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THERM. It's a PITA to setup and use but it is free for PC's. it gives a good idea graphically of what actually makes much difference if nothing else. From above from best to worse. 1. 150mm sock and pir cheek. 0.5946 2. 75mm sock and pir cheek. 0.6037 = best - 0.0091 3. pir cheek only 0.6285 = best -0.0292 4. 75mm sock only. 0.6275 = best -0.0329 5. Nothing. 0.6985 = best 0.0091 -0.1039 All figures in W/mK. So if you have 100m of window perimeter to consider on a cold day with temp outside of 0 and inside of 20 Your difference in heat loss will be 100m*20deg*0.1039W/mK = 208watts of extra heating. At a guesstimate using 100 heating days per year and an average outside temp of 9 deg and gas heating It'll equate to. 100days*24hrs*9deg*208*15p per unit *80 % boiler efficiency........ = £93.60 extra per year going from no insulation to best insulation.

Fused spur outlet in the room with the WC is fine if it is just a WC. If there is a bath or shower in there, different rules apply.

I really have to emphasise this. It only costs a few pounds to get a copy of their deeds. The right of way in their deeds may be more restrictive and help you out. For example it may say they have a right of way for maintenance or coal deliveries. Or it may not. You NEED to do this. It might not help at all but it is by far the simplest solution if it does help and a lawyer is going to want to check this anyway.

Will the "Building Safety Act 2022" impact us self builders? Do I need to rush out and buy a warrant for my part-completed new build bungalow? https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2022/30/contents/enacted Section 142 requires a structural warranty, with penalties for non-compliance. Section 138 defines a new build home as "a building the construction of which began after the coming into force of this section" so I assume it won't apply to my build as it has already started construction. … but … this new legal requirement for a structural warranty might affect us in that all mortgage providers and conveyancing solicitors may routinely demand a warranty in practice, even more so than they do already. It may become the norm. Here is an article from Grand Designs magazine …

With a 75*50mm cavity sock added. U value 0.6037 You can see the flux is becoming more dissipated. This is better.

Hi I always use Mapei grout Many years ago before flexi adhesive Grout was mixed as a watery slurry Poured on and spread all over the tiles This would fill any voids under the tiles I still do this with exterior tiles Dont forget to seal the back of EVERY tile Porcelain is hard wearing and will last

It's not hard. The strings from the panels are just connected with MC4 connectors and plug in to the inverter. You'll need a rotary isolation switch. On at least the AC side but we've one on both. I bought a cheap MC4 crimp set from Amazon and did it. All the spark did was connect the AC side to the isolator and meter and consumer unit. Then his dad did the commissioning remotely. Not sure on the Eddi.

Have you tried here… http://www.silvatecdesign.com/Technical Downloads/Silvatec Design Standard Details - September 09.pdf

That is a fine detail not on our drawings, something the joiner has to work out in situ. Haven’t got a picture but basically he made a timber frame (Larch in our case) top and sides with the bottom being the cill.

The SA sounded like a good idea mainly because of it's lower heat losses, but the fact you can't heat it from an ASHP and the fact that if the heating element does fail (not unknown) you can't just drain it and replace with a standard immersion heater like you can any other hot water tank are what put me off.

No low down, the only couple I have seen come with a relatively short fitted flex. I never investigated if you could change it.

If that does occur a photo will be posted up here asap !!

if all the circumstances line up as a worst case including too much vindaloo it needs to be resilient to an aerosol of high speed, liquidised, flying poo. (Warning: football song incoming)

If it were me I would connect it to a fused spur outside the room, but @ProDave will know 👍

If there is an alternate route out the back (which seems to be the case) then just do it regardless if the neighbour has been friendly or not. It’s always best to put yourself in the shoes of the other party and ask yourself is this reasonable or acceptable. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. There are a few things we could have done with our plans but chose no to because of the impact on our neighbour which, in fact, was inconsequential in reality.

Why not, just take the wall out between boot and plant room? Russdl beat me to it

Could do something fancy with an internal opening door into it, then use the door as hanging space or small shelve storage? For shoe room...

use it up for post holes/haunching etc, mix in a bit of ballast with it.

the ideal place to set the window is so that it is encapsulated by the insulation, building regs like to see a min of 65mm now unless you plan on insulating the reveals inside separately.

Shown this before. This is the temperatures logged on my E7 cylinder last year. The mean temperature differences (top of tank) are 4°C, but if taking just the times minimal water is drawn off (10AM to 1 AM next day), the standing losses is 3°C over 15 hours, that is 0.2°/hour. There is nothing special about my installation other than the cupboard it is kept in is stuffed full of insulation and I limit the charging times to 3 hours. So, I would not be happy with that sort of unnecessary losses.

