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@nod will be proud of you.

I would be filling the awkward gaps with decent mineral wool. It is far easier to use than cutting bits of PIR. Fill the whole void where you have the outriggers and any gaps where new meets old.

We have a small whole in a loft joist that needs filling. Can anyone recommend d a good quality wood filler or resin we can use to fill it. Thank you

Go for 25mm plywood? These grab rails may have to prevent you from taking a tumble, so I’d have this done properly first as last. If you tank the plywood then you can tile straight to it with a flexible, cementitious tile adhesive. Do NOT let anyone use ready mixed acrylic tile adhesive here, whatever you do!!! This stuff is crap, regardless of what promises are written on the side of the tubs.

Not seen one yet, but I live in hope that they’re out there, somewhere, but seems like finding such a conscientious architect is like trying to find a Yeti in a snowstorm. Seems you have to find the best possible one, and look further into what they’re doing for you to identify the gaps or omissions; not easy if you’re a novice, and something I am still amazed at when I’m introduced to a project after the architect has already ‘got the wheels in motion’. Thats great, if the wheels aren’t fecking square ones.

Is this a cable back to plant or a local 230v supply that’s off a local circuit? I always run a unique cable from every single corner of every opening back to a centralised location. This way I can send AC or DC to each unit, according to what’s needed. If the solar / battery solution works for now then great, but they won’t last forever. If you can match the voltage then you’ve got the option downstream to send it some juice from a transformer, if there’s a dumb cable run to it. If they were cheap enough then maybe the cost to replace them, with like for like by whomever, when the time comes, may be acceptable.

I still have the nightmare of the extension to house interface to deal with, have been waiting for the existing house wall and roof to be made good before attempting. This involves roof trusses and floor joists sitting on the wall plate which leads into the depths of a (well) ventilated loft, not helped by sub floor ventilation from open ended floor joists into loft space (Americans call 'Cape Cod' style house) No consideration for bagging the pozijoists was made, until I suggested it (following installation, whilst staring up at the mess). If I can isolate the new extension from the house, I hope to recoup some of my spend on insulation on the extension, otherwise it will be blowing out the other side of the house The stress this is causing is huge, nobody seems to understand the problems I am seeing and how to deal with them. All design problems, that should have been considered up front. How many architects wander round a site during a build thinking 'that doesnt look good, how could I make that better next time...?'

Simon said "The loops are pretty much fully open, in fact one completely undid to much merriment!. Pumps on max." so not much more scope there for improvement?. 90M of 16mm/12mm ID pipe has only a loss of 0.61M and the UPS 2 when using sun amp was circulating a total of 22.5LPM, at this flowrate a UPS 2 will run with a 4.3M head, At the present set up it will be running at 5.3M at a total flowrate of 15LPM (1.5LPM/loop), similar to the Wilo if (a 6M), I would check that the Wilo is orientated correctly, ie pumping in the "right" direction, by looking at the arrow on the pump body, also as requested earlier, check the power in watts which will identify whether a 4M or 6M pump.

Ouch. The money shot for you will now be airtightness afaic, as with possibly compromised insulation volume you can still get a very well performing dwelling with AT and MVHR, as with a draughty house you can have 500mm of rock solid insulation and still be sat in the cold.

Just to confirm, Protek say we are covered to live in the house until our Building Completion Certificate is issued, at which point our self-build insurance ceases and we need standard buildings insurance.

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First unit was the fan, the second was a 3 stage, digitally controlled diesel heater. It was a very cold day, and it was very reassuring to see that they heated the incoming air to aid the process. Only negative was that every single flat surface, and I mean EVERY one of them, gets a layer of product left on it. This included the screeded floor which was like walking on fly paper for the next 2 days. I was horrified when the team prepped and just laid 2” masking tape onto the flat sections of the new Norrsken doors and windows……with zero dust sheet or other over the glass or vertical sections of the frames. All these guys did was throw poly sheets over the precious stuff and get to work. My only criticism was that this could have been better, and a few things got residual goop on them that I’d have preferred they didn’t. Was this a problem? Nope. It just wipes / washes away pretty easily, so things like pipes and lagging in the plant room will need a bit of cleaning after, which is fine. Just could have been avoided with some better prep. This was the first time I’d been on site during one of these treatments, so next time I’ll do the shitty (more intricate) masking / sheeting ahead of their arrival. In one of the pics you’ll see a tripod near a window, and that was guffing this stuff out at a rate of knots. I inspected the window after AB stripped their seemingly rudimentary masking off, and I can report that there was absolutely no evidence of them being there. This stuff just doesn’t stick to ANYTHING vertical. Not one bit. Happy days! All told, a great team arrived on site, they were speedy and got straight to business. Prep was done (looks a bit underwhelming but does what it needs to) and they were off to the races in no time at all. Quite an impressive setup with no reliance on electricity etc; as seen they just plonk gennys down and get on with it. I’ll defo be using and promoting AeroBarrier, anytime it’s the obvious choice.

