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I think you’re pretty well covered with advice, but I’d second getting as much tanking done beforehand, for what it’s worth I also covered the floor, any joints that were under the tray too, and all round the keyhole for the waste. Flexible tile adhesive was also used. oh, have an old towel, some wipes nearby, and someone nearby to help wipe down cos tile adhesive sticks like sh*t and gets everywhere you don’t want it too 😂.

@Big Jimbo so how is it that I was spending £70 pcm, & had the rads on in the continual setting you all now want me to set the new one like? I'm not lying, that was my bill. And I had the HP set to continual, albeit not the 23*C you can afford, set to 18*C. I certainly didn't have the rads on overnight, no, I think that idea is ridiculous. Why is it that no-one agrees with the calculations people, who said "no way our HP can run your cottage"? I just don't get it. They were right. I knew it couldn't. I never intended it to work here. In the 2 newbuild rooms? YES it can work there. But not in the old 3 main rooms. There is such a clear example, right under my nose, of what rooms can be heated by it & what type just can't. New build rooms yes: I can see the evidence 6m away from where I stand. Old stone room & crap 80's extension rooms no: he question is why. And the answer is so damn obvious too, right here, evidence right now, at my property. Warm room. And a cold room. The difference is the answer. And the only difference... is insulation. That is the reason one room is warm, one is cold. I mean this is so damn obvious! I can't honestly believe why anyone could disagree! It's like when Blair stated 'education education education'. The difference between th3 rooms, & therefore the 2+2=4 answer IS IS IS 'insulation insulation insulation!!'

It would be your room (house) thermostat, the thing you are referring to moving with 30m of cable. You can add a wireless one and leave the factory one in situ as just a dumb display / end user interface. Should be a 30 mins install max. This you can take with you room to room, so if you want to be comfortable at night, take it to the bedroom and plonk it near an internal wall away from any doors or windows. If you spend your day in the sitting room, plonk it in there all day. It's moveable as its wireless and battery powered. This is my one.

Gents, i hate to say this, but, There is no way on earth, that Zoot is going to get the above for much less than i quoted above. We have to understand that a large proportion of Old people, only on a state pension, have to chose, between heat and eat. Expecting to cover the cost of the above for £70 per month is living in cloud cookoo land. I now live in my posh shed, as my bungalow will be pulled down in the near future. It's about 250 square foot. I have a kettle, a microwave, and air fryer, and a two ring electric hob. I have a 10k/w instant water heater which is a bit crap, but that provides water for a shower, and the sink. The walls, floor, and roof, all have 100mm of pir. Well fitted. Double glazing, and although not tested would be quite good for airtightness. (i built it) I have One, in wall heat recovery ventaxia fan, and an extraction fan in the shower room which comes on with the light. The heating is taken care of by a very small panel heater in the bathroom set to 18, and a larger one in the main room set to 18 at night, and 21 during the day. The heaters are on 24/7 switching themselves, on an off as required. I spend On average £68 per month on electricity to run the gaff. Frankly, it's a lot nicer that my crappy bungalow. Unless the Zoot, is in the position, and if he is, wants to.............. Unless he he willing to spend considerably more money on a monthly basis, he is not going to be able to move forward. I said to all my 3 girls. It's great having the big house, with the great kitchen, and the almost new car on the drive. All your friends will be jealous..... However, it will be shit, to have that, but have to shop in the dented tins isle, and not to be able to afford the petrol for the car. Zoot is going to either have to spend a lot of extra money to live comfortably Put up with very cheap bills, but being bloody freezing most of the time. consider moving, to perhaps a smaller, cheaper, better built property. Where he can be warm at a reasonable cost. Zoots house might be utter shite. We don't know because we have not been there. There is a possibility that the engineer did some heat loss calcs, and basically thought, It's effing pointless trying to heat this place. I will set this up, so he can at least get some hot water. Now, we all know that it can be heated. However if it really is as shite as Zoot says, that might cost £1000 a month. We can all offer advice, but i think there needs to be a commitment to spend more than £70 per month on energy when you live in a shite, old, welsh cottage, that is surrounded by it's own doom and gloom micro climate system .

I don't understand Nick apologies. How could such a screwfix thermostat trip the system on & off-?

Absolutely not. I had no idea such a figure would be relevant to me here, having been paying £70. Again: the prior HP was being run, to all intents & purposes, continually (bar night- I'll never entertain the idea of rads on overnight never in my life have I lived in a property with overnight rads on, it's sheer lunacy). I was paying £70 then. So why anyone would ask 'would you be prepared to spend 2.5x as much per month?' Tbh I'm fairly baffled by. I mean of course I wouldn't. Thanks, Zoot

Why not go and buy a wireless room stat, from Screwfix or Toolstation, and ask them to fit it whilst they are there, then you can leave the other one where it is and zero cables to run. If he says no, just take it back and refund it.

