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I built (not yet finished) this thing. It’s timber framed and clad in steel and leftover larch. Has a concrete floor. Due to budget restrictions I hand built it myself, and I’m not a tradesman but ok with joinery & diy. It’s 8m x 4m x 3.9m high. I had pp for garage so got the vat back on materials. Inside the rear half has a loft space - storage and the front half is a vaulted ceiling, for a workshop area. Never built a building before, so I followed building standards for a dwellinghouse and tried to copy what my proper builders did in our actual house. Idea being if I built it like a house it would take me way beyond min standards for an outbuilding. So it has DPCs, breathable membranes etc etc. it’s even plaster-boarded inside. I bought heaps of 4x2 in a builders material auction and built modular 2.4x 2.4m osb clad frame panels for the walls. Shopped around for everything to cut costs. My budget was as cheap as I could do it to the best possible standard. I didn’t keep a running total but think I’ve spent around £5-6k on it that being current lockdown/covid costs. I think I’ve ended up with a circa £15-20k building. It was hard work but good fun learning new skills etc eg building the roof. I did consider buying a metal frame to be installed but by the time I factored in everything it was obviously more expensive. We were hit hard by Storm Erwin etc but the building was unaffected. Which was reassuring. Hope this helps for ideas.

We use 4 phases from rainwater to flushing the loo with it and they are: Collecting, separating and storing in bulk tank. Fine filtering and storing in barrel. filling the gravity tank in the loft Filling the cistern This is not the only system that is possible but one that works with our property limitations. This design and its controls take into account freezing conditions. We use two 12V pumps run from batteries and PV. Here is our system: We were limited for space and you can use gravity to your advantage Here is the design of the catch pit: A circular chamber with a flat base side entry pipes angled to make the inflowing water circulate around the edges. A Tee set vertically with the branch horizontal. Construction details could be concrete slab and engineering brick sides with manhole cover and frame like ours. Needs to either be under the ground or drained before frosts if using a plastic tank. Ours was 900 internal diameter, really the bigger the more sediment settles, but this is for about 200m2 catchment area. If your going for smaller I would go for as tall as deep as you can. The separated water goes directly into your bulk storage ready for further filtering. Ours has just been cleaned out and I will take photos tomorrow. M

Plain hole all the way through, threaded rod, washer and nut on each side to clamp the whole lot together. Try to miss the rebar.

I agree with the previous post, MCS or any scheme whereby the Government incentivises installation leads to one thing, a plethora of individuals eager to take a seat at the gravy rain and milk it for all its worth. This is clearly evidenced by the massive decline in mcs installers for solar knocking around nowadays. FIT went.and the hoardes of installers went with it. There may well be some good.ens.out there however the well is overwhelmingly poisoned by all the others creaming thousands at a time by front loading the cost of installation. There is absolutely nothing difficult about PV installation. The prices charged are shocking.

Long story. Too long for on here.

@Bozza that’s a damn nice garage, well done

I'd like to give some friendly advice: Negotiate for the largest cash settlement you can today. You've had 3 quotes for the work, and you think they are toppy. I would share the top 2 quotes with the insurer and use this as your basis to negotiate a settlement. You can then decide what you want to do with that cash. You could sell the property as-is and buy something else. You can invest the money in the property. You've got options. It sounds like your quotes were toppy, the good news is you don't need to accept them. Once you have a cash settlement you can bring in new builders to quote..

Only if dragsterdriver pushed a piece a wire up the inside of both MC4 connectors at the same time and held them. Probably no more lethal than working on the roof?

Might be worth trying Mitchell Piling at Saxthorpe. Piling and reinforced concrete is their main speciality, but they do other groundworks I think. They did a good job on our piles and ring beam.

MCS - it is a condition of the grants for ASHP that they can’t cool. Also, to get around having to write new guidance, they adopted the MCS rules for heat pumps under permitted development .. including the line about cooling. Hence why it’s there.

School Doctor checked mine. Well he said he was a Doctor.

Funny that.. but it’s the reason we don’t spec Vaillant on any jobs .. the last boiler installed from them failed a week into service and the engineer came out and replaced the main board without checking it - he knew the issue…! And then told the client that the new board was only guaranteed 12 months not 6 (or 7..?) years like the rest of the boiler as it was a service part … How to be removed as a supplier from a spec list !!

I hope you'll excuse me. I was really quite angry about yet another big rip-off with people owning heat pumps.

OK. Reflections. This portable aircon / heat pump is powerful enough to make a difference. I can see it being very useful to cool down in summer and warm up in winter, perhaps even for much of the house if I leave doors open. Potentially it *may* let me significantly reduce the amount I use the GFCH. It will be cost effective if running at the times I want. The biggest issue is that - either via the unit, the handheld or the app - programming cannot go beyond "switch on or off in X hours", which means programming the night before every time, or leaving it on full time with a thermostat setting. The latter runs the risk of it running when I do not want it to - eg in a cool night. I don't believe I can put it on a mechanical timer for say 3 hours a day, and have it auto start at the default temperature. Testing that. I can see daily programming before bed working, but the lack of long term programming is a disappointment. F

@Onoff parcel delivered by spotty evri herbert 4pm. Thanks so much. Will dive into it/ box tmrw. Zoot.

