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Noted. Mine isn't that bad. The plasterboard on the coldest section of the ceiling is still sound.

Yes, I hacked off as the plaster and mortar was damp, plus they didn't want to lose an ounce of space. You defo do not want voids and layers, so do this meticulously or not at all.

If I can walk about in my cream and brown Y-fronts in Jan then I really wouldn't give 2 hoots what the mean flow temp is. I'd be warm and happy, the neighbours not so much as apparently that's not a good look. It's not just the probes, it's what you need to connect them to, if you actually do want to geek-out, but the novelty will wear off PDQ.

Thank you When you say hacked off, do you mean you went back to brick? This isn't plasterboard apart from the front and right hand side (which are much warmer) which are stud walls. I suspect, I could overboard with the insulated plasterboard, sealing the gaps and then take the slight loss of space on the ceiling and walls which would be minimal.

The floor temperature will be pretty close to the mean flow temperature, so no real need for extra sensors. Extra sensors would be good for data collection and analysis, but not many people are as nerdy about that as me.

It's an absolute shitfest tbf.

Yes, I thought they may have had the good sense to put the stat link in the indoor unit.............ffs. Just googled it, and then man is right, another cable needs taking to the outdoor unit to allow a 3rd party stat to be connected. Vaillant, if you're reading this, WTF were you thinking not giving us that terminal inside the house, (you know, where people sometimes fit their room stats)?

I don't think so. Those with understanding are sorry we left, and sorry things are the poorer for it.

Expensive Rubi ones lol. The standard blade will zoom through ceramic and travertine etc, but porcelain comes in different grades and needs a blade to suit. Any good retailer / tile shop should be able to advise and have stock of different types of blades.

Thinking about this some more, I'm not sure this is a good idea. Zoot had this convo with Octopus a while ago. We are still in Winter and bills lag, so the surplus may be lower now. Zoot also has a new heatpump with a different setup and at this point it's unclear if it's drawing more or less energy. So leaving the Octopus surplus there gives a bit of buffer against surprises. As @sharpener has said this may be a little tricker on this model heatpump and there are some advantages to using the Valliant controller. So if what Zoot has can be made to work then it's worth trying that first. But if that is too difficult for whatever reason then switching makes sense.

slight tangent, What blades/discs do you use @Nickfromwales

Aircrete version: When I did a cost analysis some time ago, the Marmox Thermoblocks didn't seem too pricey, for the perceived benefit. When I find time, I'll dig out my figures.

I have a very high water table, so I think this will likely make the ground colder than if the trench blocks were sat in dry ground. My trench blocks are going to be almost permanently damp, & I note @Iceverge's point about Aircrete blocks having to be kept dry, which is another reason I can’t copy the @Iceverge detail. I’d be grateful to hear comments on these two ideas, below. Could I wrap the DMP around the outside of the bottom of the inner leaf construction, as shown in blue? & sorry for the thread drift, @flanagaj. I hope you find my problem interesting & helpful, as you consider your build.

Not entirely sure I get you. When I've thought through sequencing on this, to get this style I think you need to install the custom door frames in before plasterboard (definitely before skimming). This would the require protecting these frames so if I did that I'd build temporary protection frames around those frames. Those frames in turn should provide a standoff from the metal trim and therefore protection. Still, a lot of work. Edit: Read your post again, clearly you said corner beads and I was thinking about beads around doorways. Still a little confused as the bulk of the corner beads is the same as a normal wall. Guess you are talking that the area where the bead is mitred into the shadowgap beads at the bottom? If so, seems like an easy way to avoid that problem is to put some temporary rough skirting in the corners to avoid bumps?

The manufacturer offers a rectified tile, so I can definitely get a nice straight edge, it's more how they look when crossing over the tumbled edge and grout line, but thinking about it that would be the same as if I selected timber anyway. They also offer a specific skirting tile, but I'd need to speak to the local tile supply man to see how much he can import them for. Quick google suggests £16'ish, if thats for 1 then that's too dear for me, and I choose the cut route.

Boatloads. My Rubi DU 200 radial wet bench cutter makes this a LOT easier, but still a massive ballache.

