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I know we've done all this before, but lets go through it again. 67,000 heat pump installs in the UK in 2020. Government to push with incentives and legislation to achieve 600,000 installs per year by 2028. Definitely not a niche. As pointed out to you previously it's a 40% increase in rad volume required, although wet UFH would be better. No you won't, as has been pointed out to you many times by people that actually have ASHPs No it won't. The SCOP of my heat pump is 4.2, so the per kWh cost is lower than it would be for a gas boiler. ASHPs have the same lifespan as gas combis. Please bring some data to reference that shows otherwise. Houses for first time buyers will continue to cost that max that first time buyers can afford, that's basic economics. The extra cost of better performing new homes, which has to happen, will come of the premium paid for plots with planning. Building Regs will be ensuring it happens in 2025. You'll have to tell us what you are basing this opinion on, as those with ASHPs constantly tell you that you are wrong. So what is the answer then Dave? By the way, the question is "how do you bring net zero heating to Housing in the UK?"

Like others here, mains gas was simply not an option here, it is at least 3 miles to the nearest gas main. But even if mains gas were available, there is the standing charge to consider. A quick search suggests that is typically £90 per year. So if I had installed mains gas just to heat my home, then the gas usage bill would have to be less than £160 per year for gas to be "cheaper" than my heat pump.

I think "fuel poverty" is where you spend more than 10% of your income on heating. My pet one is "Council tax poverty" I spend more than 10% of my income on council tax, and no amount of home improvements, bettter insulation etc will do a thing to reduce that bill.

I hate parapet walls! Can you knock it down to below roof level? They leak heat, leak and leach water in, gather condensation by pumping it from the house, cost too much to repair - repeatedly

No

That is not a new document. I did my own percolation tests, and nobody queried it. Officially HC seem to be pushing the "approved certifier" route but in practice are not bothering to enforce it. I have not used a single approved certifier contractor.

Shelly have a couple of humidity options. They're nice because they need very little tinkering to get them up and running. You can get started with their own built in web interface, but they can also push their data to whatever device is being used for logging via HTTP or MQTT. There is a battery driven wireless sensor - https://shellystore.co.uk/product/shelly-ht-white/, but they sell an adapter to run it off a usb cable. Not the best option to sit permanently under a floor though. You can also combine their basic wifi switch with a humidity sensor (https://shellystore.co.uk/product/shelly-1/, https://shellystore.co.uk/product/shelly-temp-addon/ and https://thepihut.com/products/am2302-wired-dht22-temperature-humidity-sensor)

That really is letter to the guardian stuff. We won't pay for eco measure 1 because totally unrelated, unfinished eco measure number 2 that's nothing to do with us is being done to too such a high eco standard that we don't understand it

In a well insulated air tight house, there is no risk of condensation because that needs a cold surface to condense onto, and there will be no cold surfaces. Trust me, in a well insulated air tight house with mvhr, condensation is simply something that does not happen.

This is the first bending project that folder I made was for, my second attempt at the gate video intercom shroud. I binned the first as I'd hand formed it, aka beaten it around wood and metal formers with a bfo hammer & wasn't happy. All stainless including the M4 rivnuts this time. It's still not perfect, one leg is a bit taller, I stick welded it again as I really struggled with my MIG yesterday but it'll be covered either side with the flints, lime mortared in, so most of it won't be seen:

It is worth pointing out, that @Dave Jones, claims to have had an ASHP installed once than it failed to perform, He has never offered any evidence i.e. house heat load, size and make of system, age of system, running cost, an invoice to show installation cost, DHW flow rates etc. What he has done is pop up on just about every heat pump thread claiming the same faults will occur with all ASHPs, and the only solution is a gas combi, but never mentions what size combi would be suitable. He even claims that a gas combi is suitable for people that have stated that they have no gas. The mods, who are quick to delete some cheeky comments really need to do something about this.

(in case anyone is genuinely interested) 3/ The light switches include temperature and humidity sensors in each room, plus more buttons we use for blinds, roof window openers, and audio control, so it does mean a net saving in wires, thermostats, and wall-clutter, not to mention a safer, more comfortable and more efficient building (automatic windows/blinds and light and sound energy savings)

OK I lie - they recommend CAT7 or their silly proprietary Tree cable, but I found cat6a easier to get, more flexible and just as reliable, which is the main point here. ?

1/ it's what Loxone Tree runs on 2/ I designed the house for me, not for you, nor your 93 year old mother. The whole point of doing self build is to get your own building that meets your own needs and wants. I believe I can put whatever wires I want in the wall and not have to justify it to the homogenous homes thought police.

