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A stainless steel, 10mm plate, this for mounting my gate motor. The thin galvanised one that came with it offended me and has bloody great holes for slugs etc to get up inside. It'll slip over the 3" drainpipe all the cables and ducts are in. It'll also support the cast motor frame over it's whole area. Drilling the 70mm hole was fun.

So both PW and SE are home batts, and there's no useful software settings on them to prevent interaction? I think the issue is that the combined system is underconstrained. PW presumably has a current clamp on the main Live tail, and is attempting to make the current there zero, using a software feedback loop with likely a PI(proportional + Integral) controller. SE is presumably the same. While you might think they would both sit there doing a similar thing - slowly feeding on PV say, an equally valid solution is for one to discharge into the other, while still overall feeding on PV. I think if the PW clamp were after PW+House+PV, then SE clamp after PW+House+PV+SE that this stops the PW responding to the SE as it can't "see" that current flow. The SE can still respond to the PW - but the overall feedback loop is broken, so I think this might fix it 🙂 One of the home batts will be exercised much more than the other doing this - the way around I described it, the PW will do all of the work until it cannot, being full or empty or having too high power flow, then the SE will mop up the rest. Disclaimer: I'm just a diy-er with ideas above my station 🙂

It is a risk, we haven't yet, probably won't but it does get tetchy - just yesterday we verged on shouting at each other about the shape of a roof light reveal. I wholly missed the fact that although she has been in the house many, many times and looked at the roof light she didn't clock how the reveal would have to be done because of the way it was positioned - it just cannot flair in all directions because it is set up between two 300mm deep beams. Same thing a few minutes later when she realised how big the flat portion of the vaulted ceilings would be. The structure in which it must fit has been there for a year or more but she does not see the implications of that and I just didn't spot she didn't get it even though we chose to flat it out much earlier in the build to give us some service space at the top of the house. This naturally works both ways so don't think I know exactly what is going on all the time - I get caught out too. So although we have worked hard on communication over the build we still have our moments. "What you want a light there? - I wish you had told me that 3 years ago and we could have built a different house. SO COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE....

Will you regret not doing it?

Do it and be damned Research as you go , learn as you go . Takes for ever . But what’s the point of life without any challenges ?? 🙄😁

No planning conditions for our class Q - apart from Bat mitigation. Haven't spoke to BC yet but plan on asking him what he would like to see. No. Just a main valley gutter on an old clay pipe 75m to pond between the 2 steel barns. No guttering at all on the eaves that I could see! Your traditional square/round modern house soakaway pits are only suitable up to 100m2 See BR Section H 3.26 Soakaways for areas less than 100m² are generally formed from square or circular pits, filled with rubble or lined with dry-jointed masonry or perforated ring units. Soakaways serving larger areas are generally lined pits or trench type soakaways. Our roof is much bigger than this so would rather land drain to pond and have a nice feature for the wild life 😃 The Regs for England state: Soakaways and other infiltration drainage systems 3.23 Infiltration devices include soakaways, swales, infiltration basins and filter drains...... So I dont think he would object - who knows?!?! - Would I catagorise our pond as an infiltration basin? Could do with some ideas on how to build the thing 🤪🤪🤣

Thanks Joe, that's very helpful, I was wondering how I was gong to make the dampers work for each of the outlets (inlets depending).

No, it's an unnecessary drain on the other battery. We want both to charge from the grid, not each other. Here's a schematic of what I think might work: Obviously the symbol for the batteries is a bit wrong for AC but it gives the idea. CT1 is owned by B1 and C2 by B2. Whatever current flows to or from Live by either battery is hidden from the other. Am I being silly or is it as simple as this?

Great question, thanks JohnMo. I've done 1 reno previously and I'm exploring options for this house. The area is perfect and the plot is great, in an up-and-coming area and only set to appreciate, being surrounded by £300,000+ houses. The house (if the wall is safe) is liveable and I want to explore what I may do with it. I'm certainly not experienced enough to see a house one time and decide how I would like to change it. I know it needs to be bigger and originally explored adding a full first floor, until I discovered that the Southern wall may not hold a further floor. At that point I started considering demo and rebuild. As I said, here to learn and welcome all and any support and advice. I've already learned more than I thought I could!

