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Can you not go around it, if it’s a pumped system it’s not relying on gravity so making the run longer shouldn’t be a problem.

Just remembered we have a 5m cantilevered corner all in ICF.

For Clarity this is the overall improved overall window U value with glazing at 0.5 W/(m2K) This is when you drop to double glazing (1.2 W/(m2K) with the same passiv certified frames.Most double glazing frames would be worse. We didn't use any PIR as I think it's entirely overrated. EPS in the floors and walls and cellulose in the roof. Agreed, detailing is everything with low energy houses. I modelled all the junctions in our house myself. We compromised on some of the detailing such as placing the window at the outside of the cavities instead of the middle where they would have been most thermally efficient. It made it easier to build and secure a good wind-tight as well as an airtight envelope. Putting in a little extra insulation elsewhere to compensate was relatively cheap. I left plenty of fat in the overall design to account for shortfalls in the build process. ( I think i allowed for 1.5 ACH to reach 10w/m2 heating load) As it was we achieved 0.3 ACH50. We moved in 3 weeks ago and the house is performing well with only an intermittent 2kw rad for space heating. Hopefully when the house dries out properly we can do away with this other than in just the most extreme situations. On a large project or complex house shape chasing the gains made by ideal thermal detailing is certainly worthwhile. However my builder and I were first time passivehousers and the peace of mind granted by sticking close to known detailing and spending about €3k extra on insulation was the road we chose. As a result I suspect that as built performance will exceed 15kWh/m2a and 10W/m2.

I am about to embark on a home extension and wanted to get in touch with knowledgeable people who may have had previous experiences. This site appears to be a great place to ask questions and also share my own experiences. Looking forward to getting on board.

So as @Russell griffiths says, it doesn’t need to go direct as long as you try not to have dips in the pipework. It will be in 50 or 63mm MDPE and can go whatever route you want.

Resistance heating is 100% efficient if all the resistor is in the water. Immersion heaters loose a small amount of heat conducted down the wires but I doubt it is 4%.

I think coupled with some perimeter security lighting and other security measures you are at least trying to provide a layer of security. I look at my neighbour’s house and mine and even a quick look when doing the evening exercise/walk around the block from the main road they would be an easier target.

Personally if I could run an 8 core cable to each location I would! cable is cheap as chips

have Texecom and it works, but (and this maybe a generational thing) I find it very old school and antiquated. Both to setup and use. It's all feels like texting in the 90s when I want my house to be lickably slick like a 2010's smartphone. I've seen some praise of http://ajax.systems/ being a much more modern, future looking, EN50131 Grade 2 compliant. It's wireless first, but supports legacy wired sensors if you have them too. I have no first hand experience of it so take with a grain of salt, but if you're looking for a DIY install / self monitored system that can also expand to support remote monitoring / police call out if needed in future, and designed for the "mobile internet" generation, it's the best contender I've seen,

Hi We've very recently moved to a lovely smallholding in Herefordshire. Unlike some of the houses we considered buying, the house we've bought is watertight and is blessed with electricity and hot and cold running water but we still have plenty of work to do including adding an annex for my Mother and some internal re-configuration. We are going to try and do as much as we can ourselves so whilst we're all practical, we're on a steep learning curve and we are going to need lots of advice along the way but we're always happy to share what we learn. I look forward to 'meeting' you all. Happy building everyone!

if you look at the three windows up high, when I asked the engineer to design the steel for this I told him I hadn’t made my mind up on window sizes, so the columns between the windows might change, so he designed it so that no columns where actually needed. So in-effect all three of those windows could be one, which would put the opening at something like 5.8m.

I often feel that some Architects are good at sales, then the hard work starts. I suspect that you owe/already paid then several thousands. Have they done and real onsite decision making, or is it the relatively easy office based stuff. It is easy to redraw a line, bot so easy to remove a foundation and relocate it. My experience is that sales people are all to willing to walk away from the job once they have sold it as easy.

I only use MR MDF for making stuff - denser & edges better to paint.

I think the logic is the road crossing is always ducted so a cable can be replaced without digging up the road, but a cable in the verge is normally buried bare so it is easier to connect into in the future.

The Boundary Alarm started as a kickstart project and has just been released, had some good initial reviews. https://boundary.co.uk/

The contestable work can be done by any contractor with a minor streetworks permit. It would be worth talking to an independant contractor to see if they can make both road crossings in one dig, and lay a water pipe and a red 150mm duct all the way under the road crossing and along under the verge to your plot, with a drawstring in it.. If you get a good price for that, then re negotiate with SP energy on the basis of them just pulling a cable through a duct and connecting it. SP networks may prefer the cable to be buried outwith a duct, you would need their agreement and in that case they would have to supply the cable before your contractor started. You would also need to ensure the contractor satisfied Scottish Waters needs. I bet it is a similar story with water, the present arrangement is inadequate to join another house onto.

I have a few big openings, 5.3m all done in icf with reinforcement in the concrete, I suggested to my engineer about installing a rsj into the core of the icf, he really didn’t like that idea and said you cannot get good consolidation of the concrete around the steel especially in the web. So you would need to make sure the steel is doing the job on its without the concrete assisting it. All mine where 12 and 16mm bars with links every 150mm, very fiddly to tie up as you needed hands like a 5 year old to get in between all the steel.

