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We moved in back in October and have slowly been going through the list in order to obtain the certificate. In November they came out and there was a list of about 8 things to do including ensuring the ground floor toilet has the correct disability access. Foolishly we forgot to put the door opening outwards. Anyway back in December and I had told them that we could get the door changed due to our joiner not being available. The door however is 2'9" so 3" wider than a std door and they luckily allowed this however... ....they then stated that the sink was too close to the shower for a wheelchair to get to the toilet so I buy a cheap small sink for £40 take the large vanity sink/unit out fit the small one. They are happy and now we are signed off. Mrs wants the old one putting back in now!! We only have the landscaping to do now that the driveway is in but that can wait until the Spring!

I've done enough reading today to know that I've talked some absolute twaddle earlier in this thread. The end outcome is likely going to be the same, but the reasons I've given are wrong, so thanks for calling me up on this. I've learned more than I ever wanted to about VAT today! I'll put my consolidated thoughts in this thread when I'm a bit more sure that I've finally got it straight, so y'all can point out where I've missed stuff and so future readers of the thread aren't misled.

Letter back from them today. "Why is your correspondance address different to the NEW BUILD Address." Probably because the first line of the covering letter said "I enclose the planning permission documents and plans, please note some of these have the address of land adjacent to ............. For the avoidance of doubt this is the address of the land prior to the local authority allocating the official address." Our access is in a different street and has a different postcode. On Hold [40 mins and counting] to them now, Edit:- Talked to a real person. I managed to keep my cool and be polite* ...... "Thank you, please write to us and explain the situation" *As my old boss used to say "they have the gold and we want it"

Hah, yes, I forgot 9-9:30am, the heat pump was running on full for the whole time. Was still worth turning it off for the second half, though. even if it saves 1kWh relative to the baseline that pays for the heating we used overnight 🤷‍♂️.

Should be. The bigger the better I say. Maximum attack!! One point I would note is that the flange area around the edge seems minimal. You would be left trying to cut a very accurate hole and tape to the bare minimum the remainder. Something like this would be twice as powerful and easier to fit. Just get the seller to include the plug and a few cm of wire when posting it.

I purchased quite a few appliances well before they were required for our new build and put them in storage for what I anticipated was a few weeks before they were ready to be installed..Well weeks became months..and when they came to be installed I discovered one particular pricey appliance was delivered with a broken door and had clearly been dropped prior to delivery..cue phone calls and wrangling with AO and the appliance manufacturer as well over the 30 day window…AO didn’t want to know and the manufacturer wanted to potentially charge a call out and parts fee. It took buying a replacement which also turned up defective for the manufacturer to be embarrassed enough to sort out the issue. In reality it seems impractical to “‘make sure the appliance is fully functional “ when it’s packaged as tightly as they usually are, your intended kitchen/utility room is a building site and especially if the appliances are to be built in prior to use..but this got me wondering..should self builders be only buying at the point of installation? In what ways have others avoided this issue?

I bought mine but got the supplier (Marks Electrical) to delay delivery and just store them in their warehouse. Think they had them almost a year, and whilst part of that was during the pandemic and so likely led to greater pragmatism, I never got the feeling they were in a rush for me to take them. I suppose they had my money, and of course an enormous warehouse. The approach was driven by my desire to buy at the lowest price and secure what can be hard to find items, but also not wanting the warranty clock to start ticking (Marks Electrical reissue re-dated invoices the day after delivery so no issue with registering the appliances for their warranties but the supporting receipt dates being way out).

By photographing any packaging & opening all the packaging & checking it is undamaged when it is delivered. As I did today actually when my parents took delivery of numerous sanitary-ware that I will be installing for them but not until March.

No problem. Any joiner worth his salt could knock this up for you in no time.

Cut of the O ring and measure with calipers? Croeso..

Its almost likely a Worcester Bosch unit and Bosch bought IVT who are one of Scandinavia’s oldest heat pump manufacturers. Very reliable, good sources of parts and excellent technical support from IVT

Feed the cable through the duct before laying would be my choice. Just makes life easier all round, one less thing to do another time. Cant comment on the size of the cable unfortunately.

