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I’ll counter those, and provide a bit of insight .. 1. this poor design isn’t just for ASHP it is heating systems in general. I see modern new build houses with 3 en-suites and 200 litre hot water tanks, and small system boilers that are “eco” installs who wonder why they run out of hot water every day. The same houses have slightly smaller rads than 15 years ago, but not by much, and they have not been sized correctly. The rad calculations under BS EN 442 and the sizing calculators are woeful - have a look here at a calculator from the UKs largest supplier. Note the “standard delta T” is 50c, so unless this is altered for a heat pump and properly understood then you have issues from the outset. 2. it isn’t difficult, it just takes time. And time is money. People don’t want to pay for proper design for M&E, and I see this regularly. To run a whole set of correct sizing calculations for heat loss for UFH for an average 160sqm house will take about 4-5 hours assuming the client has the plans in CAD format. From that, the design can be done but it probably in all takes up to a day to get the remainder done. That’s £3-400 of fees, and is usually pre-sale and I would say 90% of customers expect this for free. The UFH suppliers do this for “free” but they don’t actually use anything more than standard values for walls etc and it is very broad brush. I’ve seen designs from two suppliers get it wrong by a factor of 40%, and when challenged they say it’s only a guide ..... only a guide for something you’re going to bury in 5 tonnes of concrete and cover for ever ..?!! The second point is about guarantees, and that is something that is nigh impossible to achieve to 100% accuracy. MCS used to say sized to to 99.5% from memory, but that’s based on historic data. How can you predict weather patterns 4 or 5 years ahead ..? The issue there is you oversize and then consequently over price and the client invariably goes for the cheapest option... it’s always an amusing conversation with a client who tells you they “think the quote is too expensive as Fred Smith is £1000 cheaper” yet you’ve got a raft of calculations and Fred has an envelope with some scribbles on it .. Oh and just because you asked for a quote, but didn’t want to pay for it doesn’t mean the calculations belong to you, you haven’t bought that ..!! 3. Heat loss design is probably one of the easiest calculations to do as it is methodical and requires little more than a set of plans, a ruler and a spreadsheet. Once you know the heat loss of the building, calculating the input is relatively simple (ie size of boiler / ASHP etc) as it has to be larger than your worst losses. Then the UFH or rad design comes next, again if you download LoopCAD yourself, you can do this in a weekend. I would hazard a guess than anyone who can use a spreadsheet can get to a good approximation of a design over a few evenings and well within the 30 day trial period of the software. It comes back to the questions of time and cost. 4. I’d argue there isn’t a dire shortage of designers, I would say there is a shortage of clients prepared to pay for it. Most M&E designers I know don’t work on domestic clients as they neither understand what they are getting for the money, or want to pay the fees. I’m always amazed at the fees people are prepared to pay architects for a house that looks good, but when built it performs like a bag of spanners. Unless you go down the PHPP route, very few even clients consider heat loss or overheating in a normal build, and a lot of questions on this forum are about that very issue and yet surprisingly people expect the answers from here for free .... and yet they are prepared to spend £’000 on something such as windows but won’t spend £’00 on ensuring they have hot water or a warm house ..?? On your point on RHI addressing the issue, that is completely incorrect. It has made it worse, as don’t forget, the worse the losses, the more the customer gets paid .. and no-one is going to “buy” a system that has no return on investment when it is supposed to be an incentive scheme to change. The calculations done are worst case, and usually by “surveyors” who have previously sold cheap double glazing or worse, and they are “checked” by someone certified who doesn’t validate the numbers. My own house was surveyed for solar, and despite the “surveyor” being told the attic had 400mm of insulation, the survey came back with 250mm .. and a note saying it was pointless putting any more down as it didn’t make the numbers any better !! RHI cannot alter a poorly designed heating system, it just changes the heating mechanism to one that has a lower delta T and you are back to square 1. ASHPs aren’t expensive when you consider what they do, and they aren’t complex either. @joe90, @ProDave and a few others have self installed and they are pretty much plug and play. Mine is a 9kW Mitsubishi based unit that has a power supply and a 24v call for heat. That’s it. The control box I built for it allowed me to set it to run at 50/75% load but tbh it sorts itself out and heats a 300 litre UVC and 80sqm of UFH, and does that fine. A lot of the newer units are self learning and they will use sensors in the outside units to maximise the system performance based on having a floor temperature and a DHW temperature and they will work without any external input other than a simple time clock. The issues arise when the systems are undersized, or when a customer wants to “run the heating” with the same programme as they had with a gas/oil boiler. Go back to the beginning, and when you realise a different delta T means a longer time to heat up, then you have an issue. The systems I’ve designed are maximised to use off peak electricity so for me it is about how the ASHP interacts with the fabric - if I was to chuck a 9kW ASHP on trad sized rads into the current build, operating twice a day during the day then it would both fail to heat the building and also cost 40-50% more to run. The difference it was designed as a system, not as a standalone heat provider, and that is where the problems start. If you don’t start with a design on paper at the same time as your plans, then you will be forever playing catch up and the rest of the design will be a compromise.

