Leaderboard

I'm slightly confused. Did you replace the PCB but are now asking if the old one is worth repairing? The soot looks like the fibreglass PCB might have been burning, possibly by a dry solder joint on the relay pins. If the copper traces are badly affected it won't be easy to re-solder. If it were mine I'd de-solder the relay and check its operation (it might be OK) and then clean it all up and see if the high current path can be reinforced with some solid copper wire when reassembling the relay on the board.

Just make a decision and get on with it. Asking for opinions and public blogs doesn't get anything done. Just goes round in circles.

Go Gas Boiler with PV - but with a caveat. I'll give you my thoughts based on my personal home situation and my professional observations (we have the gas/ASHP/PV/Sunamp debate for new buildings weekly). I have PV and a gas boiler, the boiler is relatively cheap to run, its not even a year old (I made the call to replace with gas and not go ASHP last Feb). On a crisp bright winters days I can also heat some space I am using with some small electric heaters, for free if I want. For example I am looking at electric UFH for the bathroom and adding an electric option to my office and maybe loft room so I can make use of day time sun for heat in the room I occupy most, I can whittle away at my energy import and balance things out a bit through the year. I then have the gas boiler for the simple hot water production and on demand space heating when needed. I am currently working on building services designs for a 4 residential developments ranging from 7 storey flatted development in London to smaller blocks of flats in Glasgow and a house, some will be gas boilers with a PV allowance per house, some will be ASHP some will be Sunamp's charged straight off the grid. When looking at heat loss for these flats or houses and the heating method we cringe at the cost some of them will cost to heat. The fact is electricity is expensive, things like ASHP's are expensive the whole lot will just be painful until electricity becomes cheap to produce nationally/globally. If it was me building from new, I would stick a gas boiler in, a hot water cylinder with a water coil and element fed from PV, more PV than I need, and electric heating options in various spaces, I would spend a bit more on insulation and try and create a building which needs little heat. I would leave in allowance in space and technical spec for more PV and battery storage when prices come down and my long term plan would be to lose the gas boiler, well, if that is the way things go, maybe we will see an alternative gas supply and boilers to suit, in which case I will be pleased I have the gas infrastructure. My thinking is that this will give me green credentials and cheap electricity to use however I wish, but the low capital cost of a has CH system but with options further down the line. If I go ASHP now, then to my mind, I have just signed away a lot of money on technology the industry is frankly still having trouble with, I also diversify my energy sources, I do think we are going to see more energy issues in the coming years, it could be gas or electricity shortages or sever price hikes. If you had told Germans 2-3 years ago, look boys you might run out of gas and struggle to keep the heat on most would have laughed, it is very real now. Which is why I am keeping my options open, it is why I have a diesel and a petrol car, at present my petrol is cheaper to run as Petrol is 20p a litre cheaper round here and my Petrol & Diesel get almost the same MPG. Spend some of the ASHP money on future proofing, make allowances for things you might install so you are sitting pretty and can, if you want, when technology and prices improve and maybe electric costs stabilise, go ASHP in the future. High temp versions are coming through now that will work as a direct replacement to a gas boiler without rad changes, maybe even increase panel size so that come slightly lower temps you still have good heating from them.

OK, explain this properly, please, as it is the entire cause of this thread. Adding an external expansion vessel is absolutely fine, done it to so many ‘awkward to repair’ combi’s I’ve lost count. All you need to do is add a secondary CH circuit isolation valve, beyond the point you T in for it, so it cannot be isolated inadvertently with the boiler “lit and burning”. Regs for this are open to translation, and as a very well versed individual I am sure you could mitigate against a 3rd party shutting off the isolation valves ( provided by ( Baxi ) Potterton ) to sleep soundly at night? Maybe just round off the original fitting so it cannot be shut off, for eg. FYI, I’ve fitted numerous Baxi and Potterton combis over the years and they’re damn simple and robust units. The Potterton is a budget Baxi, but still a decent boiler, and very easy ( and simple ) to work on. ”may be on it’s way out”…… Reasons why / for this statement please? Sounds like a storm in a teacup to me.