To finish this thread. We are just back from a week away in the caravan, on a pitch with no mains, so self sufficient for power. Half way through the week the caravan power monitor was suggesting the battery was getting low, so time to give the genny a test. I ran it for 2 hours charging the battery and it ran perfectly without missing a beat. In that time it used about 2/3 of a tank of fuel which also ties with my recollection that it will do about 3 hours on a tank full. That's it back in it's storage spot, until next time........

Unlike what I say "If it worked, we would all be doing it"

It seems OK, it's entirely symmetrical - the power delivered by the battery systems will be hidden to each other so they should always just 'see' their own imports/exports and everything else bar the other battery system. I think.

If you could cancel the load imposed by each battery system when charging from the other's CT (by routing their live wires in the opposite direction to the main incomer) then they will both only respond to the other house loads. But when current goes the other way, when generating, my head explodes. I mean, I haven't figured out what would happen yet!

It seems simple enough. Both battery systems would obviously like to do 'the right thing' (for normal single battery installations) and deliver any load your house imposes in preference to imports from the grid, whenever they are able to. To cooperate in the way you require, both must be able to be told not to do so in your off-peak window. If you cannot instruct them to obey this then there will always be a competition between them.

Sounds like you’re being ripped off! I’d ask him for a detailed invoice of EVERYTHING you have been charged for and compare against what was supplied by nuheat. It’s a pity you’ve gone this far without challenging it as you’re very unlikely to get anything back from him but the pm has to take some responsibility for the cock up.

I have my Daikin 8Kw split set to cool. I had issues with supply of the unit as nobody said they could support cooling. The Daikin literature describes in detail the cooling aspect and controls but has never been supplied in Ireland, at least not last year. Eventually I managed supply and fit but then all sorts of control issues. I had to settle for a simple cool on or off, controlled by a simple timer. I have the flow temp set to 15, after a bit of experimentation. I can isolate the living or bedroom section. It worked well during the hot spell, we were away for 5 days and I was able to remotely activate the heatpump to make sure the house was cool on our return. The total energy used is minimal, just a pity we don't yet have PV. We have no bedrooms above the living dining area to avoid any overheating.

Hardcore (foam glass) when in yesterday, wrapped in geotextile. The following morning the cupboard already felt less humid. A 2:1 Sand/NHL5 mix followed. It's looking much tidier now! It's my first time screeding using sand/lime (or cement) so it would good practice for when I need to tackle a larger room! Hoping to get to re-plastering the walls mid-August. First will be a harl coat of Reabilita Cal CS followed my a couple of coats of NHL 3.5.

Tesla Q&A: Makes it sound very condescending! It might if there's a compelling reason to. Huff.

Think you can look at the parts as half the job, the rest could be labour. But in the mix you have bathrooms, is that parts and labour or just labour in the quote, how many bathrooms and what's in each. Lots of variables. So you have a kit of parts, assume someone has to supply all the interconnected pipework, zone valves and other stuff to make system and the radiators etc. So you really need to go over each line item in the quote, assess if the plumper supplied parts or if they were free issued, what was missing from the free issue parts and were a cost adders, labour associated to that line item. Identify the changes and why

Firstly can I admire and respect your wish to give this setup a try. It feels relatively obvious that unless they were designed to, or can by use of their settings be made to, work symbiotically that they will work parasitically - everything tends to chaos. Both the PW & SE assumes that they are "the only battery in the village" and behaves accordingly. Which does what to which probably comes down to the sensitivity of the respective front end - IE what they think they see happening on the wires and a fractional difference in interpretation will be enough to upset the applecart. As I see it you will need some pretty tricky control electronics, perhaps a sort of rules based MQTT broker like device (function of not form of) to get these two talking to one another and their respective PV arrays nicely - have a word with @Radian cos he seems to be the master of this sort of stuff!

Rob is on to something, here is a similar issue with competing surplus diversion boxes getting their knickers in a twist. https://community.openenergymonitor.org/t/arduino-based-mk2-pv-diverter-being-resurrected/11713/2 To quote from the thread The user whom I helped had just two systems - I think battery and water heating, and his problem was the two systems oscillated, stealing power from each other alternately. I suggested that he ran the wire feeding his immersion heater backwards through the grid c.t. of the other system, so its current in the main cable was cancelled out. So it knew nothing about the immersion heater, while the immersion PV system saw the battery charger as part of the normal house load, which automatically had priority. That solved the problem.

