Leaderboard

It's nowt to do with what's stored in your cylinder / other, it's to do with what your shower is set at Typically my shower is set to 38 and that's fine for me. The kids and wife have it MUCH hotter, so in order to reduce my annual energy consumption........they've got to go ?.

As someone with a fair bit of a structural engineering background (as in having designed a two seat aeroplane and put it through approval) I can say with certainty that the stresses in a doubled up wall plate would be far from "minimal". Do the calcs and see how the stresses change with increased distance from the points of applied load and restraint and it's pretty obvious just how much the wall plate stresses would increase with such an option. This is the reason that the joist structural engineer hasn't suggested doubling the wall plates, but instead has taken the very sensible option of adding an additional thick end shear web, screwed into the existing end compression post.

This time last year I was working late, by crappy work lights, freezing my peripherals off, desperately trying to stay ahead of the plasterers. Now I'm sat in shorts and t-shirt watching Holly Willoughby! Stick with it; hope and plan for the best, and take what comes in your stride. This time next year the pain will already have started to fade!

Revoke the existing planning permission and grant them a new one with a pre-condition that they must plant a new tree but the work cannot start until November 2218.

Excellent idea, thanks. Yes, 40% more expensive than timber cladding (per m²) but generates some electricity. PV panels £38.80/m², 155 W/m²; timber cladding £27.85/m², 0 W/m² so that's £0.07/W ?

What about the increased shear stress in the doubled wall plate then? Not a good engineering solution at all to double up the wall plate, far, far better to adopt the properly designed end extensions, that includes both a thick shear web, plus an end block that will restrain the lower member that is in compression when loaded.

I'm no Tree-hugger and have cleared my fair share of timber, but surely anyone certified as competent with a chainsaw would say "this one?, really?, are you sure?". The instruction to fell must have been a management decision, and as such, whether there is gain involved or not, I think justice should be seen to be done. Maybe I just don't like people taking the pi$$!

Our blockwork started three weeks ago. This was always going to be weather dependent and it was mixed for the first two weeks in November but since then we have had a really good weather window where its been calm, sunny and not too cold which allowed the remaining work to be completed. Our brickie was fitted a temporary gutter which could be taken off when required. This gable end is where the prevailing wind comes down off the mountains, we have shelter belt here but its nice to know that we now have a solid concrete wall. Next on the list is fitting the concrete windows cills which should be next week. The sections that don't have blockwork will be fitted with the remaining Siberian larch cladding in early December.

And then @zoothorn opened his bedroom door:

You forgot inventive and keen to try new things...but I'll take it!

Wasn't just me then...

Modern leccy blankets can be washed in the washing machine so I doubt a bit of pee is going to hurt it - or you. Especially if you get an over blanket rather than an under one. Plus Pissing yourself is far more a symptom of getting older than using a leccy blanket is.

I am willing to bet it takes you longer to wash your hair than it does me......

That's the point. I heat my water to 48 degrees and if it's just sub zero the HP starts doing defrost cycles that both slows down the heating rate and uses more electricity. It can run all day if needed heating UFH water to 37 degrees and it never needs to defrost.

Changes to the RHI scheme earlier this year mean that ASHPs must be metered in order to be eligible for RHI payments. There are 2 types of metering. The first is 'metering for performance' where performance is monitored but it does not affect RHI payments that are based on the expected heat demand. If that cannot be 'accurately assessed' then 'metering for payment' is required. Having read the rules on this (again!) I'm still not 100% sure when metering for payment is required. I am still looking at an ASHP to replace my electric boiler. Currently my set up is that I have a thermal store that provides for both DHW and UFH. That TS is also connected to a solar thermal system. It's not working currently but assuming it was does this still meet the criteria for metering for performance rather than payment? It looks as if Solar Thermal is only eligible for RHI payments if it provides DHW only, ie any provision for space heating makes it ineligible (as an aside any guesses as to why that is? ). From the various RHI documents: SOLAR THERMAL There are two types of solar thermal technologies eligible for the Domestic RHI – evacuated tubes and liquid filled flat plate collectors. Solar thermal technologies must be designed and installed only to provide heating for domestic hot water. Solar thermal systems designed or installed to provide space heating, heating to a swimming pool or for any purpose other than heating domestic hot water will not be eligible for the Domestic RHI. So I can't claim RHI for the ST. I'm ok with that but does the fact that it is installed mean that I have to have metering for payment for the ASHP? How do you know if you need metering for payment? Metering is not required for solar thermal systems. For the other eligible technologies, these are the three most common situations where your renewable heating system will need to be metered for payment: 1. If you have back-up heating You have a renewable technology eligible for the Domestic RHI, e.g. a biomass boiler, and also a fossil fuel source of heating, e.g. a backup oil boiler; Using solar thermal for heating hot water doesn’t count as back-up heating; So reading this as my ST feeds the same TS that provides DHW and space heating does this mean that I have to have metering for payment? In addition I have a 3kw immersion heater attached to the TS. The only time I ever switched it on was when the boiler broke down as it's pretty inefficient at heating 475l of water anyway, but does this also mean that I have to have metering for payment too? So my conclusion is that if I disconnect both the ST and the immersion heater an ASHP is eligible for metering for performance but if either is connected I have to have metering for payment, however I've read this too many times and have gone word blind now! Anyone able to make more sense of it please?

