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A further update to this, replaced the bearings with SKF as recommended. So far so good - a real difference, whisper quiet.

The theory what you propose, may seem plausible but. If the system contains 30l and you have a flow rate of 6l/s, your heat demand is 3kW, your whole volume of water would have 3kW given to it every 5 seconds, it would very rapidly heat up beyond your control parameters. The heat pump would short cycle. 300l would take 50 seconds for the full volume to flow through the heater. So a given amount of heat has more to work on and is unlikely to lead to a rapid heating event

We moved in to our house on Feb and only had a couple 1.5kW heaters running about 12hrs a day to warm the house, plus a couple small dehumidifiers. it's been off totally for two weeks now. If you insulate and detail a house properly, you hardly need any heating at all. So a properly sized heat pump will work fine in all typical East Midlands winter weather. If you install a buffer tank (reccomended), you can install a 3kW immersion coil. If you build to passive House standards that'll warm you nicely. Don't worry about flooring, install whatever you want, will make very little difference to the temperature feel of the house. We've some rooms with carpet, some with laminate, and others bare screed. All the same temp.

Hi and Welcome. That's really quite worrying if that's printed in a UK article. Ensure that accurate heat loss calcs are done to help size the ASHP, which is all part of a reputable MCS installation, and you'll have no problems with a Heat Pump.

Simple answer is they will work fine, as long as they are sized correctly to meet the heating needs on the coldest winter day. No problem with our ASHP here in the Highlands. We do have a wood burning stove as secondary heating, but that is more to do with the abundance of free wood.

I think ASHP have a minimum power output. So you need to be sure the minimum load is higher than that or a) the temperature of the whole system must rise or b) it must cycle.. https://mcscertified.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Heat-Pump-Guide.pdf Page 35..

Utter tosh which is usual from that magazine ..!! Tell about 1m households in Norway they don’t work when it’s cold …

All due to commercial rates - I got a £600 credit back when I amended to domestic from 17/2. Shows what horrors await when the price cap goes away. Net zero needs to go down the pan before all the rest of us do!

You want a shocker - try this! A

To apply for RHI you need i) EPC ii) MCS install certificate, you don't needing building control completion. Do you have EPC/MCS? If you do go online and start the process and it will guide you though, I don't beleive you need to have occupied yet.

My understanding is. You need around 10-15l for each kW your boiler can generate. So if you have a system volume of over 75l you will be ok without a buffer. The issue come if the have lots of zone or just a couple, where one zone may be calling for heat and it's volume is small. One thing you can include in a buffer is an immersion, so if things go wrong you have a fallback heating system.

Very true Its so easy to end up with things that you don’t want Simply because you are being told that Everybody is going for this or that

We are the same, wood, carpet in bedrooms, tiles elsewhere. Choose what suits YOU, not your architect.

@Nina F Can you send a link to the article you read please. As others have said, size it correctly and you will not have problems. At worse, a fan heater or two will get you out of short term trouble. When you say a well insulated house, do you know the target U-Values for each component, and remember the floor has to have a lot more than building regs as it is warmer than the house air temperature. When you build, airtightnes is important.

What JohnMo said Just let it tick over all the time. I was so worried that I would cook at night but I don't. Yes it is warm but a very gentle warmth. If you like roasting your feet or burning your face then either get a wood burner or a small electric fire to complement the underfloor.

I think the main things that screw up heat pumps are the following. Tying operate like a gas boiler, high temp, lots of on off cycles, you need to setup to run at as lower temperature as practical and let it run for as long as possible. One day time temp and a small setback at night of only a couple degrees only (even that is pretty much a waste of time in a well insulated house). Lots of zones, so the heat pump can end up running a small circuit which will end up with lots of short cycling. Have the whole living space as a single zone. I now also run the shower room, utility and en-suites without thermostats, if anything else calls for heat they get heated by default, this is to increase the circulation volume. Heatgeek.com, has plenty of tips of how to balance the system and set up flow temps. Sizing the heat pump too big, always remember, the design heat load is cover a few hours per year, when it's 8 degrees outside the heating system is only doing about half the work as at -3 deg C. If in doubt include a buffer to help prevent short cycling. The other thing about well insulated houses they react quite differently to older houses; our heating is by UFH (we have 300mm pipe spacing - 200mm would have made our system quicker acting), pumped at 30 degrees in concrete 100mm screed, the heating comes on for a few hours and is then off until the next day, with a stable temperature. You really need a simple system, no complex (or expensive) controls.