That programme showed to me the wisdom of not using an architect for that type of project. Given a budget he comes up with a scheme that cost nearly twice as much and then says if you haven't got the money just do a bit of it. Nonsense.

I love new stuff like this! watching with interest.

Do it like the bank would do with you if you self built it. Pay in arrears to a pre-agreed QS'd plan. Have the architect, if you are using him to monitor the build, sign off on the stage payments. Keep a retention at the end for snagging 5/10% With regard to the architects builder all I would say is the only ones round my way who are not flat out are quiet for a reason.

Possibly it. It may be hard to convince people that after being told they need everything less powerful i.e. vacuum cleaners, light builds, kettles, cars; to save the environment, to then come along and say, 'well actually, you need a 10 kW system, so we are fitting a 15 kW one. I think it is up to the manufactures to get this message across, and offer a scaleable system i.e. 4kW increments.

I think you already answered this. 1/ for whatever reason, the evidence is that people regularly install poorly designed systems that under perform 2/ so we can deduce it's hard to design a system that is guaranteed to work well 3/ most lay persons (and self builders) lack the skills and experience to be sure they can design their own system. It's probably the only system they'd ever design so not worth formal training on how to DIY it 4/ there's a dire shortage of professional system designers with proven track record. RHI is explicitly designed to solve #4 (NOT to reduce cost of ownership, as people tend to think) which in theory is the way we (as a country) get out of this conundrum BUT it puts up the "up front" cost of ownership, which combined with the drawbacks listed above makes it extremely unattractive idea to the cautious customer

Hi All, Expat from Scotland (now living in Amsterdam). And first post here. I'm doing a patio for myself using GeoCeramica tiles /slabs. First time. Not sure how popular these are in UK, but idea is: they are 4cm thick. The bottom 3cm is concrete and the last 1cm is the ceramic tile. (you can see image below) It's bonded together with a super duper bonding thing.... and the (apparently) advantages are - you can put these straight down in a prepared sand substrate. Which I intend to do. We have old, compacted, 'ocean' sand. We will use a wet grout - which seals it all, but lets water permeate I have a few questions, and I was just wondering what your thoughts are (and experience if you have used them /similar): I was planning on using a weed fabric - do you think this is necessary? Of course shops /suppliers all say no, but I feel I should. Should I use a cement mix (1/4 for example) for the screed sand layer or just on top of sand. I've had mixed advice here. How much is the sand likely to compact when I use a vibrating /levelling machine (or is this a 'how long is a piece of string' type question?) These tiles have 'integrated spacers' - but I do not know what size (not delivered yet). Does anyone know? (tiles are 100 x 100) - i'm wondering if I should add 5mm onto that when preparing /sizing the sand bed and placing my edging stones) I plan to use an edge like in the attached - can I just prepare these using the sane also or do I need a cement mix of sorts? Anyone got some nicer edging advice? thanks! Neil

If it’s a holiday let on a farm then it will be ancilliary to the main property. It is unlikely to get full PP to split off as a residential property and if you are planning on doing that then I would only offer subject to planning being granted as a separate dwelling.

They are not as good as you may think and you get a very standard product that you need to spend a lot of time on to get to a decent price. They produce a big spreadsheet with an estimate of time based on the materials / SPoNs estimate. It is just that though, an estimate and needs a lot of work to become a scope of work. It won’t show you stage payments or schedule of works.

https://www.estimators-online.com/ couple hundred quid. they will need plans and elevations. Will produce you a full QS and build schedule based on standard rates. They cant guess 2nd fix stuff, kitchens, baths etc but you get the idea.