Thanks to all the above comments. I have spent the last few weeks trying to fill the gaps left by the bad fitting warm roof, using PIR cut up into blocks and foaming them in I used a airtight foam on the inside perimeter and a large area 'coverage' based foam on the outside. Still not sure I have got all the gaps, due to the now inaccessible cavities between the outriggers and the roof edge Had many sleepless nights adding up all the area of the blocks I have cut, to literally cover the daylight coming in. Had this not been addressed, at least partially by my efforts, it would have been like leaving a window open continuously. I think the best way to have installed this would have been to fill the gaps between the outriggers, prior to the installation of the roof section, as you would have far more access. The roof could have then been built onto a continuous layer

thanks. this room has been interesting as I have a change of ceiling heights where the soil pipe runs is lower. my first time doing something a little more complicated than just a wall or flat ceiling!

That is the pump on the ufh manifold. The pump you have on the primary circuit which is key for flow rates through your heat pump is a Wilo Pico - that's the one we need to know more about as that is the one causing the flow rate error.

Before my refurb, I used insulation 'batts' on the vertical sections. If you can buy close to the width of the vertical cavities this saves you having to cut up on site/in the crawl space. I then fit a second layer going in the opposite direction and then wrap the lot in a windtight fabic as suggested above, to prevent wind wash Also consider the exposed loft floor in the crawl space also appears uninsulated , so I would use standard fibreglass insulation here to around 300mm to keep the rooms below warm

It is a Grundfos UPS2 25-40/60. Search indicates 6m head and max flow of 3m3. The only indicators are green bars which show a max of 3. Flow gauges reading approx 1.5 and there are 10 loops averaging 90m using 16mm Wunda pipe. It is ages since I ran the heating using the Sun amp but I am pretty sure that the required flow rates of an average of 2.25 were achieved with the single grundfos pump. Again , thanks for everyone’s input.

No negative testing as AB only blow. I inspected a lot of the areas where this stuff had done its job, and there’s no obvious threat of it getting loosened by a negative test. It’s in that masonry and any such gap like swimwear! AB test certificate isn’t good enough for you to provide at the end of the build, eg for your “as built” AT score, so you’ll need to do another. The as built test is an average score taken from 10 positive and 10 negative, if memory serves me correctly. I asked the chap there and he said it’s something they’re looking into atm. The bottom line is, I’m seriously impressed by this system and the results it yields in not much time at all. You must fill the obvious gaps up, and do as much as you can to get the best results possible, but this will do quite a good job even if you’ve been lazy I expect.

Do you want more than you can get with PD? PD limits ridge height to 4m (from ground). We have a sloping site which 'lost' us c700 of that, so it would have ended up with a shallow-pitched roof which looked really stupid. Went with Planning and there was no issue except the wait. But we did not have the tree issue. If you can build what you want under PD why not do it. If you want to dot all i's and cross all t's you might go for a Certificate of Lawful Development as irrevocable (I think!) proof of PD.

No, you'll appreciate having the wire when the battery (or motor) in these fail and you can't get a replacement. I'd always use wired power and control if I can. Does it not have any option to bypass the battery? In most cases you can use a couple "dry contact" relays to trigger each direction. Electrically equivalent to having a up/down momentary switch to control it. It's just a case of figuring out the pinout on their rj45. If it wasn't that expensive perhaps worth a shot opening it up and tracing the PCB a bit. Or email the manufacturer and ask?

Most places that do ventilation. https://www.paulheatrecovery.co.uk/product/filter-cone-125/ They help protect the ducting, the main return filter is there to protect the heat exchanger. But sounds like you will be a while before you are switching on. Don't be tempted to switch the MVHR on early, it maybe one step forward several backwards.

We have timber frame, crinkly tin roof and cladding, as well as timber cladding and render. Also a small flat roof section. We were with Direct Line (and still are for contents) but they wouldn't do the buildings cover. They put us on to Gallaghers who were v good, although the price seems to jump around a bit. Last year the quote was about £500, so I looked around using links from here and couldn't get anywhere near Gallaghers, so we stayed with them. This year the quote was around £400 - so they got the business again.

They price per m2 iirc, and I asked the same question. So no matter if you’ve parged the place and use very little product, or you’ve a woodcrete ICF or bare masonry structure, price is the same. The larger holes? Well anything that you can see should be dealt with beforehand as best you can, obvs, but to give you some idea of how good this is, bearing in mind this product gets atomised, the results can be seen here. Look for the marble lines in these pics, and the ‘hole’ in the first pic, that was not obvious to the eye, got plugged PDQ! @Mike I’m referring to the ones that your method just won’t find, not the ones it can. Have a look at these micro fractures in the pointing of the masonry, and where masonry meets blocks. The blocks / bricks themselves are surprisingly airtight as is, and no real evidence of the product having sealed them, but I’m sure it has but it’s just not as easily seen. It got into gaps thinner than a cigarette paper, as you can see right at the bottom of the last pic. Two slight white lines 10mm apart or so, which the eye, candle, or other, wouldn’t have ever detected. There was a 3.4m long metal lintel which was perforated with hundreds of 6mm holes, and this stuff went into each one and plugged them up nicely.

Just to add that I have checked our Protek site/build insurance and it doesn't really mention whether the cover persists if we occupy the house but there is an exclusion as follows: The Insurer shall not be liable under this Sub-section in respect of: 4 Occupation of the works Loss or Damage due to the use or occupancy other than as dwellings of any portion of the Contract Works by any owner, tenant or occupier other than as herein provided. But since we would be occupying as a dwelling, my reading is that we would continue to be covered (no contents cover though). I am going to give Protek a call and double-check.