@newhome I will confirm this as we have a site meeting on the 11th. I am not sure about the interpretation, whether its hot water for washing or heating its all domestic hot water. Both my Dad and brother installed ST some years ago and claim RHI.

Hi There AFAIK the 300l twin coil unvented domestic hot water cylinder is fed by the ASHP and ST. The hot water and heating (UFH) are then drawn off from the cylinder. My solar thermal installation is eligible for the RHI.

It's not north facing, but faces a bit north of east, bearing 073° IIRC, so will tend to get sun early morning. In summer it'll get sun for a few hours before the main roof gets much so breakfast, etc, can come off these panels rather than cycling the batteries. It's a gable end so not much eave shading and not a place I'll walk past much. Plants will, indeed, need control around the house but about 8 metres away is the neighbour's fence. His cattle will stop much growing other than whins which don't grow that high and the ground slopes down a bit anyway. In general, I think there's a lot to be said for having PV pointing well off south to flatten the generation peak. Facing a bit round to the west for grid-connected would help with the evening consumption peak for example. As we move towards more renewables just maximizing generation becomes less of a priority compared with getting the timing right to minimise storage and transmission.

We are 1.6m above a watercourse, on a slope that is pretty steep, on gault clay, and we have a passive slab, with no need for piles etc. There's stuff about our passive slab in a few entries of our blog (earlier entries than this show the ground works needed to get the site level): http://www.mayfly.eu/2013/08/part-ten-out-of-the-ground/ http://www.mayfly.eu/2013/10/part-sixteen-fun-and-games-in-the-mud/

I am having an ASHP ( Same kit as @Stones ) supplied and fitted in January and on the quote is an electricity meter which will measure performance only. I have been reassured it will not effect the RHI. Site visit by supplier in December so will confirm again. Also will have RHI on Solar Thermal.

Your site looks similar to mine, except my slope was less, and the trees and the stream a bit further away. I considered a passive slab. The big problem for me, was you have to build up the ground with crushed stone etc and that has to extend a bit beyond the house area. So it would have ended up having raised ground all around the house, then sloping down further out to the lower ground level. In the end I did pretty normal strip foundations and a suspended insulated timber floor. The foundations were specified by the structural engineer and the only things he did a bit different to normal were a reinforcing mesh in the concrete pour of the foundations, and a strong concrete mix specified. A near neighbour to here built his house on a much more challenging small plot close to the burn and on a much steeper slope, he built his on piles. The builders dug down to pour a 1 metre square pad for each pile, then cast concrete piers using plastic drainage pipe as a former. I don't know the cost but I suspect not cheap, largely because they had to remove a lot of soil, store it elsewhere, then bring most of it back (I would have asked the local farmer if we could rent the corner of a field to store it locally instead) This is a picture of his piles before the house went on top:

Ah ok, I miss read and thought it 80m away. Yes if the water authority say no, most commonly due to the pipe being up to its capacity, and the next available one is outside of that 30m distance then normally the EA will be happy to grant application. If you have an available sewer within 30m and are allowed to discharge to it, then the EA usually wont grant a permit. They do their best to get people to discharge to mains sewers rather than the environment.

As I said they were made locally, I can find the brand of running gear if you want?

If you plan on burying it i would enclose it in something completely water tight, a drain down to a soakaway opens up risk of water coming back up into the enclosure. Just make sure there's some sort of vent above ground level to allow fresh air in, and good access.

This is a really nice solution to noisy air blowers. The housings most manufacturers use seem to resonate with the blower making noise a problem. If anyone is planning on doing this, just make sure there is a way for fresh air to get into the housing and if at all possible, pus some sort of mesh to prevent pollen or grass cuttings in. This will prevent the air filter in the blower getting blocked and still allow fresh air into the housing. Staving the blower of oxygen will cause poor treatment. This example is good, but if you go too far away from the treatment plant you may also want to increase the size of the blower to maintain oxygen levels in the plant (increasing the diameter is also advisable if you are going further than say, 20m (admittedly it's not common to go that far away). Other nice housings can be bee hives, they look good and the wood does a reasonable job at dampening the sound. Also: if anyone is planning on doing this, and you have choice of where to put the blower and housing, pick somewhere shaded. It can make a big difference to the temperature in the summer months, prolonging lifespan of the blower.

