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Finally made a start in earnest. The original plan was to stick build on site, but the cabin builds opened my eyes to the winds up here, and established concern for getting the house airtight. I priced ICF, and although the costs are higher in the begining I think, I can self build for similar money, but get a far superior product. This is a budget build, most of the nice to haves have been dropped. The only redline is we want to ensure this is future proof, so all on the ground floor. Around 12 months ago the area where the house is going was stripped down to bedrock. The initial plan was a DIY insulated raft, but the move to ICF opened up a more traditional strip footing using the ICF. Back in February we hired a 360 with a pecker to break out some of the rock to lower the NE corner, as the bed rock slopes to the SW. Bed rock exposed looking East NE corner We broke out and removed around 400mm of rock along the W and N elevations, the break out got shallower towards the SW corner. The main aim here was to reduce the height of the house on the SW corner, we will be bringing the ground level up to minimise the impact. We also need to strip some rock of the slab area to allow for the 300mm insulation. This week, thanks to an understanding BC officer, ( still waiting for the revised certificate of design to change the building warrant, but he's happy for me to proceed with the old warrant for the time being👍❤️). We made a start preparing. The plan is to shutter the strip foundation. First step was to level the strip with layers of compacted 40mm to dust stone, and also level the bedrock for the slab. Ready for stone looking W Starting on the North trench we barrow in the stone and compact. Adding more stone in layers and compacting, the backhoe loader was doing some of the grunt, but the leveling was all by hand, 100mm layers at time. looking NE Took the decision to build the sub slab to what will be the same level as the strip footing, this allows for the Radon barrier to be put under the strip up the side and then on top of this sub slab, then all services will be above the radon barrier and below the insulation in another layer of compacted hardcore. The main reason for, what will be a fiddly taks of having the radon barrier under the strip, is that the strip footing has 288 starter rebars and sealing these penetrations would be worse. Once the strip is poured we will finish of the back filling and install the radon barrier. More stone looking East So 5 days in me and Mandy have moved levelled and compacted 70T on 40mm to dust. And around 5 ton of quarry dust, this is used up here as an alternative to grit sand for blinding and pipe bedding. The shuttering is 150*50 timber that will be leveled then the radon barrier folded to form a tray, later to be joined to the slab. I'm going to use 6mm threaded rods to link the two shutters together, preventing any spread when the concrete is poured. Hopefully next week the ICF arrives, in I've got a 10 hour round trip to collect rebar. For a tank of fuel and a days driving I can save around £500 collecting from Central rebar in Aloa. For info, £930+ / ton direct Inverness suppliers (100miles away) we're after between 1250 & 1500/ton plus delivery charges ranging from £200 / £350 plus vat.

that's for a structural engineer to determine. there are some SEs on this forum ( @Gus Potter is one that comes to mind) who might be able to assist but I think you need to take a breath and wait for the other SEs you've engaged to respond. you've done the right thing putting things on hold so take the time to get a second or third opinion and when you have more information make an informed decision.

As a professional no one wants to claim on their PI, it's a matter of honour, it's not like other types of insurance as far as I am concerned. These things happen, I was a novice self builder too and part of my problems came from inexperience and thinking I could manage without the origional architect. Keep your cool and accept it's going to cost something. Stuff ups do happen even to experienced builders, and there are ways round things and compromises might be possible with open discussion. Building is stressful, but if you lose it, people can walk (unless that is what you want) and you could be left with an open house, so try to stay calm in your dealings with them. Ask everyone for their suggestions of how to move forward and see what might work. Get the best advice you can from here and have new conversations to figure out a way forward together. If you stay friendly with the builder, he will have your back, and have some guilt, if not responsibility, so try to stay on good terms with everyone. Is there anyone you can ask to help with the difficult conversations?

The main problem is that novice DIY'ers just don't ask the questions they need to, when they need to. I've just been detailing a window and door installation for a client and the window fitter wanted to frame-fix everything. Let's just say that he is now using the correct manufacturer-specified fixings, and they're not being fixed within 20mm of the face of the ICF core!! Client pays me to oversee / act as a sounding board for whatever he doesn't know, and we can (usually) iron out these creases whilst the job is still on paper. A quick sketch from your builder would have shown the sections and you could have then said "STOP", and then done a re-work. Steel beams deflect, and the sliders themselves will expand, so that is another important detail, but this does sound OTT, listening from afar.

I splashed out on a very swish Makita combi which is now stuck in Hammer mode. It's heavy. I rate the Aldi tools and the gap isn't large enough to justify the price difference in many cases. They have a DIY event tomorrow so check out their Specialbuys website.

Myself and my wife had fours hours this afternoon fitting three sets of sliders an hour prep then an hour per set Whilst I’ve fitted a few bifolds The last time I fitted a slider it came with lots of trims to fit together Due scaffolding hire I had to do the render first Which meant I had to measure the doors quite tight No need for lots of foam

Very Smart

The bitter sweet. All my appliances in the property were stolen by last year’s builders. I couldn’t get myself to report them to the police. I am keeping a diary and trying to find some sense through distant friends who have gone through the difficulties in their build as well. Thank you for supporting me here. I truly appreciate it.

