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My vote is for the new Reolink - no subscription and PoE, so no problems with WiFi or power. And Reolink stuff is cheap (not that I'm cheap).

We went to appeal after the second refusal and the Inspectorate refused and made recommendations that we included in our third application. When we were told it was going to be refused again I asked our local councillor if he would recommend it to go before the Planning Committee. It was passed unanimously much to the annoyance of the Head of Planning. No, it wasn't fortunately one of the conditions. That's tough, as from my experience they're a bunch of incompetents. My Head of Planning admitted that none of his PO had any design qualifications and that one PO could justifiably allow something which another PO in the same office might refuse. Good luck.

@PXR5 Pity that you have this issue.. but you have started a great thread. The responses you have had are really informative (for me also), BH folk chipping with invaluable experience and advice. For me to all who have chipped in .. a big thank you, learnt loads and given me food for thought too. I can't think of anything I can meaningfully contribute to the legal side / just general great advice and input and so on. Other than this. This made me think.. what sort of things could other BH members do if faced with a similar situation and what might be a first small step you could take without aggrevating the situation. One might be.. how do you get something that is a bit of initial formaility to let your neighbours know that you are actively considering your own and importantly their circumstances... if you can show that you have been reasonable and proactive then if later it goes legal this will give weight to your side of the argument. The objective (test of reasonable) is to say... hey I can forsee a possible problem and I want to protect avoid risk (= cost) to us both. Now with things like retaining walls that are bulging.. they tend to slowly destabalise until some, usually environmental event, tips the balance and causes what can be a sudden and dangerous collapse. That could be wind / heavy rainfall / loss of tree root / vegitation stability. A non environmental event would be where someone say piles bulk bags of gravel on the high side of the retained ground or drives a digger up close to the fence. We would often call that a surcharge load. For all if you are designing a basement / retiaining wall we often allow for 10kN/ sq m surcharge loading (1 tonne per sq metre on the finished level of the ground). @PXR5 You could start out with your own survey.. as time is on your side you could probably do this without say an SE / Geotechnical Engineer. First thing to do is take some good record photographs from ground level. These should be panoramic and detailed. Detailed would include parts of the wall where bricks are obviously displaced, where the mortar is clearly falling out of the joints or where roots are growing out the mortar. The key here is to be able to reference the panoramic photos to the detailed ones. The way to do this is imagine you posted the lot on BH.. ask yourself.. would we be able just from the photos to see where the displaced bricks are in relation to the panoramic photos. You tell a story using the photos and present a cogent argument. Ideally you may know someone who has a drone. It does not have to be high tech. Fly it up to the boundary line and take plan photos. It's a good time of year (winter when I write this) as you can see what trees are deciduous and what are say Leylandi.. the evergreen trees and shrubs. This is really helpful. The canopy size of the evergreens is easier to determine when the deciduous trees are not in leaf. Next try and get you hands on a surveyors staff. They have cleary marked graduations that can turn out well in photos unlike a measuring tape, it also looks the part.. a proper staff. Fly the drone down a bit and photograph horizontally.. square on at mid height of the staff. Fly up and take photos level (or as close as you can) with the top of the staff. With a bit of maths if pushed this can give you an approximation of the tree height working from ground level. Objective is to establish roughly the height of the vegitation / trees. You can do this from ground level but you could you have perspective to take into account. If you can't get a drone then you can do this from ground level but it is a bit more complex. On the drone.. do not put any photos in any communication that are taken beyond your boundary.. or you may be subject to a "peeping tom allegation" but you may not want to delete any that have been taken accidentally.. the key here is to mindful of the data protection act. Next as time is on you side to some extent wait until spring then repeat. This all sounds a bit complicated.. but what you are doing is to establish the vegitation profile. In the spring once the leaves develop you can start to identify what kind of trees / vegitation is planted on the neighbours side and you have a record of it. In summary we are trying to record; vegitation height / canopy spread and species. From that we can predict the future growth and how the root growth may impact on the wall. That is what we need to know as SE's say. The above is a long winded way of what the NHBC provide in their design guidance or maybe I have expained how the NHBC guidance can be applied in real life? Next we ask.. how much and how fast are the neighbours trees / vegitation likely to grow? Now that is important as if you want to build a house say we need that information to design the house founds. We also need to know if your neighbours decide to cut down a big tree next to the boundary especially if you house found is only a metre from the boundary. When designing your house found I want to know if trees have been cut down near the boundary on your neighbours side. Turning back to the retaining wall. What we are trying to do is to get a handle on what impact your neighbours planting may have on the retaining wall looking forward. It could be that the trees / shrubs are old and about to die.. thus the movement you see may reduce / stop.. or they could be in their strong junevenile stage and have strong root growth... like teenage kids.. growing every where and trying to take over. Once we have identified canopy size / vegitation type and age then we have some info. We also need to know a bit about the type of soil / water table and so on.. but if I start on that I'll be writing all night. In the round though this is important as the problem may not in fact get significantly worse! which could be good news. Identifying what could happen should drive your strategy to some extent and how you couch your findings / approach your neighbours. Next we need to look at the existing retaining wall construction. Ok the photos should pick up the root growth / weathering of the mortar and so on but we