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I reset it all to factory apart from a couple of settings but the one that is interesting is the HP as thats the hours run. Apart from the 25 mins on Sunday night when we used the power of an empty tango can and some cold water to “influence” the pump into starting, the remaining time is purely from the controller. I will be really chuffed if it all works as planned as it’s been a bit of a challenge without knowing if the system was actually wired up properly in the first place ...!

Some pics of the DIY kitchens on our current development - still some bits of snagging remaining but they seem fine.

Yes, because I was worried it would end up downstairs with the weight

So an update on the solar. Looks like it’s working as later on the settings were as follows: col 64.4 tst 47.1 S3 68.5 % 70 h P 7 And the lower eBay stat was up to 68.5 from its earlier 56.5 and I’m pretty certain that the boiler didn’t fire up to do that. I’m not certain why the col temp got to 127 earlier in the day but it must have stopped for a bit I guess. The forecast is back to being rubbish again as per, and the col is down to 8c today so the sun did clearly shine on the righteous and they’re safely back in England and Wales now. I have to say that I’m struggling to get my head around the hot water staying in the TS because never in the years the thing has been installed has the hot water not run away somewhere. I keep looking at the little eBay stats in amazement . It’s also a novelty seeing the boiler on but not fired up as there was never a point where it was on but at rest previously. I want to knock on the cover and see if anyone is still in there . Electric bill was £254 last month (33 days) which seems a lot given that it’s only me here and I only heated 1 room previously. Hoping it might be a bit more economical going forwards! Am going to take regular readings to see how often the boiler is coming on and how much it is consuming, just for my own interest really to help me understand how the boiler is behaving as it is what it is. Every single room is between 20 and 22 degrees currently as they were all turned on to test the system Sun night. None of the rooms have dropped below the set temperature yet which has been lowered a bit as it was actually too hot in here lol so none of the rooms have shown as ‘heating’ in the last circa 36 hours. It’s also a novelty to walk round the house feeling that it’s warm as this house has always been cold previously. It’s weird how the abnormal becomes the new normal after a while and I’m now struggling to get my head around what should have been BAU / normal for this system lol. Am also going to set up a heatmiser profile to just heat the rooms I use as there is no point in heating the guest bedrooms for example. So all looking good so far, albeit that it feels like an alien concept to me at present.

Think I have found something that might help me, one of the planning conditions:

Hi. @Vijay As others have said, advice from a relevant solicitor or barrister would be the way if the numbers involved justify it. IANAL, however ... The seller obviously has no obligation to complete the road until 3 months after the last house is completed. Questions are 1 - whether you have a reasonable expectation that the road would continue to be suitable for purpose in letting you complete your house 2 - and if so whether the developer has forfeited any right to claim damages by his being fully aware what the road is going to be used for. if he builds it regardless then perhaps he should do it such that it cannot be damaged by construction traffic that he knows damned well will be using it. Whether this would fall under a ‘fit for purpose’ test or some aspect of Contract Law is beyond my ken. 3 - has he potentially estopped himself from claiming damages by an expectation / implied promise he may have given you that it would be possible for you to complete your house. Suspect it may not meet the test for an explicit promise. As for where for advice. I think I would frame a general question to Planning Aid in an email, and I might even send a short email to Martin Goodall of the eponymous Planning Law blog to ask if it is something he would be able to advise on professionally, and whether it is worthwhile Pursuing. @Vijay, One thing I think it is definitely worth doing is to write to the developer with proof of receipt informing him that by completing his road now it is possible that the construction traffic he knows you will need to drive over it has potential to cause damage, and perhaps that you will consider such damage to be his responsibility therefore. You may not use it, but it gives you a fact on the ground to refer back to just in case you get "but you never told me". Ferdinand

