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Happy New Year. Here is hoping that as we enter the 5th calendar year of a 6 month extension project we can achieve completion this year. 2025 was another annus horribilis of stress, frustration, disappointments, nasty neighbours, health problems, imaginary plumbers, a backed up drain, and a dead dog. We even had a door come off its hinges only yesterday. May 2026 bring us all the change we hope for.

Friends of ours are having problems with their hot water over a period and they have had a plumber look at the problem, who said it was an issue for an electrician, they don't want to call a plumber today for obvious reasons, and so I said I would pop round and have a look at it. Its not a particularly odd one, basically the hot water tank is getting flow through the heating coil despite the call for hot water being off. So I looked at the S-PLAN valves and and noticed that that their electrician, under instruction from the plumber, had already fitted a new head to the hot water valve (A Honeywell 272848 normally closed valve) but they left the new valve body on the floor! Cutting a long story short I took the motorised head off the valve and forced the valve shut with a spanner and it looks like it still lets by so my question is: Do these valves let by when they are forcibly closed - I thought they were rubber balls so pushing past the end stop of the motor, without the motor attached, should close it but it does not appear to. So my diagnosis is that the valve body will need to be replaced but I wanted confirmation that forcing the valve shut can still result in flow getting through - has the ball fallen apart for instance?

Fixing some metal frame ceiling to the other side of the top of this stud wall. Nearly sorted, just connected to the shower valve now under test before I put the wall board back. thankfully plant room is next door so it was only 2m of pipe to pull/push

Better than that, but no photos. Drilling a 16mm hole through a thick stone wall for a cable. When it broke through on the inside, I cut back a bit of the plasterboard, to find the drill bit had emerged through the wall between two 22mm copper pipes that nobody knew were there. An inch either way and it would have been a wet problem to fix.

Thanks , that's fine. Take care in finding your independent inspector and be sure to put all the hypotheses people have suggested to him to have him check and comment on each. Hopefully you can find someone that will come with measurement devices for temps, plumbness, fit accuracy, air gaps etc. It will be interesting to hear what he finds. I think this is a common concern and has got me thinking again about what to put between the packers under my bifolds. I had to have celcon insulating blocks replaced with concrete blocks because my builder was seemingly unable to actually securely mortar in the celcon blocks, and the window company doubtful about screw fixing into them.

This was a genuine near miss when I dropped a flat wood bit:

Ouch what caused that - clearly not a dart?

Couldn’t for the life of me get a piece of pipe to hold pressure yesterday, stripped all the fittings off, double checking the pressure tester… now I know why 🤣, bugger!

Happy new year folks, Thankyou for being such a treasure chest of information, and laughs.

I don’t actually disagree with any of that. Identifying causation rigorously is exactly why I’ve moved away from forum debate and toward independent inspection. At this point we’re well past exchanging hypotheses - the issue is persistent, localised, and observable, and the next step is to establish the mechanism formally rather than speculate further. I also agree that trades too often dismiss customer observations until someone “with letters after their name” repeats the same thing. That’s unfortunate, but it’s precisely why independent assessment exists. Whatever the outcome - whether responsibility ultimately sits with the installation detail or the underlying fabric - understanding what’s actually happening is essential before any proper remediation or replacement can be considered. Thanks for taking the time to set that out, and happy new year to you too.

I’ve got a few hours this morning before the in-laws come for lunch to do some building. The best way to start 2026! Happy New Year.

I'm in the process, of really considering replacing my 6kW ASHP, that doesn't modulate well with a 4kW one, that does modulate well. Will then either repurpose the 6kW ASHP, as a hot tub heater (via a plate exchanger), or sell it on to someone with a suitable heat loss.