need to look at how much it is off the plumb / possibly unstable. Get a string line and run it say 200 mm tight off the bottom line of the wall from end to end of the boundary wall corners. Do the same at the top. Don't do it on a windy day. At each end plumb the top and bottom line so they are vertically in alignment. DON'T use a spirit level.. use a plumb bob and photograph how you set it up. Take the time to get this spot on. You could use a lazer.. but again this can be easily challenged in terms of accuracy. If you use a spirit level then the first thing folk will say.. is your spirit level accurate.. saying.. I bought it new from B & Q won't cut the mustard in court! Go old schoool use the plumb bob all photographed. Make sure the photos show exactly how you have set up the top and bottom lines. Now you have a top and bottom datum to work to. Next get a straight edge and measure back to the face of the wall and the fence posts etc. Do this say at 3.0 m centres.. allows you to average things.. then take local measurements (odd centres) where the wall is clearly bulging but ALSO where the wall looks ok.. you must be impartial here. Now you draw / calculate a profile of the wall and can identify the real problem areas and compare with part of the wall that may be ok. You may well find that the problem areas coincide with cetrain trees? Now the above will take a bit of time and effort. But if I was acting for you I would want to gather the same info as any another Surveyor / technical bod would say.. The difference between you and I when acting in a professional capacity is folk can argue that my word (SE type hat on) carries more weight that yours cf you with long standing service / good personal reputation in the local the community. To easily resolve this you'll need a "helper" to help you take all these measurements. So long as you work together you can both put your hand on your hearts (the witness) and say.. we did not fudge the results as we relied on first principles.. like a string line and a plumb bob and took photos = someone like me.. Gus. Just don't pick a helper that has a conviction for fraud.. I'm sure you don't associate with the like.. just having a laugh. In summary you may ask.. but I'm not an SE /other professional bod.. so what.. if you think about it.. you can do a lot on your own.. looking / thinking, measuring in a recognised way and recording what you find. Next do a small report.. could be a couple of pages with an appendix with loads of photos. You may know someone that can make it look " more official in terms of presentation" Report.. Keep it factual and really simple. Avoid elaboration in any way as you can dig a hole for yourself if you get carried away. Stick to your comfort zone, the skills you have and avoid stepping into say SE / Geotech areas.. photograph and report what you observe ..don't try and interpret your findings. Report starts with an objective. Objective is to understand how much the wall is bulging and how straight it is.. you don't have to go all SE and say.. too much leaning over /unsafe blah blah.. you are just establishing the profile of the wall. Do not turn the report into what is acalled an interpretive report.. this is where you start to draw conclusions from what you have found / measured. That the report has been prepared based on the fact that you are intending to construct a dwelling within say one metre of the boundary. You are concerned that in doing so you may have to cut the "structural roots" of their trees.. ( pretty sure you are within your rights here just like if I had put the found of my extension on your land.. over to the experts on English law here). Also that as this is intended to be a dwelling house their wall must not pose a safety risk to the dwelling and use of. Next you say.. we have established the tree / shrub height, canopy and species based on observations from our side of the boundary. Lastly you write a bit of conclusion which from what you are saying is: 1/ The wall appears to have deteriorated and this could be as a result of not least a lack of maintenance by you (based on your stated claim of ownership) coupled with the apparent detrimetal impact of ongoing growth of the vegitation and trees on your side of the boundary. You are not interpreting here.. you are saying .. it looks like these are things that could be an issue. 2/ My initial findings based on limited information I have gathered is that the vegitation / trees ect on your side of the boundary will likely result in the wall for which you are responsible deteriorating further... It may be that you find that the trees etc are old and dying.. so that could become a mute point. Think carefully and identify if their trees etc are really a big problem. 3/ Lets say you find that the trees are vigorous.. growing like fury. First point is that you now have a record so you say.. here is the record.. it's your wall / trees etc not mine. But in the interest of public safety this is a potential issue for the "owner of the wall". Leave it at that as they will quickly twig that there could be some liability racking up on their account. 4/ Say that these are your provisional findings. Arrange as you see fit and put that in a "report". Next do a covering letter which says something like.. as well as being really nice to them..as you really want them to come to the table and be good neighbours and you want that kind of relationship also. Here is what I have found / measured. I want to get on and want to identify and resolve any potential issues. Here is my report. Unless I hear from you in 4 ( about 21 working days) weeks then the measurements and photographs must stand for record purposes. Here what you are doing is affording them the opportunity to engage with you. If they challenge your findings it will probaby cost them a bit as they will probably need to involve a professional.. unless they too are on BH say!. If they don't respond then you can say.. well I take it you have accepted my measurements. It may be that if you put together a good looking evidence based report coupled with a pleasant covering letter they will see the light. I don't think you can lose as the report you produce is evidence based and asks questions. Part of the intent is to sow doubt in their mind and makes them think.. hey this could be a bit costly for us if we keep being "difficult neighbours" .. it gets them thinking.. our structural tree roots should not really be on other folks land.. if our trees fall on someone else.. the Police / HSE could be at our door? The factual report is one part.. the way you finesse the covering letter is probably the key. The above is one appoach to getting difficult neighbours to "see the light" .. what you are doing is measuring/ photographing and giving them the opportunity to respond in a like for like manner.. which probably means they have to stick their hand in their pocket also. You basically say put up or shut up.