I'm far from an expert, but my recollection is that implementing daisy chain wiring at the cabinet (basically star wiring but with terminations to convert to daisy chain) will cause issues due to noise caused by reflections. You could look up the spec - sometimes there's guidance about what's allowable where a star wiring approach is taken. Search for "star wiring modbus".

Cemfloor does not require grinding to remove laitance before tiling which is a saving of time and money.

Difficult to compare, but nine years ago we had the plinth covered with brick slips, after I had fitted the board and steel mesh. We also had the rest of the building clad with cedar and it took two men for the cedar cladding and one man for the brick slips. It took around two weeks and the labour was £4500.

I tried to get a retro building warranty but found it prohibitively expensive. We were trying to raise some money on our new build to build a barn and same as you, we never intended to sell it so didnt get a warranty at the time. The other thing that was a barrier to getting a retro warranty was that we used local authority for building regs. None of the warranty companies would entertain us because of that. I did find some of the mortgage companies accepted architect certificates but not many. In the end we gave up on the mortgage so i cant provide a solution (sorry).

Google says it is possible to buy a retrospective structural warranty or a PCC, but see if you need one first as they are probably expensive. Having the Architects cert might reduce the bill? Shop around. These mention retrospective policies but I've never used or even heard of some of them. Check they are accepted by the Council of Mortgage Lenders before paying up. They may not all cover self builds. https://ahci.co.uk/retrospective-insurance/ https://buildwarranty.co.uk/professional-consultants-certificates https://buildsafe.co.uk/retrospective-building-warranty/ https://compariqo.com/retrospective-structural-warranty-what-it-is/ https://granitebw.co.uk/knowledge/replacement-building-warranty-cover/ Several others found.

I like the project as well, especially the upstairs open to the warm roof. You should know being an AT, but check if the number of bedrooms you submit with requires an extra parking space or other stuff (minimum private outside space is a common one - may require an opaque tall front gate so your front lawn is private) under policy. It should be easy peasy to leave it as 2 big bedrooms upstairs and divide one later. Does your downstairs shower room meet disabled 'turning circle' regs? Personally I prefer roof windows to be towards the top more than you have it, so there is a sense of light from the sky - unless they are ones you need a view through. Keep your staircase gradient as shallow as possible (ie towards 35-37 degress rather than 42), as it makes the whole house feel more luxurious. If you can. F

Really sorry to hear. Presumably the certificate is transferable. I didn’t think they were very robust though should you need to make a claim. Different lenders have different criteria. You managed to get a mortgage with a certificate. But the mortgage market has tightened up since you built. When we sold our house last year (barn conversion with a warranty) the buyer’s mortgage lender had us jumping through hoops to prove all manner of things and taking out insurance indemnities for a few things none of which we had to do when we bought it 7 years earlier and it was with the same lender. You might get a cash buyer of course and not face any troubles like our neighbour did. While you can get a warranty retrospectively it is very expensive. Good luck.

As your main home you can sell without any tax implications once that you have registered all your utilities and Counsul tax You need to be signed off for at least three years to avoid paying the Cil If you had one

which is the ultimate goal. they can tunnel all they like as long as rats (and foxes) can't get in.

Judging by R4 this morning, fixed rates will be capped to the pro-rata £2500 cap for 2 years.

We had multiple pours just like @Thorfun with rotating form work. Sika swell bar horizontal between kicker and wall and vertical between walls. The contractor built in a recess for the swell bar in the concrete and it was held in place with the sika mastic. Worked well - if installed correctly the swell bar will easily cope with the tiny amount of movement you will get - it expands to multiple times its original volume when wet. We had a warranty from Sika for the system which gave me peace of mind. Leave it to the experts.