Yes, off-grid so no DNO to worry about. Only problem will be that it's at the opposite end of the house to my main electrical stuff so I might think about “grid-tie” to my own mini-grid.

Some planners are, some aren't, it's still a grey area within the legislation. I spoke to the EA at the last British water meeting and they advised planning was not needed for sewage installations, which is contrary to what their website says. As a rule of thumb you should always go to mains where possible, even if it means pumping the waste water there. Generally speaking the EA wont grant a permit where there is a possibility to send the sewage to a mains sewer (if it is withing a reasonable distance). To use a treatment plant (whether it be a package treatment plant or a septic tank with tertiary treatment like a reed bed) in an SSSI or Special conservation area you will need a permit from the EA as you wont adhere to the general binding rules, therefore you'll have to apply and they will kick it out unless you can prove an extremely good reason why you aren't able to connect to the mains sewer (money isn't a good enough reason, distance is though). If the sewer is on your land and you are allowed to connect to it then it's highly unlikely you'll be able to discharge to the environment. In this instance, levels become important, if you can run the pipes to the sewer and have a gravity fall, then great, no pump needed. If the levels dictate you'll need a pump, then go with a twin pump, pump station (you will want a back up in case one blocks or breaks, otherwise there will be Sh*t everywhere). In your case JSHarris, you were allowed a permit because the sewer was greater than 30m away.

I had a read of the info and agree it's far from clear. It's your electric boiler (or say an oil boiler) that would be considered back up heating. If you chose to retain the boiler and keep it connected / used it, then metering would apply rather than deemed payments. Immersions form an integral part of most systems and are not included. I think all approved ASHP now have on board metering for performance which is enough to tick that particular box. I believe metering for payment requires extra kit.

Details/ sitting alot, admiring my handiwork etc..

...point below presumably? 1st- I'm pleased to have been able to be of some help....but please don't mistake me for someone in any way qualified to make engineering judgements....at the end of the day I was just chewing the fat with you and all. Cullens said you could block the top and bottom sections but that it was not necessary....so i took from that my assumption of not critical at an engineering level. However I thought surely good practice to replicate the original intended 'shape' of the joist as far as possible given those parts surely provide some enhancement to performance (for one example don't the hangers have holes for twist nails going into those areas and aren't ALL holes supposed to be nailed). I only drew in the bottom yellow block out of laziness but yes it would make sense to do this at top too, but i'd think the bottom is the most important bit to remediate, and this is why; Remember that unlike your earlier joists these were designed not to be top hung, so here the bottom chord is the primary bearing point onto the hanger and without the addition of the bottom yellow block the 'too short' bottom chord is only catching maybe half of the hanger base. I know the hanger base isn't the be all and end all because of the twist nails through the sides....but my instinct has me more comfortable utilising all the hanger base, just as @joe90's design does.

Just more complex to fix, and to fix to.

Yes I would also block the top, but then again my wife says I am OCD .

If close to electic cables may be worth contacting electric company. A number if years ago we managed to get electric company to cut down group of overgrown fir trees, which were impinging on the cables, from our front garden at no cost to ourselves.

Not here it won't!

What controls ..??!! Basically it has two sets of terminals - a permanent 240v via a 25A C curve RCB(O), and a set of 4 terminals that have A1-3 and A5 on them. These are 24v / GND terminals. To make it run, you ground any one or group of the A1-3 to the GND on the supplied 24v transformer. It’s no more complex than that... As it doesn’t have the Mitsubishi controller you can’t change the curves etc but there is a lot of detail on what you can do in the service manual. You could make it as simple as use the 240v live from a time clock to power up a pump and the transformer. There is a pipe stat with it that cycles the pump once it hits the set return temperature but that is about it. PM me if you want more info

They haven't said I had to have tarmac they said it has to be a semi permeable hard surface. Road edge to gate line is zero. I'm off to the side at the end of a cul de sac that slopes down towards me and my garden continues the slope down. So my property is right up to the road edge. I'm not going to stir the pot. If they do pick up on it and try to enforce it that will be the time to say to get it removed on the grounds that it is unreasonable

