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What an absolute cluster-f**k of a week. I had a friend who owns a Groundworks company offer to dig our Foundations as a 'mate'. He didn't want paying for it, he said it'd be a weekends work and would be a breeze for him. SWMBO wasn't keen and I had my doubts, but the offer seemed too good to refuse. However, we finally agreed that we would pay a proper company, too much was at stake. Then, my mate appeared. He said how disappointed he would be if we didn't allow him to flex his great digger skills. So, it was decided that we would do it between us. I hired a 5T machine and a small Dumper, we officially broke ground last Saturday (20th August). A relief for sure. We were digging most of Saturday/Sunday. I have a fairly good understanding of most aspects of this build, but the Foundations had concerned me, I felt out of my depth and made that clear. He assured me that he had this all in hand. After he went, the Wife and I proceeded to survey the bottoms of the trenches. Though obvious we'd hit the solid ground we had been specified to reach, we begun to notice that some areas didn't appear deep enough in terms of their relationship to the finished floor levels. As we got further and further, we realised that a whole section was wrong. If you look at the layout photo and imagine the hardest corner to dig on there, that's the one that was wrong. Not deep enough by almost half a metre!! The week since has been filled with a lot of swearing, frustration and no support from my 'mate. So, realising that nobody was coming to fish us out of the doo-doo, we cracked on. Straddling trenches in ways I never want to repeat, digger balancing on Heras blocks etc, we carefully scratched and scraped our way down through the flint-filled chalk, digger shaking like a shittin' dog, butthole clenched tight the whole time. The nasty stuff is almost done, I have one more tricky trench to fix. it requires me to climb the machine over a trench and onto an 'island' with a foot-or-so of leeway around the digger, before re-pulling one of the middle trenches. Oh, and lots of clearing up and manual removal of spoil from trenches that I could not reach with the digger without risking the walls of the trenches. The focus went off tidiness and onto survival. The place is carnage. Oh, and to add the cherry on the top. We have had to cancel the concrete pour which was planned for next Wednesday because I just don't think I can be confidently ready. This sees us going into September prices, and, I'm told, a 10% price rise. Happy days! Does it get better?!

To be clear, my 'mate' is a very experienced guy. He's owns a civil engineering business (but did this job outside of his business), very good with multiple simple houses in larger developments, but a single unusually shaped house with a variety of levels would probably have caught many out. I don't want to hate on this guy, I should have known better and taken control. It's a steep learning curve. No other part of this build intimidates me as much as the foundations.

I would be speaking to the structural engineer first, all respect to the ground workers but they are not qualified to make engineering design changes.

Anywhere from between 6 and 25 quid a day. Wonder how much she spends on booze, TV subscriptions and telephones. I do wish the media would stop putting on these extreme case idiots.

People can be very strange, woman being interviewed yesterday said any price rise would probably mean she would freeze or starve, but she also admitted to smoking 40 cigarettes a day which must cost more than her energy usage

You are talking about what we would do, not a financially struggling family. Most people only remember negative stories, not the positive ones. Say to someone that spending 500 quid on insulation, and will save them 150 quid a year, then, after a year they find the bill is the same, they will be miffed. They forgot the house is warmer and the energy has gone up. People are strange things.

I would start at square one, and ask the installer just why he thinks it will need a 24kW boiler to feed one UFH loop and one radiator.

I had a problem with Hep2O pipe inserts remaining in the fitting even when demounting the pipe using the Hep2O tool. Some times I have re inserted the Hep2O and got lucky. When all else fails I use a piece of old grey Wavin Polypipe that I keep in my garage ( Yes I am a hoarder) and this always seems to do the trick. Polypipe is softer than Hep2O pipe and the insert shark teeth sink easily into the internal bore of Polypipe. Before I push Hep2O inserts into the pipe I use a small screwdriver to lift the teeth up a bit more so they are more likely to catch the internal bore.

You may be aware that it almost certainly doesn't take into account Power Factor, so may over-report. You have the right approach in using the utility meter to check consumption as these do account for PF and truly represent your billed usage.

We have circa 350 m2 over 3 floors ..eventually went with one large unit instead of two units.. and 90 mm semi rigid ducting for similar reasons.. A couple of earlier quotations suggested 2….we do have some longer than ideal runs but not too bad as over 3 floors as opposed to a single floor area ..not yet commissioned so don’t know yet how optimal our set up is..

Yes it should, it should drain any condensation that might form in the void.

