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I found this on here and have added to it. The micro difference come from the temp set points and outside air temp, some perform well across the board others don't. There is link at the top of spreadsheet, this is where test data comes from, all registered and tested units are there. MoreDetailPerformance Aircon.xlsx

These days of IoT I would make sure that full functionality is available without using a cloud service. Would be an annoyance if you could only change the time, twice a year, through a dedicated server.

2 handles on the fridge freezer and one on the freezer, all cracked and broken over the years. When laddo first got his 3D printer he made some new ones in white PLA. That was early days in terms of knowing about infills and reinforcing around screw holes so the handles failed and delaminated over time. They also got dirty and were hard to clean. SWMBO's liberal use of bleach may have hastened their demise of course. Cue now and his latest efforts in grey PETG: These will get a spray coat of Parkside Clear Plastic Paint and we'll see how that stands up.

I asked the same question to my building control inspector recently about my small utility room / pantry and he sent me the attached page in reply, and said "Your plywood will meet D-s3, d2, but any standard higher than that will require expensive paint treatments, or overcladding with plasterboard. Looking at the table above, if your utility room has a floor area under 4m2, plywood will be fine, but if your utility floor area is more than that you will only be able to untreated ply cladding up to an area equivalent to half the floor area. So as an example, if your utility room has a floor area of say 10m2 then only a maximum 5m2 area of untreated ply would be allowed." Hopefully that will be the same for you.

Yes and no. A lot of my work is small domestic projects.. used to do more big ones but every one is a one off and some can be very challenging on the odd occasion technically to bring in on a buildable budget and still look good. Pretty much all of them involve an element of SE work and associated architectural design work. Now I know that there are not that many folk like me who wear both an SE hat and an architectural designers hat but they are there. They way I work it is to tell a Client what I do. Listen to them, ask loads of questions about how they live and what they would like not just now, but what they want to do in the future and how they view their home.. could be an asset.. could be a forever home. When doing so I chuck in ideas and say.. part of the design process and my roll is to identify what you don't like as this narrows the field. Then say.. I'll come up with a few ideas.. some you may like and some you may think are absolutely awful.. just tell me straight up.. that is NOT what we want.. It is a good model and I do ok out of it. It takes a bit of guts to sit in front of a Client and say.. I'm may suggest things you may find horrible.. but this it is ok to do this and your job (the Client) is to say.. Gus that is crap and not for us! Once make your Client feel comfortable that they can just say.. that is not our bag / crap or.. we like concept than you are well on your way. This should be taught to budding Architects! and SE's. @SteamyTea If you put in a bit of legwork to find someone like me in you local area and most importantly are prepared to pay a reasonable fee then it can be a great way to work. It has taken me a long time to get to the stage where I can competently do the SE and architectural design but in the round can also save Clients money as I have a list of builder contacts and so on. Yes you can learn to do it all yourself and it can be a satisfying process. To do it right will often take a bit of time if you are a novice. You can do the BC stuff yourself, planning and so on.. all the answers are on BH. SE..? you may be for example a builder who knows that it will be ok.. but if you come to sell will the buyer believe you? Find someone local.. they are there and often you'll only find them by word of mouth. You may only need them to do a small part but just having someone there who knows a bit can be of great support. Hope this makes some sense?

https://www.thepetflap.com/passivhaus-pet-door/

Sorry attached the wrong spreadsheet. Have added the Emura 3 details MoreDetailPerformance2.xlsx

If you have a duct running upwards in a cold space, there is a good chance that condensation will form and run back down. The insulation may not stop this.

We have grey EPS beads in our 1960s cavity, no problems so far 18 months in, though we stuck 100mm EWI on the outside too so I’m guessing damp will be unlikely from such a set up. Do wish we’d gone for triple glazing though as the obvious issue is our new aluclad windows are on the crap side of performance & we seem to have a lot of them!

No 1 TAKE THE LATCH OUT OF THE DOOR so it can't shut and latch itself again. Unless an obvious fault, probably easier to get a new latch.

I hadn't. Did my apprenticeship, alongside extra college, then university, and bought my second place. Wish I had spent more time doing things I really liked. Oh hang on. Went into semi retirement at 40 and done nothing constructive for over 2 decades. Work is overrated.

@gmas2001 Have you seen Ali Dymock's YouTube channel? If not I would thoroughly recommend it. He documents a highly insulated timber frame garden room built from scratch with every detail discussed and explained, it's brilliant stuff.

@anonymous it may be worth looking in to vacuum double glazing, apparently can be as good as triple glazing. Thinner, lighter, no idea of price comparisons though.

If you're the wrong side of the latch for the credit card trick, there might still be clearance to: Get as thin wire as you can, in a semi circle Attach some thin thread Loop the circle around the latch from your side, so you'll have the thread touching the sloping side If you can, use the thread to pull through wider/stronger string When you can't get any stronger thread through, pull the thread towards you, so it's riding "up" the slope of the latch. It sometimes works if you use a tourniquet approach rather than pulling

If skirts are MDF get a good coat of sealer on bottom edge before fitting or they soak up any moisture like a sponge if floors are hard and get mopped

Daikin - mostly because of spec and a personal recommendation for a particular installer by a satisfied customer of theirs. I didn't see any advantage in asking for a different make.