If your well insulated you can really do what ever spacing suits you. We did 300mm in a 100mm of concrete and 200mm PIR below. Flow temp on the coldest day is below 30 degrees, so ready for a heat pump if I wanted. Most the time closer to 25 degrees. Closer pipe spacing helps reduce your buffer size or even the need for a buffer if you can a heat pump small enough.

Not suggesting you use SE but just showing that you can have an array thats far bigger than the inverters rating. Check your preferred manufacturers spec to see if they are the same as it may save you changing your inverter?? We had an optimiser fail a few years ago and SE did remote diagnosis and sent a replacement straight away. I looked at the trust pilot reveiws and many are frustrations with installers and many are from the US posting on a UK web site. Not really a true reflection on SE, in my view and experience. Everyone gets shading as it includes segull s**t, saharan dust, algae, passing cloud shadows, snow, faulty module etc. With a conventionally wired system, the entire string output is reduced when any of the above happen to one or more panels. Youve also got individual panel monitoring with optimisers (or micro inverters) so you can see at a glance if youve got a problem. With conventionally wired panels it could take months or years to spot a problem, if ever!

Can’t happen - there are min 2 NRVs between the main and the house (meter and DCV on inlet). The issue is with low pressure hot being displaced by high pressure cold, and also fecal coliform entering the cold supply when flow stops. There is also a syphon element when a higher pressure outlet is opened and draws on a lower - again, proper design stops this.

Ok but you need to understand the classes of waste water - toilets / outside / shower/ bath / basin / kitchen is pretty much the water regs treat domestic water with the controls required. You can add to it but a properly designed system doesn’t need it.

POwer Wall Solar Edge 😁

Looking at one of your previous threads it says you looking to build 100 to 120m2. If that's still the case your heating demand for the whole house could be as low as 1 to 1.5kW. You should get good built in airtightness from the Sip if your still going that route. Which Scottish building regs will drive you to MVHR. What is really important is getting the boiler sizing right, in nearly all cases they will be hugely oversized. So plan from the offset for a big buffer. If you are doing UFH you should make sure you can flow at low temperatures - 25 degC or so. Don't zone your heating use thermostat as limit stops not temperature controllers. Otherwise you will get short cycling of the boiler and big lpg costs.

Yes I saw that as I was looking at some specs. My roof doesnt have any shading issues so Im not sure it would be worth the expense of going down the optimiser route. I also saw some negative reviews on trustpilot for solar edge https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.solaredge.com Have you had any call to use their support department?

Exact same time as our first system. It may have been a FIT banding limit that the installer worked to which is what limits ours to 4kwp of PV with a 4kw inverter that can take 5.4kwp of PV input.

Thanks for the advice guys. I spoke to my (friend) merchant and they will replace the timber to 25 x 50... I feel d!ck...

Good thread insights and suggestions. I am a worrier. Always have been. I also tend to overthink everything and look at problems from every angle considering every possible outcome. At it’s worst it can create a paralysis of indecision. Conversely I am very good in a crisis and used to run towards them at work. The difference between the two situations is that the overthinking starts when I have too much time to worry about a problem. In a crisis time isn’t on your side so you have to be more decisive when the information is less complete. Therefore, I’m not too worried about things going wrong and problem solving because I know I have the skills and resilience to deal with them. But I am still a deep worrier and worry about a lot of small seemingly inconsequential small things. The only thing my other half worries about is my level of worrying 😂 The thing I worry about the most, like a lot of us, is the money. We have a good budget with a healthy contingency so I am confident we can do it. But everything is of course very uncertain with costs continuing to rise so we won’t do this at any cost. The consequence is we are already making big cost decisions on things I was sure I wanted two years ago such as home automation and a fully insulated timber built garage/workshop/music room. The stress on your relationship is another good point that we have discussed at length. So far we’ve been able to make the big decisions without too many disagreements but we have had to remind ourselves a couple of times that this is just a house we are building and it’s just the next 18 months. It’ll become our home for the next 20 years of plus afterwards.