There is a lesson to be learnt here and not just for windows. A few things spring to mind.. Check ALL deliveries carefully before and after it is lifted off the transport, if possible. That is not only obvious damage against but all the parameters against the order/invoice - quantity, specification, colour , everything. ......Our front door assembly was delivered with the wrong external RAL Colour and the wrong internal wood finish - I spotted this on the lorry but kept quiet and made the fitters install it because i needed to get the house secure, weathertight and progress towards the blower door test. In the event, there was little argument as it was quickly proven to be a supplier error, but the replacement door took another 12 weeks or so and caused delays with internal completion and also external rendering. Also watch the BM's - they often will deliver what they consider to be an equivalent product instead of what you ordered - insulation, plasterboard, etc without contacting you to get you approval. Reject deliveries and do not accept, if they are clearly damaged or incorrect We had a few problems - we had a all the glass balustrades for our stairs/landing delivered to our site and it was clear that some of then panels it had never been packed correctly, as there were glass shards on the lorry as we started to unload. We took pictures on the lorry, and then every piece of glass, which basically we unloaded piece by piece. The delivery was a day or so later than scheduled and it transpired the load had been quarantined by the delivery company at their marshalling centre, because the load was unsafe and they had repacked it, as best they could, before delivery. Again, we had to have about six panels replaced, which delayed completion of the stairs. Report any problems to the supplier / responsible contractor immediately with photos evidence. Be firm and reject anything before it is incorporated in the works. Contracts normally state a period for reporting damage - make sure you understand your contract in this respect.. Know your specification and orders in detail. Sometimes, the mistake may be yours. it saves a lot time to understand this quickly, accept it and move forward with a quick resolution/replacement as necessary.

Said you would LOL

Yes you do. As long as you dont owe him any money he has no reason to hang on it. Formally request it in writing and I would include a day and time you will be at his office to collect ........say 7 days. If he does not come up with it then get straight on to the Law Society and lodge a complaint.

@newhomeCan you try negotiating with them, through a third party if you have to. Perhaps see if you can get someone out from NR to see how it is on the ground and agree a work around on the route they take and the issues their behaviour cause you. Hopefully an agreed strategy between you and them - if you can get there - would be more beneficial that launching into a legal action against a big company with its own legal dept. No winners in that one. Good luck.

Not a problem, it's exactly what I did. I have stone steps up from the drive to the front door, but a gentle ramp that runs around to the back door. I put in a wheelchair turning area outside the back door (just a section of double width path) to deal with the 90 deg turn needed to get in, but that's primarily because one of my friends is paraplegic and uses a chair. For the same reason I fitted 33" wide doors everywhere inside the house, with flush thresholds. My father was a wheelchair user, so knowing first hand how much of a nuisance seemingly minor things can be if you're using one, I thought it sensible to just make a few design changes to allow for it. Who knows, it may well be that one of us needs to use a chair at some future date too, so it seemed daft not to try and make the house as easy to access as possible. A side effect of the back door Part M compliant entrance and the ramp is that it makes moving the wheelie bins out a doddle, and if we need to put something heavy in one of them it's easy to just wheel it up to the space outside the back door, load it up, then put it back in the wheelie bin storage space, part way down the ramp and off to one side, behind the fence that holds out meter cabinet.

@epsilonGreedy there’s provision in the Regs for the situation you’ve described so it shouldn’t be a problem however I’d recommend discussing it with your BCO first.

1) If anyone's seen it they're trying to forget it. 2) If it does get published it will vie with @pocster's avatar for depravity. Let sleeping dogs etc...

As @Nickfromwales said earlier, not quite... First things first, to answer your your questions: The UFH manifolds are set at 32C on the inlet. Two UFH manifolds Ground and First Floor. No heating on Second Floor. We have deliberately kept towel radiators at same low temperature as UFH - 2 reasons, we don't really need towel radiators for heating as bathrooms have UFH - they are just to give a bit of comfort with warm towels - and we have two small grandchildren and we didn't want hot towel rails. Max Ventilation/fabric heat loss is 4.3 kW , to maintain the house at 21C with the external temperature at -10C. The downstairs is controlled as one zone. The First Floor bedrooms and bathrooms are individually controlled. This is for a 337 m2 house. And now the boiler controls I can set the minimum AND maximum kW output for the boiler together with maximum flow temperature and lots of other settings. The minimum output is set at 4.5 kW ( I think this is the lowest setting but I can,t find that figure in the MI) and maximum as 18 kW currently. I can allow the control system to set the "Economic central heating temperature and it has showing 43C, which is what it is set at. The boiler controls control the cylinder temperature with a direct connected cylinder temperature sensor. I set the cylinder temperature between 40 and 60C. i can also set the maximum midpoint cylinder temperature at 50C, though I have no idea how it can set this accurately as the sensor is at the bottom of the UVC and I don't use this feature?? Interestingly, i have just skimmed through the Installation, Commissioning and Service Instructions for the Greenstar i System and I can find no mention of the lowest modulating level for the boiler.... So, as far as I can understand I am operating this WB boiler exactly in accordance with the MI and I am happy with its performance and efficiency. These boilers are getting more sophisticated and can be controlled to operate efficiently for most systems. We have one full year's data for the house and our NETT gas and electricity costs were £278 - £857 for 3654 kWh electricity and 10393 kWh gas with £579 for 3752 kWh of PV from our 3.99 kWp system - so I'm happy with the installtion and performance to date. Also, pleased that we avoided the complexity of a TS and other unnecessary kit.

