Leaderboard

Just a word of advice here, to anyone about to plan / undertake such works. Your local water authority will have very particular guidelines and specifications for this type of work to be done to. Don't let your groundworkers assume that the previous job would be a good enough template to go off!! Ask the LWA for their specifications and learn them up front, on behalf of your chosen contractors, then be sure to ask your groundworkers to tender for THOSE specs vs what they think will be 'acceptable'. Garnish them with copies of everything and make sure they've read and understood it exactly. Measure twice, cut once

@Drellingore It is all to do with exceeding electron shell energy levels and electron 'holes' in the atomic structure. If you can imagine a book shelf and you are hurling books into it, some will hit the wall and bounce back (reflection), some will be too high and miss (jumped up 2 energy states/shells), and others will be too low and fall to the ground (below shell potential). About, in perfect conditions, 40% will land nicely on the shelf. These are the photons that are in the Goldilocks zone. Now the real fun starts. As a photon is easiest to model as a mass less particle at the speed of light, and a massive particle at rest, two different physical principles have to be used. When the photon hits the silicone it has to instantly change states and become a particle with mass. That mass then has to act like a snooker ball and knock an electron out of place. Sometimes this works and the now free electron has to find a hole to fill. This happens about 50‰ of the time. That, and the 40% earlier, account for the efficiency of around 20‰ efficiency of PV. When it does not happen, because the electrons have mass, and are moving, they have energy. There are two rules here, momentum and kinetic energy. Depending on the speed and angles involved, some will heat the module, reducing efficiency, but importantly, reradiating photons (why the module mass does not increase, apart from birdshit and wood smoke particles). Some of the particles will easily find a hole to make a temporary home in, others will have to travel further away. Luckily the silicone is doped with other elements that means, in the lowest energy state, there is an excess of holes. On average, when the sun is shining, there is deficit of holes, so spare electrons find their way out via the wires and to any load in the circuit. If the module is unconnected, it acts like any mass with an energy input and rises in temperature. A similar cycle happens in the load, but in reverse. Why your light shines and your motor turns. As for the 'direction of flow' this is where the very poor analogy with mechanical plumbing breaks down, it was never a good one anyway. Electrons have a negative charge, empty atomic shells (the ones with holes in them) cause the atom to become positive. This creates a 'field' that, like a magnetic field, can do work, but only where the field is disturbed I.e. the load. So basically photons dislodge electrons, electrons then find a new hole, the ones that can't find one locally keep moving, and will eventually do some work, while re-emitting photons. This is only a partial model of what happens. If it was easy to describe, it would not be worth a PhD.

Yep, looks like a scarf joint sitting on the wall, don’t take the wall down!

It looks like the timber is spliced over the wall, which is providing support. Can you get a structural engineer or a decent builder to look at it?

Yes, I think it was Jeremy. A relative tsunami of water has flowed under the bridge since that comment though. We’re not going anywhere but I suspect if I were to show an Estate Agent/prospective purchaser my monthly utility bill it would generate a great deal of attention in the current climate.

You cannot paint over silicon, you can with caulk. Does it need to be painted ? can you get it cut out and decorated, then silicon over the top as a neat finish. Or use a hybrid pu adhesive which is flexible and can be painted.

i built in open countryside via class q. However it wasn’t straight forward by a long way as we wanted to make it bigger than original building . Because of this it had to go to the planning committee and present to 15 people who made a group decision. However we had no issues as we stuck and quoted 100% to planning policy with zero mention of ‘common sense’ or any form of emotion. It’s their job to approval plans that fall into policy - make it easy for them and make sure there is zero risk for them.

Who told you that you need instant heat in a passive house, and why?

Another interesting analysis on the current UK infrastructure supporting RE, its problems and proposing some solutions. https://archy.deberker.com/the-uk-is-wasting-a-lot-of-wind-power/

I think they already are. And not before time.

