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This is a cross section of our top (for several reasons) window contender… would you be worried that the highlighted bit doesn’t have a designed-in slope? It’s been suggested, by another supplier, that the flat rebate means that rain that gets past the seal (arrowed) would potentially sit on that flat area without draining, causing rot in the long term… that makes sense, but is it a real cause for concern? I’ve compared with a few other manufacturers’ cross sections and most seem to be like this, with just a couple that have a slight fall on the rebate below the glazing unit…. Any thoughts gratefully received… I thought our window choice was almost made (just awaiting one more quote) but this question makes me nervous! I shall now return to my much needed evening gin. Thank you all

My manifold is in the centre of the house cylinder at one end, just have 15mm pipe between the two. But that is just a sad reflection of the low skill levels in the UK and zero focus on professional development.

Yep I wish I had had this approach. Unfortunately like 99% of non-plumbers, and possibly 50%(?) of actual plumbers, had never heard of it. Likewise had never heard of hot return. Trouble is these things require more pipe length being run. Many domestic plumbers are never going to do it or offer it. They have quoted the job, now they, or the builder they are working for, want to maximise profit by minimising materials, not spend it buying the customer a manifold and putting in an inch of extra pipe. Find a mass market builder that does this type of plumbing - I bet they don't exist.

Point to point, multiples of continuous pipe from A - B, with a pipe for bath hot, a pipe for bath cold, a pipe for shower hot, another for shower cold, another for WC cold, another for sink hot, and cold, and so on until the whole house is plumbed. Each fed from a hot manifold and a cold manifold, so every individual pipe can be isolated independently for service. I put them in the same place to simplify plumbing.

Ah I understand i had manifold in last place worked well. If your cylinder is in airing cupboard and you have a separate utility/ plant room i suppose you'd have hot manifold in ac and cold in utility/plant?

@NickfromwalesThanks. It is just so impossibly difficult to get each step actually complete though. They didn't have enough of the levelling compound to quite complete the job for the first pass levelling ! And something about coming back to sort out the edges. They did use little 'soldier sticks' stuck to the primer to create a levelling guide and the mix was free flowing so found it's own level. Although they did use a spirit level to level the soldiers 2 at a time and I know from experience that you can use a spirit level 4 or 5 times end over and end up 4/5mm out of level over 8m quite easily. However the mix was free flowing anyway so probably irrelevant. It is difficult to understand how pro's can run out of material. When you are doing a trade week in/week out you would think what doesn't get used on one job gets used on another and you always have some spare floating stock at your premises. Most stuff doesn't time expire for months. Materials are generally much cheaper than labour. The cost of coming back to finish an incomplete job will greatly exceed any loss from over ordering. Cost of 10 extra bags about £200 retail, cost of another delivery, another trip, the double handling, 2 people for another half a day, rescheduling jobs, inconveniencing another customer etc probably £400+. Make it make sense because I can't. It is progress but, still frustrating. Plan the job well, do it well, complete it, move on. ugh

Series - long pipe from cylinder to last service off take, intermediate user tees off the long pipe. Generally all tees and other joints hidden in the building fabric. Radial, pipe from cylinder to manifold (with or without isolation valves) pipes go direct from manifold to user point. No hidden joints in the building fabric. A hybrid of this, is a radial system to each wet room and then in room go series.

I need another hobby

What does that mean put in layman's terms

You have way too much spare time mate. 😅

When I re-do my downstairs circuit I'm still going to "reverse return" the flow and returns from all the rads ie FIrst Rad "flow" is last Rad "return" etc

Coming back to this - I don't think it needs a floor plan type arrangement - I was think more a "Is room above heated Yes/No" Target temp = "X" Then the dt function for internal differences takes this into account?

Nobody series plumbs anymore, that I know, as it’s just inefficient and introduces bucketloads of hidden joints. 👎. “Radial ‘til I die”.

Seems to echo my earlier thoughts: https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/apple-mac-mini-supply-3e7a7509

That’ll be plenty. Just wipe everything with a cloth to get dust cleaned off, so the tapes stick well. 👍

Apologies, on a job that’s keeping me busy atm. I would have said this. Glad they carried on, and you’re making progress.

Thanks. Does it matter how much overlap there is. The battens are about 60mm off the floor so could tuck underneath and tape the overlap without lifting the battens.

Except a house can be in service for multiple generations, so may be others money as well.

If you have manifold close to hot water tank then presumably could use big pipe to manifold?

Finished mine in 2018. Lived in it, sold it and moved on. I know someone who hasn't finished their's, because they're always on holiday!!

The software company is a different company, so that's ok for now. BUT if we want all the bells and whistles you have to pay monthly. The hardware unless bought over there goes the warranty. But battery inverter do not need cloud based services unless you need remote access and monitoring. It can all be controlled locally. Several alternative controllers out there if you need them. Big BUT, they won't be the last, tech startups come and go

Not sure if anyone has one of these systems, i'd considered it but they were too expensive at the time, glad now. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn539rwe330o Always ran low on cash reserves apparently

My feeling here would be to run the incoming to where the EV charger/solar is and then run ducting from there into the house with one mains cable for the whole house (would need additional ducting for comms). Looks like you could run almost the whole route outside the footprint of the house to allow easy access later. But there might be an electrical/building control reason why you shouldn't do that?

Main supplies are coming into the utility/plant room and most of the equipment needing the supplies externally are the other side of the bedroom/en-suite between the plant room and the equipment. So, to my mind, it makes sense to put under rather than through the ICF wall. The only solar panels will be above the carport area, hence the inverter etc also being in the car port area - and I don't want batteries within the house. EV charger, driveway and external lights also in the same area. With the ASHP mounted behind the car port we will be putting the inlet/outlet pipework up and over the doorway you can see that gives access to the rear of the house from the car port (top of drawing is rear of house). The house is single storey so these will enter the house into the loft space above the bedroom. Yes, we could take all the other cables across there too but I think that would end up looking like a snake's wedding of pipes and cables if we're not careful. It does give us a joker card, though, if we do forget something fundamental (and important enough to want to drill through the ICF) at a later date. My thoughts are to run one large electrical cable through a duct to a suitably placed/waterproof panel in the car port area where different supplies can then be branched off - rather than lots of smaller cables. The house will have three-phase so done correctly there shouldn't be any issues regarding supply suitability. Another conduit for data and potential water and we can keep conduits to a minimum. Useful to know how you've done it - thanks. One question though - you have different conduits for data in and data out. - is one of those the fibre supply and the other is everything else or have you split things out some other way?

1st half of the pipe length is in 22mm before going down to 15 mm.