+1 but could be fine for the bondage den

First thing that crossed my mind! What happened in Scotland stays in...etc

I was scared the first time I used it lol but it's passed that test already. The joists were altered to allow it and to accommodate the open plan nature of the room downstairs I believe.

Very late to this topic - but also got a DIYK kitchens - good kitchen, no real complaints with it! Same comments as everyone before - they are standard chipboard carcases, solid MDF doors (matt white), blum hardware. When we were looking we checked out DIYK, B&Q, Wickes and IKEA - Wickes and DIYK came in roughly the same price but DIYK was fully assembled so that just made it so much easier. Drawbacks - large spares - if they have missed them or if you have run out of the odd bit (like plinth fixings, odd spacers and such) they will simply post them out to you FOC. Anything more substantial can attract the full delivery van charge again. My parents have just fitted a B&Q Cook & Lewis kitchen and it is also very nice, cost competitive - a lot of the final finish quality coming from the installation. Pics attached - excuse the utter mess and unfinished state... DIY, life etc.

Hi there, I work for a PR agency and we handle the PR for Ideal Home Show Scotland 2018. We are looking to gather some case studies for a media feature promoting the show. I'm looking to speak with families in Scotland who saved space in their home through innovative design or furniture, and families in Scotland who use smart home technology and feel that it has changed their lives. If you think you can help, or would like further information - please either reply to this post or PM me. Thanks!

Id wish for a passive house, a big PV array, and tell the gas company to FO. Battery storage will soon fortify that, in hopefully the not-too-distant future. IMO setting fire to anything is a step in the wrong direction, as fossil fuel is only going in one direction.

We didn't need to go to appeal because we found written evidence the LPA had told a previous owner of the plot the exact opposite of what they had been telling us.

I lined my roof with 11mm OSB and glued all joints to make it airtight, it works a treat ( yet to do a pressure test)

Andrew did say in a tweet that more info and an updated website is coming soon but I couldn't wait and went looking. Really interested in this new third generation and found kinda hidden in the SunAmp website more info. Some of the relevant pieces I've post below. Most interesting is probably the SunAmp OS.

Cheers. Everbuild Technical Dept suggest normal Stixall General Purpose.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004R24U76/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A1X89CF5H93U7O&psc=1 Added on £6 postage when I selected the 5 in that they had in stock though. Maybe you could contact them direct for a bulk order?

Okay, thanks both. I shall worry about more important things for the time being and deal with this at the end of the build.

Sounds like all is well and the controller is doing it's thing OK. The "COL" reading is the temperature at the hot side of the solar collector ("COL" being the abbreviation for "Collector"), and will vary a great deal, from close to the outside ambient temperature at night, to the stagnation temperature when the system has heated the tank to the set point when the sun's out. The stagnation temperature can be between 120 deg C and 140 deg C, so the 127 deg C you had earlier was within range - the tank was just up to temperature and the controller had turned the solar system off, to avoid over heating the tank.

I wouldn't worry about the design SAP too much, but personally I'd enter the Sunamp PV as a 150 litre thermal store with an immersion and a heat loss rate of 0.6 kWh/24 hours, at this stage, as it's not that critical. The PV section should account for the generation from renewables side. Sooner or later Sunamp are going to have to come up with a way to get these things to have an appropriate means of including them within SAP, which doesn't look to be that easy to me. We did our SAP assessment when we still had a thermal store fitted, so didn't have to jump this hurdle, but in essence all I did when swapping the thermal store for the Sunamp was change the units over, so the main difference to the rating would have been the much reduced heat loss rate.

I would ask Sunamp for a solution as they are bound to have had this problem already. Instantaneous DHW would give a better result than reality as there would be no allowance for storage and distribution loss. What fuel is used for the instantaneous DHW? What are the TER and DER values?

Unit needs replacing - that is a heat stress / roller mark from manufacture so the unit isn’t up to standard. All the rest rest could be fixed by Magic Man - tbh I would get the unit changed, check they are all water and air tight and then get magic man in at the end to fix the issues and agree the cost will be covered by the fitting company. Having a window fitter touch up those scratches would be like having your car repainted with a 9” roller ....