I can grow a plant from seed for free. I can't grow a solar panel. The installation is nice and easy, you can plant a lot of trees very quickly. I can dig a hole but I can't wire or installed electric/solar panels. I can store energy more easily with a tree. I can't do that with just a solar panel. 100 years seems a long time for harvesting trees. Conifers can grow to a large size in thirty years. We harvested alder trees a few years ago and by coppicing, this could be done again in ten years. Trees capture carbon, solar panels do not. My limited understanding is that solar panels become less efficient over time. How would a thirty-year old panel or in hundred years perform? Where do old panels go, can they be recycled? My energy supply chain is easy to understand with trees. No idea where the panels have come from. Why have a resource come all the way from China or Korea, thousands of miles when I can control the energy I use, meters away from my house? Trees provide a place for wildlife to thrive. If I put down just panels nothing would benefit from this but me. You can buy significantly more land in some areas of the UK than in others. We have at least 100 times the space of an average garden. There are more resources than just firewood from trees, branches, and leaves provides a great resource to the garden. In my location, it is probably more efficient to have a few wind farms which would provide my electricity energy rather than having loads of land for domestic individual solar production. Just to say, I am not anti-solar panels and I would consider them in the future (assuming I can understand where they have come from and how they can be recycled). It was 2 celsius outside when I left the office at 7ish, the house was 18.5 celsius when I came in and I have burned this evening a single round of spruce and probably a single smallest branch from an alder tree. I have heated the house to 22 celsius with this. It's cost me nothing. A big external heat pump would probably have cost me a couple of quid at least to heat the house this evening.

I believe the term being discussed at the time was "eco" house. If I ever sell ours, my focus will be on getting our energy bills in front of potential buyers. Passivhaus doesn't mean as much to most as very low bills.

You could get some 1/4" steel plate and stich down both sides of the timber ( to form a steel splint to join the wood sections together ). Would be entirely possible as long as there isnt any issue with the wood. If it were mine, it would be an RSJ all day long. Steel RSJ's are cheap as chips tbh. But not to run under the joint, I'd go the whole run under the timber, end to end. What is the length of the garage from wall to wall?

Heating exclusively with wood is working just fine for me. I finished our self-build in 2020. Solar panels are going to be more cost-effective in say Kent compared to my location in the Hebrides. Growing trees for biomass heating is going to be more cost-effective in the Highlands than in Kent. Building regulations should allow flexibility for buildings to be designed to suit the environment in which they are going to be located. Blanket bans are a terrible idea. I burn a small trug of logs in the winter evenings mostly from wind-blown trees or from coppicing. In the summer my south-facing glazing is my heating source. With the rebate of £400 and a further one of £200 expected from being off the grid from gas, I will have free energy for 8 or 9 months.

Passivhaus certification will come with a reem of documentation and photos as long as your arm. Importantly detailing the actual build, not the on paper design. More than happy to live in our passivish/passive house as I could see it being built and was able to verify it myself. I wouldn't trust a non certified "passive" house as far as I could throw it. Most I've encountered have double glazing, solar stapled to the roof, an "eco" stove, and airtightness levels so good that it didn't need to be tested.

It is more usual to use power per degree temperature difference, this gives you a kW/K metric. kWh is the amount of energy used and is a function of the time the house is heated, what the 'h' is, hours. You can quote kWh/year, or any other secondary period i.e. day, week, month. But when it comes to sizing a system, kW//K is more useful as you can make assumptions about minimum external temperature and internal temperature. Eternal temperatures can easily be modelled from the CET temperatures. If you take a mean external temperature of 10°C, and a standard deviation of 5.2°C, you can do a normal distribution curve in a spreadsheet that closely resembles reality. Multiply results by 100 to make it a percentage of time. If you want to be on the safe side for heating, the 1980 to 1990 mean temperature is 9.5° and SD 5.3° If worried about cooling, then the mean is 10.2° and the SD is 5.2°C.

@IanR - it's like this: 17m x 9, plus single storey 5m x 5m. Ridge height 8.8m.

Hope you have the floor well insulated, otherwise heating could cost you more instead of less. Just to throw another spanner in the works.

try contacting the supplier they responded to my email quite quickly. https://luxpowertek.com/contact-us also they sent me a user manual which includes a guide to using the phone and desktop app (section 2), I have attached it here Typical Application Instruction（LXP 3-6k Hybrid）.pdf

How big was the gas boiler before? I would try balancing the system to ensure no rooms are overheating. Then in the next cold spell i would try not using any DHW for 24 hours. Record the outside air temperature, the store temperature and each room temperature every hour. If the Thermal Store cannot reach the set temperature then the heat pump is definitly undersized for those conditions. I know it's a pain but you could then say to the installer - look under these reasonable conditions it wasn't able to deliver the heating load alone (no DHW was used).