Also installer takes responsibility for it all . Must admit I worry if I bought everything and then have my sparky install it and there’s an issue ( even later on ) . Take the easy route 😁

Our ASHP has a built-in 6kW back-up heater for if the compressor fails, but I think the idea that you need another fuel source due to failure/inefficiency is mostly FUD, unless your electiricaly supply is unreliable. If your house is very well insulated and airtight, then a couple of cheap/simple oil-based heaters radiators are very effective as back-up heaters. We used a couple of these to help heat the house before ASHP was commisisoned.

Definitely. We were looking at prices in Barcelona for plots and we definitely know that it'd be way cheaper, also way easier since self building over there is quite common and standard practice, and there's way less restrictions in regards of the house type. You can see houses of any type everywhere. But all this comes to personal reasons. We can always go back there and stay at friends and family, or even rent. But we don't want to get stuck there if for some reason we struggle financially at some point, or there's pandemics, or we have kids. Not because it's bad, at all. We love it. It's just "not adventure" for us, and the world feels stuck. But again, it's a pure personal experience from us being from there. Moving abroad allowed us to grow so much, and we want to keep the rate going, so it's a bit of pushing ourselves. FYI, foreseeing all the time and effort this is going to take, maybe we were indeed on a rush. We are leaning now to just get on the property ladder the easy way, just buying a built house. And then, once we're not losing our money on rent, we have all the time in the world to do the next step without a rush, even if it takes years to make it. We might even change our minds by then as well. Another thing I quickly learned while reading today: What we were looking for wasn't a self build. It was actually a custom build. Might have confused some of you, and myself up here.

Last time I saw silly prices was in about 2004. One terrace two up two down house which was completely derelict, with not even any plaster on the walls and the rear 2 story extension a good 4 inches away from the rest, sold at auction for the same price as the terrace 9 further along which had been completely done up and was for sale. I knew what that meant then, and I do now. M

Hi, if you will be shovelling then I would stay away from Phenolic, a lot of the stuff now sits on the surface of the ply and once chipped it peels away easily. I would go with ply. A skin galvanised steel would work if it was in one piece but joins soon lift and then shovelling is a pain. as it’s an older truck just drop a ply topper on, leave the existing in place to screw to. Loads of screws and you will be sorted

The phenolic ply is good stuff but large sheets are bulk ordered by body builders. no problem with a joint, use an off cut underneath the joint to beef it up. Bitumen paint on any sawn edges to stop water getting in. existing bed looks like plain exterior ply.

Depends on the flow rate and the temperature lift up from mains water temperature. 3 kWh seems high, but then a 10 minute shower seems long to me.

No excuse. You can get a replacement in 24hrs from Amazon, Scewfix, etc. 🤣 Doing this would have probably saved you effort in the long run. I don't have one now so I can't personally recommend one, but a friend used to swear by them. There are various profiles; using t handle screwdriver as the search on Amazon gives a good selection of the alternatives. I suspect some would be worse for someone with Dupuytren's and some better. I think that this is a case for using your own knowledge and try it to see. The 300mm extension piece can also be really useful as this can allow a 2-handed grip in most situations

Cement and copper are not good friends

Unfortunately UK is so much more restrictive than other countries when it comes to planning permission and building homes. Also the amount of land available to build on is small compared to demand. I have been looking for over 2 years now and still not found a suitable plot or old house to knock down and start again. yes I want a larger plot so being a bit more selective but the plots I have seen are stupid prices. Luckily I have access to construction equipment and a lot of years construction experience meaning I can look at more difficult plots so hopefully I will find something soon. don’t give up, there is always a way

Thats easy. Anywhere in the whole build cycle is the answer. Every bit of that cycle has a precedent. How about a review of the sale prices of plots of land in an area that you favour? Lets say that you can't afford most of them, but there are one or two that with a bit of determination you might be able to buy. (BTW, that's a common experience here on BH - we waited for a generation before we could build) Then, imagine a design that you like. Look for planning applications for that type of house in your chosen area. Look at why those applications were accepted, or refused. Look at those that were accepted. Cost them. Now you have a savings target and a much better guess at how much it's going to cost overall. Waste time reading BuildHub.