The sap from fig trees is a phytotoxin, and as you've found, some people are very sensitive to it, some aren't. There's no problem I'm aware of regarding arsenic, as the only possible way arsenic could get into a plant of any kind is if it was growing in contaminated soil. As arsenic is a pretty effective herbicide, soil that is contaminated with it tends not to have much, if anything, growing on it. So, put on some rubber gloves, pile the cut debris up, leave to dry and burn it. Normally I'd be dead against having a bonfire, especially in an urban area where the pollution could be a real nuisance, but I don't think that shredding this stuff is really an option, because of the hazard posed by the sap. BTW, if you do accidentally get the sap on bare skin, washing it quickly and keeping the area that was exposed out of the light (i.e. covered up well) should minimise the effect. The toxin tends to be a lot more effective when exposed to light. I believe that applying a high SPF sunscreen before touching the stuff should also work as an added protection layer, as the toxin needs the UV in sunlight, even diffuse sunlight, to be effective.

Think I would want a full decontamination suit on if I was going to shred that lot!

As I stated earlier Its upto him to make sure that the paving will stand heavy traffic Many new developments have large areas of block paving that have cranes and lorries running over for several years I wouldn’t be to concerned You may just have the inconvenience of constantly Jet washing mud off

Shred + compost for a year or two?

That's a substantial looking house and I'm sure you'll get it back to how you you want it. Looks like you've been working hard over the last few weeks, well done.

Already done. I emailed it to him Sunday night and posted it signed for yesterday. He's already replied to the email though saying if I damage the road it is my responsibility to repair it

I think that these are the links: http://www.rtpi.org.uk/planning-aid/about-us/what-we-offer/ http://planninglawblog.blogspot.co.uk

Must be about 8 months ahead of schedule. ??Most plaster, coving and floor boards look good condition. ?

That's starting to look nice now you can see it. To make you feel better I did a rewire on a bungalow last year, that when I first saw it looked way tattier than yours, and had rotten collapsed floors, rotten windows, no kitchen etc. In the space of about 2 months the owner had it all repaired, decorated, new kitchen etc and it is now a cosy home once more.

When I was setting up my solar thermal on the home automation system I asked my solar supplier for the logic they programmed into the controller (no point re-inventing the wheel after all). One line of code was to switch the pump off when the sensor was above 125 degrees - I never had chance to ask exactly why - I assumed it was to do with safety or the pump not liking temperatures that high.

Long time no update! Question..... Do I have to have a TV license on the property in order to listen to the radio while I work? I said no as I can hear music on building sites but sine saying that I actually haven't heard any building sites playing radio music so perhaps rules are now tight! OK found the answer to above.. it's not a business so no I don't need to have a License... Phew.... I'd go mad just listening to my inner voice all day! Update is..... downstairs (apart from old Library) is now empty. We are now flitting from emptying upstairs and stripping back downstairs.. Downstairs vestibule, hall and stairs carpet and wallpaper free, Old Music room carpet and wallpaper free. Kitchen floor and walls naked and omg.... so much work needing to be done in there. Electrician came and gave us a basic quote... as in rewiring, new sockets in rooms, new fuseboard etc... £5k Plumber came in, saw the mess of the upstairs and went all shy on us and said he couldn't quote anything until the whole house was skinned naked... but did say a new boiler would be £3k fitted. OUCH!!!!!!!! Really???? Now the floors and walls are being exposed I am HAPPY to see that actually the old Queen Victoria is actually in good order mostly.... it's still the part of the house that suffered the burst pipe a few years ago that is yuck but the property developer who we have popping in and getting things priced up seems to think it's "not that bad actually Yzzy"... which really does make me feel much better. I managed to evict all the pigeons..... FOR A WEEK!!!.... So now have added more protection to the roof (until we can afford a repair) and am waiting for the remaining 7 bastards to fly downstairs so we can let them out the door with the others... The observatory is now pigeon free and proofed.... doesn't stop them all from sitting on the window ledges and complaining! Some photos... The one with the orange barrier in the windows is the observatory on top of the house, I was mid staple gunning that lot to the broken windows to stop the flappy gits getting back in!

If you get a decent log boiler that takes big stuff such as 600mm logs, and couple it to a store of 3,000 litres then add in UFH you have the basis of a workable system. Asking a single stove to heat a house by convection alone is a tall order ...

Yeah cos it's like Vegas here init .