It's really mysterious to me why reversible multi-split systems aren't more common in the UK. They're reasonably common in the US and some of Europe, but every supplier I've spoken to about them in the UK has answered as if they've never even considered the idea. The worst thing is, nobody has been able to clearly articulate why. Some people say they're not "powerful enough" to heat a whole house (they are) or that they're less efficient or more expensive to run than an air-to-water system (when on paper they're more efficient, because they don't need as big a temperature difference). Of course, aircon is becoming more of a need as the years pass, and that's a nice side benefit of reversible multi-splits; and we've found from our current place with direct air heating that the low thermal mass you get by cutting water out of the equation is really nice. I've seen some posts on here with better information from people who have actually used them, saying that underfloor heating feels cosier and an air blower creates a draught, making the room feel colder, so you can run to a lower thermostat set-point with underfloor heating: this makes more sense. But since it's quite a big decision I did a little more research into what systems are available - especially as heating suppliers are very vague about numbers. After that, it makes a lot more sense why people would shy away from air-to-air. Our house is going to be about 175 sq m and the room layout is such that we'll need 6-8 indoor units. For a start, most multi-split systems only go up to 5-6 units, so we'd probably need to split it into two systems. Second, the smallest indoor blowers I've found are rated for 2 kW of heating, even though most of our rooms would need less than 1. The vendors don't recommend using much more total capacity indoors than the capacity of the outdoor unit (the heat pump itself), so we'd end up with a system with about 15 kW total capacity, even though the house itself is well-insulated and won't need more than 6 kW (and almost certainly less, as we won't need to heat upstairs and downstairs all day). That seems hugely overspecified, while an air-to-water system would be able to do a single 6 kW water loop with no problems, and (with bypass valves) still allow some per-room temperature control. In addition, while there are some air-to-water units that can also do hot water for tops, that's not something you'll get from a multi-split, so there needs to be another solution there for hot water. Given all of this, it's slightly surprising that there aren't systems that can do both: air-to-water for underfloor heating and hot water, with the capability to send refrigerant to a small number of indoor blowers for heating or cooling extra rooms. What do you think about this analysis? Is the need to overspec the system as a whole the downfall of air-to-air systems? Why do you think they're not more common in the UK?