We fitted an autovent today anyway to try it, but in doing so also checked the existing fittings and found a small leak (probably more of a leak under higher pressures in heat). Have taped up the joins with PTFE for now until we can source some new O rings to replace the existing. The panel is the Thermomax DF100 and you can see from the picture x2 rings that have perished, I believe they are EPDM but would be grateful if anyone knew where I could get spares. Going to change the opposite side too while we are there.

Our MVHR incoming room vents have a small cone like this but I suspect its too small to make much difference.

I hit that day about 15 years ago and have learned a lot more about VAT since then 🤣 Congrats on your first BuildHub "hmm, I got that wrong" post. You are not alone

This is correct. However some people have found that contractors/suppliers don't understand the rules and want a piece of "evidence" to justify zero/reduced-rating their supply. Some are happy with a letter, others know enough to know that there's a more official looking HMRC "certificate" but not enough to know it's completely inappropriate to use it in this scenario! But in practice if it gets the supplier to apply the tax treatment they should have been applying anyway, HMRC are not going to challenge the fact that the certificate was issued incorrectly because they can only raise an assessment if the actual amount of VAT charged/reported is incorrect.

Really well done, very inspiring.

Which could be pretty small. 100mm duct has an area of roughly 78.5cm2 . So a 10cm square (40cm perimeter) would only need to stand out about 2cm to get the same gap, if it was open all the way round. I guess the change in direction/turbulence might impede airflow slightly so probably better to go a little bigger. Probably want it bigger anyway so the duct end is fully hidden when you look from an angle. A small cone/dish on the back might also help to guide the air "round the corner" and out to the sides.

OK several thoughts: The difference between calculated demand and measured could be real or not. If its real then the most likely explanation is pessimistic assumptions about air changes or building materials, or just that you have the house colder than the design 21C. All the calculations for my house says it needs about 11kW continuously to keep it warm when the external weather temps is -2, actually the measured value during the cold spell earlier in the season was 7kW. I am pretty certain that's due to a combo of lower than assumed air changes and slightly better than assumed fabric, plis we aim for 20 not 21C. But it could be that your measured output is underreported by the Ecodan. Difficult to tell unless you have an independent way of determining the actual load. Assuming that the measurement of delivered heat is correct, the efficiency does seem poor. I would suggest that as a starting point you get weather compensation going. As it is currently operating it must either be cycling a lot (other than at the coldest design temp) or the TRVs or the main thermostat must be shutting down to compensate for hotter than required flow temp. Weather compensation has been mandatory in Germany for decades (and Im talking gas boilers which don't benefit anything like as much from WC as do ASHPs), but of course our government deems the British (or British installers) too stupid, lazy or ill-educated to cope, or is too influenced by developers protestations about the extra cost (a few £100). Fundamentally (in the physics) the efficiency of an ASHP is linked irrevocably to the difference between the source air and the flow temp, so keeping this as low as possible at all ambient temperatures is rule no 1 for efficiency. Ideally the ashp should be running and heating the circulating water continuously with all the zone valves/TRVs (if any) open whatever the ambient temperature, delivering water continuously to the radiators at a temperature just sufficient to get the room to the temperature you want. Neither the TRVs nor the thermostat should be doing anything at all, other than to limit the heating if there are exceptional conditions eg high solar gain. Then, as others have pointed out, you need to consider (short) cycling (ie cycling on and off with a short on perios eg <10mins) because of the limited modulation depth of the machine (ie the extent to which it can turn down when the the heat demand is low). You cant avoid cycling when the heat demand is lower than the minimum output of which it is capable (guess - around 2kW, its somewhere in the spec), but its better if the cycles are long. That is achieved principally with sufficient thermal mass, ie volume of water in the system (radiators plus pipework). Do you happen to have an estimate of your system volume. If you have only small radiators it could be quite low and its possible that you would benefit from additional volume from a volumiser/buffer tank, but I wouldn't personally conclude that until you have eliminated other causes. One other thing you might do by way of diagnostic is to look at the figures during moderately stable periods of low, medium and high ambient temperature. That might give you an idea of whether the problem lies in a particular part of the temperature range. Unfortunately we dont often have stable temperatures for an extended period (although we did back in December have a stable period of very low temperatures followed by a stable period of unseasonably high temperatures - perfect for testing Central heating systems) I don't know if that makes sense or helps. Keeping the message simple - get weather compensation going and see if it helps, get an estimate of your system volume to see if short cycling is likely to be a problem.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. There are a few people on here who have built and used Ecocent and had good results. I was tempted to look at these, but still need heat for the house, so I've settled for ASHP.