I’ve just found the 125mm external filter boxes will take a 2007 Ford Transit pollen filter ..! So I plan to give them a try, especially as they are £2.35 in EuroCarParts this weekend with the discount. Anyone else needs them, they are 200x214x30 and activated charcoal filled.

Thats an estimating service, doubt you will get a decent QS for that. TBH if it’s a pretty standard build I would keep the QS on and get them to keep track of cost of work delivered and then pay on that basis. Also good to keep them onside to cover off and agree with the builder/contractors the pricing of any additional work or changes required.

start typing an @ symbol and then it will filter after that as you start to type names. @Hyside

They seem very popular and much loved due to their ease of installation. Just seems a bit too good to be true haha..... Here's more info: https://www.mbi.nl/en/products/garden/geoceramica/ About EUR 83 a sq/m though ?

Very true Everyone is flat out I was rendering a selfbuild as a favor for a friend His Architect turned up while I was there He asked for my company number I suppose I’m one of his trusted contacts now A building contractor will do the same Call round to see who is available

QS is for your protection really, how do you know if you are getting robbed ? QS will detail every bag of cement, nail and tube of silicone along with the 'std;' times that they should take. Obviously the QS is as good as your plans and there is some wiggle room. But for a couple hundred quid you have a fully costed schedule of works against which you can agree stage pays. That's good they are just finishing a job, go and have a look at it and see what its like, have a chat with whoever they are working for and get some feedback.

Might be some help.

Anyway (expletive deleted)er aka @Onoff - is this not planned ??

PM Admin and ask to set up a blog.

Yep they don’t have to honour the tariff and will transfer you to the nearest comparable tariff under OfGem rules. It is also why they are not allowed to charge an exit fee, nor are they allowed to block any transfer to a different supplier.

It was my initial reaction. But then I thought we only get to see a part of the picture. It may well be that the architect realised (or was told) that the clients were able to spend more money and showed them the light. And taking into account they really wanted to improve the look of the house that was not necessarily a wrong idea. Not many can afford it but good for those who can.

It will be in the wording if the deal somewhere I am sure. Their compliance lawyer will have checked. So just change. There are plenty of others that are about to go pop. Or, phone 0161 836 1346 You and yours likes this sort of thing. I think Tuesdays are 'energy day'.

Success !! Thanks for ALL the help !! ???

Its possible, but there will be an associated pressure drop with a sprung flap i would imagine. The plan is to get something like this if needs be: https://www.blauberg.co.uk/en/blauberg-cleanbox-nox-carbon-polution-pollen-indoor-air-quality-filter-box-for-heat-recovery-ventilation-systems Like you say, its unlikely to be 100%, and no one will ever guarantee it will cure a smoke problem, but it should mitigate it somewhat.

On a cold winter evening I would still rather watch a real fire ??

If you’re going to open the single pipe at the pump and connect the PFM there, and both / all ZV’s are open ( with gate to HWC closed at first ) then it should be fine without the gate. The gate was just to allow you to take the PFM potential down from 100%.

Well file it then, just enough to go down the tube, still leaving enough flat to get a spanner on.

The Jeremy Harris calculator is here: https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/439-fabric-and-ventilation-heat-loss-calculator/

I wouldn't fit an ASHP in an old poorly insulated house because I wouldn't want all the walls covered in radiators.

No, I am interested in why there is a reluctance to fit them. I think so, and usually undersized, or customers told that an ASHP cannot get the temperature high enough, so they fit gas or oil because It is the same, pumps and pipes valves and distribution manifolds. The emitters (radiators, UFH pipework) may be a different physical size, or spacing, but is hard to design a wet system differently that it already is. I think there is a lot of confusion with terminology, my favourite being the names used to store hotwater, is it a cylinder a thermal store, am unvented cylinder or a vented one, buffer tanks, accumulators (though I think they are to buffer mains waiter pressure), feed and expansion tanks, pumped showers, mains pressure showers. About time some of the plumbers put up some diagrams showing the difference. But when it comes to heating the actual house (space heating), this is where a proper thermal model of the building, and local climate, is needed. Would probably save money on all installations regardless of fuel type.

I reckon a PCM contender is the filling in McDonald's Apple Pies. By Christ does that stuff hold it's heat. Many a dark night I've bitten into one of those whilst driving to be rewarded with a scalding dollop in the lap. As you struggle to stay on the road and hold onto a steering wheel slick with mayo from the McChicken Sandwich. Should be part of the driving test imo.