When I looked at Internorm they were 0.76. I’ve been trying to balance the cost of everything with the performance as we all do. Going lower than 1.0 was almost doubling the cost for us which I’ve diverted to triple glazed upstairs rooflights.

Just chipping with my own experience. We have 60 m2 of window area. 7 doors and 21 windows. We were getting quotes in mid to end of 2020, for tripled glazed, Alu-Clad windows from the usual suspects, Internorm, Velvac, Rational and Idealcombi to name a few. I prepared a window schedule with dimensions, so they all had the same specification. They all priced at a similar point, e.g. £35-40K. Then the fun began. My neighbour who had Internorm fitted, showed me his quote, from the same person at the company, going to our (same) post code. He was given 43% discount on the list price, we got 18%. A difference of around £10k. We spoke to Idealcombi to update our quote and they said they could give us an additional discount of 35%. A difference of £13K. We then spoke to some of the other companies and told them the situation. They then replied “oh, we can match that”. We went with Idealcombi since they were the first to offer the discount without being asked. They have also been very good with a warranty claim. Ultimately we paid around £430 per square metre – not fitted. It was also incredibly convoluted. We skipped the £800+Vat measurement fee and did it ourselves. We would ask (using the schedule) please make W1, 100mm wider and W5, 200mm taller. They actually, made W1, 200mm wider and W5, 100mm taller and so on. We had 17 quotes before they got it spot on. I’m from an engineering background, so specifying everything and checking that the supplier conforms is second nature. It’s laborious but don’t leave anything to chance. We also installed them ourselves. Me, with no building experience and a bricklayer/stonemason who was with us for the build. We made our own mounting brackets out of 5mm galvanised bar, because the manufacturers 3mm brackets looked a bit frail. We know a Velvac installer and we were looking at our kitchen windows, he said to me “we would put four brackets on those, two either side, how many did you use?”. “Ten” I replied. I think they will be strong enough! So in my humble opinion, the whole thing is a bit of game. All the quotes we had (every one) had a margin of at least 35-40% that could be sacrificed if necessary, to get the order, on which they were presumably making an acceptable margin. At least use a per square metre baseline price, so you can evaluate the true cost. There’s such a massive variation. I’ve seen doors at the NSBRC centre in Swindon that were £5k+VAT. Ours were around £900 and passive house rated. Good luck.

Ours.

All ours are stuck with sticks like sh*t Why would I want even pin hole nail holes in oak veneered skirting? The fiddly bit can be getting temporary mechanical fixing to hold them in place while the adhesive dries. Store the skirting dead flat and straight to minimise problems.

Cost versus diminished returns. It usually the frame that kills the whole window U value not the triple glazed glass. Passivhaus specs are based on comfort, and inside glass temperature compared to room temp at a given temperature outside. I have triple glazed and it's 2 degrees outside sat right next to a huge glass window, do not feel the cold outside, window is not making me feel cold, ( sucking the heat from me) a single glazed would and a double glazed may also but to a much lesser extent.

You also lose light every time you add a pane of glass so it needs to be considered especially if you factor in any solar gain in your modelling

It’s like razors. Costs won’t be similar. Probably requires a re-design of the frame. Weight problem making large windows more challenging to make and fit. Are they really needed in much of the country? In Scotland there possibly could be a justification but the market size is probably too small.

I'm not sure it's reasonable to assume costs will be similar. As well as the cost of an extra pane of glass (+spacer, plus gas assuming it's argon or krypton filled), the glazing unit will be about a third heavier (and triple glazed units are already quite heavy). You also need to account for yet more thickness, which potentially means deeper frames (and again, triple glazed frames are already pretty deep and heavy). Quad glazing is generally only sold into countries with climates that make it worthwhile. Even in the colder parts of the UK, the benefits of quad glazing are probably marginal. Certainly if you live in the more temperate parts of the UK, the additional cost is unlikely to make it worth the extra cost, weight, and bulk of adding a further pane.

I’m flat out at work at the moment but if I get half an hour this evening, I’ll try and figure out what data in what cell is causing the issue.

Well done on getting your first home. I have done a fair few refurbs over the last 35 years. My One piece of advice would be attention to detail. Simple things like small gaps around skirting boards. Small gaps around pipes through walls etc. That sort of stuff has always worked well for me. Small gaps in floorboards, skirtings, pipe hole etc, all add up. If you can ventilate by choice it will make a huge difference, rather than just having a house full of small holes. Best of luck.

And Ill ask yet again, how are you going to prove that? All the DNOs want is a bit of dialogue with you to ensure that your claimed safe system is actually that.

At the end of the day, its all down to what building control are happy with. If you have a percolation test, calculated with roof area and pitch, you can easily calculate soakaway sizes with approved calculators. Good luck.