Seriously, you are not the only one. Nearly everyone here has felt super stressed out occasionally or regularly and lost a lot of sleep, which sends you round the bend. This will get sorted somehow, and it will be a distant memory next year when you have your lovely new kitchen. I find writing things down helps. Make charts of possible solutions and the pros and cons. Think of ways to save money to mitigate, such as using your old appliances for a while etc. Ask here for suggestions. Do something to take your mind off it for a while.

SE is charge / discharge on my command . PW meets my load requirements - if you see what I mean

Pw meets any demand in the day . So we’re ok upto 5kwh . If demand exceeds that it will use as much PV as it needs . I can manually do all kinds of things like cope with a load of over 8kwh - but that’s rare

what happens during the day if the house is using more than is being generated? will either of the batteries discharge to make up the difference? sounds like during the day both the batteries are set to charge only is why I'm asking.

I was the piss poor builder 🤣

SE over spec to allow for piss poor builder to ensure there isn’t a claim on their insurance..

I assume that it is B1 that is an issue, so nothing to do with bifolds? The span for the knock through is really wide and needs a deep beam to provide support. 400mm drop down into the room is a lot though and I can imagine spoils the open look. Perhaps a bit more thought at the design stage would have given a better solution.

He has over specked But probably not by as much as you think The problem with bifolds is If the beam above settles Even five mil They won’t close and he’s liable

I had a whole week of negotiations and arguments. He promised to take all of it down and rebuild to specs using another set of builders with building regs on top of things before they leave site again. He said I will not be charged for any of it.

You are absolutely. All of this will be knocked down and rebuilt from ground up. The foundation was the only thing that’s passed.

All is very well in multi verse So! 00h to 11h SE is set to only charge from clipped solar ( anything over 3.68 ). So PW gets main pv generation 11h to 16h SE is set to charge off pv . Its max rate is 5kwh . So anything over that goes to PW . Effectively we’ve swapped the trickle At some point before 16h everything will be 100% full . We export at 25p kwH 16h to 19h Set SE to export ( it will supplement any pv ) . PW will at some point begin export as we are in flux peak time band Exporting at around 35p kwH After 19h . Exporting stops . SE will discharge into PW . Enough to get us through the night . Rinse and repeat . 😎

Yes ! “ Black n Gold all the way ! “ Reminds me of a specialist film I watched once …

Plus 1 for above, I hate coring holes, horrible clutchy drill. Especially anything over 127mm

Look out, @pocster will be here soon waving his Black & Decker around 😆

I have loads of 18v Makita stuff and find the eBay 5ah batteries as good or better than the genuine Makita ones

Try telling teenage boys that. They only know how to turn it all the way and don't realise you can actually have it at another setting 🙄

Landscape fabric is used to hold the soil together, improve moisture retention and prevent weed growth. You’ve got 100mm of compacted MOT, then a mortar bed then tiles. What purpose do you think a fabric layer will provide. Google laying a patio and you won’t see a fabric layer anywhere.

I think you are out, should be 0.3p Mine is the most expensive in the land and was 0.53p/litre last year I think.

Well putting a fabric over the mot before laying will be more than pointless - actively negative. mortar needs something to bind to.

An update and a milestone. Each week I log all my meter readings, import usage, PV generation, ASHP consumption etc. Today, entering the figures into my spreadsheet revealed that I have self used £1499.79 worth of electricity since installing the PV. That has taken 4 years and 16 weeks to achieve that. It's all free now baring equipment breakdowns, That is shorter than the initial estimate of 6 years, due to the higher cost of electricity now. If electricity had been as high as it is now right from the start, payback would have been just 2 1/2 years. Starting to think of an addition to the system now.........

100% agree Cold roof is so easy

cold roof, less to go wrong. hybrid roof is much worse to get right than a normal warm roof.

Its no secret, loads of us have used them : Tanners in Eire. Superb. Saved the price of their fees many times over.

I think theres a few that do bespoke cylinders and you can have more or less what you want where you want so coils/tappings/connections can be put where you need them for the space/piping/accessibility youve got. Have a good think what you need, tell them and they'll lead you on the design. We used a copper cylinder manufacturer in Newark who were good.

I have a Solar iBoost that connects to the single emersion heater which heats the water to 60C+ on a sunny day. The legionella functions in the ASHP are disabled and there in no connection from the ASHP to the DHW immersion heater.

You can tell you are 'lakelandfolk'!

It will be more efficient to heat the water with the HP while the temp is low enough. You might need to arrange a timer and/or a tank stat so that you close the valve from the HP to the coil and switch on the iBoost or off-peak when the tank gets as hot as the HP can achieve. This will also overcome @ProDave's objection as the water will still get as hot as it used to. Gledhill have an enormous range of tanks in lots of configurations and IIRC will also make specials to order.

Cylinders2go, will make configuration you want, I believe, so will most UK manufacturers.