I too have a Telford cylinder and the losses are minimal, Sunamp is too new a technology for me and expensive. Also the losses are not losses in the winter as they stay within the house 🤷‍♂️

I`d like to thank you all for your help. But they waited until we had a drink on the patio this evening then came through and proceded to wind us up " move your feet we can`t get past `etc Then we discovered that the cheeky sods were recording us on our own property. My wife is in a hell of a state. I think I may have to shell out some money. Then perhaps rent out the house. It is impossible to live like this. Sorry I`m still upset but thanks again.

Larger cylinder = Lower losses. We have a 300l cylinder which gets heated to 70deg by overnight electricity. Storing approx 14kWh of juice. It looses an average of 68w over 24hrs. If we had a 500l cylinder we could drop the storage temp to 57 deg for 14kWh. Although there is more surface area to loose heat it is more than compensated by the lower delta T to the room temp as it's standing losses are only 30w for the same amount of insulation.

Same harnessed energy goes into the same principal; eg heating hot water by means of an immersion, via direct electricity or excess diversion, from micro generation. Doesn’t require a Sunamp at all, just means that they will do the same job, but at 3-4x the price of an UVC and with a number of caveats. Add in an inherent and massive uplift in ‘specialised’ installation and ‘niche’ product cost and any money / savings you stand to benefit from, via the stated energy efficiency, are only going to be for the next generation to benefit from. That’s if it then lasts long enough, bearing in mind it does not attract a lifetime warranty like the Telford stainless cylinders do Time to look realistically at a product which will likely never pay for itself in its lifetime, and think again. Unless you’ve money to burn of course.

Around 5%. I think most are discounted off the lenders SVR. Ours is their SVR minus 0.65%.

Yes I believe you are going to be looking at 4.8%+ and if the BoE rate increases as expected then it will get even more expensive. Also make sure you check out the fees. I think most(/all?) are variable rate

Decided to lower the cill as much as possible, hard work hand sawing it but I want to save causing issues with end panels and gaps under plinths. ill just close the cavity off with pir and tape it. james

Ecology are about 5% at the minute. Variable tho, so no doubt going up again shortly. Should be on their website.

@Iceverge @hinge and bracket The Emperor’s new clothes.

@Iceverge @hinge and bracket

@Iceverge @hinge and bracket

My neighbours are not nearby. it's behind the kitchen and audible inside the house only if you have the kitchen window open. Although the noise is different, I don't feel it is any louder than the external oil boiler it replaced. Seems fine. No issues after the first week (it stopped after 24 hours with what turned out to be a blocked filter; a "known bug" as it turned out). It just works. The controller lacks a "holiday mode", which is a bit annoying. Yes, although I agree that the design of what it is feeding is more important than the heat pump. It does not seem to suffer from the high standby power consumption of some heat pumps.

Really good comments so far. Mine: 1 - I think you could enlarge your shower trays. Something like 1.2x.8 is better than .9 x .9, just to use. 2 - I can see no provision for boots and cloaks. Is there space at the end of the utility by the back door for a big cupboard? 3 - Not really sure about the front door area. If this is Scotland do you not want a porch, or at least an overhang? 4 - The upstairs bathrooms look as though they could be improved wrt plumbing runs - especially soil pipes. 5 - I might go for a sliding door on the plant room entrance, to help the door clash and carrying things around vs swinging doors. 6 - Think a bit more extensively about how to manage heat wrt views vs window size. There are solutions like Sage Glass or verandas if you want both. 7 - I think you need to consider carefully integration of indoors and outdoors for doors, windows, walking routes and so on. Especially as it is in a national park. Try drawing a location plan with views, sunrise-sunset and so on, and matching that to your room locations, times of day when you do different activities and so on. 8. I would consider windows sites to give you sunlight into the stairwell and the interior - perhaps including a roof window over the top of the stairwell - to give shafts of light in the heart of the house that can be viewed from the entrances and rooms as you walk around. Also some thought about glazing in internal doors and perhaps even walls. I can see a fully glazed door to the snug / lounge working well with a rooflight above the stairwell, for example. Or a tall narrow stained / frosted glass panel from the lounge to the stairs. Also possibilities of using mirrors to reflect light around. A subtly placed floor to ceiling narrow mirror in peripheral can create the impression of an entire extra room, and make the space with the mirror seem much larger, for example. My thoughts. Ferdinand

Your proposed downstairs is spookily similar to mine. Only we enter from the south so staircase area is reversed. So we have lived in it for over 18 months & comments are based upon our experience & what we’d change in our house that is similar as your layout. 1. You need a vestibule area or at least an overhang. For inclement weather. You need entrance storage. 2. Too much south facing glazing especially lounge. When it’s sunny / hot your lounge will be unusable. Like ours. Less glazing. You will use your north facing snug more than you think. Think about making lounge slight smaller & snug slightly bigger & squarer. Have a think about having a built in recess / chimney breast type set up for your telly. We did this with great success. Means that when you come into lounge you don’t see down back of telly & brackets / cables etc. 3. upstairs try to make the bedroom less rectangular & more squarer. Something I wish I’d done.