I don't want to get a reputation for being a zealot about A2A, so I'll say some bad things about them for a change: The colours of the outdoor units aren't very pretty and they can look a bit 'downtown Shanghai' on the outside of a building. But seriously, they're not ideal if you need 6-8 indoor units to serve lots of separate rooms (as you've already surmised). However, having recently installed a couple to heat two largish rooms in a new extension over two floors, with intermittent occupancy, I really can't imagine a better solution. In fact, every time I make use of them I can't help but wonder how I could use them to heat our main house. The reason being the speed they heat a space and the tiny amount of energy they use to do it. But I keep coming up against the roadblock of having separate rooms rather than large open-plan spaces. What I am considering is a single A/C unit at the top of a central, vaulted stairway/hall. This space could do with responsive heating in the winter and cooling in the summer and doesn't present any comfort issues with breezes. I've got to work out how much of the gas central heating it would offset to make sure it would make economic sense. But I think a hybrid system such as this should be at the back of everybody's mind.

This is a long shot. Peter Millard did a series of videos about building a door with the corner cut off like those you show above. There might be something on this video series that helps. Hope so Ian

Somebody has to take one for the team...

Thanks! I doubt it's worth calling them. Notice 708 section 13.9 is pretty darn clear ceiling speakers are excluded, I was mostly posting on the off chance I'd missed some other section cancelling out that exclusion if used for security or accessibility or anything. with all the eyes on it here no one is aware of such a counter rule so that's good enough for me. It's just a bit annoying for a smart home installer to have to apportion the materials and charge different vat when the vast majority is zero rated. One might ask if design, install, commissioning and programming should all be apportioned too. I'd be curious how many installers bother.

You mean Loxone Tree cable? 5 core 1.5mm2 flex has all five cores the same diameter. So good for power delivery (or Dali lighting) Tree has 2 cores at 1.5mm2 and 4 skinny wires wrapped up as twisted pairs. So mix of power and data only wires.

Just get a cordless hairdryer. Simples!

Good punt lads. Will check in again in a week to see if they work or if you've bought £100 bricks.

I did that with a heated radiator. I think i fitted a switched spur so there are no cables visible in the other room.

I am looking at washing machine in bathroom and the simplest way looks like a plug on a flex through the wall plugging into a socket in the adjacent room. Could do a switched spur one side with outlet the other but that would mean cutting the plug off.

Always surprised me to find switches and sockets right next to a bathroom basin in Europe. But here it’s a 16A radial protected by an RCBO so presumably safer than a 30A ring final protected by RCD?

He's done it to keep his "visitors" disorientated.

It would make David Brent feel at home.

Yeah, me too.

The edge tiles made me swear - so will leave them until tomorrow. My logic was whole tiles will square the frame …..

thanks for that - the installer told me the LLH and secondary pump (both inside house next to DHW tank) were necessary for my microbore fed rad circuit. It's obviously nothing like the ideal circuit described by Brendon Uys but it's achieving a COP of at least 3.4 which seems quite good under the circumstances although I might try longer WC operation at reduced flow temps.

we would have to break the rules to tell you, but a new member got past the entry checks by being dishonest - trust nobody, not even me, that's my motto, or will be from now on.

Because in the kitchen you are unlikely to be bare footed and standing in a puddle. Hence light switches are allowed inside a 'cloakroom' with wc and basin, but not in a bath or shower room. What's the big deal when pull cords are easy to install?