.... the plot ....

Hi and welcome, the above is great advice. self build is rarely a way to get a cheap home, but a much better home for the same money …. With a lot of personal effort and work. Building plots are pretty scares at the moment and £100k+ is cheap unless you are looking at the highlands / top of Scotland.

It was reference to using tape instead of traditional ‘scrim’ tape. Plaster goes over both options.

Hello, welcome. The first thing to advise is to spend a week or two reading BuildHub from top to bottom. There isn't one area referred to in your post that hasn't been covered in this discussion board many times over. Really - just put time aside for it and read. Start with the Planning Section, and the blogs. They are a gold-mine of information. Next. Persistence. I have a strong feeling reading your post that you are in a hurry - relatively speaking. You may just be lucky: but prepare for a long haul. Next Read Local Authority Planning websites. Look at planning applications, and pay especial attention to reasons for planning application acceptance and refusal. That should be about a month's work for you. Good luck. Ian

The good thing with the stud sticking out of the slab @Jenkiis that if you are in a high wind area you can extend the stud to go all the way through the wall up to the top plates. I built in a sub tropical area known for high wind and had multiple studs that did this. Holds the entire structure down, not just relying on the sole plate being held in position.

CLS have standard (albeit Canadian) dimensions, if you fit door frame that makes a bit easier to find a matching kit.

Well done, my guess is that the biggest factor is the low house temperature followed by DHW heating. With low temperature radiators you are using the ASHP at near it's most efficient. I'm glad it's working out well for you.

because they're a normal family?

Note that the way many review sites' business model works is to start with they publish bad reviews. This presumably happens naturally since people who have had things got wrong are full of anger and the review is the outlet to direct that at the world. This means that, without incentives or companies asking people to write a review, average ratings are bad since people with bad experiences are more likely to review. As a result of their bad reviews, companies pay to sign-up to review sites to get the reviews better. The review sites are making money from the companies being reviewed. Think about the incentives that creates. All review sites that make the majority of their money from the companies being reviewed are as unreliable as the PR department of that same company! Ones that make their money from advertising could be more reliable. Reviews on google might be more reliable since it's not their main business model and you wouldn't think it would make sense for them to compromise their company reputation for a small additional bit of $. Once a company has signed up to one of these review sites, it becomes easier for them to challenge reviews. The review site will then let them challenge reviews, and then the people get a message saying e.g. "please provide photos and further description of the experience, and serial number" and then when they get the info they require they just keep asking for more info until people give up or don't respond. By this method, they can claim negative reviews are fake, and then delete most of them. Of course, they don't challenge positive reviews. This is a very common tactic, I've often seen complaints written about it. Companies signing up to these review sites also get to invite people to leave a review, or have the review sites contact the customers for them inviting them to put a review. Of course people will be invited to leave a review immediately - within days or weeks - , well before any problems would develop in most cases! Again, deliberately leading to biased reviews. The people invited to review are often filtered - if a customer is known to be unhappy, they won't be invited to review. Another tactic is to create high ratings is to ask some basic questions that will obviously lead to a yes answer, and then generate a star rating from the answers rather than getting the reviewer to input the rating. Or email a note out saying "you are free to give any rating you wish, note that this company has received an average 4.5*" to try and give a nudge. There are probably other tactics. They can't make it too obvious that they are selling a higher rating for $. I should add that none of the above comment so far is directed at Trust Pilot or anyone in particular. I don't recall the exact methods of each site. You can find more with a search. However notice that Mitsubishi on Trust Pilot says "unclaimed profile". I've noticed that most of the heat pump companies with an unclaimed profile on Trust Pilot that I checked had an average rating that was quite low such as 1.5* or 2* while most of the claimed profiles are nearer 4*. I do wonder if that is a coincidence, and whether or not 2* unclaimed is similar quality company to 4* claimed. 3* unclaimed might be a stellar company, while 3* claimed might be a disaster zone. Anyway, judge for yourself. From what I've seen from unbiased people posting on forums and vidoes on Youtube, the Mitsubishi Ecodan is a respected product, and I'm sure people have a variety of different experiences.