You need to look at your heat requirements now i.e. what is the requirement in KWH to keep you house warm, what is your hot water requirements etc.. how well insulated and airtight your house is. once you have figures, then you can post them on here and good advice will follow.

Way back when, I bought the 2018 version, and with it the licence to use the online version. £80 odd I think.... I liked it because there was a phase in the build when Price-BullScheiẞe reigned, and I needed lots of stuff which I knew less than nothing about. As a general indication , it was just what I needed. Many folk seemed to think that I had spent too much on a less than accurate text: for me it was more than worth owning because I didn't take their numbers as the definitive. The ability to search the database quickly online was very instructive. For example, I had no idea the MoT3 existed until I bumped into it online. No idea what it was, but SPONS had (has?) a good dozen entries about MoT3. The context of the entry was very informative. To balance those who did not spare their criticism of my purchase, a good few BHubbers PM'ed me privately for a 'quote' Here's what I've written about the subject

+1 on above. Ask him to use polyurethene sealant. Better than silicone in many ways and over paintable.

Totally agree, this is why I almost fell down the stairs when the estate agent who visited us to make the valuation said he'd had punters walk in off the street asking if they had any more passivehauses for sale, like ours! That was 2021. When we bought the house from that estate agent in 2018 (pre retrofit), I had only just heard of passivehaus myself, and they certainly hadn't! So things are changing, and probably even more rapidly with events of the last 12 months

I totally agree, a PH will have lots of proof that it was built well and correctly. The problem is educating people, especially estate agents

Ecology Building Society will give you a discount. The difference between near PH and actual PH is the attention to detail both in the design and building.

its not legally enforceable as “guidance only” and will be subject to legal challenge. I have a draft version - will see if I can find the published one Edited to add I’ve now found the link - here

14 years and counting! lol Heres a detail i've found: https://polyfoamxps.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/10-Bel-DPC-Wall-susp-fl-junc-detail-showing-PF-at-door-threshold-Option-1.pdf

You always have a push-fit or compression fitting immediately off the waste / trap. Some European stuff have a solvent weld fitting on an adjustable / universal joint but I’m not a fan of those tbh. I only recommend what I’ve been doing, leak free, for nearly 3 decades. McAlpine are ‘industry standard’, but other suppliers may do something different / more pleasing to the eye etc. Impey stuff is bombproof. Order as you need things, unless you have safe, secure storage where these things don’t have to be moved out of people’s way every 5 mins.

They may be able to provide a firmware update if it's a known issue, or it could just be some fluke that you won't see again. The induction hob isn't a major issue, it's still supplying the vast majority of the load from the inverter, it just gives a very small amount of "unexpected" import/export.

The advice here sounds a bit like someone being told they don't need four wheel drive, so they only put two wheels on their car. Our (ecodan) ASHP install manual mandates many additional components, e.g. filter, pump, flow sensor, drain valve, expansion tank, PRV, temperature sensors, diverter valve (for DHW), blending valve , safety isolation switch, etc etc etc. Just because someone says you don't need X doesn't remove the need to read the manual and find the list of all the other stuff you do still need.

While the other replies are technically correct In most installs, there's no such thing as "actively" choosing to send it back to the grid. You connect the "grid tied" inverter to the consumer unit, and it generates as much AC as it can from the solar radiation available. The inverter doesn't care where that goes, whether it's either into your kettle or your neighbour's. At the end of the day all the sockets and appliances on your street are directly wired to one another via the mains supply down the street. The only way to stop energy export is to have a non grid tied inverter (meaning your household electrics are not directly on the grid) or install active export limitation. Both of these require most equipment (so more installation cost) than just hooking up grid tie and letting excess go out to the grid. But yes, if you do this the unused solar power goes same place as it would have if you didn't have PV panels in the first place.

Our planning officer and neighbours were much happier when we changed our design to a "modern barn" In fact it was described in the design statement as a minimal barn structure with a traditional form met with a contemporary finish. I very much doubt a farmer would think it looks anything like a barn but planning were happy.

