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I wonder if we can get some opinions please? we are having our carpets fitted and have come across numerous issues with the installation. The carpet we chose comes in a wider width of 5metres. In our bedroom they have installed it at a 4m metre width and added a join at the point of the opening of the bay window. Into the bay window the width would be 5.2 metres. The concern is that the join will fray, as it is a traffic area (moving into this area to draw curtains and there will be furniture etc). What are your thoughts? we expected a 5 metre carpet and a small join somewhere more discreet. Picture attached, which shows the carpet pulled up, because they also left a floor board loose which they agreed to fix down.

The EPC system is pretty crap. I just had an all electric flat done - got a poor E score, mainly because of direct electric heating and hot water. The assessor model 2 options for me. Swap to air to air HP or new high heat retention storage Heaters. They both came out the same points, despite the HP option using 1/3 the electricity. Shrugs.

We have LPG in bottles for the hob, no standing charge and usage is so low, gas cost is irellevant.

Replace the hardcore with a sufficient depth of foamed glass aggregate (e.g. Geocell) and you remove the need for additional insulation under the slab and also for a DPM. (Unless it is a radon area, all you need is a geotextile membrane seperating the concrete from the foamed glass). I'd be interested to know more about RRP of SCC. I used floated conrete over Geocell, but unfortunately it still required a leveling screed since my builders were a bunch of amateur monkeys.

I am in the process of getting the hardcore in for the ground bearing slabs and have been looking at SCC with interest. Cemex and others state that when finished with a dapple bar it provides smooth flat surface that does not require further finishing. So this has got me thinking. If SCC can be laid and finished with ease, why bother going down the traditional route of insulation under screed and on top of slab, when I can omit the screed layer and go with insulation under slab. This removes another stage in the process and ££ too. Our original plan was to go with a power floated floor finish, but we scrapped that due to the ridiculous quotes and also having read negative comments. I know @Oz07 has used it before, but has anyone used it with UFH attached to the rebar mesh and then simply tiled or used engineered flooring directly on top of the SCC

Thing often missed when comparing gas to heat pumps, is the gas standing charge goes without gas CH (maybe a hob change also).

I'm sure they don't but Building Control who have to sign the building off as compliant with the Building Regulations might... Access and facilities for the fire service B5. (1) The building shall be designed and constructed so as to provide reasonable facilities to assist fire fighters in the protection of life. (2) Reasonable provision shall be made within the site of the building to enable fire appliances to gain access to the building

I prefer to keep things simple and assume a heat pump will cost about the same as gas as long as you can achieve a COP or 3 or better. Yes with TOU tariffs you can do better but that means running your heating at the cheap times not "when you want" which will work with a well insulated house and an UFH slab with a bit of mass. But no use pedalling that off peak usage option to someone retro fitting an ASHP to a mediocre house that does need the ASHP on at times when you need heating. If you do insist on a competition of "look how cheap mine is to run" then all you do is build up a lot more disappointed convertees when they can't time shift the usage in their mediocre house. So keep those ideas here for those with good houses, not for the mass market without.

My thoughts exactly Interesting. Do you leave these permanently in place, or just for commissioning? Do they clip on the UFH pipes below the manifold? Are they accurate enough, and do you have any links to products please.

It depends on whether you're looking to rely on them or not. The problem with temp gauges at the manifold is that the return one will show a combined return temp from all loops so you don't know if your individual loops are running at the correct dT. The flow one is okay, but personally I have a mixture of clip on k-type used with a digital thermometer and some bluetooth ones that provide datalogging back to a specific app - at least for commissioning and maintenance use - so each loop can be properly balanced.

No, no isolators on the other ends that are plumbed so far. Call me cynical, but the way it seems to work is tradesman finds a day he needs to fill. His regular merchant doesn't have the bits in stock, so substitute with whatever is on the shelves. I texted the plumber yesterday and haven't heard back so he probably isn't very happy. But he's going to charge me twice for doing it twice so I don't see the problem. Besides, this isn't a popularity contest, it just needs to be done right. The trades already think I'm a pita so I've nothing to lose 😆

TBH, I think the article by Evan Davis was pretty fairly balanced, and the BBC the other BBC one is slightly cheaky as it doesn't properly go into why the ECO4 grant was amended. The reality is that if the heat pump is going in as a retrofit, the overall costs of the system are very high - and no, unlike many incorrect claims here on this forum, this is not purely down to grant harvesting. But figures like Dale Vince aren't helping by saying things like heat pumps don't work like they say they do, as he did in an interview yesterday, doesn't help at all. These are the kinds of statements that need clarifying, but just like the whole Net Zero thing, the general and popular coverage is fairly toxic and I have to say the industry isn't helping itself greatly right now.

Have a word with yourself... Yes the world is a corrupt place, and people are out for their own gain, but this type of post is why the right wing parties are edging ever closer to control.