If you look at my blog you will see that my "plant room" is a (IIRC) 1.4m × 0.7m cupboard off our ground-floor toilet in our utility, the cupboard is separated by bi-fold doors that are normally closed but can also easily be removed entirely if full access is needed. This all works well because I use 2×SunAmp PV units for my DHW. This might give you some ideas. Also @Nickfromwalesmany posts and advice here. But some general comments: Maintenance access is essential. I think you will find access to your DHW problematic. Don't forget your thermal calcs. Parasitic DHW losses will turn this into a hot room. You haven't got many potable HW/CW manifold ports. You want one per end attachment. Sharing just isn't worth. It is worth provisioning a couple of spares during design. Move them nearer to the ceiling. You will get more usable wall space. Water Softener? Well worth fitting. Network / control racking? What is your rationale for a combined ASHP/DHW system? We have separate resistive heated SunAmps. Based on our actual HW use we would never get a payback for the extra complexity / hassle of one of these units. Also remember that like most mechanical / compressor based systems, you might expect a 10-year working like if you are lucky. Also if your main heating is water-base UFH then the flow temp should be ~35°C or less. At this temp, an external monoblock ASHP should deliver an effective CoP of 4. Oh, the pleasures and heartache of detailed design 🙂

Hi buildhub peeps, Found this site by chance and have already learnt so much. Started our self build journey a year ago with getting planning. We break ground 1st March and are super excited and nervous. We are living practically on site and are fortunate to be able to remain in our current home during the build ( a thatched and listed cottage ). Looking forward to asking lots of stupido questions. Wishing everyone a lot of fun and success...xXx

Welcome. No stupid questions here. Just a wealth of knowledge and helpful people.

Thanks both, yes it's just to knock off the "crap" off the top for adhesion purposes, as tiling onto it will just cause the adhesive to fail/unstick from the slab. The slab is level to within 3mm across the whole place, (except one corner where it drops off over a square metre which I can latex SLC over) The slab will be 3 weeks old, and as it's self leveling concrete, the top layer is sort of half screed half concrete anyway, so it's nowhere near as hard as properly cured concrete, but I still might give the scrabbler a go first for the £70 it costs to hire (plus I can pick it up, unlike the 200kg grinder). Off until Monday but I'll report next week how I'm getting on! also I meant 150sqm in the OP, not 150mm! doh

I really wouldn’t worry about this unless you are constantly transferring huge amounts of data around your network . Get an unmanaged poe switch ( netgear for example ) . Plug it all in - sorted 👍

The best you can do with UK regs is a socket just outside the bathroom and a long flex on the hairdryer, or a suitably large bathroom so you can get a socket 3 metres from the bath or shower. Most other countries manage this without lots of people killing themselves. For instance in Australia it is normal to have sockets right next to the shower for the hairdryer and you often find the washer and dryer in the bathroom.

So how come you can put an electrical socket within easy reach of a kitchen sink. I think the regs need updating for bathrooms, with fast acting breakers is there really a risk? and abroad it is always a done thing to have a socket near the sink. This country needs to get a grip of reality, how many people would die per year if you had a light switch in your bathroom, probably zero.

Weak points in a bifold are the frames and sealing. Get overall u value and ask what class wind / water ingress protection they have. Btw, the price you have is very good ... Not sure if that means a low spec product or not. For comparison our solarlux 4.6m bi-folds were £10k+

I can’t see any problem with that

It was meant to be Autumn '22 I believe. There were YouTube comparison videos 5 months ago - so they have at least got early models to reviewers. So, I'm thinking 'real soon now'.

I think the problem comes back to no switches allowed because of possible wet hands, like the light switch in the room being a pull chord. I'm certainly fed up with dragging an extension lead in and it being a trip hazard. I still think the zoning applies: "Electrical sockets are permitted in bathrooms or shower rooms as long as they are located more than 3m from the edge of the bath or shower." Well that excludes us then!

https://renewableheatinghub.co.uk/how-to-correctly-install-heat-pumps-so-that-they-work-properly-and-efficiently