Those examples you show are almost certainly shadow gapped boards @BartW Butted up soaking wet boards (in winter) will probably be 5mm mm gaps (uneven ones at that) in summer. Butted up in this weather will buckle and be a right state come winter. You need overlap and the option for the wood to move. That black against plain larch looks sharp @Thorfun

Looked into this a bit futher. Vaillant have used these "code plugs" in their gas boilers to switch between gas type; G20 (yellow), G25 (blue), propane (yellow) for some time. These code plugs sell for £5 in the U.K. What they've done here is is they are selling the same thing, under a different product code for a huge markup! Sneaky! Mine is already installed. No idea what installer paid for this "chip", I don't think he itemized it.

We've just arrived home from 4 days away. Left the underfloor cooling running for the four hour cheap Octopus Go rate in the middle if the night and between 10am and 6pm (when PV covers almost all the energy needed to run it). Left the MVHR in auto (fan speed 1 8am-8pm and FS2 8pm to 8am). Downstairs stayed between 22C and 23C throughout and upstairs (no cooling on) was at 24.5c when we arrived home at noon today.

How many folk have ever actually had this inspected?

Subject close to my heart! What you have won't work. UV will kill it. I'll dig out some local samples from the Baltic coast... Insects will too in time IMO though this is debatated and depends on location and appetite of insects etc. If you wanted to have open rainscreen cladding then you're going to need something insect and UV proof under it IMO. You can't throw a non breathable membrane (e.g. EPDM) over the top of what you have without there being a ventilated rainscreen behind that non breathable membrane. When we looked at the UV proof and breathable membranes these cost a lot of limbs. They were the only option that let you "just throw a layer on" without materially changing the design though. I'd also consider: Shadow gap - though in pure black I don't think this is as effective as in lighter colours at creating shadows. Board on board - create deeper shadow gaps by putting your boards on top of.some other boards such that the gaps are full depth (e.g. decking board type deep) but there's still closure behind them. Board on tin - Use black wriggly tin / corrugated steel on top of your battens and fix through this into the battens. There world still be a ventilation gap behind this to let the house breathe...and it would look like there's nothing stuck immediately behind the boards...and it'd be black unlike your battens...and prevent insects uv and rain getting to your membrane. Gunned nails or self drilling wood screws will go through tin. We ended up using board on board and shadow gap to get the look that she wanted:

FFS if they charge more than £2 for that it is criminal. This needs naming and shaming.

2 months later. The Planning Officer decided he had to readvertise the application. No objections received and plans passed. The whole experience with both the architect and Planning has been a farce and I'm glad it's behind us now. I employed someone else to do the Building Regulation plans and took the risk of submitting them before we had planning approval (although the PO had said he was going to support the plans). They were submitted to BC before the 15th June so we will have 12 months to start the build under the previous Building Regulations. The experience with the guy who did the BR plans was a wholly different ball game and he was a pleasure to deal with. The approved proposal has a roof height of 5 metres with no staircase, rooflights etc but in all honesty I think we could have gone higher. I've come to the conclusion that the PO just wanted single storey as in no staircase, no velux windows, no shower room etc. We're happy with the result and there are no conditions attached as such. Thank you all for your comments. I shall have a stream of questions which I'll post on the relevant threads.

I assume when you talk about SIP's you are referring to a wood skin sandwich. Wood sometimes can be challenging. Metal on the other hand could help reduce some the work you have to do. INP's are Insulated Panels made with metal. They are available on various thickness, more thickness the stronger they are and of course the insulation is better. Paint finish is also fabulous with also different finishes available by the paint. Some oblivions places to use INP's would be the roof. With Insulated panels used on the roof, you have a whether proof roof within a few days. You can also get profiles that look like roof tiles. Another place for INP would be the floor, as again they are strong and contain insulation. You can of course use Insulated Panels for the walls. Manufactures offer a great range of profiles and can also bend the panel for corners to make a smooth neat corner for the building. If you want to plaster board in side, then you can batten and plaster board if you wish. Hope the above has been helpful.

Interesting comments - thanks all. I think it was summed up well above somewhere. I'd happily have a go at connecting up to the isolator in the loft but I have no way of testing that all the MC4 connectors are ok etc. You could bet if I had the scaffold down there would be a fault!! Alas - we have a chap booked in 5th August so only have an extra 2 weeks scaffold hire. All very interesting though, no MCS people want to go near it, only supply, design and install their own stuff. Not even keen to recommend a competent installer who may just want a bit of extra cash. The chap we've found is actually going on a solar course the week before as he's seen a bit of a gap in the market for it all. Anyway, that's when I'm back from holiday.... Thanks again.

go with board on board, no gaps, no issues.

Correction: Picture of vaillant-0020269259 shows the catch on the side: So connector is Mini-Fit Jr. 5557 26pence + crimps

FFS. A penny resistor in what looks like a Molex Mini Fit plug Someone's gotta know the resistor value? Or stick a 100k Pot on it and turn it until something shows up someplace?

