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I have also found a refrigerated shipping container, that potentially saves the hassle of getting things framed out and insulated as it would already be done…

Good question. The Engineer will produce a fairly standard proposal using traditional techniques so I'd say let them get on with what they do. However, I'd suggest you use 2, maybe 3, off the shelf rooflight units. That will provide plenty of light. They are much cheaper to buy and install if standard and small. Say 2m x 1 at most. £600 each. They are also easy to support efficiently with secondary framing. Think about that, then tell your Engineer your proposal and let them do their stuff. Then it will be a straight forward job that builders will be happy with.

That is a substantial room and done well it could be a terrific room. It looks as if it’s pretty bloody cold on there too! Your starting point really needs to be what do you envisage using this room for. If money was no barrier and you turned into a wonderful entertaining space would you use it? Done well it would add real value to the house. Alternatively you say you don’t need the space so the other extreme is remove it completely and regain the garden space in what is potentially a sun trap. No matter what you do it won’t be cheap to do it well.

Brilliant. Where do i sign up. Oh wait? I just need a spare £200k. Seems to be a major flaw in that plan................................... Edit to add, looks like ill be going down that rabbit hole. For one simple reason, much as i would love to build a new house, and explored just about every possibility, the reality is, it wasnt affordable. Wasnt then, isnt now, isnt going to be either.

My view is keep things simple. Never really seen the point of ducted ASHP pipes, when you can simply come through the wall then clip pipe to wall and insulate very easily. You seem to devote two rooms to plant, consider merging into one room. Do the MVHR inlet and outlet on the same wall otherwise you encourage a mismatch of pressures and unbalanced flows depending on the wind. Consider a combined directional grille, if it simplifies duct routing. You need drainage for the MVHR unit as well. Not sure why you need a radiator in a plant room, when you have the UFH manifold and cylinder in same room. Consider bringing inverter inside Don't buy into the put the ASHP on the south side, they consume so much air it's ambient air temp they see and half their life its dark anyway.

Heya , I'm 'self-self building' small dimension timber frame structures [Doug Fir] to learn how to eventually build a house ... car tyre and gravel foundations , 63 by 38mm studs , joists and rafters - sheep's wool + straw bale insulation , tyvek and slim board cladding for walls and the roof , - with 8mm timber panelling and clay plaster frames on the inner walls and cathedral ceilings , plus oiled 20mm boards on the floor ... refurbished 2nd hand doors and windows .

This scheme is going through planning near us. https://www.cromartyhydrogenproject.co.uk/ It is an "electrolyser" plant to be build close to one of the wind farms near us. So it will take electricity from the windfarm and electrolyse that to produce "green hydrogen". So dig down and find some more details. The water will be conveyed from a pumping station at a water treatment works about 20 miles away. So that will be potable or near potable water pumped nearly 20 miles and about 400 metres up. The hydrogen produced will be taken by road transport to a number of distilleries to "decarbonose their energy supply" My thoughts: This wind farm does not have "surplus" generation, everything it generates goes to the grid. Anything taken from the wind farm for the electrolyser just means less goes to the grid for general use, which in the real world results in more fossil fuel used to generate the "lost" electricity. The water to electrolyse needs to be pumped there, So that is energy use I bet they have not thoroughly accounted for. I hope the trucks transporting the hydrogen are themselves powered by hydrogen. But the final thought, would it not just be simpler for the distilleries just to use electricity for their production? I refuse to believe electrolysing water to make hydrogen, then transporting that hydrogen by truck to then burn it can produce more power to the end use process than just using electricity from the grid. If ever there was a case of "greenwash" this has to be it? If schemes like this that are at best "creative" with the facts are allowed to proceed then we are all being conned that they are "solving" the problem.

thanks guys. as I work my way through the detailed connections from the relays to the terminal blocks I think I'm going to run out of relays. 😢 I really don't want to fork out for another relay so I might have to leave a few non-essentials out for now and see if I can add them at a later date. but I'm not finished with the design yet so it might still all work out ok! we will see. 🤞

That ties in well with what I heard last year, onshore wind turbines (allowed in Scotland) with hydrogen plant in the base, lorry comes around to collect it on regular basis. The tech issue is storage without great expense.

We've switched a few lights like this for 8 years, no problem.

Not something I've tried to do domestically, but here are some thoughts. The initial one being that putting 2,000W into such a confined space may need an alternative solution, if it will really be that much. The AC fan you mention runs at up to 205 CFM - that's 350m³/hr, albeit half speed may be enough to keep the temperature down. But that is going to disturb the operation of a regular MVHR system. It may be OK if free of obstructions, but if you're sucking 200m³/hr past it anyway... As a rule of thumb, an unobstructed 10mm gap below a door is good for up to 40m³/hour. So you'd be looking at a fair sized gap. A dedicated air supply may be a better option - or perhaps fit a mini aircon unit instead of fans, which would work alongside the MVHR.