I was actually referring to the entire house but having looked at the sellers photo's I can see that it is in far better condition than I thought. In fact it looks quite finished regarding the interior. Probably worth spending a few bob refurbing rather than pushing the whole lot into a hole with a bulldozer and doing a new build. That's my default answer when it comes to old houses that are in poor condition. Good, it'll need ducting to the wet rooms however given the layout of the house. If it was a compact shape single point extraction from a central room may have given you 90% of the benefits at 10% of the hassle. Consider a future ESHP location when you're installing the extractor and a silencer as it may be loud. I would consider holding fire on the windows and doors for now. The roof is top priority. Excellent, the basics of heat loss calculations will be child's play to you in this case. Well worth getting a handle on the numbers. They often make complex issues very straightforward. They are probably not as awful as the extension with its drastic overglazing. However they are still lightly to be in the region of 1.5-2.0 W/m2K. An order of magnitude worse than a modern acceptable figure. Given their high heat capacity they will resist any sudden changes in temperature, and the interior surface will be close to room temperature leading to good thermal comfort. However they'll still be leaking lots of energy. I'm guessing oil then. Probably worth thinking about an all electric future at some stage, even if it is 10-20 years away. That means induction hobs (brilliant IMO) and ASHP (great if done well, awful if not). PV is far down the list of priorities unless you have a specifically high summer load than can maximise its use. Get the fabric sorted first. @Marvin's AIM-APE nails it. Airtightness,Insulation,MVHR,- ASHP, PV. Yes, flat roofs belong in the Sahara Desert, certainly not in the west of Scotland. Pitched roofs are far more durable, almost never leak, don't suffer from interstitial condensation are cheaper. Easier to insulate and you get space for plenty of insulation and services. You'll need to move that velux. The current roof is too close for comfort to the bottom of it as is IMO. No, it's success is entirely due to marketing. Apart from a few tricky situations which could have been avoided by better designers there is always a better solution to PIR. It's a shallowing of the roof slope at the eaves. In your case to allow continuous insulation between the loft and the external wall insulation. External wall insulation (EWI) comes in many forms. Most common is EPS boards. Phenolic boards, rockwool, woodfiber are all used. They normally take an acrylic or silicone render. These are not cheap or foolproof however and some members have had issues. My neighbour used a special roughcast on EPS . Seems to be lasting well. Less common ways to do it are attaching larsen truss timbers to the wall. insulating between, then a vented cavity and rain screen. I have seen pictures online of metal ties being used to hold cement board away from the wall and create a cavity which was then filled with EPS beads. You could always just build another single leaf concrete wall away from the wall and create a cavity. Cheap and very durable but you'd have an extremely thick wall! There's no issue with EWI and stone walls as the insulation moves the dewpoint outboard of the stone. Infact it will help preserve the wall almost indefinitely provided you do a good job keeping the water out too. Sorry about the planning queries, I know little in this area re the UK. Here's a quick drawing I did of a section through your plans to demonstrate what I was thinking re a really good renovation. On the left is before and on the right is after. The lead flat roof is removed and it is pitched to the apex with a substantial overhang and a raised wall plate detail. Similarly the existing pitched roof is given a bellcast and overhang. You can see how the roof insulation ( loft roll is about £10/m2 at 400mm) joins up with the external wall insulation to mitigate any bridging at the wall/roof junction. The EWI runs outside all the existing wall outside the troublesome steel and solid walls. EPS runs at about £35/m2 for 300mm. It is cheap VS the time and render cost so do as much as you can. Take it right down to the foundation and your heat loss thought the uninsulated(??) floors will be minimal and you won't have to disturb the inside of you nice house at all.

Big subject. Fair bit of recent discussion on the subject here. Lots of potential to cause future issues, Id also use the period property forum, though some of them can be a bit hardcore!

No, and yes we got an EA permit for it, reason for ditch was we are on solid yellow clay so drainage field was a no go.

In Scotland, my BC stated the two shall not meet. I.e 50m rubble drain for treatment plant. Separate soakaway for top water.

Definitely - its instructive to plug in various flow temps. At 35C 'ideal' WC makes about 5% difference. At 55C 'ideal' WC makes 25% difference. My initial calculations were at 45C where 'ideal' WC makes 15% difference.

All of my clientele are building to passive or just below, some above ( NZEB / ZEB etc ), but you’re right to point this out for the masses reading info here. The bigger the buffer ( or buffers ) the closer to input temp you can store at. As I posted elsewhere, if there’s going to be a buffer plumbed in anyways, why not just make it a monster and load shift. Just needs to get you to midday for a cheeky bit of top-up off whatever solar is going begging.

There are different types of spray expanding foam. We used Icynene in our passivhaus which is open cell and with 350mm in the walls and roof we achieved an airtightness value of 0.47ACH without any tapes or membranes. The U value for the walls and roof was 0.095W/m2K and we heated the whole house to 23C with three electric towel rails and warm air from an EASHP in the MVHR system. The house was in East Kent.