Following on from my earlier comment about being surprised that it wasn't sweltering upstairs the night before last, I had the same experience last night. Back-to-back hottest days on record after a week of high and increasing temperatues, and it was still only a bit warm upstairs. Perfectly comfortable to sleep with a pedestal fan on low. I can only assume that by getting the underfloor cooling on early and leaving it running 24 hours a day for the last handful of days, the temperature upstairs hasn't had a chance to get out of control. It's a puzzlement.

The split a/c systems do not circulate any air between outside and inside, just the refrigerant gas gets pumped round between the indoor and outdoor units through insulated pipework. You will still have your MVHR for your ventilation.

Your house will burn down in the blink of an eye. The only reassurance is looking at the numbers and then the probability. How many houses in England ? how many houses burnt down this week ? calm down a bit and have a think. I lived in oz and they made some significant changes to building design following a major fire and many deaths. So you can design it out if you want, but you will need to scrap your design and go back to the drawing board, or look at the probability of it happening and carry on. A friend of mine had a whole house external sprinkler system set up on his roof, you could do that or again look at the odds, he was in a mountainside location where temperatures reached 30 plus for 3/4 of the year, a whiff of a flame and it would rush up the mountain. I think what happened yesterday was just very unfortunate and probably very unlikely to happen again.

Probably needs parallel plumbing for pressure drop reasons

Never mind that... what's it like at heating???😂

To finish my 22 days on site. I started timber framing, decided to start on the amenity block, as this will initially be for our washing machine and dryer, plus some storage. My aim was to get water tight -ish. before I had to get home for the weekend. The poly tunnel (constructed this visit) - is my cutting shed, I set up my chop saw and worked to my cut list. This was proof of concept on my build plans, and it needed tweaking, the roof to wall junction has been modified and will work, but I want a better / neater solution for the cabins. here's my first attempt with the Binno camera. amenity.mp4 The wind picked up (20mph with 35mph gusts, so I needed to get some structure and racking boards in place, so the camera set up didn't happen day 2. I left site with it wrapped, and with the vapor barrier on the OSB roof. (with some 6x2 to reduce the wind uplift. I'll need BC to have a look before I put the insulation on the roof, as I want the insulations and rubber to go on on the same day. This block and the cabins will be clad in Scottish Larch. There's a gap above the door, that needs the final framing to be finished, but generally happy with the result. so far.

Use the free SMA Sunny Design tool or Solaredge Designer to mock up a system and see what fits and what you'll get. https://www.solaredge.com/uk/products/installer-tools/designer#/ https://www.sma.de/en/products/apps-software/sunny-design.html

Ducting would be standalone as far as I know, it's a larger bore and needs to be insulated, aircon recirculates, mvhr brings in outside air. I used Our Guide to Air Conditioning | Air Conditioning World as a guide to work out unit capacity and rough requirements, but am consulting local installers too. I think a max of 5 indoor units from each outside unit, but depends on the duty requirements, I think if all units need to run at full tilt and the total of the indoor units are rated higher than the outside unit then indoor units are derated to cope with demand. But in my case I cannot forsee when all units will be going at the max and requiring more than the outdoor unit can provide. Centralised control is a nice to have as well, as is energy saving features. We've probably got more informed posters than me on this site somewhere though. So take what I say with a pinch.

Optimisers typically have a built-in safety function that reduces the output to 1 Volt DC when unloaded. So if disconnected or isolated or even if the AC is removed from the string inverter, the big scary DC voltage (should) drop to a few 10's of volts - depending on how many optimisers are in the string.

And will also quote you many more pounds than the above prices. The quote I got from them with no filtration was £18,000 ex VAT just for the plant. They had already charged the farmer £18,000 to drill the hole!

Part G of the building regs. Just do what they recommend, you can change things later.

I'm going to post this highly informative video again. It might surprise some people.

If it's a ground bearing slab then what is under the slab is just as capable as taking the load. It could be slightly less convenient as it may want some additional spreader plates (for example, thick timber sections) to avoid digging in. But it isn't a show stopper by any means.

Hi Dave. 1000% yes mate. The pipes will be full of corrosion / crud / ferrous particulate from that long a service lifespan, and when you fit the new appliance that will ultimately get back to it, regardless of how good a magnetic / particle filter you fit. I would completely re-plumb and replace all the rads / valves, plus also look at a good controls system ( not Honeywell Evo-home!!! ) to manage it all economically. If you approach someone like www.mrcentralheating.com and ask for a package price for boiler / rads / valves / TRV ( thermostatic rad valves ) then you can get a yardstick on prices when plumbers come to quote. Take the room sizes / number of outside walls / number of windows / ceiling height etc into any decent plumbers merchants and they will size the rads for you room by room FOC ( when you ask them for a quote ).

Why is this not made from Guinness cans?

Is someone going to unclip the blue cover on this "dongle" and post a picture of what is inside? the suspense is killing me.

https://www.seconrenewables.com/ are quoting £350+VAT too! Looks like does make sense to take mine apart, take some measurements and make/sell some of these 🙂

Ask me in December. 🙈🙉🙊

Q: What did the UK have before candles? A: Electricity!