T&G ply isn’t as good as T&G chip because the ply layers can leave longitudinal grain only allowing tongues especially to break off easily. As above MR flooring chip with glued joints is bullet proof

Its an aesthetic choice. Slates can cost between £20/m for artificial ones and £150/m for new premium Welsh ones, most go for Spanish/Brazilian at around £40/m, but that's just the covering.

maybe and most definitely quicker! but why have a 3D printer if you're not going to use it? 😉

first pipe done. should keep the little buggers out. 2 more to do once I've finished printing the collars

If it's not actually leaking, could you not just add another expansion vessel elsewhere in the system?

Anything up to 100m/305ft is fine on Cat5 so you will have no issue with cable runs I use either ubiquiti or TP-Link Omada and probably err on the side of the TP-Link stuff these days as they have a very nice face plate that also creates a hotspot as part of the Omada mesh system so you get best of both worlds. A lot of people get hung up on network speeds and tbh you won’t notice it internally - your limiting factor will always be the router and it’s switching capability and the broadband speed.

The floor area doesn't really play into it, more how many showers and baths you'd expect to be having per day (and when). For example, if a shower gives a flow of say 10-15 L/min combined hot+cold then you might expect the hot portion to be just over half so perhaps 6-8 L/min. A 120L cylinder would therefore only give around 15 minutes worth before needing reheating. Of course, this could be happening whilst the shower is drawing but I'm sure you'd end up cursing your mate with the family round and you're trying to keep up with demand, particularly if the cat suddenly decides it wants a bath.

Easy Peasy. Just make sure you install a carbon monoxide detector.

Or find a better plumber to patch up the old one so it will last?

I'm a bit late to this thread, but noticed no mention of solar gain. The effects of solar gain in a very well insulated structure comes as a bit of a surprise and has caught out several build hub members. Our ICF build came out with a figure of 68W per degree difference. In practice we think this is more like 80w but still incredibly low by normal standards, too low to make an ASHP financially sensible. So we have a small gas combi boiler which got us through the winter very comfortably. On sunny days we seldom had any heating requirement. Spring however was rather different and our east facing glazing started to cook us. We now have two split aircon units, one 3.5kW and one 2.5kW which we run very happily from a 4kW PV system. The two units from Midea cost £1800 installed and now we have very comfortable house, one runs the open plan living area and the smaller one our bedroom. We havn't been through a winter with them installed yet to experiment using them for heating. Looking at your idea to 'zone' areas you may find that a number of small aircon units may be a flexible and cost effective option.

They need to be as accurate as possible. My septic tank was moved by 2meters, which had no real issue with the overall drawings but I was told to resubmit the correct drawings. so far 6 months over the decision dates and I still have no answer from planning. they cannot be contacted either but any means.

9 days off six years since we voted to leave the EU, weren't we promised that things would be cheaper and more plentiful. £350m a week should buy a lot of PV.

This could be used for retro fit possibly. https://www.illbruck.com/en_GB/product/tp601-compriband-e/

Rats are clever little buggers. I thought I had rat proofed our chicken run as no rats for two years after building it. We put the house on the market and obviously the rats spotted it on Rightmove as they moved in to the chicken run underneath the coup. I didn’t notice straight away but did notice that the chickens were suddenly getting through a lot more food. Eventually I noticed the tell tale signs of some excavation work at the back of coup. Moved the coup, the pallet it sat on and the slabs the pallet sat on. I was very impressed with the basement apartment they had built. Sleeping quarters packed with feathers, en-suite loo in the opposite corner, and a well stocked larder of chicken feed and various bits of vegetables. There were two very neat tunnels great escape styli leading out from either side of rat mansions underneath all my carefully installed rat proof mesh, underneath my sunken perimeter barrier all the way to the boundary with the neighbouring field.

Well technically 328ft 😉

Wow that only an average of less than 9kWh per day. Are you bulldozing a passivhaus?