My experience is so far is mixed. With the new Part L we're technically only required to design to 55C flow temps where there is a new heating system installation. When it comes to replacing a boiler, it's about ensuring that the new one doesn't perform any worse than the one you're replacing and then that controls are installed that provide either weather/load compensation, or automisation/optomisation, or flue gas heat recovery. There is also a requirement that if you install a new boiler you should also install trvs if there aren't any. The part that does get a bit messy is where you rightly point out that in order to make the system efficient, you ideally need different dhw and ch flow temps. In my experience in many instances it's the boiler rather than the controller that causes the problem, simply because it cannot deal with this difference - it beggars belief the number of installers around me chucking in a certain model Worcester Bosch boiler despite this problem, for example. However, you can find the ones that do, even if the manufacturers might not explicitly tell you about this. I've personally gravitated towards Ideal boilers because they have a separate switched live for dhw that gives a flow temp of up to 80C and a normal switched live that can be set to 55C or lower for CH. Even better, I can install an opentherm controller to the boiler to modulate the ch but still use the 80C sl2 for hot water (it's also possible on some models to set a max boiler water temp to bring down the dhw to whatever you like, if you want). What I've been doing with system and heat only installations is reconfiguring to PDHW using a combination of normally open and normally closed diverter valves that make this system work properly, even in multi-zone installations - basically the normally open valve is used on the ch side and normally closed on dhw and when the cylinder stat calls for dhw heat, it opens the normally closed at the same to as closing the normally open. For controllers I've been using either the Ideal own systems (Ideal Heat & System Halo does support priority hot water, which is good) or Honeywell, but have done and will be doing installs using Nest/Hive/Tado, usually specifically down to customer specifically asking for them. With Tado, I'm still very unhappy with how they've dealt with Opentherm here in the Uk and when I explained what was needed now - a wired unit + wireless extension, a recent customer wasn't too happy either, asking me if I couldn't just get an EU version for them.... Problem is that most customers have no idea how each individual controller works and it's difficult even as an installer to know these things properly. More widely it's a total mess, a lot of installers are ignoring these new controller requirements so they're quite happy to bung in a new boiler and wire it up to existing controls and don't seem to know about modulation. I suspect it's the same for new whole system installations where it'll be rule of thumb. From a customer perspective, feedback has been quite interesting. Only very recently are they asking about flow temperatures and how to best set them up, so the message is starting to get out there. I've just read this. I understand the rationale behind the idea but I think they've missed a number of critical elements and is a bit misleading. For example, you won't get a replacement boiler in just 2-3 days as there's a serious shortage of installers across the whole country, and according to recent industry research only about 1/3 of existing gas engineers are planning to train to do heatpumps, leaving us in a very dire situation for resources. Yes, the boilers are most often distress decisions, but I don't think the library idea necessarily works. If a customer is going to be asked to pay £1500 for the installation of a new boiler that is expected to last for 10 years, it's a bit steep to ask them to front this cost for a leased boiler, for potentially a year or so, something that will impact poorer purchasers much more. I also think they've got to reconsider the reality of making the home heatpump ready. In many instances I think it'll take a good 10 years for this to happen and by then they're better off just purchasing a replacement boiler (from a convenience, cost and function perspective). The one thing that doesn't get much air time, but has been making the rounds much more in the industry press is the hybrid heatpump/boiler, contained within a casing about the same size as your typical boiler. As a transitional idea, this is making more and more sense to me, simply because of the problems we've got with our housing stock and existing boiler install base of combis. It would also help in respect of making the boiler much better at modulating output through the year.

In that case it's far better to insulate the loft floor. Just don't put any under the water tank. You can drape plastic sheet over the tank then put insulation on top and sides. Let the insulation over pipes where possible and lag them well where it isn't. If you want storage build a platform above the insulation. But check the floor joists are strong enough. Sometimes they are only designed to support the ceiling. You should preserve ventilation at the eaves. Air should flow in one side of the house, across above the insulation and out the other side. There are special ventilation tunnels designed to stop insulation blocking air flow when you push it down into the eaves.. https://www.roofgiant.com/fascia-vents/refurbishment-eaves-panels-pack-of-50/

Don’t sit on the wall. It might fall down