OK, but I don't see that there is any other method to identify what is actually happening other than identifying a list of possible hypotheses that might explain it, and then seeking to test and check these hypotheses one by one. It is what we call the scientific method. Once there is an objective identification of the actual problem(s) it is possible to ascribe responsibility and whether reasonable care and skill has been used or not. Unfortunately it is still often human nature for people to start by avoiding blame and attributing faults to other factors as your fitters are doing. They might be right or wrong, and what is needed is a logical scientific identification of the problem(s). Even bringing in other 'experts' can sometimes only generate more opinion unless there is some focus on establishing facts and evidence supporting or refuting hypothetical causes. I will say that in my experience it is too common for some trades people to essentially ignore what the customer says on the basis that the customer is assumed to be ignorant, inexperienced, unqualified to comment etc. To try to be fair there are doubtless customers where this is true but in reality it should matter not who makes claims or statements, only whether they can be established as factually true or false. But I have also had 5 different plumbers give me 5 different opinions on a plumbing problem - some of them fairly obvious crap. However sometimes you do need to bring in somebody with letters after their name and direct experience (e.g. surveyor, engineer, architect, QS etc) to tell some tradespeople exactly the same as the customer is saying and to state the bleeding obvious, before they will remotely accept it. I would encourage you to focus on rigourously identifying the problem(s), because even if you gain a section 75 financial settlement you will still need to get the doors replaced - and if you don't understand the current problem(s) you are likely to see them repeated on a new product/install. It has been my experience in life that things are mostly like the saying about making a cooked breakfast - the hen is involved in the endeavour but only the pig is actually committed. Whether it is a health problem, a car problem, or a building problem you can seek help and opinion but in the end it is only you the pig that actually bears the problem and is truly driven and committed to getting a resolution. Ignore the bullshit, the name callers, appeals to claimed 'authority', those that play politics, the insurers, lawyers, dissemblers, chancers and deniers etc. Find the truth, hold people to account - whether a window fitter, the horizon scandal, the blood transfusion scandal, grenfell, or hillsborough. Find the truth, speak the truth, live the truth. As the man said 'For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled' Happy New Year

Just use a layer of 50mm PIR on the bottom, with 100mm on the top. Your local merchant will have 1000s of these in stock, at good prices, as that's what the building trade uses. They won't have any /much 75mm PIR or EPS. As a consequence , 50+100mm will work out better value than 2x 75mm. Thin EPS is a nightmare to work with as it just snaps. Foil faced PIR holds together better, can be cut more precisely, despite it being "harder" to cut than EPS. You also can't have steps in your inusaltion, so just allow the screed to take care of those level variations. (Our floor is 50mm eps, 50mm PIR, 100mm PIR, 50mm screed. 50mm eps at bottom as we changed from 100mm to 50mm screed last minute)

Happy new year to you too...another day off today for some Build work!

That's a lot of glass for one room, esp with the roof light. you meeting regs with that?

Just for you. Frame insulation: Then VCL and more timber battens and an extra 60mm of mineral wool.:

Thank you. We start the new year with our chilly having a birthday at Christmas. With him and me on site the average site age has just risen to just over 70. You’ve heard of Jerry built. Well ours is geriatric built. lol

I’d strongly agreee, using a piece of wood knelt on as a guide for me really sped it up. Both polystyrene and PIR made mess, but for me only PIR was unpleasant.

We ended up with 335mm to 345mm to fill to get to FFL which includes screed with UFH. I am keen on a good thickness screed so wanted circa 100mm. So for us the insulation thickness was given. We want the biggest living space we can fit in to our narrow plot so our walls haven’t the most fantastic U values so to an extent the floor and ceiling can sort of compensate a bit, so I targeted 0.1 for the floor. Going from the architects suggested 0.13 U value to that felt ok, cost wise. Beyond that felt silly.

Thanks for taking the time to think this through in detail. Some of the scenarios you describe - frame-to-frame alignment tolerances, bedding of the cill, or concealed gaps masked by sealant - are interesting. However, they all ultimately point back to the same issue: the assembly and detailing of a multi-part door system at the threshold. If any of those conditions exist, they wouldn’t be characteristics of the existing building fabric but of the way the system has been installed and integrated. Small tolerances, hidden voids or misalignment at the base may be common, but they are precisely the kinds of details that affect internal surface temperatures and condensation risk. I also note the suggestion that the glazing units themselves may be allowing air passage around the frame. If that were the case, it would raise a much more fundamental issue with the assembly and sealing of the system rather than with the surrounding structure. Ultimately, the challenge here isn’t identifying ever more hypothetical mechanisms in isolation, but assessing whether the installation, taken as a whole, has resulted in an internal threshold detail that performs acceptably under normal occupied conditions. That’s why I’m seeking an independent assessment rather than relying on conjecture or what might typically be tolerated in practice. I appreciate the input, but at this stage the question isn’t what might possibly explain it, it’s what is actually happening — and whether the installation outcome reflects reasonable care and skill.

No, it was oversized to facilitate fast DHW reheat times, and because the MCS installer was skeptical our enerphit would succeed. PHP said 4kW demand but we installed 8kW. This supporting the fast cheap rate heating cycle is a happy coincidence, as in 2019 I really wasn't specifying this based on the existence of such deals.

As above. All the best for another year of staring at one tiny problem for waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long. And then realising it didn't RERALLY matter that much after all. Adios 2025, here we go for 2026. Get your house built asap, or it'll be 2027 and I'll be telling you off again

Use this simple cut out guide to work out your ideal insulation thickness for your desired U-Value.

Well done the wrinklies