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Instead of fitting a pre formed tray and filling in the edges, why not buy a tray former that is too big and trim it down to get the waste where you need it.

The Impey wet room shower former that I used has the waste offset in a central circular section that could be rotated, so as you rotated it, the off centre waste position changed. You would be very unlucky indeed if you could not find a position with that where the waste did not line up with one of your gaps. And if it was only slightly off, move the whole tray over slightly and fill in the gap. https://www.impeyshowers.com/Wetroom-floor-formers/Aqua-Dec-EasyFit-Wetroom-Floor-Former/

My wife just painted a brown UPVC porch frame black to match our Rationel windows, using Zinsser AllCoat (available in white also) - absolutely brilliant job and looks like frames were originally black. A bit tricky to paint in some hard to get to places, but the effect when closed is great. She used brushes only (round ones alongside the glass, and no masking tape either) (I am not trusted with a paint brush)

@Steve J I see someone recorded a video on this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTfOYlboarw Of course, you battery system also needs to support this and have the necesary CT clamps. AFAIK the following systems support this: - Tesla Powerwall - Victron ESS - Sonnen I'm trying to find out if LuxPower, PureDrive (Soils inverter) support this. Given the crazy lead times on Powerwall I'm looking at other options.

Yes as long as there are no planning conditions you need to satisfy first.

Doesn't really do justice again.

I did mine in XPS (similar to this) and I am on clay.

New installation could still be air bleeding out of an automatic bleed valve? 0.8bar is a bit low, try re pressurising to 1 bar and see how it goes.

Yes it's in the technical information (R290 clearances). My copy is from early last year - it may have been updated - worth checking for any changes

The only relevant part in our local building regs (NI) is this, which implies no need for a fire valve at all if the boiler's outside?

You know something, that might just be what I want... thanks

Old news, I proposed something similar using the "stays hot forever" McDonald's apple pie filling, some time ago. Again the multinationals made me an offer to keep the thing quite...or it might have been someone just suggested I keep quiet...

I don't know if this is what you're after but I found this while looking for shower tray formers https://www.victorianplumbing.co.uk/orion-wetroom-shower-substrate

That comparison is helpful, thank you! Even with access costs, the prices still seem outrageous. Hey F 1 and 2 - It was included in our floorplan space, seems to be the norm for London estate agents. But yes, technically it wasn't a permanent structure but we are now making it into one. 3 - No flood protection measures are included in the costs. It's not on a flood plane, but was due to 3 months of rain in 1hr back in July 2021! 4 - I hope not but I will cross that bridge when we come to it! 5 - Yep this is what we're trying to work through now, it's very complicated. Even though I'm not paying for the insurance parts, I still want to haggle the overall quote down as much as possible as I just detest knowing that we're being had off, especially if it's going to impact our building insurance rate in the future. We have spoken to the insurance company and they said building costs in London are the worst they've ever been and in some cases they are extending people's temporary accommodation for another year to wait for costs to (hopefully) come down! I I just wish we could've got these quotes without the contractors knowing it was an insurance job. However, this was impossible due to the tender process we had to follow.

In March last year I was faced with a similar choice. After a lot of research and analysis I wanted to go with the Vaillant Arotherm Plus (featuring the R290 Propane refrigerant) but could not find a suitable and safe place to put it anywhere around my house without breaching fire regulations. So in the end I went with the latest Mitsubishi Ecodan R32 single phase model. My electricity usage went up from 3,274kWh pa to 6,542kWh pa vs. an MCS heat loss calc of 16,213kWh implying a SCOP of well over 4. I was using around 21,000kWh of gas in the previous full year! So for me it has been an astonishing success story, but I have no reason to doubt that the Vaillant is capable of at least as good performance. As for the so called "vampire load" although initially I had a concern, after extensive monitoring my Ecodan R32 only consumes around 40-45W when idle so it's just not an issue for me.

Yes you only need to insulate the external thermal line. If the lean to isn't insulated or a habitable space and is effectively ambient air temperature then you should treat the house wall as the 'outside' and ideally insulate all the way to the ground. However, any lean to does create some level of protection so would need to be judged on a case by case basis. As you have shown, you need to go beyond the actual join point of, say, 600mm, (or the distance of the wall which gives an equivalent u-value).

Best way to clean white UPVC is with Jif (sometimes known as Cif) - it scours and got rid of all our 18 year old discoloured frames easily earlier this year. Looked good enough to sell the house!

I just keep the dog away until the spay has had chance to properly dry. If it's a dog that has a habit of eating grass however, perhaps keep it fenced off until the spayed area has started to desiccate and becomes unpalatable.

Shelly EM will do what you want.

Yes I meant 30cm 🙈🙈 cold high roof hence the lower insulated ceiling at 8ft so we can use whole osb boards!

AFAIK there is no mention here about the WBS providing DHW. It would be a hugely complex installation for an annex, and require a lot of components / plumbing / header tanks etc. Ahh I was going on this comment in the OP: Eventual use will require hot water - preferably instantaneous, as it will be used occasionally and often for shortish periods . Heat from the log burner in the craft workshop will be sufficient. I thought that was saying Heat energy from the WBS would be sufficient to supply the DHW. Now I see that second sentence is probably about space heating and nothing to do with DHW? If so, great. That matches what I was driving towards too. yes, 12kW PV + battery plus an instance water heater sized appropriately for whatever it is delivering to. (Shower? utility sink? hand basin?). A cylinder is not a good choice for something only used occasionally

My attempt. First floor to remain as is.

Buy and temporarily install the unvented hot water cylinder ( UVC ) that will end up in the house, and spend once. Electricity may be an issue with all this resistive heating, so what supply do you have? Fuse board aka consumer unit ( CU ) already in? You’ll need a 60a supply minimum, plus any resistive cooking will be on top. A single powerful instant water heater will be 12-16kW, and need an enormous amount of electricity. Over a year you’ll probably pay for the UVC, certainly when you add up buying and installing all this kit, plus you’ll be able to pee faster than the water comes out of an instant water heater, unless it’s 3-phase. Just buy the UVC and put it in a 2nd hand shed / temp outdoor structure. You should have a really long think about what will end up in this outbuilding and install the long-term kit now. If it’s to be a gym, you’ll likely be fit from A/C, so maybe fit some split units now for heating ( as these units will provide heating and cooling ) and, again, purchase once. PV will run cooling and divert to domestic hot water ( DHW ) IF it is a storage device and NOT instantaneous. How far from the house to this building?

An air pollution device that prematurely ends millions of peoples lives every year. WBS = Will be Buried Soon.

Here’s an example of a passivhaus in your climate. It’s 8w/m2K heating load is tiny. https://passivehouse-database.org/index.php?lang=en#d_5214 If you build a passive house and put a 5kw stove in it will be unusable for most of the year and only then probably with the windows open. Did you run PHPP on your build, I suspect cooling is a much greater issue.