When you say a "contemporary barn style", do you mean a contemporary re-imagining of a traditional barn, or of a modern barn/shed? Traditional barns do tend to have a 45°ish pitch roof, but modern barns/sheds will have a 10° - 15° pitch. I don't know what size of dwelling you are seeking, but from your comments it suggests a moderate to large dwelling. I may be wide of the mark, but the below proportions follow the form of a modern agricultural barn/shed and give a GIA of circa 300m² under a 6m ridge with a 10° pitch. Perhaps you could post some images of what you are thinking of.

Exactly the compromise we worked out - plus in our case making the front flat-roofed, in the process losing at least one room. Keeping our eye on the prize - permission or not - was quite difficult when it got to that stage in the discussions. It was also critical to point out that our cladding would, over time, go silvery grey, just like many local barns. We used what has become contraband: Siberian Larch.

I decided to go with ufh in my renovation then decided last minute to put this on a heat pump, so it wasn't really designed just thrown together. Initial advice was as its just ufh on the heat pump I wouldn't need buffer or anything like that. But obviously no one thought to advise on expansion vessels. The pressure has stayed within the max for the heat pump as the temp hasn't got that high yet, so will fit an expansion vessel ASAP!👍

The induction hob switching can confuse the inverter, here's my grid usage when pulling an average of 900W to the hob but oscillating around this point as the inverter tries to keep up: This would probably explain your messy spike just before two, but it does not explain why the inverter didn't pull from the battery at all for the spike just after two. If your installer is slow to respond you can try the inverter/battery manufacturer directly.

No. Mine must be 15 years old now, but the AXT Rapid looks very similar. it works by a rotating worm screw grabbing the wood and squeezing it past a blade. It is great at grabbing a stick then pulling in all the minor twigs and leaves. Ok for sticks up to about 20mm dia I have also borrowed one that has a rotating cutting blade. It's good for long sticks but they have to be pushed. No good for small stuff. I am not using it.

Yes, this CT clamp detects the import/export power to a given accuracy. The arrow is to ensure it is installed the correct way as reversing the clamp will reverse the polarity of the reading. Are you cooking with an induction hob, or just a simple resistive load like an oven?

Great if that is working for you, but for my application planners were not concerned- main reason being the village has an ecclectic mix of architectural styles, which we stated in the design and access statement. Also on demonstrating how you meet policy and make it easy for the planners is kind of difficult in Green belt when the key policy statement is the replacement dwelling must not be “materially larger” - and nobody really knows what this means including the planners. Our planning consultant said it would be interpreted as around a 30% uplift in GEA, but that was not enough for a bungalow on a substantial plot with many larger houses on the same road. But apart from GEA uplift what does materially larger mean in terms of ridge height, eaves height, volume? - no one knows how to interpret the policy. Then you get into more woolly policy wording eg that it shall not impact openness of the countryside, which means… I think it does help if you can actually talk to the planners if your LPA will permit this. We put in two pre-application advice requests and one full planning application and never got to speak to a planner.

Well, to pick up on this topic, I've now had enough of Tado and I gave the product a chance. Here's why: A customer contacted me to ask if would install a Tado on their s-plan system. I said I'd be happy to help. Boiler was a Vaillant and I recommended they use Vaillant's own system but they insisted on Tado. So, I called Tado installer technical department and told them what i wanted to do. Yes the technical support said, all you need to do is: 1. buy the wired thermostat 2. buy the add-on receiver from the professional store. Big caveat was that despite saying their system supports digital control, they told me they do not guarantee that it will work with Vaillant's ebus. Okay, customer still happy to have a go. So, on this advice customer orders all the kit and today I go to install it all only to find out that the add-on receiver does NOT support low voltage digital control but 230v relay only. I call the installer technical department to ask WTF only to be told that no, it is not possible to have a wireless modulating control with an s-plan using Tado reciever to control ch and dhw valves, not even Opentherm. I kind of went through what I'd been told and received a rather unhelpful re-assertion that the product I'm after doesn't exist. So what is the real story?????? Of course I can't phone their installer technical helpline to check now can I??? All I can say is a total load of (expletive deleted) rubbish. And then don't even get me started on the smart trvs with plastic adapters trying to get them to properly attach to existing 'heritage' trv threads and not fall off.... Clearly Tado and I have not got off to a good start. Meanwhile my Honeywell evohome ticks away, modulating my boiler nicely and reliably and provides easily accessible control to each zone doing everything it said on the box.