My personal preference is to wet plaster with bonding coat and then multi finish but it does take time to dry, I’ve never been a fan of dot and dab, too much that you can’t see can go wrong

Yes, the Miniserver relays are rated at 10A

Why bother?

It may work out cheaper to pay for a rebuild every now and again (and associated legal fees) than employ 40 clerks of works (or however many are needed for current contracts).

A bit more pumped storage may be better (hydro or air). Thermal storage is probably the cheapest and easiest way to store surplus, and we already have the infrastructure for that. Just make E7 E8 or 9 some days.

My father was one, working for 'the client'. He was allowed to crit the architect's proposals, then did spot checks on quality through to completion. But even these decades ago there was some inferior work and crazy design ideas that the architect insisted upon. He was known to take the jacket off (but never the tie and cap) and show a joiner or plasterer how to do it properly. Nowadays there are site managers and 'Client's Representatives' . More likely Surveyors than ex trades. But in these house problems, the developer has total control and could have Clerks of Works if they wanted: but they don't.

Most the road transport is completed by another company, one of wife's relatives works as a driver, they have hydrogen and electric lorries on order apparently - on the order of the distillery companies.

Apparently they're making a (small) comeback - https://www.building.co.uk/focus/the-return-of-the-clerk-of-works/5090855.article

The casing is gelatine like they use in the pharmaceutical industry. It’s not really paint but a water soluble dye.

Oh dear. You don't need us to tell you it's badly done, even if it was a good idea. Seems to have cracked already too, which will let water in. It will crack more. It will absorb and hold water and fall apart over a few years, and may damage the tiles and valley. If there was already a genuine issue with the valley, then this makes it worse. I'm not a roofer so someone else may add more. But I would want that removed asap. By a roofer who would try to save the tiles and then deal with what is exposed.

Agree with Kelvin, and as you know it could be a stunning space. My first thought was an Orangery type roof using the existing structural opening. This type of option cf a lantern can have particular features if done in timber that can't be so easily achieved with say aluminium profiles. Could fit well with the existing Architecture? There are diferent schools of thought in terms of number of say roof lights. One valid point is if you have a few huge panes of glass and one fails = costly to replace. This is something on my mind for my own house. When you look carefuly many of the glass unit manufactur's only guarentee the units for 7 years. If using the Orangery / pitched roof type lantern you have more scope to get opening roof vents in, not saying you can't get opening flat roof lights mind you. It looks a faily sheltered spot so you should reduce any risk of them leaking when windy after a few years of use. You may find the existing structure is ok, maybe needs a bit of beafing up. Probably the most challenging bit will be to get the flashing details sorted out as you have lots of awkward shapes around the edges of the flat roof. You'll probably be doing this anyway but look at doing the minimum and see if you can leave the existing flat roof as it is, just give it a bit of love. Then work you way up in terms of complexity vs return on appearance / improved insulation.

That's be closer to a £50k budget in my mind to take it all down and rebuild it. Depending on where in the country you are on value for money. Central London yes, up north probably not! I'd probably look to reroof, broadly similar, look to maybe dig down and retrofit UFH! Overboard with insulated pb....

Should have asked here first and saved myself some extra pre Christmas stress 😂 I'm just going to leave it with Thames and see what the builder wants to do. Thought I would try and help him out by getting all the services sorted. I think we just crack on with the demo and use existing supply and he can put it where he wants/thinks is best. Probably don't need a garden tap where our supply comes in, so maybe we run a new pipe next to the kitchen and have the temp supply there and he can just connect up once the house is up.

Nip back up to a previous comment Make it a second thought to drive the thermostat ever upwards. Price it so it more expensive, give them a free option to greater efficiency, a warmer house and 20% energy cost reduction. Environment wins, their energy costs go back to where they previously were before they added costs to gas prices.

What’s your suggestion? It’s more a scale thing. For all the thousands of extensions etc that make up the biggest proportion of applications it likely works mostly ok. For large complex builds it doesn’t as there is an expectation that the developer is doing it correctly and checking the work which they clearly aren’t in some cases. The consequence of failure in this case is going to cost David Wilson homes many millions to fix. Maybe there also needs to be very harsh penalties for failures too to act as a deterrent.