Yup. With today’s water bylaws, most taps / other outlets are flow governed by manufacture, so a 22mm feed is pointless. Also, unless this is a monster heat store combi, the cold inlet will be 15mm, so another reason to not employ 22mm hot pipework

There is a review ongoing to try to fix these issues, it is due out in October. Not great and maybe they could have focused more on the short term issues as this appears to be a longer term review looking at the next 40 years. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1098100/review-electricity-market-arrangements.pdf The government was aware of these issues, in a generating market designed for variable cost fossil fuels, fixed cost renewables were not being treated correctly. From reading this they seem to have moved to a contract for differences system for renewables where they pay back to the system when prices are high and get paid extra when prices are low, reflecting that they are a fixed cost asset. However, most renewables are not under this system currently (see page 43) and see prices driven by the wholesale market. As renewable capacity has to increase roughly 10 fold then eventually 90%+ of renewable capacity will be on largely fixed price contracts not impacted by gas prices. The trouble is of course that this will take a long time and we have a problem today. I agree with @andyscotlandwe could retroactively impose a price cap for renewables in wholesale markets. Trouble is that this would be a breach of contract and end up in court and the UK does rightly frown on this kind of thing. Spain did this previously and wiped out renewable energy companies. A lot of this discussion focuses on electricity. Gas of course is simply dominated by the gas price and most people in the UK use gas to heat their homes. It looks like the gas unit price is going to double and the electricity unit price increase 83% in October, standing charges are only going up modestly this time. So high gas users (me) are looking at big increases. In the long run the expectation is that gas boilers are replaced with ASHPs and electricity forms an ever increasing proportion of the UK domestic energy mix, but today most of people's energy comes in the form of direct gas and we have to buy the gas.

I’m a Brickie and would also remove brick one and half of brick 2 replace brick 1 then the others all in one go. I use one of these.

Think the Worcester Bosch 4000 can do a 10:1 modulation so go down to 3kw…. must be others too

I have had this, I normally de mount both sides and chuck the fitting, I’m not risking catching the rubber o ring to save a £2 fitting.

Media always do this, it sells papers (which is why I never buy or read one).

I started worrying for you by the end of the first sentence. "friend", "mate" It doesn't matter what the discipline is , trying to impose friendship on a properly professional relationship never seems to end well. There are several similar stories on BH. If you've got mother mates in the building food-chain, smile and as politely as you can refuse. That in itself is really really hard. My hope for you is that the first Oh-FFS moment is over. Only a few more to go. It gets better

I think we are no longer part, though may be wrong. Perhaps that was the ambition but it seems bonkers. As far as I can see the logical incentive is to develop just enough renewables to almost cover the power demand but ensure a bit of gas is still required. That way the generator gets a huge volume of units, but paid at the gas price. Any time there is enough power from renewables alone, renewable generators are paid a much lower rate. I disagree. In a normal commercial relationship at this point I think we'd be well past the point of invoking force majeure/unexpected circumstances and seeking to renegotiate e.g. the way shop chains get round the table with landlord to agree a rent reduction when the alternative is going out of business and no rent at all. It should be perfectly possible to find a renewables wholesale unit price that is well above the investors absolute-best-case projections but below what we are paying now. Establishing a ceiling for the gas-linked unit price paid to windfarms would also be significantly simpler and more transparent than any windfall tax on "excess" profits. It would immediately reduce bills - avoiding admin overhead and unexpected consequences of taxing suppliers to subsidise customers to pay those same suppliers. It would also by definition only have any effect for the exact period of extreme gas price surge(s), much better for investors than hoping a future Treasury would roll back any windfall tax promptly.

The regulator on top of your gas meter reduces the pressure of the supply to your house. If I remember correctly the regulator reduces the pressure of the gas coming into your home down to about 25 mbar from about 75mbar. It's very unlikely that this is anything to do with the problem. More likely is the resistance to the flow of the gas due to the length and internal diameter of the pipe to the garage. You could easily find out the pressure of the gas but not the flow rate. You could use @Temps suggested calculator, but sadly the only way to be sure is to run an appliance on the other end. Can't really open a gas pipe and measure the flow with nothing on the end and expect to live very long....

Not my field but found this calculator.. https://www.gb-gas.co.uk/clc/pipesize/GAS PIPE SIZING 2016 WEB.htm

I think your right about the efficiency of the machine, but I'm not sure about the whole system efficency due to the location of the equipment and ducting. I have adjusted my expectation after testing the actual air inlet temperature and comparing it to the calculated air temperature. Individual results will be greatly dependant on if the MVHR and any ductwork is inside or outside of the thermal envelope.

It does get easier from here on This time and last I’ve had a torrid time digging out In my humble opinion a 5 tone machine isn’t man enough in tough ground I ended up hiring a dozer to move all the spoil 500 per day for the machine plus 300 per day for the fuel Groundwork’s is the only unknown part of your build The rest should be plain sailing

costco stuff is usually good quality https://www.costco.co.uk/search?text=Laminate Flooring what sort of guarantee do the others offer?

Your MVHR is just a ventilation tool, which also recovers heat from the outgoing air and gives it the incoming air. All houses need to be ventilated, an airtight house has to be ventilated by mechanical means. Building regulations require a balance supply and extract. Building standards normally require around 0.5 ACH (varies with UK country) Your ventilation rate is 0.3 ACH, it nothing to do with with your air tightness test. In addition to your MVHR flow rate, you will have a natural infiltration through the building fabric, which is not controlled, this will be small and is linked to your air test results and the prevailing wind speed and direction. The rate of flow of the MVHR is based on a number of ACH, in your case 0.3 ACH. Your SAP report will have a number it which represents natural infiltration, this should really be added to MVHR rate to get the worst case heat loss. So your ventilation rate would be 0.3+ something, of which heat recovery would be 80-90% efficient. So your effective ACH would be 0.3x0.2 = 0.06 ACH, with respect to heat loss. Qv = 0.33 × n × V × ΔT watts. =0.33x0.3x your volume X 24 =0.33x0.06x your volume X 24 The difference between the two figures is the benefit of MVHR. Less the running cost for electricity and filters. Which is generally lower the energy saved for heating.