Take your target flow temperature, subtract the room temperature, that gives dT. Then use the formula. e.g. 45°C flow and 21°C room temp, dT = 24. Power output per section = 0.80314 x (24^1.32266) = 53.75 Watts System comprised of 63 sections therefore total output = 63 x 53.75 = 3,385 Watts. Plus the two towel radiators, probably 100 W each. If the flow temp were increased to 50°C then the power output would increase to 4.3kW. At 70°C flow, it's about 9kW. So currently you are heating 9kW x 4 hours = 36 kWhr per day. This is an average load of only 1.5kW. With 3.5kW running 24x7, the house will have a higher average temperature but probably a lower peak temperature everything else being equal, because the total energy added per day would increase from 36 to 84kWhr. Re buffer - the system needs enough capacity to avoid short cycling at part load and enough available circulating water to provide for the defrost cycle. These radiators probably have about 0.6 litres per section so system volume will be only 40 litres plus the volume in the pipes plus the towel radiators. A 9kW heater will heat 200 litres from 40 to 45°C in about 12 minutes (assuming 3kW losses from the radiators in the process) so a buffer of something like 150 litres is probably about right. You could try running electric heaters totalling 3.5kW for a couple of days 24x7 instead of the wood and see how warm the house gets. But the heat load increases as the temperature outside decreases so that needs to be factored in too.

Update. We're going ahead with this. Agreed a route down the other side of the house where we'd never develop as it's only 5m from the boundary, and agreed an acceptable fee for the wayleave rights. We got some advice and the fee we were recommend to ask for was pretty much double what we had initially thought... Put this the developer and they agreed. They've no alternative really. Best of all.... We don't see a penny of this as it goes straight to the mortgage company ?

The last few years It been a case of get it while you can The government hand out scheme hasn’t helped

Self monitoring alarms offer best value, I have heard good things about Ring, but cannot comment personally. If anyone reading this is considering an alarm system from a company that “connects to the police” that’s untrue. Only the PM & Queen, etc have such alarms. The monitored alarms go to an alarm company, who then might call the police. You can do that yourself with one that rings your own mobile. And save yourself £stacks. Some of the self monitored systems can work off 4g. Bear in mind if system communicates only via landline, phone lines can be cut especially if it’s a professional job. Don’t rely just on an alarm for security. Good lighting, locks, gravel under windows, good neighbours, aggressive shrubbery all play their part. Try not to shoot burglars though, unfortunately that’s not allowed.

more primer? 3.5 x 50mm is my normal screw into 18mm MR MDF

I have no experience of them but a friend installs alarms for a living, only fits Texecom as he reckons they are the best trouble free alarms

+1 to Texecom Ricochet. Easy to install (watch the YouTube videos..!) and really neat.

We used Texecom Set and unset with my mobile Let’s me no if my alarm has been set or unset Can be linked to ADT monitored

You can do this also with rebar, depending on what you're supporting above. I have a few large openings - lowest floor has a 6m span though above this is a roof terrace with a parapet wall over the sliding door opening so this is not the same as a sliding door with 2 more floors of wall resting on it. It has a fair amount of rebar and may have been quicker so maybe similar price using a beam! Not sure how this may compare to a roof loading. Lots of possibilities and may also depend on the void thickness in your ICF to see how much rebar could usefully be utilised there (for info mine are 200mm).

The BEST thing you can do with your PV power is self use it. Up to about a 4kW array that is relatively easy. I self use almost all we generate. The key to that is use all the big appliances (washing machine, dishwasher, tumble dryer) one at a time in the daytime close to mid day. If you are not in all day, set them on a timer to come on at the best time. Then the next "must have" is a solar PV diverter. You can buy one or I chose to make one for the fun of it. This measures how much you generate and how much you are using, and if generation exceeds usage, it sends surplus to your immersion heater to heat your domestic hot water rather than send it to the grid. I reckon about 1/3 of what I generate ends up in the immersion heater. In the 2 years my system has been running I have only exported 204kWh. Most of that small export happens on a sunny day, when there are no appliances running to self use it, the panels can generate up to 3.68kW but the immersion heater can only consume a little under 3kW so there could be 700W exported. To help that further I have added a small 700W convector heater that I presently have in the utility room (though it is wireless control so can go anywhere) and that can help reduce export further in the shoulder seasons, but it is not long into the spring when the house gets to warm to use that. I could be stubborn and put it in the garage just to stop export I guess. Given your windy location it is probably worth trying a small turbine, but get a proper horizontal turbine on a pole high enough to be well above head height I doubt it needs to be very high, but in an exposed location it will have to be a sturdy pole probably with guy wires. I have a small burn through my garden. I probably will experement with some hydro generation just as a fun project later, but all the calculations I have done suggest with the small head I have, and small flows that I could divert I would be lucky to generate 50W. You really need access to a watercourse much higher up to capture the water with a much greater fall to get sensible power, I barely have 1 metre fall from one end of my garden to the other. If I do try anything it will probably be an undershot water wheel rather than a turbine. I think battery storage for PV only starts to become viable when you have exhausted all the self use options, so probably only for an array over 4kW

Ask Fischer Future Heat about how to create more efficient radiators using resistance heating ....

This sort of nonsense relies on people's lack of understanding of physics. Tell the conspiracy theorists that it works at the same frequency as 5G, that should be a laugh.

This is one of eight houses that have just had its pre plaster inspection The site manager has just said as it’s number eight it needs to have an acoustic test So do your magic ? By Thursday this will all be plastered out and the poor sod buying it will have no idea All three floors are as bad