sittingroom! Haha, so seriously there's not any good place for it anywhere in this cottage, was my point tbh. It's case of the least-worst option. Which is likely not much different to where it is tbh: this room is never warm, it's slightly warmer than the others only. That's still damn cold, due to the construction. Because the cottage has these construction caveats (the plasterboard redo upstairs job just to aid one small bit of it... is a massive undertaking for me, hugely inny-outy complex, 4 windows to go around, with 4 box-affair fake wall areas to recreate. Plus I renovated both rooms in last 6 years, up to how they look now/ finished/ so a galling prospect)... even if I upped the heating, when it gets up to speed & trips off, it would then go cold again far quicker than any insulated house. Meaning it would have to be going on-off-on far more often. Meaning my heating bill won't just be bigger, it'll be hugely bigger. That's using plain logic. This is where to me, addressing the main sittingroom floor, could only really be considered IME. I asked the latest installer (the Vaillant trained-up competent one, with his £70k electric van outside) if I did redo floor in here, could I disconnect the two big double rads, & connect the HP up to a UFH circuit here? IE a UFH 'ring' sizewise directly similar to these two bigass double rads. Yes he said. Furthermore he said it was a decent idea, & connection to the cylinder easy, due to it being directly above/ pipe just comes straight down 2m, albeit 2x bit larger diameter copper pipes. I could only really consider the logistics of this renovation job, not removing all the plasterboard in 2 bedrooms above. I could try the small holes > input foam, in the perimeter. But the floor between the rooms hasn't thickness for even 1" of insulation to be introduced. Anyway, still trying to plan how I can use the HP/ setting etc. The fact that you seem t9 concur that an overnight setting CAN be dialed in, separate from the Auto/ Timer setting (which I now believe to be the one suggested), means I can do that then. Even if not optimal for your suggested way, I can at least have it set lower. No choice- I have to have it set like so. Besides, it does clearly imply by design, that a lower setting overnight is perhaps even 'standard fayre' (or what's the moon symbol even for?). Thanks, Zoot

You are right to of course. I would have said the same until this happened, else I wouldn't have clipped the blank end over it. Straight out through wall, then vertical for about 600mm, then a 90° turn along the wall. Thereafter it heads to the septic tank of which I have no knowledge other than there is a cover. There may be some other cause eg the tank being full and not draining. But as soon as I released the stopper it all flowed. Nearly all. Yeugh.

I'd very strongly advise not touching it at all right now. Zoot has mentioned that this new system is the first time he has felt as if the system is working and outputting some warmth. Once the other issues we've talked about have been solved and the building is warm then we can talk about lowering this. But I think it's a really bad idea to lower it now before we have got the building warm. Zoot, in my view, you could increase the hot water temp to 55 rather than 46 if you want but don't touch the flow temp for the rads. Focus on figuring out how to adjust the timer and locating the thermostat in the right location.