“The latest Scottish offshore wind energy price: 3.7 pence/kWh unit. Melt that into the political equation when your bill charges 28p (pence/kWh unit) or whatever it’s going to be when the cold sets in again. " Shocking if true. If I understand it, these wind generators (Swedish and Spanish?) then get paid at the price as if it was generated from gas. The same article explained the costing structure like this, which I thought was quite a good analogy. Why is the price of electricity linked to gas? Imagine you had to fill a bucket of fluid every half-hour, and then dispense it to people in thimbles. The bucket varies in size, sometimes it is a regular size, sometimes it is huge, and sometimes it is small. Each time you start by filling the bucket with the cheapest fluid, water perhaps or supermarket-brand fizzy drinks. Then you turn to the pricier drinks – wine, craft ale, non-alcoholic gin. But for the last third of the bucket, most of the time, the only liquid available is single malt whisky. That is going to push up the price of the whole bucketful. That is the system that is used in pricing electricity – it is set by the most expensive ingredient in the mix, which is electricity produced by burning gas. In the UK as a whole, gas is responsible for about 38% of electricity generation. So when the price of gas goes up, so does the price we all pay for electricity. And then there is this. anybody know if it is true, and why this would be done? "existing wind farms are regularly forced to turn off the power or face fines."

So to clarify there's no direct relationship between the ACH used to measure airtightness, and the ACH I quoted the MVHR is operating at. The airtightness is measured at a contrived situation (50Pa pressure difference between indoors and outdoors). On any given day there may be zero difference, e.g. in very still conditions with no breeze; or there may be a hurricane blowing through. So the amount passive ventilation varies hour by hour but the active ventilation is more or less constant. All we can say is, the house as a whole is receiving 0.3ACH minimum rate of ventilation, but much more if it's windy or the MVHR is on boost. In terms of expectations: the design flow rate was 140m2/h and the measure actual flow rate is 150m3/h once everything was balanced out, so it's pretty close to expectations. But what I think what you'll find a lot more interesting is the MVHR app's claim it has saved 6.75 MWh of heat/cooling energy since install Nov 2020.

What fills the hole now in place of the gate? On the basis the gate pre existed, I would put the gate back now, and re submit with the plans marked "existing gate" and appeal if they continue to be stupid.

our house is 420m2-ish in total. our M&E consultants wanted to give us 2 x units but I fought against it as didn't want double the running costs, double the maintenance etc. in the end they designed a system that worked with a single Q600 and 90mm semi-rigid ducting. it's not commissioned yet though but they promise me the flow rates will work.

All over central England we have been build massive warehouses in recent years. None that I can see have pv on the roof. Some are millions of square feet. Then up the road there are PV farms being built on agricultural land. Madness.

I've been looking at various battery storage solutions for a few years. None are perfect, and some are a bit bizarre in the way they work. Until recently, getting backup power from a battery system wasn't that easy, but there are a few systems around that offer a separate, always on, supply via the battery. This can be connected to a separate circuit in the house to power essentials that are needed in the event of a power cut. Tesla offer a changeover relay option with their latest Gateway, too, but of all the battery system the Tesla Powerwall seems the least flexible. Users have little control over the way that the Powerwall works, so it will charge and discharge according to what its systems believe to be appropriate, rather than what the user actually wants. Sometimes this is OK, sometimes it results in the system charging from peak rate electricity. A good example was this weekend, where Powerwalls went into "Storm Mode" automatically, and fully charged from the grid, on the assumption that there would be power cuts. I suspect that those not in an affected area, who had to pay for peak rate electricity used to charge their Powerwall because of this behaviour may not have been best pleased. Of all the other systems available, it looks as if the Pylontech batteries may well be the best overall value, plus they use a battery chemistry that is well suited to the high cycle life required for home battery storage. When it comes to inverter/charger units, then there are several that are compatible with the Pylontech batteries, and the choice really comes down to the peak power needed, price plus how much control you would like to have over the system. For example, SMA make a pretty good inverter/charger, but it suffers a bit from the same sort of behaviour as the Powerwall. The Sofar and GroWatt inverter/chargers are more flexible, but the most flexible seems to be the Lux Power range. These seem to be more easily programmed to do exactly what the user wants, rather than what the manufacturer expects the user to want. For me, having control of when the unit charges and discharges is key; the very last thing I want is a system that charges because some bit of remote code in another country has signalled the thing to charge because it believes that's the best option. I want to be sure that the battery only ever charges when there is an excess of PV generation, and then, as a secondary charge source, during the E7 off peak period.

What buildhub needs is a caravan, then when any of us with a bit of time to spare, can go and helps out. Think of it as 'disaster relief'.

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