We’re installing UFH in a dry screed with an ASHP that has reversible function and may be used in a cooling mode. Ive read a little about floor probes, but our ASHP installer is saying they’re not required as dew point just requires us to know the air temp. 1. When are they required? 2. What for? 3. Where should I put them? (I’m having a single zone with 11 circuits across 6rooms).

I went to Build-it exhibition and was pleased to see nobody was promoting groundsource. It only works in paticular circumstances. 10 to 15 years ago it was different and there would have been many cowboys. There were some honest contractors I should emphasise. Once it has got the heat out of the ground it is useless and the poor client is pumping water around, even thawing the ground. Under a slab would be the worst place to try it. @sgt_woulds it is astute of you to have your doubts, for all but volcanic areas, . Or is anyone still trying to promote it?

The other option with porcelain/ceramic tile is to have mitred edges with a sliver of face tile on top resin bound. Load of extra labour in it though.

Thanks for your input @Gus Potter. When I say, “I designed the house.”, I mean, I did all the planning permission drawings & passed these over to an architectural technician, together with some notes about materials & build method (the Thermoblocks were part of my spec’). The AT has done the drawings my detail drawing was taken from, above. I expected him to do a lot better than this. Now I am spending hours & hours teaching him how to do his job properly so he can improve the drawings before they go to building control. My intention was to have EPS beads filling the cavity, with these going all the way down to the trench blocks. I imagined the EPS installer would drill through the inside leaf near the floor to fill the area below the tray. If I don’t need a tray & I can have two separate DPCs that would seem to me to be a better solution. This was suggested to me on an earlier thread, but I thought the 2 separate DPCs suggestion was just for below my windows. If we can use 2 separate DPCs the whole way round the house, that would be great. Are you sure omitting the Marmox blocks is a good idea? This is going to mean all my walls will be sucking heat out of the house straight into the ground. I can’t follow @Iceverge’s detail above (thanks for putting this up, @Iceverge) because I’m building my inner leaf off the top of the B&B, which has already been built. Here’s a picture of it during construction. As discussed here previously, the cowboy builder sat the B&B on trench blocks, instead of on dense blocks (which were on the drawing), so there’s no cavity beneath the level of the B&B, & although he put the beam ends on DPC, he then bridged the DPC with mortar - see below. The bit on the right of the picture, with the light coloured slips, is where the air brick periscope feeds air into the B&B void.

My slightly more nuanced take: It's an interesting idea that I have considered. Not for GSHP though as I suspect it's not a big enough area for that. My thought was to use the water direct for either cooling in summer (would also warm/recharge the soil for winter) or as pre-warmer for MHVR in winter. With no heatpump in the loop freezing would be a low probability. In a PassiveHaus class building then maybe a tiny water to water heatpump would be possible to top up heat but wasn't where my thoughts were leading and I think all the GSHPs available are way too big. Main concern was if it would cause problems with drying out under the slab and potential movement/insurance issues and I think for this reason it's worth ruling out even if the maths add up. (Not that I did the maths)

You can bin off the tumbled edges and just use the centre 'meat' of the tile, adding a trim on the top to finish it. Curved 1/4 round trims would probably be more sympathetic to a tumbled tile / rustic look.

yeah, nice! I do like the tiled skirting tbh. I think I'm going to wait for the tiles to be laid then I will get some samples cut and see what look we get. The tile we have chosen is a stone effect with tumbled edge, so may or may not lend itself to a tile skirting.

I'll check the heat pump thank you. Airless trap because I had already bought it but for airtightness test it's useless for the pressurisation test as it blows straight open, so added a u bend too.

OK, here is the instruction manual for your VRC700 https://elearning.vaillant.com/vrc700/ci/en/documents/uk/infopool/Operating_instructions.pdf The timer mode on this controller is called AUTO. Setting up the mode and time schedule is explained on p13 et seq. Note that there are two sub-modes. The factory default setting is ECO. This will turn the HP completely OFF overnight which is what you say you want.Though I have some misgivings about that, the alternative is SETBACK where you have control over the overnight temp. I wonder if moving it to the landing would be an acceptable compromise, at least it would be in a circulation space not shut away. You can do this with a Vaillant but you can't connect into the ebus, you need to wire it directly into terminals in the outdoor unit which is not really a DIY job.