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With mine it's more the look than the noise. It could freeze molten glass! Im often saying "don't look at me in that tone of voice"!!

One of the final significant jobs I had to do before we moved in was connect up and commission the MVHR. All the radial ductwork and individual plenums had been fitted at first fix, however I had left installing and connecting the actual unit until the loft has been insulated, as I didn't want to risk pipe connections being damaged. The day before we were due to move in, the insulation contractor having laid all the loft insulation, I spent a couple of hours in the loft space above our vestibule connecting ducts for the air intake, air exhaust, and the supply and extract ducts to the distribution boxes. I decided to locate the MVHR in our (cold) loft space, primarily to free up space in my service cupboard which houses our DHW cylinder, UFH manifold and CU. The installation manual advises that where the MVHR unit is located in a cold rather than warm part of the envelope it should be insulated. I initially considered lining the whole of the relevant loft area with insulation, but having worked out the cost, and then being able to salvage a number of sheet insulation offcuts from the skip, I ended up forming an insulated box around the MVHR unit. As you can see in the picture, it's a very simple box, the relevant supply and extract ducts simply cored through the insulation. Our MVHR unit is a Vent-Axia Kinetic Sentinel Plus. These can be supplied in either left hand or right hand format to suit your installation. My plans had originally shown the air intake and exhaust on the Southeast roof of the house, but as the house was being built it became clear it would be more convenient for those vents to be located on the northwest side of the house. Making that change left me with a problem of having an MVHR unit with the duct spigots for the internal supply and extract on the wrong side of the unit. Fortunately the Vent Axia units can be reconfigured by taking off the front and back of the unit, disconnecting and removing the control panel, rotating the unit chassis through 180 degrees, then reassembling so that the back is now the front. Having connected all the ductwork, the final thing to do was connect the condensate pipe I had fitted during first fix (which discharges to a rainwater trap outside) to the flexible condensate pipe on the base of the MVHR unit. Having switched the MVHR on, I then went about balancing the system using an Air Flow meter borrowed from my builder. This was a relatively straightforward process and just required minor adjustments to individual diffusers in each room. Our system is currently operating at a normal supply rate of 32% which equates to 150m3/hr. Having measured efficiency during cold and windy weather, it operates at 90% efficiency in terms of temperature differential (room temperature to supply air temperature). In warmer weather, the Summer Bypass, which I have set to come on when internal air temperatures exceed 22C and ambient air is above 10C, automatically activates. If ambient air temperature exceeds internal house temperatures, as was the case last week, the summer bypass remains inactive so that outgoing stale air can cool incoming fresh air (albeit the effect is negligible). As others have found, whilst summer bypass does provide limited cooling of incoming air, it is not on its own enough to cool the house. Cross ventilation by opening windows remains the most effective way of providing such cooling (in the absence of any active or UFH cooling). The final feature worth mentioning is the humidity sensor, which variably boosts the ventilation rate to ensure RH does not exceed the level set in the controller. This also seems to be working well, auto boosting ventilation when showers are used. When cooking, if we deem it necessary, we can manually boost ventilation to assist in the extraction of cooking odours. Overall I pleased with how the system is operating. The one thing I have noticed compared to other MVHR systems we have lived with is the noise of the fans which you can hear through the ductwork. This is the first house where we have used a radial system rather than 150mm main ducts with branches off, so it may be the duct choice, as I can't recall hearing fan noise on previous installations. To combat this issue, I've ordered some self adhesive acoustic foam sheet, and plan to construct a silencer out of scrap MDF and timber, line with foam and externally insulate, to fit between the MVHR unit and distribution boxes. I'll report back in due course how effective this is. The final tweak to the system that I'm considering is fitting a CO2 sensor so that the unit can auto boost ventilation rates as required. Vent Axia want £350 for their sensor which is a non starter, but looking around, the following may be an option as it seems suited to the parameters of the Vent Axia: https://www.digikey.co.uk/products/en?keywords=235-1413-ND Again I'll report back when I've looked into this some more. Next entry - 2nd fix plumbing

I've already ordered the acoustic foam! I'll maybe drop Gary at BPC an email and ask the question if I should have got a silencer, or if as I suspect, they now include one where they didn't before. I had considered buying one ready made but for the same money I can make one significantly bigger (which should provide more sound absorption) plus I'll have enough material to make a smaller silencer for the extract ductwork.

Thanks everyone. That seems to be the bottom line - that for now at least FLA is the way to go. If increased home storage happens - and it seems likely - maybe NiFe or flow batteries or something will become a consideration. It seems the wisest move is to hold off, wait and see. I'm not sure why I've lost two batteries in two years (with a single cell failure each time), maybe Crown batteries are prone to failure (supplier says not) or maybe my setup is lacking somewhere. Buying a new battery at £200+ every year is a nuisance though.

Get your missus to shout at you through it and see if that takes the edge off ? Theres a 'real world' test for you

Laying in bed as I can't be arsed to move, so went through this thread again. Looking good mate, and that brickwork is nothing to sweat about, looks the mutts ? Only feels like yesterday when you were caught jemmy'ing the back door open on EB , how time flies.

That's what we said a year ago - except the babies bit; did that 30 years ago. The only sort that we look forward to are the grand kind. 1 down and ? to go.

These guys were quite a bit cheaper than Sirlingbuildor me but it seems to vary by model and size! They were who I got Jewsons to price match: https://www.roofingoutlet.co.uk/

Right now, a good quality FLA pack will almost certainly outlast any lithium chemistry cells, IF they are looked after well and are run within a limited range of state of charge (SOC). Something like a big Rolls pack, or a high quality fork lift pack, run between 95% SOC and 50% SOC will probably last around 15 years, if regularly monitored and watered. At their end-of-life they will probably still deliver around 80% of their usable capacity, but will start to have other problems, like individual cell partial failure, which makes maintenance a pain. Lithium may well improve, but I have a strong suspicion that ion transfer storage has an inherent issue with calendar life. This probably isn't an issue for vehicles, which is where most of the R&D investment is going, but is for domestic energy storage. My personal view is that, as domestic energy storage starts to grow, redox flow batteries will get more development. The potential is there for redox flow batteries to have a calendar life of decades, as, in theory, it's only the electrolyte that should degrade. Whether this becomes reality depends on whether there is enough of a market for domestic storage. Companies like Tesla, may well test and develop that market, as a way of reducing the cost of their main product line, vehicle batteries.

Have moved around to the back today.

Jeremy wins on a technicality. You know when I said "you" you know I meant the pair of you. Anyway congratulations. I know what it's like to be building slowly with no third party help.

The governments and local authorities did a good job with Milton Keynes. It took 50 years to get to where it is today, billions in investment, and really benefits from being on the M1. It does show what can be achieved though. I recently went to Wickford in Essex, as I drove though Basildon, where I lived in the 60's, it seemed a lot wealthier than where I am in Cornwall. I am going into Penzance today, I may count the number of closed shops in the two main streets (they are regenerating Chapel Street, so not a good gauge). I personally think that developing new towns and cities is a better way to go that trying to save old depressed places with all connected infrastructure problems and prejudices.

To all you wonderful beautiful intelligent patient kind supportive blokes... I thank you! (Sorry for the rubbish photo)