Hi, new to the forum, have kept coming across the forum every time I've googled for a solution to a problem, so thought I ought to finally join! I'm English but moved to Antigua 6 years ago, and finally bought a plot of land last year and started building in the new year. Quite a few challenges building out here, but also quite a few advantages too. I'm doing a self build (although I do now have a local builder helping me to get out of the ground on 2 of the 4 buildings - cheating a bit I know, but it was taking me forever plus I was missing some key bits of knowledge/experience). It's also my own design, and I don't have an architect or project manager (other than myself)...so a text book case of "how not to build a house"? I do have some experience from doing my own extensions and house gutting and renovations in the past, but I've never done a complete house or new build before. The plot is one acre, on a 6/12 slope (aprox 26 degrees) and the key unique concept is modular buildings - instead of one big house there will be 3 bedrooms and one main house all as completely separate buildings and not connected. The advantage being that, given the relatively steep slope then the construction can sit into the landscape much better with less excavation of granite (and the disadvantage is that you get wet if you want to go to bed and it’s raining!) The main house is 40’ x 28’ and is one single open plan space of kitchen/dinning/lounge that is also open on 50% of the walls – there is no glass or windows at all in this building...in order to benefit from the cooling trade wind breezes. There will be integrated roller hurricane shutters for storm conditions. Construction is mainly cast reinforced concrete columns and beams (with 16” cinder block shear walls) with open/cathedral ceilings of 3x6 rafters and 1x6 v-joint/t&g roof boarding. The entire construction is 100% off-grid. Water is collected from roof gutters, fed into a 30,000 gallon water cistern for domestic fresh water. Self composting septic tank & soak away. 12kW solar array with 25kWh lithium-ion batteries and 18kW LF inverter. Hot water via a 300L all-in-one heat pump. Another interesting feature is UFH in the main building. Since there are no windows then air conditioning isn’t possible (and shouldn’t be needed) but in order to prevent the concrete floor slab and superstructure building up heat and radiating it back, then hydronic UFH will be embedded into the concrete pour and supplied by a monoblock heat pump (obviously running in reverse / cooling mode!). Heat pump will only be active during the day (when there is sun on the PV and excess power) and the thermal mass off the concrete will store much of the energy (along with a large buffer tank, circa 500L). Tons of other details but don’t want to send everyone to sleep on my first post. I’ll include a couple of pics of progress so far. I also have a few questions to ask so will try to make another post or two during the week. Pics: (Front half of main building, forming utility/basement. Rear half will be 30k gal cistern. Then main house floor will be over the top) (Master bed, up in trees overlooking the whole plot down to the road)

Sometimes life is easier if the waste has to cross the tray to get to the stack... The longer pipe will flex more easily to make minor corrections to the alignment with the tray and space for the pipe to dip below the screed.

This is a drawing I did for a similar previous question I think..

Kindness, yes, consideration, yes, and a number of other important social behaviours, yes (but with some caveats in what the children actually end up experiencing socially and culturally within the education system, which is in many ways at odds with this in terms of what actually gets valued and thus modelled). Emotional intelligence, however, it is not. Please forgive my cynicism here. I work with people psychologically as my main profession. I first trained as a youth counsellor in the early 1990s and a lot of my work is related to mental health. I've spent a lot of time teaching and training clients in EI, especially in organisational contexts. I think there are serious questions as to whether the term EI has any real meaning or validity at all, other than being another means to derive better work productivity, and thus economic performace from individuals - which is really where EI as we know it today came from. It is more or less a tool for manipulating productivity rather than a tool for helping people to learn how to navigate a complex world and being able to effectively deal with the emotions associated with doing that - in this sense, children are not being taught EI. The rise in young persons' mental health problems is an indicator that there is something wrong here and that what is being taught may not be of any practical use, rather like a number of things being taught within today's curriculum.