Success, all working now. Checked all of the manifolds they seem good. No more weird noises and flow restored. I do have the original drawings, but they don't mention what different items do and how you should set them up. In some cases I think they don't want people messing around with the system, but a lot of it is quite simple once you know how it works. I always worry that my wife would have no idea how these things work if I wasn't around and have to constantly get people in. Not that she couldn't figure them out, she just isn't interested. The things I have learned that I think I should have been informed of. 1. The end valves on the manifolds are automatic air bleed valves - I had guessed this but wasn't sure. Some of them were closed. 2. The pressure on the low loss header has to be periodically checked and topped up. The taps to top it up were fairly obvious, but only because it looked like my old system. I surely should have been told this. As I said no one told us in our last house either, we also stayed in an Airbnb where the boiler kept tripping out and I eventually figured out it was due to low pressure in the system and fixed it. 3. The things that look like temperature probes on the manifolds are exactly that and if you turn the flow temperature above 48C they will cut off the power to the pump. I am going to label the low loss header for topping it up. Now we are heating with gas!

I had a ASHP installed in my house replacing storage heaters. my house is 85m2 and i have a 7kw panasonic heatpump feeding 2 air rads downstairs (living room, kitchen) and conventional rads upstairs (3 bedroom's) and in the lean too extension at the back ( utility, master bedroom*) these conventional rads are controlled by TRV'S. My system was designed by someone who has a lot of experience in doing so, i provided him with the information he required to work out the heat loss, this included plans showing the size of rooms as well as the wall make up, floor make up roof make up and what insulation installed as well as size of windows and size of double glazing as well as how "draughty" i felt the house was, i also inputed all the info into jsharris spreadsheet and the figures that i got were almost exactly what the same as he had come up with. I had the option of going for a complex "smart" control system with different zones etc but decided that as downstairs was open plan that it was pretty much pointless it was decided that a simple cheap "clicky" rotart thermostat at the top of the stairs was all that was needed to control the heat downstairs, with the TRV'S taking care of the bedrooms, in hindsight this would have been better being downstairs somewhere as there is about a 1.5degree difference between what the thermostat says and the downstairs temp, i originally had the heatpump set in "weather compensating" mode but found that it was coming on hard and fast which effected the COP i changed this to "direct" at 38degrees and it seems to work well. I think that as has been said there is no one fits all aproach and every house is different and everyones level of comfort is different and the way everyone expects the heating to function is different, i personally heat my house to 18/19 degrees and my heating system copes fine, it may not be able to cope with someone who likes there house heated to 28 degrees, but this should be factored in at the design stage, if you have an old house that you are retro fitting with an ASHP you really need a well thought out system that is designed by someone who has the necessary experience.

When nanny was still at home we got quite a lot of equipment supplied for us as the OT said it was needed. This reduced the cost of converting he bathroom to a wet room. They provided all the grab rails (including the rest of the house), the shower seat and the heated towel rail.

This is the thing : as a professional you notice things I just ignore. To me most people say "I have that much, do your best, these are the things we are after". Although I think in many programs the budget wasn't that low actually. It's in Sarah Beeney who had several people in a row planning to renovate for 7-10-20K. The Irish guy loves his bench seating and split levels and weird stuff. Pods, upside down building. Some of those look really good but practicality is almost invariably lacking. I think in one of his designs you'd have to walk 50+m to get from the kitchen to the main bedroom. Bench seating may be OK for rare occasions but OMG it's such a hassle when you have to use it 3 times a day. I have no vision, imagination, but I really like most stuff to be practical, substance first. Some people can afford both - I can only shrug and say "I could go for it if I had too much money".

IMHO Ugly House to an even more Ugly House.

