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LOL, I initially read the thread title as 'Smug Passivhaus dwellers', and then re-read it and realised my error

In fairness I think half the problem is down to my maverick husband who would have spoken to a few people / suppliers, got specs for the products that a specific company supplied and then thought he could design it and fit it himself. In hindsight (ain't that always the way! ) we should have got an expert in to design the whole thing holistically with a detailed spec that brought it together as a working system rather than individual components bolted together making the whole thing not fit for purpose. And when he had trades in to help with bits and bobs they would have fitted their own thing and not worried about the rest of it working (understandably). Add to that the fact that no one we had out to help with plumbing had ever worked on anything like it and it compounded the issues. Or alternatively he should have fitted an oil boiler and radiators like everyone else round here, but he was into gadgets and technology so hell would have frozen over before he would have fitted a system like that. We had specs for all sorts when he was deciding what he wanted to build re the house and the components in it. Bloody place is a nightmare now that I'm here on my own. Perhaps his own special way of making sure I remember him I guess .

We received our as built SAP documentation yesterday and the EPC is A95 without any renewables. Apparently if we install 3.2kWp PV system it goes up to A102. We were going to do that a bit later this year, so I suppose I have to have the EPC calculated again when the work is done.

I thought she was coming round to collect it?

are they anything like the Veet for men reviews?...... Hilarious https://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R3GDDEL1SC1QQ5 P.s while you are there try looking up the sugar-free gummy bear reviews, similarly hilarious

No, he's just tight

Had to ignite a couple of farts this week but more to avoid opening a window than for the heat input

supposedly the thing can drive itself so i might be able to do both

I struggled to read that Tea Tree one to the the missus for laughing. She said "I don't know why you're laughing you haven't even got one!"

There's a tea tree one for women https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2017/05/11/womans-hilarious-flaps-on-fire-rant-goes-viral-using-original-source-mint-shower-gel-first-time/

Yeah it does sting if you leave it on for too long doesn't it!

Believe me I knew that when I said it. Looking forward to seeing the footage!

A very snug 22+ here as well. The only heating input for the last 9 days has been the sun and 3 towel rads for 30 mins a day. Loving that South facing solar gain.

A cosy 22 in our house. Only have UFH on the ground floor and never 100% sure when its on - need to open the broom cupboard to see if there's any lights on the controller.

I think the model I have hired lists at about £150k, Its the only chance I'll ever have to drive one so yes 3 day is essential (not long enough in my eyes)

I have a progressive lung condition. It is not asthma, it is not curable, it will kill me. My annuity was enhanced as on the actuarial index my life expectancy is lower than average due to this condition. I do not use inhalers. My condition is not caused by my environment but is impacted by it. Unless you have the misfortune to experience what it is actually like to live your life with compromised breathing then you have no idea how it feels. Wood burners have an adverse affect on my health as do garden bonfires and barbeques. I have no control over this as my lung condition is not caused by environmental circumstances but my ability to breathe is compromised hugely by these things over which I have no control. I lived many years in Africa where wood burning and charcoal making are the way of life (I do not mean white suburban south africa but africa proper). The landscape has become a dustbowl due to the trees being removed and burnt at a greater rate than they can grow this in turn has caused the soil to erode and is responsible in large part for the famines in that continent. Lack of rain is not the only factor. The pollution caused by all this wood burning is huge. If you have ever flown into Johannesburg at dawn and seen the pall of woodsmoke hanging over the townships as the population rise and prepare their breakfast you would be utterly shocked. Africans in poor circumstances have little choice but to burn what they can and they do it to survive. Here in western Europe people do it as a lifestyle choice with no thought for the pollution they are belching out it is just trendy to have a log burner. There are other far better forms of heating that can be used. I am sorry if this is not a popluar view but I speak as someone who’s quality of life is governed by my surroundings and the air quality in my immediate vicinity. I do also have the food issues referred to amongst other things, its all to do with immune system. I would like to see wood burners of all sorts banned as soon as possible and perhaps when I have some time when this build is finished if I have any energy left I will try and start a campaign to get them banned.