Much a copy of @ETC Mirrored the plans. Omitted the UVC from the first floor. Tried some new materials, Corrugated metal and Timber Cladding. Corrugated metal looks good on its own too I think, especially in a rural setting. 170m2 Footprint 13500*7500 Added an external porch and also an external porch with coats area for catching drafts. Revised the kitchen with a peninsula. Added some South facing Verandas for shading and some roof overhangs for same and weathering. Omitted Void and created space upstairs for office. Food for thought maybe? PS forgot to draw in bathroom items. Woops.

I'm liking this. Is it South Up in your plans? How about mirroring it to get the morning sun from the east in the main bedroom and kitchen and evening sun in the snug?

Services stacked.

It really irks me how there's no scientific reason this works, but I've seen my uncle find pipes that aren't on plans too.

We had a water diviner, with great results, not did he find where to site our borehole he identified depth and all the underground streams feeding it. So may be worth finding one near you he may be able to sort out where your water is.

You could rejig the airing cupboard position and entrance doors to bedroom 1 and bathroom to make the long dark corridor half the length. Would it work with the bathrooms an en-suites at the front? Then alot of services would be in the same area, upstairs and downstairs

My solution. Elevation to follow.

Hi everyone. I have been lurking on the site for the past few weeks and have decided to introduce myself as we have started to get the ball rolling on our self build. We are in a lucky position to have been gifted a site and one of my best friends is an architect, who visited the site with us yesterday. We are hoping to get a PP application submitted in mid 2022. Our site has a wee old stone house on it with an obvious fire/chimney and windows - so we are confident of obtaining PP on the basis of replacement dwelling. I have scarred the Internet and asked friends in the trade for approximate prices per sqmt and have heard anything from £1,000 - £3,000sqm. That is obviously a massive difference and depending of the specification. We hope to build a very air tight house with ultra efficient u-values and MVHR and oil boiler. I did a detailed payback analysis for PV, battery and ASHP and it just does not make sense to go this route - payback came out circa 33 years. In terms of Superstructure build I am hoping to go ICF - is there a market for ICF construction in NI? Concrete first floor is also a desirable. As this is very early doors I believe we can afford a budget of £300k for a house size circa 230m2. In people's humble opinion is this achievable or am I living in La La land? Attached are a couple of photos from the site. Thank you - looking forward to contributing in the future ?

Few update photos, great results. Just finishing bits to do/ paint reveal inside & out, varnish cill/ blind up- done. Thanks chaps! Zoot

Was this in between his filming of Baywatch 😉

Hi @Jenni thank you

Yeah, it’s bonkers. I discovered a small draft above one of the panels of my new sliding fits last night, and it really pissed me off. Must be an installation issue.

Back in June 2017 we found a house for sale close to us in Holywood, Co. Down - 4 bed bungalow, 115m2 on a large plot on one of the best streets in the town. Within our budget. Couldn't believe it! So we put in a offer at the asking price. Didn't hear anything back. Phoned the agent a few days later and bidding was going on way above our offer... developers with cash. Obviously they saw it a potential site. So, we accepted our loss and moved on. Then, two months later, it appeared back on the market! Issue with site lines meant you'd never get permission for additional units on the site. So back to our original offer, and it was accepted! It was a kip. We knew there would be serious renovation works and were budgeting to spend £80k+ on renovation and extension. Turns out we were very optimistic. Estimates started being bandied around that were double our budget... kind of in the new house build territory. So we took the plunge and looked in to financing a new build. Turned out more difficult than we thought - no local lenders would offer a product, luckily we got a recommendation for Ecology and they would allow us to convert our existing residential mortgage to a self build, once we had full PP. In Sept 2018 after a year of planning, we finally got FPP. Original house: The issues were much bigger than we though - no foundations, lime mortar was crumbling away. The brief of the new design was straight forward as we knew what we wanted - simple, 200m2, 4 bed, big open plan living area etc. The sloping site complicated matters a bit... so much so we ended up including a full footprint basement, rather than have split level living. The design at the front is deliberately simple as we're in a conservation area and didn't want to battle too much. Rear is where all the action is!! The design has changed since these renderings - no garage, and smaller courtyard and few retaining walls. These pushed us out of budget when the QS estimates came in at £340k! Almost £100k more than budget. Latest floor plans: Basement: Ground Floor: First Floor: As I type this, we have just started site clearance and ground works..... with an interesting find that could threaten to eat up our contingency already!!!