Looks like I need to do my own research.

We imported 11,100kWh at a cost of £1009. So the princely sum of 9p/kWh on average. Exported £840 worth of kWh, so ran the house for £160 for the full year. (6.5kW Solar and 15kWh of battery, 9kW ASHP.) Given the standing charge is about 50p, the difference between import and export is about zero. We have no gas, so this is all our energy usage, heating, cooking, hot water etc. But this is for a 250 m2 timber frame house (almost passiv haus levels of insulation) with a UFH built into the insulated slab. All our heating is done by batch charging the slab at night on the cheap rate on Octopus Go with occasional daytime boosts when it's really cold. Our off peak usage is normally close to 100%. Trystan Lea at Open Energy Monitor has recently created a tool to show the co-benefits of solar, battery, HP and ev on the agile tariff makes interesting reading https://community.openenergymonitor.org/t/what-are-the-co-benefits-of-solar-battery-hp-ev-tariff/30095

@JohnMo @Nickfromwales thanks to you both. Adjusted the preset fan speeds for the low, medium (preset ‘2’) and high settings. Then retested the supply (extract was ok) starting with longest run, worked back from there checking balance after each one. Kept it on setting 2 for a bit, now on the lower setting which is 30% less, working perfectly 😊

Also Octopus cosy, rarely pay more than 14p/unit but also have battery so increases amount of time we can use “ Off Peak”. Maybe allow 2p/unit for inefficiency of going through battery. Lowest COP in winter was 5 ( GSHP ) so a cost of about 3p/kW of heat or less. No sure what sort of COP ASHPs average in winter. We used 1800kWh electricity via heat pump in 6 months October - March for hot water and heating for our 200SqM new build bungalow, kept very warm.

I wonder, with many insurances being via comparison sites and tick list questionnaires, how often people tick the nearest description to theirs. This could result in a claim being refused. Insurance companies vary with some being fair and others being cynical claim deniers. I overheard a manager of one insurer (it happens that I'm seeing their name all over the place at present) saying proudly that they are by far the "most successful" in avoiding claim payouts. There appeared to be a league table of who kept most of their premium income. I think he said "we only pay out 40% of income." That was clearly a target. Ticking the nearest description would be an easy one for them to refuse on the grounds of inaccurate description.

We run ours on Octopus Go currently 5 hours at 8.5p and the rest at 32p. The whole official drive to heat pumps is utter bollocks. We've just had our EPC redone pre sale and the asessor told me that heat pumps can be less efficient than a gas boiler and our EPC reflects this. Apparently within SAP if you enter the heating as a heat pump with radiators it defaults to 55 degree flow temp with drops the HP efficiency. Having explained our over sized radiators and max 34 degree flow temp he just shrugged his shoulders! The EPC came through with an estimated 28000 kwh needed for heating versus the actual 3800 we used last winter to keep the house at 20/21 degrees! It's bonkers

Doesn't read like an ensuite door.

Yup. I usually discuss the fundamentals before the construction phase, eg plant rooms / location of CU / 1ph or 3ph etc and do a basic list of circuits + equipment for getting the connection criteria prepped for the DNO application. Then, once the sub and super structure are complete we have the next chats for the finer details; by that stage I usually have some provisional design freezes in place for kitchens / bathrooms etc and make suggestions as to ‘what goes where’. Much more sensible to do that once there’s a home to walk about in, and stuff almost always changes when it’s not on a screen anymore. Good trades are hard to find, but they are out there, they just always need booking in 3 months in advance!

Currently BBC news have an article "Heat pump growth stalls as government support cut, warns climate watchdog". Not surprising! Even the BBC itself is guilty, for example Evan Davis published an article recently: "Heat pumps work for me - but they're not yet a money saver" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce358gkx9vpo In it the cost of electricity for a heat pump is quoted as 28p/kWh! I complained to the BBC about not reporting the obvious fact that much cheaper heat pump tariffs are available, and got a response asking for evidence of this! So could we do a little survey of our forum members. What average variable rates are people in this forum currently achieving over the course of the last 12 months (or for 2025 if easier), for imported electricity for their heat pumps? Mine was 18p/kWh average for 2025 using Octopus Cosy.

The door is always the weak spot, makes soundproofing the wall seam pointless, especially with a 10mm gap under the door.

Hey @Gema. We’re building our ICF (certified - hopefully) passivhaus in East Cambridgeshire. We’re at first fix currently. We’ve done a fair bit DIY but have also had some trades come in but otherwise self managed. Feel free to ask any questions if you want! (ps we are also both engineers of some sort!)

you can generally calibrate cheapo dial thermometers easily enough to match them at your chosen temp. On some the dial can be rotated, you can pull the bezel, pull the needle and reposition on others, or you might even be lucky and find a wee setting screw...