I would agree except that if you have a bathroom with an extractor fan then you are just wasting heat whilst that fan is running so any heat you can pump out of that exhaust is saved rather than wasted. Whether the durations match I would not like to say; can you extract enough heat to keep your water hot in the amount of time it takes to get the moist air out? Another issue to consider with an internal heat pump is the amount of noise it makes.

Even if this is your forever home, it's a good idea to think about it on the open market. Did your architect/designer visit you in current home establishing what elements you like and what you don't? Probably not. This one is not to far away from us and took years to sell, many different estate agents had a dabble they even tried to raffle it. Hideaway, Barton Road, Market Bosworth 5 bed detached house (onthemarket.com) Admittedly bigger room than yours room at 142m2 [our first 3 bed semi was 83m2 for all the rooms in and people thought it relatively spacious !! ] I happened to speak to one of the estate agents trying to sell it, who I sort of knew [not the on on this advert] and he said viewers / people just couldn't get their head round this size of room in a house, and what to do with it, it was just daunting. Have you thought about a utility/laundry room up in the bedroom block - most people [including us] use their utility room for laundry and it is nowhere near to the main source of the washing [bedrooms] so near the bedrooms / bottom of stairs would a convenient point. The bottom right may need a bit of sorting - the guest loo seems to be building regs minimum size, a bit of sorting and you could have a nice large cloak room [for cloaks and hats] with loo going off from it as, although not a problem now, but you have a single door from the loo to the kitchen, a shame in this size of property. You could even have an extra door from the plant room to the loo so if you want to turn your bike around whist gardening you don't have to traipse through the hall / utility with muddy shoes. or you could make that area into a sort of butler kitchen [a thing I didn't know existed until recently]. A minor thing but you need a stub wall on the wardrobe at the top, just as you go through the door, if you want to claim VAT back on the wardrobe doors. Oh.... remember at all times this is your house, to be built with your money, to live in, not your architects vanity project for his glossy brochure. Hope it all goes well, Good Luck.

Assuming it's a new build, VAT Notice 708 3.3.4 says that landscaping and similar done as part of a planning condition is "closely connected work" and would therefore be zero-rated:

*rocks back and forth in the corner, gently sobbing*

Indeed. I've no idea why they are treated differently. It does seem daft.

Yes, had it for a couple of years. Gave up on Z-wave some time ago. MyZ-wave devices were quite old and not very reliable, the more modern Z-wave devices were better, but they're all expensive. Zigbee has been pretty good, for a reliable network you do seem to need a few permanently powered devices to act as hubs; if you have a few of those the battery powered sensors work well. (The Drayton Wiser heating control system uses a different flavour of Zigbee and was not very reliable, had to add 3 switched sockets to get the network to be fairly stable.

Cracking looking place, well done!

Not a chance sorry.

It looks like at least part of your upper floor is above the garage? While heat going down from upstairs into a room below would not be "wasted" any such heat going downwards into the garage would be. Also with that portion of the upper floor above a garage, it is likely there will be air paths due to leaks etc allowing the cold air from the garage to the inter floor space. I suspect the solution lies with taking it all up again and doing it properly, making sure the entire ceiling above the garage is properly air tight sealed and properly insulated, then re fit the UFH. With carpet is is likely you will need the UFH pipes closer together than the downstairs UFH. Probably not what you want to hear.

Most of us have a "to do after completion" list.........

If it's a new build that is zero-rated as per section 3 of VAT notice 708, erection of scaffolding is zero-rated: If it's a conversion eligible under section 7, then it's standard-rated:

Congratulations... Its good to know this eventually comes to an end!! Long. Old. Slog.

Well done. Looks great.