+1 to that.

A friend of mine had I think a similar, but simpler problem. He had V2H and also a solic 200 diverter. With no sun, the solic should do nothing, and V2H supply the house. What actually happened is that the solic sometimes turned on and ‘stole’ all the V2H energy, everything ramping up to full power. The solic and the V2H had slightly different ideas about what the power flow into the house was, causing the issue. We fixed it by bodging 10 thin turns of wire around the solic sensor in addition to the mains tail, with 100mA ac flowing in it from an (mains)ac-(selv)ac adapter, convincing the solic that there was 1A*240V less available power than reality! The above fix only works because the solic takes power only, and (obviously!) can’t deliver electrical power. Perhaps you could see if either the PW or SE(another home batt i assume) have adjustable dead band regions? That is, if one of the units allowed power flow in either direction of less than 100W or so, then the issue might resolve. The bodge we did will not work for you, if both units can have bidirectional powerflow; you need a software fix, or a more complex bodge.

Things I made sure of before I started the build. Takes from the below are 1. plan on paper, 2. Alway go for the simplest way - keep it simple. Don't build technology into a building that may not be supported in a year's time. 3. do not change design unless there is a really good reason. Your mental attitude needs to be looking forward, how do I get from A to B and C and so on, once A is done it's done move on. Don't ask for too many opinions, as you will get 101 opposing views, that all valid in their own way. The order I did things Made sure layouts where right, we went to the beach and draw out the house in the sand to make it flowed right, scrubbed bits out, added bits, did this a couple of times. Sorted where we wanted light switches etc. Did as much upfront as possible to limit any decision making or more importantly changes during the build, tried to keep things as simple as possible, no clever or complex stuff built in to the fabric of the building. No paid for learning curves at my expense. Still a 1001 things you are asked during the build, but that's the nature of building a one off. Discussed with contractor how they were going to do the build process. Realised pretty soon, they didn't want us on site during the build and we would be invited a key stages only. So knocked that idea on it his head and went self managed, mostly self build. Changed build method to ICF, so it was easier for me to do the walls. Had plans redrawn and new Warrant (Scotland). This caused a 2 month delay. Explored myself internally what I could and couldn't do on the build, and what would be given to others to do. In the end we had we had the following changes to initial design, after building work started CAT5 cables installed in all rooms - an add on to electrical scope. Made sense while electrical work was being done. Changed from main water to private borehole, due to the stupid high price Scottish water wanted. Posi joist roof rafters instead of cut roof. Joiner suggestions to save time on site. Worked really well. Changed the roof insulation to spray foam. 2 day job instead lots of days. This made sense with the posi rafters as all gaps are filled. Reduced the size of a hall cupboard, to make hall feel more generous. That was one my scopes of work, so saved time and materials. Upgraded windows from double to triple glazed. Expensive upgrade.

If you check your inverter specs, you could well be able to add those now👍

An SE5000H can have up to 7.750kw of DC input and an SE6000H can have up to 9.3kw so just shy of your total array. If the array is split over different orientations, so panels arent all generating at peak at the same time, then you can have more PV than the stated max input. I think yours was an installer limit, not an SE one as even a now obsolete SE4000-16 could have 5.4kw attached

Why buy a house when you don't know what you plan to do with it. Are you putting the cart before the horse?

Never been asked and doubt they care. Don’t forget that the WRAS shower requirements only apply to bathroom waste water not kitchen sinks.

You could try https://www.paramountse.co.uk/ They did a full set of calcs for a project for us.

Almost that. The red square links should extend to the top face (the lower mesh just gets snipped when it clashes). The concrete chamfer on the underside is just fill, it isn't really necessary in domestic scale loading for a structural role.

That is not normal. I would cut the mesh into flats and link them with bent bars, which you can bend on site if necessary. Actually no...I would extend both top layers of mesh to the full width, and build a cage to form the edge beam, made of stirrups which link top and bottom.

If you get the insulation right, it won't matter terribly what you use as it should be cheap to run. I swung between ASHP and LPG too and in the end decided on LPG on up front costs for the time being. It's working out OK so far. It's using very little for summer hot water and we have a lot of solar gain, so the shoulder months have been just right with no heating at all. It will use more in winter obviously.