Day job. Villain on police dog training courses.

I see your fingerless gloves and raise you 'the ribbing off an old pair of walking socks' around my wrists - surprising how it helps

Jeez, I'll just put a swimming pool in shall I and use that as me TS!

I agree that vehicle pollution is very significant, but there is no doubt that wood smoke is also a significant cause of particulate emissions. One study suggested that a single wood burning stove emitted around the same particulate emissions as around 100 small diesel cars, with the main difference being that the wood stove emitted the pollution higher up and over a wider, more dispersed, area. The big thing to remember when looking back through time to make any comparison, is the average age at death, and how this masked many hundreds of illnesses and diseases that we now view as major life threatening conditions. Early man gathered around his fire probably had a life expectancy of around 40 years. We now have around double that. One effect of this is that we are now seeing many people with diseases that they would never have had even a couple of hundred years ago, simply because something else would have killed them first. I looked into this effect in some depth years ago, as I've been a part of a longitudinal study into genetic factors that influence multiple sclerosis since 1977. My father had an acute, non-remitting, form of MS and died when he was 43. One of his cousins also had the same form and died at around the same age, as did one of his aunts. Two of my cousins have it, one is very seriously ill and is ten years younger than me. Because of the unusually high incidence in our family, a researcher in Oxford has been using us as a study group for years, to try and identify a genetic predisposition. We had no record in the family of anyone having this condition before my grandparents generation. The researcher went back more carefully through every record she could find and concluded that there were probably 7 early deaths in the family, going back to the mid-1800s, that may well have been MS related. The problem is that the disease wasn't recognised until around 1870, and wasn't regularly diagnosed with any degree of reliability until around 70 or 80 years ago. I carry the faulty part of chromosome 6 in my genetic make-up, something I only had the courage to find out about 4 years ago. The researchers have known about my genetic status for years, but gave me the choice as to whether to go through counselling and be told or not, and I chose not to, until I was over 60, largely because it's rare for the disease to start in anyone over about 50. It seems that whatever triggers the disease didn't work for me, for which I'm exceptionally grateful. There's also increasing evidence that people are becoming more sensitive to things in their environment. My own view is that this may be partly to do with changes in our environment itself, in that we are now exposed to a whole range of potential substances that previous generations were not. I also feel that there may be some link with the way we are obsessed with disinfecting everything, something that may have a possible effect on the way the immune system of youngsters develops. As a retired nurse I know reasonable well keeps reminding everyone she bumps into, there may be a lot of good in children eating a bit of dirt...................

The problem seems to be that it's a very skewed market, with a lot of government interference. My personal view is that the energy market is "neither fish nor fowl", in that it is not a true free market and neither is it a government owned nationalised industry. In some ways it's the worst of both! The government effectively has a strong influence over the generation cost, because they put massive subsidies into some forms of generation, some for good reasons, some for less good reasons. This skews the wholesale cost a fair bit, and even though some subsidies have now been removed, their impact will remain for the next couple of decades. The government also seems to have a modest impact on the retail price, with new caps and controls on tariffs and OFGEN interference in the way suppliers operate. The "free" bit of the market is really just the bit between the wholesale half-hourly traded energy price and the supplier tariff setting methodology. The wholesale half hourly price is massively impacted by government subsidised generation. Look right now: http://gridwatch.co.uk/ , nuclear, solar, wind and biomass are all getting government subsidies (or have been), and they are supplying a fair bit of our total energy right now. Given that the strongest government intervention in the market currently seems to be associated with generation, and hence the half hourly wholesale price, it's no wonder the suppliers wish to pass that volatility (and risk) on to consumers. I wonder what would happen if we did have a device that switches tariffs in real time, every 30 minutes? I rather suspect it would remove any real added value from any supplier - consumers may as well just buy directly from the generators. Oh, hang on a minute, would that be what we had when energy supply was nationalised?............................