My first thought was fire as well. If a fire starts and the side door is blocked, how do you get out? Would need to see a drawing.

Your biggest concern is probably escape in event of a fire, see section 2 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fire-safety-approved-document-b I'm not sure what regs are around altering the front elevation - might need approval to alter front elevation, and possibly increase thermal properties to match the wall

You can be as emotional as you like. But not letting that emotion be be communicated to others : thats the hardest trick. And especially hard to prune emotionally loaded phrases from passages of text. So much money time and effort is involved. It's very hard work.

This thread... It's doing me good because I thought I was the only idiot not to have installed enough sockets. She who must be obeyed works occasionally in Ghana. I'm waiting for her to go there for a week or two to so that I can install extra sockets. If I'm clever about it she won't even notice when she gets back

Are they highly inaccurate statements? Every single house ive ever been into with a wood burner, you can smell it. That means combustion products are in it. And that includes the sub 2.5 micron particulates. Frankly i dont care if you want to poison yourself, but i do care when those activities caause me to suffer. Visible smoke isnt the issue. Its those small particulates. You cant see those. I get there are circumstances in rural locations where its probably not a real problem for others, but for houses connected to the gas network? Really?

Ok we will set up a factory then. OSB is made close enough to see the smoke from the factory...oh ..smoke!!!?? But they only use whole tree trunks. No recycling as far as I know ( and they would tell us). Seriously though, I was once dismantling a 1930s shed, made with lots of high quality pine trusses. First nobody wanted it reclaimed (despite the county council sponsoring a sheltered workshop to take it and sell back.) Just words. Secondly we couldn't get it taken to the waste incineration plant (20 miles away, but not what they take). Words. Thirdly , no waste company would take it other than as mixed waste. Fourthly, I contacted a government quango that was promoting reuse, re- etc. They had very nice representatives and beautiful brochures (Would I like a few?) I asked them for a sustainable solution. No idea. But it is what you are for, and only that. Nope. So we gave up and let a demo company take the lot. It probably went in a field. That was Kent. Offcuts in Highland? There is no incineration...all unrecycled goes to tip. We had perhaps a couple of barrowloads maximum. So I am still thinking that burning it is pragmatically appropriate.. Saves electricity. Doesn't rot underground. No transport. I should also emphasise that, being diy, the cutting is thought out and waste is a miniscule proportion, so fewer trees died than with your average builder.

I am fed up with these terribly written articles in the papers and media every other day giving wood burning stoves (WBS) a bad name. I have written to many of the broadsheets "environmental editors" when they run inaccurate articles pointing out the mistakes. The one I love to debate is the often reported, yet highly inaccurate statements about the WBS smoke coming into the room in which it operates. I collect, pre-season, split, stack and season all my own firewood; softwoods and hardwoods. I reckon I am on about a 36month seasoning process with the firewood I have just now. I use pine kindling and some smaller softwood logs and a piece of hardwood or two to get the stove lit, I manage the start up in that I keep a close eye on it, lots of air, get the fire caught well, you want to get the flue warmed and get a nice draw, at this stage. Usually seen when outside getting an armful of logs, there is a gentle whisp of smoke from the chimney. Once the fire is going well, I close down the air supplies to normal running mode and let it go. I was outside most of yesterday with the stove on inside, I saw no smoke all day. The issue is idiots with stoves.

Instant heat is the last thing you want in a passive house. You want a very low level of near constant heat to match the very low level of heat loss.

Coming back to this thread I'd recommend anyone looking at improving a small cottage to read up on Downies Cottage. https://www.historicenvironment.scot/archives-and-research/publications/publication/?publicationId=134ef4b1-90e5-4dcc-b1da-a6dc00a9b4ee Google will provide more results once past the holiday listing website. And absolute beauty of a property wonderfully modernised and improved while still keeping all its charm.