I was first contacted by the rates department in March, before everything went pear shaped, and said I hoped to move in in the summer and she just asked me to let her know. I had a call again this morning from a different person asking (nicely) for an update and had I moved in. I (very briefly) explained the situation, told him that I had services but no internal doors yet and that I hoped to move in before Christmas. 'OK' he said cheerfully, 'shall I put it down for the last Friday before Christmas, that's errrrrr the 21st Dec.' Yes that's fine I said. I then told him that I had sold this house but that the sale was unlikely to go through before Christmas. He told me I have a months grace and will only be charged rates on both premises if the sale hadn't gone through by 21 Jan. He said it's unlikely the valuer will actually visit the property and that they have 90. days to do the valuation but that whenever it is done rates will be charged from the official moving in day. I said that as it was in the garden I would be moving in gradually but wouldn't actually live there until 21st December and he said 'no problem'. He then gave me his direct line number in case I needed it. The building inspector for my insurance company (CRL) came round for his final inspection this week. So somehow they are still trading. He was happy with the house, also (as many have) he praised the brickwork, so at least something good came out of my original builder. He has just asked me to send pictures when the final details are completed (mainly the driveway) so all is well there.

The issues that we might face upstairs are that we have lots of dormers, south facing, with limited opportunity for solar shading. The plot is in the curtilage of a listed building, in a conservation area and with a set of planners who were split down the middle as to whether or not there should be planning permission granted and it seems all of the ones who voted “yes: for the original application have since moved on ☹️ . The south facing windows all face into the plot for the listed building. We basically can’t change much about the outside on the house to introduce some form of shading. The only possible option might be solar film but sticking an overhang or a brise soleil on the outside would not be acceptable to the planners. Add to that an other half who likes to be able to tweak bedroom temperatures constantly leads me towards thinking that UFH + Air radiators might be the way to go, if night time purging is insufficient. I’d like to keep the options open at this stage - I want to avoid and expensive split air con retrofit like I had to do last time around.

My only experience of UFH so far is with a 20 year old ScandiaHus. It had a floating solid wood floor which seemed to be very "bouncy" and a heat recovery system that was either badly commissioned or designed that spent most of it's time switched off. It's main feature was to make every obnoxious smell available in every room of the house! Hoping that these days things have improved greatly with both systems.

With a well-insulated house, sudden drops in external temps don't make any real difference. I have no idea what the temperature is outside unless I look at the weather forecast (or, you know, actually go outside!) Also, if the warm air is let out for some reason (eg, door left open), it very quickly recovers. That's part of the joy of UFH in a well-insulated house.

Welcome to BuildHub. A few thoughts: The UK doesn't have a history of ducted air heated and/or cooling in domestic settings. The concept of using aircon to warm a space just isn't in the consciousness of the general population or domestic electricians/plumbers whose opinions would usually be sought on heating matters. Subjectively, air heating tends to be considered less pleasant than radiant heating. Heating the air The air is very dry, which some people have physical reactions to. Also, while the air in a room can be heated up quickly, in my experience the room itself still won't feel comfortable until the furniture and walls have warmed up. That's a much longer process than heating the air. I'd be wary of solutions that rely on MVHR distributing heat from one room throughout the rest of the house. It does work to an extent (we used a 1.5kW column heater in the kitchen to warm our entire house last winter), but switching on aircon heating for an hour in one room will have little impact on the temperature in the rest of the house. In my opinion, if you're going to have MVHR anyway, you're better off looking for a solution that introduces some heat into the MVHR supply. Low level heat to all rooms will work a lot better than having one room being blasted, imo. There are all sorts of options for this. If I were doing it again, I'd stick with UFH driven by an ASHP, but add a loop to allow some comfort heating of the MVHR supply air (really just enough to take the chill off the air due to the imperfect heat exchange in the MVHR unit).

Im just reading up about 'paper lining' as apparantly is one pg1 idea for just such a paint-get-off ballache. but urgh.. paste n tables n gloopy sheets with jizz everywhere.. Hey don't I get a prize for page 50?? I don't see -anything- in my inbox, or mods asking for my address to send me things..

If you want to deter people from coming round, then get security cameras. I haven't quite got round to fitting ours yet and this happened last month... A couple of videos from the ring.com video doorbell 11:43pm - https://ring.com/share/6508829689333376523 11:46pm - https://ring.com/share/6508830466722457099

I'm pretty sure Solarlux is one of the names that was mentioned to me as a quality bifolfd

Was that you in the car park flashing your lights the other night then?

We planted a Laurel hedge at the last house. Biggest horticultural disappointment ever. After 10 years it has barely reached a metre high. On the plus side it barely ever needs trimming. It must not like our soil or climate.

But the proposal from Cullen only adds 25mm