Just as a point of interest, I live in a rural location similar to yours (I came to your home during an open day), although mine is slightly more open, on the side of a hill, where every house has a log burner including my own. For the last 2 years I have a particulate monitor (PM1.0, PM2.5, PM10) and latterly a VAX Pure Air 300 Air Purifier which automatically reduces internal air pollution in the house (fan speed varies automatically depending on PM levels). What I have noticed 1) prior to having the air purifier PMs in the room with the log burner would often run above 100 ug/m3 when the log burner was running, often when I was struggling to get the burner to start and draw properly, and this would often last for 1 to 2 hours 2) after installing the VAX, it is rare to get anywhere near 50ug/m3 if the WB is struggling to light and draw, and if it does the VAX gets it quickly down to under 5 ug.m3 within 5 minutes, typical levels when the burner is in use and the VAX on is under 2 ug/m3; I now also use a hand held gas burner to light the stove rather than matches as it minimises the time the boiler doors are open 3) so a combination of the VAX and the PM monitor lets me keep the house internally at reasonable levels of PMs most of the time, and certainly better than it was before 4) where I struggle with internal PMs, is very still days, like today, which happens perhaps 10 times during the winter, where my neighbours log burners create high PM levels outside. today it ranged between 60 and 100 ug/m3, at which point even with my own log burner off, the house internally was 30 ug to 50 ug most of the day, until I mpved the VAX to the centre of the house and turned the VAX on which brought down ambient levels within the house to about 10ug, but even on max I couldn't get it much lower (I live in a reasonably air permeable ( 7m3/m3/hr @ 50Pa) 1970s house. So my conclusions, narrowly relating to PMs (not NOX, VOCs or anything else) are: 1. log burners are a health problem internally unless you manage them carefully and use an air purifier (or MVHR) 2. internally, PMs can be quite high, even if you have an external air feed, largely because max PMs are caused when the doors are open however briefly when lighting the stove 3. externally log burners, rurally, seem to be a problem only on still days, for neighbours It would be difficult to persuade neighbours to stop using wood for heating, as for many its a free local source, and it part and parcel of the culture of rural life. From recollection there are word burners starting to come onto the market with catalysts for treating the smoke going up the chimney, don't know anything about them. Personally I think wood burners are acceptable in rural non-bowl exposed locations where most of the time smoke can be dispersed away from neighbouring homes. I am making no comments on burners in urban locations. I wouldn't be surprised in locations like Jeremy's, in rural valley bowl locations if high levels of ambient PMs persist for much of the winter?

Hello all, I have been lurking on this forum for a couple of weeks now so figured I should say hello. I'm not going to be posting much anytime soon - I'm currently committed to voraciously consuming all of the content on this forum! An absolute mine of information - if only I'd found this a couple of years ago!! In the process of purchasing a plot in the Lincolnshire Wolds on which I intend to build a 250m2 property. In the near future I daresay I will need to tap into the collective knowledge lurking on this site - bear with me and my rookie questions Jamie

Hi everyone. I'm at an extremely early stage in our plans for converting our small Scottish Steading (barn), but what I do know is that it will mostly be a self build job apart from Windows and roof. The structure is sound and we have the first meeting with the architect on Wednesday (snow permitting!) I'm certainly glad I found this forum but I did notice only 1 post in the barn conversion section which surprised me. Am I in the right place, or is there a more relevant forum out there? Thanks, and I look forward to sharing my experiences along the long road ahead. And yes, perhaps asking for a little advice too ?

Because they had never fitted one before. They are probably fitting heat pumps now.

What about incentives. Let me get you on octopus Jeremy we both get 50 quid!