What! The vital service that everyone enjoys is a grid connection and the ability to use electric when they want(importing). Having a PV system connected to the grid isn't a vital thing to have, it's wholly optional The last thing any of us want are free spirits doing their own thing, circumventing the rules and connecting unapproved equipment to the grid. If you dont like the rules go off grid and do your own thing. Remember that a typical PV install is £1000s so a G99 application at £0-300 is peanuts

I seem to recall that OP is in France.

There is something amiss in your spreadsheet data because the heat load graph isn’t drawing properly, and the DHW side isn’t working correctly, hence why you are only able to satisfy 69% of your hot water requirement. The spreadsheet I uploaded was populated with all the values for my house, so the cylinder size was set to as closely match my 150ltr slimline as I could find. You need to choose a machine that has enough overhead to recover the required heat loss from the building in the period that it is not doing your hot water cycle. But at the same time modulate low enough so that it isn’t short cycling too much.

Remove the handle, and turn square bar with a spanner or pliers. This gives you more movement than the handle. Once open you can work out where the problem lies. Quite possibly it’s the handle mechanism

Probably paid £30 plus for the 200 watt heater. shoukd have just bought the cheap 1000watt heater and had it on for 1/5 of the time.

I think heat does the air. The more heat, the drier the air. If that logic is correct, low temperature heat emitters, such as UFH are likely to dry the air less than higher temperature emitters such as fan heaters. But I’m just guesstimating here. May well be wrong.

Thanks Craig 👍

The air does not 'hold' moisture. Water vapour is just another gas, like nitrogen, oxygen and argon. https://edavies.me.uk/2017/03/vapour/ Now of you are in a room, regardless of the temperature and humidity, the act of you breathing will increase the absolute humidity. This may be masked if the temperature also increases as it is more usual to measure relative humidity. The RH will go down, even if the absolute amount of water is still same. Why this causes physiological problems I don't know. I know I prefer dryer climates: grew up in the Far East and it was horrible, then moved to West Indies to a very dry island, it was lovely. But I do know that when I do a long haul flight, my noise starts to bleed, apparently a known phenomena of the dryer cabin air.

There's terminology. If the controller works by adjusting the leaving water flow temperature (or perhaps it's the return water) according to the outside temperature it's called Weather Compensation. A lot of heat pumps and gas boilers can do that but its more effective in reducing the running cost with a heat pump than a gas boiler. If the controller adjusts the water flow temperature according to the difference between the setting on the room (i.e. house) thermostat and the actual temperature in the room it's called Load Compensation. For economy, the benefit of Load Compensation is that it enables the heat source to modulate down its output when the room temperature is close to the set temperature. A lot of gas boilers can do this and some heat pumps, but in the case of heat pumps, only if you use the manufacturer's thermostat. I'm not sure if this terminology is used outside the UK. Consequently, foreign-made heat pumps may use their own terminology but for the same two types of control.

And then allow for what you don't know you don't know. Yes exactly! Great feedback and very helpful, thanks everyone. Going back to my original question if we are mad to PM ourselves, I think the answer is probably yes! And do we want to do something mad, probably not (at the moment at least). I would love to have the time to just crack on and do it all ourselves at our own pace. However, we want to get this build done reasonably quickly and we have designed it with simplicity in mind (rather than a dream house). All we really want is a decent family home to last us the next 10 years. Perhaps if this goes well we might look to do something in the future which is a bit more adventurous and PM ourselves.

If your connected to the grid with something that should have permission, then youre not "doing the right thing". The "right thing" is to submit an application, seemingly with some DNOs not charging. If you are actually doing the right thing then your application will get approved.

New poster here! I’ve had EPS bead cavity wall insulation installed in my 1930s semi earlier this year and so far it’s made a world of difference for the better. So much warmer, and more noticeably is that it is quieter in the house, especially when it’s windy. Only downside is that as the walls are all warm (great!) it’s shown the very poor quality install of the French doors in our dining room up as the lower edges are starting to go mouldy (always been cold in there since we bought the place). I’m getting them removed, bricking it up a bit and putting a quality window in.

Not about heat pumps, where he perpetuates all the old tripe about them.

Hi. Just making it a bit visual using an example of renovation as to what could be done and the costing and value impact. Below is the picture of a refurbishment of a two story house (before and after) which was done to a very high standard with c40% extension. It costed between c300-400k in 2015. It recently sold generating c175k in profits. But the original house would also have increased in value by c150k in terms of just house price inflation. So not significant profit on refurbishment if you take the inflation out. May be a bit of loss in today's prices. So if doing refurbishment to a high/decent standard it might not cost significantly less than new house build hence new build should be serious option. Plus for both either new build or refurbishment, possibility of generous profit if you are doing first project is quite small hence as others said simplicity and getting the design right is the key plus a state of mind that you are doing it to live in it rather than as a property developer would certainly help in terms of getting expectation realistic.

Why. I have this.