Ok a quick update.....the cladding is finally complete! We are just working on the first fix and internals now. The isotex is still very much on show internally if you would like to view. T

For environmental reasons I deliberately chose locally grown larch, and we have no regrets. We wanted a "rustic" look (a planning requirement - it was that or mega expensive local stone cladding) and the availability of very good value, locally grown, wide board (between 250mm and 300mm board width) larch at a very affordable price was the clincher. We paid far more for labour to cut and fix the cladding than we did for the timber. The local sawmill (at Ansty, 3 miles away: http://ridleysawmill.co.uk/ ) had a source of locally grown larch (from Fonthill estate, about 3 miles from their sawmill) and they took us to go and see the trees before they were felled, so we could choose the trees and see them marked with our name. We've had a bit of movement, and have needed to replace few fastenings, but movement has been less than we'd have had from oak, which was the only other option open to us (planners again). The sawmill have used a lot of this locally grown larch for years, and took us to see some of their customers. The oldest structure we saw was a ~60 year old bus shelter, clad in their larch, that still looked fine, it had just silvered to a lovely colour (IMHO). In my view, if this local larch can last at least 60 years with no treatment, then it's good enough for me, as I won't be around in 60 years...

I built a new-build 71 sqm bungalow to minimum building regs in 2016. EPC is C71. U values are 0.1 floor, 0.13 roof, 0.21 walls and 0.8 windows. No PV or other renewables. It's heated by UFH via a combi fed from an above ground bulk LPG (1400 litre) tank. It's in a very remote area of Wales with no close neigbours and we use it as a holiday home which is one of the reasons why I went with LPG rather than oil as its not as easy to pinch. The heating is normally set to a 'frost' setting of 12 degC and then I remotely boost the heating to normal temperatures on Friday evening when I know we are going at the weekend. The LPG tank was free issue. The last full year of LPG usage was about 420 litres at 33p/litre so about £140 + the £66 standing charge. Thats for all of our heating, hot water and cooking. I reckon about 90 - 100 litres went on hot water & cooking so about 330 litres costing about £110 was the cost of our heating. A full tank contains 1200 litres so lasts us longer than the 2 year LPG lock-in contract period which is handy as it means we are never held to ransom. We have 3 main local bulk LPG suppliers.

Hi @Sue B it was great to catch up with you and Peter again - it is becoming a habit and a good one as we share what we know. I agree with you comments about the block. I am wood cladding the exterior of my house so a flush wall to batten is extremely important; an uneven wall at this stage will lead to uneven cladding which is not the look I am going for. I did also pick up the two points about "you must not use": 1. Metal hammers to tap blocks into place - rubber mallets are the way forward 2. A drill set to hammer mode. I definitely need to ensure everyone understands this onsite or it will lead to issues fitting my cladding. I did learn the following: 1. Mark every block that has been cut / modified so that it can be supported with shuttering during the pour 2. Concrete must have 10mm aggregate not 20mm which is the norm 3. Using spray plaster internally (floor to ceiling) negates the need for an air-tightness layer first 4. Use foam tape around windows to ensure air-tightness ( I don't have a name for this product...) 5. All webs need to be in-line when you look down during stacking. The webs at the pass block step will be slightly out of line 6. Pass blocks help achieve the brick bond need for structural strength 7. Build good quality window boxes with diagonal bracing 8. Cement to be used is either RC30 or RC35 9. From my notes it would seem there is a structural engineering pack for this product (did I get that right?) I thought the training was very good especially the practical element that focused on building a wall and window opening. Completing that small project was important in building my understanding of how the system worked. I received my planning permission yesterday so we are now off and running. However, based on the fact that there is no BBA Cert for this product as yet I am going to have to build my garage of something else if my building control officer states he needs this in order to approve it. Hopefully by the time the main house starts the BBA cert will be in place. If anyone knows of a pour taking place for a ISOTEX build let me know. I am keen to see one taking place for the final piece of my learning. The journey starts here....

Albino haggis skin sofa's dont cost that much!

Just been in there for a shower in the wet room corner.....15degC. Not saying it's cold but a polar bear ran OUT. Please, take her.

You're not wrong. Room is freezing with no heating in there now. Then not enough HW capacity to fill the bath. One day!

Shhhh!

My LED’s are colour programmable . I figure when SWMBO is in the bath white = F off red = angry I.e see white blue = maybe green = go ! I’m on for a treat !! ?? Easy ways to manage a relationship

Heavy Metal LED strip eh? Bit of a tear-away aren'tcha, eh? Go on admit it. Next job : embarrass the kids even more.

This has got Scooby Doo writtten all over it!

That’s what I reckon . Everyone else has a mate with a lathe . I have no friends ? and therefore no access to a lathe ?

Philistine

Do you know anyone with a lathe who could take the corners off your nuts neatly?