Used mountains of No Nonsense foam and never had an issue like this. A few stuck valves, yes... I have now moved onto (much more expensive) Illbruck FM330* and would not use anything else (unless I want adhesive grade, of course). (*Satisfied customer - not salesman!)

It’s written down in the Scottish Technical Handbook 2020. It’s to allow the owner of the adjacent land to enjoy the benefit of development of the land in the future. I can’t see why the English regs would be different albeit it might be of course.

And don't forget to turn off your gas appliances, including boiler!

In fairness this thread has gone down a bit of a rabbit hole about the summer consumption, which is a minor part of the story. Having established that its as per spec, about 25 W, and yes you can turn it off, and furthermore, given you have solar PV, your DHW is heated nicely by your solar diverter in summer and most probably autumn and spring also (so heating it from the ASHP in winter would be nice, but not essential(, perhaps its time to think about the bigger picture ie 1560kWh per year. You say that the house is 37W/sqm, how big is it/whats the estimated annual heating requirement, what flow temp is it running at and has weather compensation been properly adjusted?

Thank you, 2 homes are going up there. One for my family with a granny flat and the other for my sister. We have lived in the neighbourhood for years and the neighbours are lovely.

Get some simple ventilation going. So long as you have some air somewhere being mechanically pushed into or drawn out of the building 24/7 it'll make a noticeable difference to humidity levels. Low humidity means everything feels warmer. In our old rental cottage I used to leave the kitchen extractor on and the internal doors open while we were out for the day. It ensured that any damp stale air was well diluted and removed from the house. It made a noticeable difference.

Yea I can see what you mean, you could be right but further along it has a overflow valve which would not allow it to reach that height. I think that tide line is a combination of me cleaning the mud and the decking running muddy surface water over the sides

yeah. obviously that's an approximation but i'm still very happy. all those hours, days, weeks, months fitting insulation, AVCL and taping will hopefully be worth it in the end!

There is on some of them. Winter generation ideally needs South Facing and around 15° from vertical. Was just a thought, I quite like the look of hexagon and pentagon, housing as it a little different. Would be harder to make, and if an architect was involved, crap to live in.

Yes, sorry you can't reclaim VAT on tool hire. However if you hire a groundwork man to dig trenches and he hires a machine his whole invoice to you should be zero rated. Not sure about scaffolding... I know you can't reclaim VAT if you buy or hire but what about hire and errect?

Door apperture was made too high or a shorter door was chosen. Personally I would have boxed in with plasterboard down to the door frame height, which is what they appear to have done the other side.

Might as well be, but the question is if this is money well spent: completely sealed building will still loose energy if the walls conduct. Passivehouse will loose energy if you open all the windows. The most economical option is when conductive (through floor, walls, ceiling) and convective (draughts) losses are similar - so if you have budget of 1k, it may be that you attack the biggest holes, but spend the rest on loft or other areas. Not to mention that even if your own labour rate is nil, getting extra detail sorted out takes exponentially longer. Also some of the jobs have cost of disruption or require redecoration afterwards. And to finish, if you're too well sealed and do not have precautions (ventilation, preferably with heat recovery, but that is another cost), moisture and CO2 levels will climb up, and that can cause new problems...

Title is rude . You should always respect other people’s boundaries and where you wish to discharge .

That UFH system is “less than suitable”. There…..I didn’t say “bag of shit”. Gold star for Nick

Ah yes. Got the email yesterday, signed up, planned to turn everything off at 9 o'clock, forgot to set a reminder, and have just noticed that my wife decided to plug the car in this morning to charge. It's been sat there sucking up over 2 kW for the first 40 mins of the session. Even if I turned the entire house off now, there's no way I can make up that deficit!

Latest session just started.

I'd settle for that👍. Static caravan life: went to bed last night at 23:00 lounge temp 19.2°C. Outside temp -1°C (-5.2°C wind chill) this am. 05.00 Outside temp 1.2°C (-3.9°C wind chill) Lounge temp 7.5°C 🥶 so circa -1.9°C/h although its more like -10°C hour 1 then -0.34°C/h 😂 I don't have the temperature in the bedroom as that would be scary