The water from an ASHP is usually heated to a lower temperature, so while a 210L tank heated from a boiler may be adequate, a 200L tank heated to a lower temperature from an ASHP might not be. Top mounted immersion heaters are a poor relation, as another recent thread has shown. Is there no way you can get a vertical tank in?

1. Yes 2. Yes. You could use an ordinary timeswitch to pull in a 16A changeover contactor during your off-peak hours but have the n/c contacts going to the PV at other times. This would also meet the requirement for Legionnaires' protection with a longer period once a week. I envisage it all going in a 4-module DIN enclosure which any competent electrician should be able to wire up for you. 3. Some HPs have/need built in boost heaters (see elsethread re Daikin), some don't. The buffer tank is a convenient place to put it if not, CoolEnergy fit them as standard. They also can provide extra heating power in extreme cold weather if the spec is marginal. Technically you could do it but the PV is probably more valuable to firstly run the HP and then top up the DHW cylinder temp after the HP has had a go at it.

1. yes, but the heat pump would not be able to complete the legionnaire cycle, so would see push back from the installer. Do you need a legionnaire cycle if you are using DHW daily is questionable. 2. No idea The buffer with immersion, will be there to make up any short falls in heat pump performance on a colder day than design conditions. It would kick in short the ASHP not be able to cope. May be waste connecting iboost, as PV performance in the heating system is rubbish

That doesn't explain why "it can't be done" is given as a response to feeding from an RCBO though. Quote blind. Offer to allow third party cylinders etc. But refuse to use a way in a CU? They're absolutely provisioning to submeter these at a later date; at the only location within the dwelling that they're permitted to install utility company infrastructure. And they're lying to you if there they say that hat pumps can't be fed from a CU. Not a reason not to take up the offer. But not the truth. 😉

You'll be better off replacing this, using 1/3rd of the PV to heat it via the heat pump, and being paid to export the rest. And you'll have to replace it if you want the BUS as it's a condition that the heating AND hot water are supplied by the heat pump for this. Replacing an OSO with a 200 litre slimline cylinder is a backwards step though. The joule cylinder is naff, insulation wise, compared with your OSO. It's also small at 200 litres. (if you're expecting efficient hot water production by storing at lower temperature than you would with direct electric) They're advising a sCOP of 4 in the letter. You're not getting that with that heat pump and a 50C design temperature and a small cylinder. 3.5 at best. You're responsible for all the real fiddly work here too (making good). The maintenance package will be a waste of time. I see nothing about the antifreeze method in there or where they'll be putting the main iso valves and drain down points etc. Personally I'd avoid glycol in a home that's regularly inhabited in an area where the electricity is reliable. I doubt you'll find any MCS ticketed installers offering it for less though. They're keeping cost effective smaller outfits out of the game by making it too difficult to comply with all the BUS paperwork; with the BUS being too big an amount for them to compete on an offering that doesn't have BUS support.

Agree. MCS worksheet massively overestimates ventilation rate too. It's likely that real world *average# ventilation rate for bathroom will be less than 3 ACH. So existing is fine.

They're dishonest little toads. They *can* use an RCBO from the existing CU. They want to bring it all the way back to the meter cupboard such that l later then have the option to sell you a utility company owner widget, installed in your meter cupboard, that can cut forcibly the supply to the heat pump at times of peak use etc - whilst leaving the rest of the house untouched. They won't tell you this openly though. Instead they'll lie about being unable to use the RCBO.

COOLENERGY Invertec ASHPs: Fuse for this should be a Type C MCB. See installation manual page 15. Cable for a 10kW could be 4mm, 6mm, 10mm,16mm.... depending on what cable and how your fixing/what your fixing it to or encasing it in. A good example to help: https://www.doncastercables.com/technical-help/ Good luck Marvin

The Cool Energy 10kW only needs a 20A MCB so I very much doubt a Daikin 8kW needs more. Technically 2.5 mm^2 cable is sufficient for the current but for a 20m run I have a feeling you would need 4 mm^2 because of voltage drop. Would it be longer or shorter taken direct from the meter? If they do take a new supply from the meter position they will have to fit Henley blocks and a new mini-CU with main switch as well. They may deliberately be trying to avoid the HP using the batteries. However as Nick implies, if there is a current transformer that can be moved to a point nearer the meter than the HP connection this will put the HP inside the control loop if that is what you want. But you may find that 19kWh does not go very far when it comes to daily HP usage. (OTOH it is twice as much as I have for a 4-bed barn conversion.) Over what range of SoC do you routinely exercise it at the moment? This will give you an idea of the spare capacity available for the HP.

All depends where the CT clamps reside?

Presumably that's something to do with the meter box being a more convenient location than your CU. There's no technical reason why they cant use your RCBO unless more than 32A are required. No.

Go back and challenge. This is nonsense, sorry !!

Direct from the meter box? For some people (me) that would be completely impractical. Octopus don’t cover my part of Scotland for ASHP installs anyway.

Whatever you pay yours @nod, it's not enough.