+1 I used Hikvision wired POE cameras, each on its own cable back to a hub in the loft that supports POE to power them. I also have a server on the same hub so not all the camera traffic goes over the main house network. If you go a similar route note that with some hubs only half the ports support POE so worth checking before you buy. I had lot of issues getting motion detection working reliably, typically I got too many false triggers due to wind moving tree branches, spiders, moths etc. If I turned down the sensitivity it missed people walking about. So I've ended up recording pretty much everything on the server. In an ideal world I would have seperate IR illuminators so spiders aren't attracted to the camera and PIR sensors connected to the system to trigger recording... but perhaps that's overkill.

For it to freeze it must be full of standing water … that’s not how a stack works. or the stack has to be so cold that any water will flash freeze while the water flows through it … that’s not going to happen in UK. if the underground or lower portion did somehow get blocked then the stack could backup and freeze. Again unlikely.

I think its quite rare for a 110mm vertical stack to freeze. More common for smaller diameter "horizontal" feed pipes to freeze (eg from kitchen sink to the stack).

Include cables for WIFI access points I would go for IP cameras for CCTV - so just run network cables to these For wifi, go with a mesh rather than an extender - I use the ubiquiti stuff, these run on POE, so will need a switch that can supply that to the required standard Yes Your router's LAN connection can just be connected to one of the ports on your switch In an ideal world, your BT master socket would be in the central location (node 0), if that isn't possible, I would probably aim to have your ISP router connected to the master socket with a network cable back to your switch.

Correct

Planning conditions typically say something like.. "Before occupation..." or "Before work starts on site..." So you only need to discharge the ones that say "Before work starts.." at this stage, however if you are able to discharge the others as well then do as many as you can at the same time because the fee is per application not per condition. In my case I sent them lots of documents and several brick samples as they lost some. Eventually after several email exchanges and revisions to drawings they wrote back saying they were happy so I applied to have to conditions discharged and sent the fee. These days they may want the fee up front with the request to discharge all on one package. Just a reminder: If the CIL is a thing in your area remember to get the exemption paperwork done and confirmed by the council before starting work. Some people have been caught out.. They asked the council if they were exempt and the council said "yes the project will be exempt"....but that's not the same thing as actually applying for the exemption on the proper forms and getting the reply back, you still have to do that.

Looks nice, and practical too, however for me, i'd Install a full fat 8" liner, that way you'd be covered if you ever changed your mind. Wont cost you an awful lot more in materials either.

The render price that he is quoting Is 2 days work for two men with less than £200 in materials and certainly won’t be a long term cure So pretty high I would at the very least stabilize the walls before doing anything else and perhaps get a quote off a plastering contractor for the render

Thanks for the reply, I’ll have a good read at lunchtime!

I used the Impey water guard kit which is a membrane you apply to the floor and seal all the joints and comes with the corner joints etc. It doubles as a decoupling mat for the tiles. I also used a matching Impey tray.

Do you have actual 'Pre-commencement' conditions? These are the only ones which matter to you at the moment, as far as I can tell. The council forgot to record mine. I am just trying to discharge some of mine (I love ticking items off a list!) but have just had a discussion with a new case officer (my third so far, they have a recruitment crisis) and we both waded through the nonsensical convoluted wording and she admitted that the council make things difficult for themselves with their language, and that some was incorrect. The tricky bit is that several of my conditions indicate that I need written approval from the council, but they don't discharge the condition until it is installed to their approval...I had to point out, they won't look at info unless it is submitted as a 'discharge of condition', and I can't risk installation which they aren't happy with. She then told me she could do a 'partial discharge' of condition (I didn't realise this was a thing) so this looks like being the solution. Also some conditions don't need formal discharge, and it's not just the obvious ones, like work hours, they keep it a secret, just to fox you... Look very carefully at the wording, make friends with your case officer, and point out inconsistencies by asking for advice on how to comply if you need to, but very tactfully, if it's the same officer that actually set the conditions. Sorry, to answer your question, it depends if you feel competent to do what they want fully. If they want specialists, eg for ecology or archeology you need specialists. It takes 8 weeks before they give you an answer, and I think councils vary in the amount of detail they want, so you could look through other applications of the council website. Maybe post your conditions so people can comment?

Indeed. Not paying attention to parapet walls can have consequences. Good that you are taking the time to address it. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/jun/02/deborah-orr-roof-silent-disaster

looking into it South west water standard is 25mm, they actually have this little diagram to show the arrangement. i think that i am going to use a twin wall duct, internal diameter of 94mm which should give me enough flexibility to feed the insulated water pipe though, i won't seal the external wall hole so that there will be some flex to feed the pipe through. even with the longer turn radius i think that the rest bend will be tight to get through

Rendering with sand and cement will not be a permanent cure First you will need to stabiles the masonry This can be done by drilling and fixing a s steel mesh You then need two coats of sika bagged render Expensive but totally watertight and permanent Ive used this on the bottom of lift shafts whilst pumping water out Any render beads will need to be S steel

Omg! The masonry is in a bad state, definitely needs work to make it waterproof. looking at the pics the quote is more than reasonable. as above, parapet walls are always more trouble than they are worth.