Once set up correctly you'll be able to run bath after bath. And an adequate shower would be able to be left running pretty much 24/7

Or when looking to max out the TS prior to the electric boiler switching off for 2 hours, in line with the E2000 tariff, too. When in service, renewables ( ST in this instance ) set aside for a moment, the TS wont ever really turn off. It'll be constantly pulsing heat in, as its removed by the space heating, and then again on top of that should DHW be needed too. It could be set to DHW priority, as the last job I did was, so space heating cannot be drawn whilst DHW is, so maximising the capability of the TS to provide bulk DHW with ease. A bit of an answer about sizing, eg you can cheat a smaller TS into behaving like a bigger one with a bit of clever control, so basically make it behave like a combi boiler ( which will only do heating OR hot water never the two at the same time ).

Yes, but it is not as simple as it seems. You also have to take into account incidental radiation angles, overall insolation levels and time of day.

I think what nick means is use the DHW coil (Circuit) as the ASHP brine circuit (primary water) then just draw heat directly out of the tank.

You've said it all with a single word, nothing I could add could improve on that!

All TS's are ( should be ) unique to each application, loaded with tappings / coils etc to suit, and most of the cylinders I buy are bespoke / made to order. This one is a one-type-suits-all and is covered in open tappings. The boiler doesn't feed this via a coil in this instance, it's direct. I thought I saw a diagram with a coil but @PeterW corrected that and I looked a bit further and, yes I'm as shocked as you are, he was right. The only coil in this TS is the ST. Good news is that the ST coil is right at the bottom, so virtually any heat produced by the TS would be useful, but the ST temp probes ultimately dictate when the ST will turn on, governed by the mid range temp. As said, the ST will only pump into the tank when it is going to be of use, eg it won't pump if it's cooler than the portion of the TS that it's temp sensors are monitoring. One key reason that stratification helps out there eg to keep the lower portion cool and take advantage of whatever ST gain is available.

-4 deg C here, too, outside, but very clear skies, bright sunshine and loads of lovely PV generation! The combination of clear skies, bright sun and very cold air really does kick up the output of a PV system. Right now it's exporting more than the house is using, and the heat pump is running and my car is charging......................

One problem is when you introduce a pump into the system though, and I think the baffles that some manufacturers fit are mainly to limit the turbulence caused by the return from a pump. Because our buffer tank isn't designed as a thermal store, and has no baffles or whatever, within a minute or so of the plate heat exchanger pre-heat pump coming on cool water reaches the mid-point of the tank where the temperature sensor is and causes the heat pump to fire up. In this case that's an advantage, but it does seem to indicate that the turbulence created by pumping water from the top of the tank, cooling it through the PHE and then injecting it back at the very bottom of the tank tends to disturb the natural stratification that would otherwise occur.

Down to the density differences as water is heated. Without teaching my Grandmother how to suck eggs, hotter water rises to the top of of tank and stays there until it is used or cools. Cooling is generally at the interface between the water and the cylinder. Insulating the cylinder reduces this cooling over time, so there is less downwards circulation down the sides of the cylinder. This is why I dislike the word 'stratification' and much prefer using the term 'temperature gradient'. Stratification implies that there are discrete and isolated layers of water stacked one on top of another and you can access each one individually. Some cylinder manufactures have placed mechanical restrictions i.e. plates and buckets, inside cylinders to contain the natural temperature induced turbulence. But I think that is more 'marketing' driven than engineering. It might be worth just reminding readers about the Laws of Thermodynamics. Not going to show Stephanie Flanders Dad and his mate this time.

http://www.solaruk.com/glossary/solar-energy-glossary.asp?item=2059&imagename=Stratification / de-stratification

THe tall thin shape helps prevent too much mixing. This is Stratification. The heating of the TS water all happens via heat exchangers to keep the glycol in the solar system and the water in the boiler circuit separate from the water in the tank. The boiler heats the top via one heat exchanger. THe Solar heats the bottom via another one, and because it is in the coldest part it can use its more variable / lower temperature in low sun conditions more of the time. THat is Low Quality heat because it is variable and lower temp. THe boiler ... High Quality heat ... is hotter and consistent. There are various valves and mixers and thermostats used so that the system can be most usefully .. er .. managed to give the best outputs. And if I talk about that In detail I will get something not quite right, so I won't try. Roughly the tap water is drawn off from the top, and the ufh which is lower temperature from lower down. I do not know enough to comment on size without some research. @Onoff might know, and seems to be around. J

The solar controller should stop circulation in the glycol / brine loop if the ST panel temperature is lower than the tank temperature. In Summer (or any other time) the solar heated water rises. Any solar heated water is if you like pre heat to save on other fuel use.