I wanted to check the effect of varying Acoustic Roll thickness on sound and the headline is adding just 25mm is 5dB better than having none, but adding 50mm is a further 1.5dB better. It may be cheaper to upgrade the plasterboard than double the thickness of the Acoustic Roll (SoundBloc+25mm is better than WallBoard+50mm). The Gory details: Maddeningly, BG have changed their product selector website and it's near useless. Previously I remember you could select which studs and plasterboard you'd use but now its got all the detail codes instead of the stud type. It says "To see all Specifications that use a particular Product, please go to the Product page and look for the ‘Show me all specifications that use this product’ option." but if you select a specific stud type results include other types! Sadly the madness doesn't end when you download the CSV. Although the table includes stud type etc, the columns are messed up so the data can be in the wrong columns 😞 How hard can it be! I added a column that concats all the columns after the abutment one (as many use C studs for abutments but other studs mainly) checked if the concat contains the stud name I want and then filter. {EDIT: easier to use find on column B} Below is some extracts. The colours are Duraline orange, WallBoard white, Fireline pink, SoundBloc blue (red text if SoundBloc F), TileBacker grey, and Habito yellow. Multiple lines as different insulation options, the first of each group is no insulation. The first 5 are the 15mm Duraline with the following insulation (APR 1200 unless says): none (42dB), 25mm Isover Acoustic Partition Roll (APR 1200) (47dB), 50mm Isover Acoustic Partition Roll (APR 1200) (48dB), 80mm Isover Modular Roll (49dB), 75mm Isover Acoustic Slab (50dB) Other sheet types that have less options follow that order though (double check). 102mm Partitions with 70 S 50 C-studs: 97mm Partitions with 70 S 50 C-studs:

I can recommend Nordan aluclad products. We have just had loads of big windows and double sliding doors through them with clear lacquered timber on the inside, which is beautiful and nicely profiled. We had double glazing but they do triple glazing and loads of different opening options. We struggled a bit with logistics, but happy now everything is fitted, it looks great and it was very good value compared to many other companies.

We have just finished fitting aluclad doors and windows from them. Overall very impressed with both service and product quality. Try giving them a call- we are in Nottingham and their rep came to us with a small unit - not as good as a showroom obviously but still gives you a good idea of quality. Think he was based in Cambridge, not sure what area they cover but he was very helpful- let me know if you want me to PM contact details. For us they offered the best overall value and we are very happy with our choice. One of the deciding factors was we actually preferred the internal finish to some of the pricier options as we have clear lacquer internally and the wood staves are bigger than some others so there are less joints. Part of me quite like some joins as part of the fact that it's an engineered wood product, but on bigger units I do think the larger staves look better. Happy to answer any specific questions if you have any- it's a big decision!

Thank you @Dan G very much indeed for your summary. So many threads need someone to make the effort to summarise (in this case 24) the arguments presented over many pages. It takes a lot of mental effort and time.

Hello Dan, Thank you for the update and clarifications. The PV divert was my main concern. The other re-heating issue seems to be improved too. I’m very close to having to commit to my DHW solution, the Sunamp needs some serious thought as from previous discussions I had discounted it.

I’ve just installed a Dolle Clickfix76. Decent bit of kit!!

I'll join - I'm choosing between Dolle ClickFix 76 with U=0.49 and and Minka Polar Extrem (through PHS) with U=0.59, both with claimed airtightness class 4, both around £270. Has anybody installed either of those and can share experience?

It’s being blamed on the TF company Design fault I guy who drilled it thought it would be easier to move the walls than drill four new pilot holes 😂 I wouldn’t mind but I got a call Monday from my boarder saying a pipe was in the way I told him to board round Probably should have sent me a photo

Sorry , what’s wrong in the photo ?