Does i require planning to remove a parapet wall? I don't know. Not that it looks like the neighbours opposite will mind.

Good morning and welcome, the zinc work looks very reasonable. the render initially looks high but you do not say how high the parapet Wall is? or the access available? Vehicular access etc. overall I don’t think it’s bad at all, especially after seeing some prices for poor work done recently.

Pleased with how the ridge turned out at the other end. I was dreading fitting "6 metre ridge tiles" but they lined up great in the end. ? Yes rope for getting up to the ridge. Harness too. (save for the no tools photo) Scaffolding that would be epic; ladders are dangerous; spider rig would be amazing but haven't seen them locally.

It's been a tricky year to be building in wood! Especially if you'd planned timber frame with timber exterior wall cladding and timber roof covering and timber ceiling covering and timber floor covering and a timber deck ? We gave up and are leaving our deck / south wall / similar but less grand open gable unfinished until 2022. The sawmills (in Lithuania anyway) think they will have "satisfied all the silly priced futures contracts" by then. Prices won't go back to 2020 levels though. Maybe only +50% rather than +200%. Here's that miscellaneous teak from the shed FWIW - you should get a trade discount on top of that for tradepoint or visiting on OAP day with a borrowed granny etc. Go crazy bold and thin coat solid colour render onto the OSB? In all seriousness if you can wait I would wait. September futures in the US (which is where all the Euro wood went earlier this year) are down again https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-11/lumber-falls-to-nine-month-low-extending-retreat-after-boom

should read 0.6ACH Yes Des, I have no issue with you using that quote.

blimey, I just ran cat5 to the four corners of my house and put a wifi access point at each of the 4 outlets, it works a treat. Keep it simple ( otherwise I can't understand it )

Quite simply there isn't a gas main within a mile of my entrance. (Feel like I am marking my old RE students homework. It is much easier seeing others typos than one owns)

I wanted to draw a design, have it made accurately, then plonk it onto foundations with no mucking about on site. Call it a over reaction to having had to deal with badly built brick houses where nothing is square or level and you're forever mucking about making things fit well. The more I read on SIPs the less they made sense though. The vapour resistance of the outside is the same as the inside. (Both OSB) The weak paths are the joints. Any airflow or vapour movement through that structure is going to go through the joints. The worst place to have moisture in OSB. If you're VERY good on air tightness - assembling carefully and adding a membrane to the inside of the SIP that you're religious about protecting - and you build a secondary structure outside the SIP (battens, breathing membrane, battens, cladding of some kind) then they work. Price that up and you might as well panel build or even stick build though; and if you go for those routes then you ends up with a structure that's far more resilient to minor f**kups and viable to repair too. The better SIP vendors even said as much. "Our price is supply and erect and includes battens, membrane, and battens over the sip. In the early days we did supply only but people always screw up airtightness, the ridge always rotted first (highest driving pressure for moisture from inside/hardest to fit up tightly), and we got fed up of the warranty claims. If anybody says you can render the outside directly and bash some shingles on top then run a mile!" (or words to that effect) Advantage of the SIPs was speed. (up and watertight in days) We found some framers who were framed, insulated, and watertight in 5 weeks. (and built in snow season rather than rain season) If the choice was panel or sip then panel every time.

thanks to all for your replies. @Brickie, if the pointing cracked due to the reason you mentioned, shall I just leave it and keep on eye on it?

As above, word of mouth is the only believable information, I would never trust check a trader etc.

I always tell people to source tradespeople through recommendation, friends/neighbours/family “I used this bloke and he was good!”.

Refurb or demolish and rebuild? A commercial builder will demolish and start again. It removes risk, allows the work to proceed without special details, and gets the job done much more quickly, and time is money in both overhead and cashflow. In business I have done both. It can be difficult to persuade the client that his building is worth less than nothing, and should come down. 'I will give you 2 quotes' resolves everything. On the other hand, if a building can be adapted it is 'a good thing', and can save a lot of money. A private diy builder may have more time and flexibility, to make use of what is there. It really depends on the building and your own circumstances. Hence we (extended family) are on our 7th repair and modernise project, and have never done new. There will be unexpected issues in a refurb for which you must allow costs. 5%-10% minimum even after expertly identifying problems. There will seldom be surprise good news.

You probably won't want to hear this, but going by the sound of things, you'd be better off demolishing the existing house and building a new one. If you are removing the roof, adding a story, building an extension, you'll have the building back to nothing more than a few walls.

Precisely this. Came to inspect EWI install, and found fault with the house ventilation as reason to deny EWI payment. On the refurb question, to be honest I hadn't really considered it, I was clear about my project being a refurb every step of the way with the potential (and eventual) system providers, one would hope the fact that I would be foul of building regs would come up. I have attempted a frantic check online and can't find anything specific. I suppose that could be their angle potentially, but I don't give them that much credit.

if the poo is reaching the top of your soil stack you really are in a pickle!