Long nose connector? http://www.plumbers-mate-sales.co.uk/mcalpine-90-degree-bent-long-nose-pan-connector---40005076-457-p.asp

(Roughly) Because the TS has a temperature gradient ... it is hotter at the top and coldest at the bottom, and the solar heating circuit comes in at the bottom, and the boiler at the top. The thermostats and water heating circuits are arranged such that the solar water heating always operates to the max it can, and comes in to the coldest part of the tank. Ferdinand

My lovely new house is toasty with no heat on at all its at about 22 today. This rented house is freezing, boiler working overtime and still struggling to get the place much over 20 half the rads dont work whole system needs flushing and balancing. I cant wait to get to new house.....I am wondering about overheating in summer.......

Just checked this and its not "free" as it has a marked increase in standing charge.... Ebico Night Owl Day unit rate 16.7872p per kWh Night unit rate 0.0000p per kWh Standing charge 51.48p per day Ebico Prime 18 Fixed Day unit rate 16.4676p per kWh Night unit rate 8.9236p per kWh Standing charge 21.99p per day So whilst the concept is interesting, the economic only stack up if you can put some considerable heat into the slab such as the way that @TerryE is doing. Looks like a candidate for 00:30-02:30 on ASHP DHW, followed by 02:30 to 07:00 with the space heating, kicking the immersion in for the last hour or so to get DHW up past 65c for the start of the day.

This is where I like outside boilers. You can remove the burner, point it away from the boiler and fire it up with the flame visible and really see what is going on. Do NOT try that with an indoor boiler

That throws a massive spanner into our power model for Heating, DHW and Electricity! A good one mind! Hot digity does that Night Owl plan make it very tempting to ditch gas entirely. Only concern is the longevity of such a plan.

I had a similar question from BC "How am I going to fireproof the walls of my wood shed" It turned out because I had shown the wood shed right up to a boundary it needed fireproofing. I solved it by moving the wood shed 1M from the boundary. I assume they are concerned with fire proofing of doors and windows?

If I run out of oil I need to bleed pretty much every time. Otherwise hitting the burner reset button and it'll attempt to fire up then die due to fuel starvation. It's a doddle tbh. Get a tray under the burner. An old Neapolitan ice cream tub helps too. Unscrew this Allen screw, think it's 4mm (I only had a 5mm to hand). Unscrew it but keep very readily to hand. Hit the reset button a few times and you'll hear a hiss of air. Eventually you'll be rewarded with a steady stream of stinky heating oil. Whack the screw back in and then spend the rest of the evening trying to get the smell off your hands! Worth checking any filter too and that the fire valve hasn't tripped.

I secured some land and it has 4 plots on it am looking for one ,two or three people to get involved as a plot share the plot lot is in Leigh greater Manchester

sorry i think you read it wrong, i meant pouring a slab and expecting it to be level is wrong. They just arnt that accurate. never are. there are no wrong choices in the building, some just cost more than others! block and beam is fully insulated against cold bridge mind. But again this heat your house with a hairdryer stuff is niche and not applicable to most folk as the economics of it just dont add up. im not that great at writing as you can guess, i definately wasnt saying they were wrong to choose whatever method they like!

Welcome @Fredd to the forum. I quite like your slightly provocative approach and look forward to some vigorous debate. I have an interest in keeping costs down and encouraging self-builders at lower price points, and I hope to come back later on with a couple of questions. Ferdinand

Welcome! I hope you do too, although I think the general feeling is that self-build is more or less a series of reinforcement learning episodes punctuated by brief periods where things appear (deceptively) to be going right.