A slight - but maybe helpful - aside.... Whenever during the build process relatives are involved, a red light flashes for me. It does so because of the inappropriate weight that is often given to their contributions. And that process works both ways : they try to please the other family member and vice versa. In doing so objectivity is the loser. Sometimes difficult messages have to be given and received. With relatives, thats problematic because punches tend to be pulled. I'm not arguing that relatives should not be consulted - I'm saying that you seem already to be involved in a process where if you decide not to work with your family member then it will be difficult to manage the family dynamics. Especially if your choice leads to a 'faulty' installation. I do not envy you. I made that error. And it hurts. Still.

I have a similar setup where 2 fans share the same duct. I used Airflow Icon 30 mixed flow fans, which have an iris valve and this prevents cross contamination and means I am only extracting from the room where the fan is running. They have lots of options for humidity, delayed start, motion sensor etc. You may need a larger diameter cutout for the fans. Shop around as there are some deals to be had.

I've just checked our cost spreadsheet and our TF was 22.9% of the overall build cost (total includes consultant fees and a bit of landscaping). That was for the TF itself, erection including a mostly cut on site complex roof structure but no felt and battening and supply & fitting of insulation on site to 0.11 w/m2k throughout the thermal envelope. So I don't think you are a million miles off with your assumption above. As an aside one thing that surprised me in terms of material cost and labour cost were the fascias, barge boards, soffits and any valley boards / roof noggins that may be required. If I were doing it again I would negotiate it into the TF company package - that way once the TF team are finished the build should be ready for the roofers to start straight away.

To be clear, I voted Brexit and I would again tomorrow if asked to.

It's interesting how this is panning out with the pricing and erection of kits. I've been mucking about with this as a contractor and a designer for a good thirty years in Scotland where we embraced TF a bit earlier than down South. Some of the Scottish TF companies have sold out to the big outfits, some truss manufactures also. What I can say is that it is worth a look at getting your local builder / joiner to price to stick build the kit and buy in the trusses. And / or spend a bit more earlier and get your SE to do you a traditional kit with the roof you want, if you need a bit of steel then it's relatively cheep for your local SE / Builder to sort this out for you. Even 30 years ago it was hard to compare like with like from TF suppliers, now the waters are further muddied. Really unless you are a developer / or have a lot of technical knowledge you have no chance at getting like for like costs from the TF folk on a one off build. What you do need to know is what could you build based on stick built with you supplying the insulation and so on, how long will it take and then make the call on what suits you. Then you have a real base line. I often do the panel drawings for the local builders and spec easliy sourced stuff (truss clips / hangers) and rough out the truss design with the key dimensions to make the roof bracing work. You'll need to pay up front for this but I have found that it is often an economical way of doing it in the long run. It can also work for some folk on the cost plan where you don't need to stump up a big deposit for the kit up front.. you buy the timber.. belongs to you then you pay as you go as it gets erected. Also on the "soft side" many self builders change their mind as they go.. stick building can offer more flexibilty to "just change your mind" without the financial penalty.

My partner says I have started to catastrophise over this build, so it has changed me, I used to be very confident and have accomplished much in a previous life, but I may have commenced from a difficult emotional starting point, and that was the cause, so it's not a fair comparison. Looking at your list there, it could be you are inclined the same way. I won't lie, worrying about those things you have described has given me bad sleepless nights, but I have learned to distinguish between severe anxiety and just normal, understandable worry. When I read about Toughbuttercup's problems I realised mine were minor in comparison. I think you need a lot of resilience to do this, because the financial uncertainties can be frightening, so make sure your mental health is good and that your coping mechanisms are robust. If you can slum it, you will have less financial pressure to live on site in a static. You know yourself, so play to your strengths and minimise your weaknesses. The people who seem to relish this the most seem to be incurable optimists with a very strong vision plus excellent core competencies to either earn well or do the graft themselves.

"Rate of 3.66kWh" FFS !

What's PW, and aren't you in the SW not the SE? Explication required. The only PW acronym I am aware of is the one that Brenda at the Samaritans used to use - some years ago.