Yeah, you’d still be subject to article 4 conditions. I don’t think there’s a specific part of statute relating to ‘when’ PD rights kick in. As it was explained to me PD rights apply to a ‘dwelling house’. I don’t believe there’s any single definition of a dwelling house but the planning consultant explained there’s a common law test that refers ‘To capability of occupation’. This is a ‘matter of fact based on the probabilities’. In actual fact this is what councils use to pre-assign valuation bandings to prevent delays in council tax registration, where builders defer completion certificates to prevent council tax. It works both ways in this sense. Fundamentally my take away is that there is no single point in time or concrete certified point at which a building acquires PD rights except for the above definitions of dwelling house.. If anyone can cite planning law that states a ‘completion certificate’ must be present for PD rights to come into effect I’d be interested…

Is that your main insulation?

Yes good point… I was planning on lapping up under the ybs superquilt and taping together so would need to do that before adding horizontal batten presumably.

Zoot. Serious question if you don't mind. Could you afford to pay £250 a month for your electricty ? That would be a total of £3000 over a year. It's a real question, not just us trying to have a nose at your financial status. If i came down to you, and provided you with a system where, you could boil a kettle, cook food, be cool in bed, and toasty warm during the day, regardless of how cold it would be outside. Is that a cost that you would be ok with ?

Thing is chaps, with all respect (& I will talk to the engineer Monday with all that's discussed) once the U readings were done -if that's the calculation/ I think you know what I mean anyway- as I said the Co wanted to pull out. No way they wanted to put a HP in the cottage. To reitterate, I had to beg them to relent & agree, but only because I was effectively getting a new cylinder out of it. I had no intention of CH useage. They did relent, but stipulating basically "but it won't work, in your house there, the calculations show". So all I'm doing here, is reitterating what this set of people (whoever did the U calculations I mean- I can't recall who but it wasn't the installer, nor was it the innitial door to door salesman from the council super eager to put a HP in my property) what the calculations people, said about the maych of a 9kW HP + my property. That it won't work. All I'm doing, is showing you, that they were right. I'm not arguing for argument's sake, nor being obdurate & not running the HP for long stretches over months: this -was the setting- of the prior (noisy, yes) HP. The fact that the cottage remained freezing cold, only tallied with what the calculations people said. That it tallied too, with what I suspected, I think shows a bit of intuition from myslef tbh. I don't think you're giving me due credit here. And you're effectively arguing with the calculations people, rather than me per se, ghat a 9kW HP can work here. It can't. And I'll say it till the cows come home too. We'll set the HP on Monday, to work as it did before. In longer continual day periods. Like the last one was set to. Why anyone thinks this time I'll have some warmth (in the 3 main cold rooms that I mostly use), tbh I find rather bizarre. Anyway, much appreciate the help. I'll do my best on Monday, & I'm better placed to ask the chap questions, than I was before. One being whether -I- can power it down, rewire the controller box via a new 30m cable from the interface unit box, through a wall, & down say to the kitchen (which we can agree on: this cold room I frquent the most being a far more convenient place to have it to monitor it/ fiddle about with it's settings etc)... I'll certainly ask. Another logical question, being why was it placed next to the cylinder; if perhaps convenience to the installer's workload, might be the obvious answer. Thanks Zoot

You can't escape the Zootmaze.

For sale, one carefully owner….. lol

So I receive the below from Norrsken as I am trying to understand the required build up for the sliding doors. Front edge to back edge dimensions of the cill is 204mm. This will therefore mean, that the back edge of the door will sit directly over the 150mm cavity. I am not sure whether the detailing below is for the European market, but the outer leaf is clearly not brick as it is > 1/2 the width of 204mm. Does anyone have a cross section detail. I am keen to understand how the insulation / screed and inner leaf brick / block course is adapted to get a 'level' threshold.

🤐

Yeah, that's a good solution. Here's my OCD non-exhaustive mini-analysis for anyone that cares: I figure I want W1 & fire protection, so am inclined to use Illbruck ME050 FR.

Shouldn't the VCL finish behind the battens? If they're service battens, or is there additional insulation going in between?

They are, so will do. Maybe bulk buying 38 tubes of ct1 wasn’t such a good idea…. Gotcha. Makes perfect sense.

Is it a stone-resin tray? If so, use flexible tile adhesive, it takes much better to the tray, and as you say using said mixture to scrub and key the underside so get a great bond.

Nobody sane!

There’s a good few posts advocating that too, and I guess from my point of view both will give a good, strong bond with enough flexibility to endure. I’ve got ct1 and I’ve used it many times so I’m at home with it, hence my preference. But I’m open to other viewpoints.

That would scare me. Partly as I hate foam.

the latest round of green subsidies include this as part of it, and available to anyone not just those on low income. If you are on low income you may even get it for free https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/what-the-warm-homes-plan-means-for-you/

I’ve heard people using flexible tile adhesive in place of sand and cement, seems a good strong option which will flex with heat cycles and loading