You need insulation to stop noise transfer. Otherwise every step upstairs will be amplified. It's also a requirement of building regs. UFH in bedrooms is rubbish. We have it and it's never the correct temperature as the response time is so long. Either nothing and electric points for electric heaters (if required later) or radiators. That would be my advise.

We. have UFH GF and radiators ont the first floor We’ve been in five years and never used the rads The first floor temperature seams to mimic the GF

Only the 250 If I was using regular Id get the next one up on a trolly with a longer hose

Graded roof tile battens should not split

Or..... Allow A2A to be easily fitted (planning reform) with a subsidy to make it cheap say £500 for a 6kw 3 room split system. Zero impact on existing system. Just installed "over the top" (literally as pipe work would run along ceilings and top of walls) of the existing system. A2A works to efficiently heat in shoulder months and mild winter. Old system only called on to add supplemental heat in the few cold weeks and provide hot water.

Like @JohnMosays that's fine, it moves so much air that unless you can move it to the south of France the north side will make little difference. Kitchen tap (run in 15mm) is the one you need to consider. Run basins in 10mm pipe and you'll have tiny dead legs. Washing machines almost exclusively use cold only feeds nowadays. I wouldn't consider this vital but would ensure that any leaks could drain via floor level drain. UVC will need a tundish and discharge. A pull up drying rack is always nice. External MVHR ducts can be noisy so consider this. What is your planned construction type?

I would consider upping the batten size to 38*50 or 25*75mm as the smaller ones might split. On our ceiling we didn't use end noggins, just allowed the plasterboard to sail between battens. It was held up by a 20mm sand cement layer on the walls however.

Im not sure that much of a reason to leave it as it is?

Assuming the downlights are LED and not halogen, there is no danger per se, from the wiring perspective, but the bulbs still get hot, and whilst not enough to burn it can shorten their lifespan. Loft Legs to a lid, a plastic housing which you put over the down light and silicone to the back of the plasterboard for this application, and also keeps things nice and airtight, if that’s what your going for

I now, after having tried everything else, use a wheelbarrow and three buckets. Bucket 1 has everything to do with drilling or driving , drills, bits, batteries Bucket 2 , cutting screwing, sawing, spanners Bucket 3 , commonly used other stuff, hammers, ticklers, nagglers, measuring, lasers, extensions , levels I visited @Jeremy Harris place once. He threw everything into one wheelbarrow. Full. To .The .Brim.

MVHR: ensure the intake and exhaust are on the same face of the building so they are exposed to even wind pressure.

I've long been suspect of GSHPs. They're effectively an interseasonal solar store, harvesting sunlight during the summer and releasing it in winter. However given the variability if water levels, thermal conductivity of soil, moisture content of the soil, vegetation on the above ground, direct sunlight on the ground above it's a massive mess of variables. To call it an accurately engineered solution would be a stretch. More lightly to just oversize it a bit and hope for the best. Localised freezing can occur, moving the soil and mechanically stressing the pipes which are already embrittled due to prolonged low flow temperatures. I'm not surprised they sometimes crack. An improved COP is their selling point but once you're above about 3 the maths start to look poor. For example going from a COP of 3 to 4 looks good on paper but it only saves you a further 9% of your original bill. Going from 4 to COP 5 Is worse, it only save 5% of the bill. Heat pumps only make sense if you can keep the initial purchase cost sensible, GSHPs almost never are.

And the instructions say what? I'm a fan of single part floor paint. Even in heavily trafficked areas it wears well , and just needs a touch-up occasionally. Never had complaints from commercial garages or earehpuse clients, but they loved the saving and the diy maintenance.

I had some garage floor paint that was 6 years old and despite stirring lots it had lumps and didn’t leave a decent surface (tried on a small area) I binned it and bought some new stuff, glad I did. Give it a try on a small area.(no I didn’t thin it and gave it two coats),.

I have no idea if such a thing exists but have you looked to see if a Radwell type of sealant is available that may keep you running till the spring? A dose in the ground loops may seal things up temporarily??

The heat pump unit its self is perfect Jilly, just the loop has failed

The reason we did duo ducted pipe for the ASHP was because there wasn’t an easy route from the pump to the plant room due to full height windows and doors in the way. We also put in a few extra ducts to future proof getting power to different parts of the plot. The mistake I made is not making it wide enough. It’s 3.4m long but only 1.1m wide. I could do with an extra 200mm-300mm so yours is the perfect size. I quite like the two separate rooms. If you have the space them why not. Gives you an extra wall to hang things off.

We’ve actually put a full floor drain in our plant room in addition to the MVHR drain just in case, and will allow us to easily drain systems if ever required.

We are in the build phase of an upside down house, with a retaining wall (gabion) to the south and a metre gap to our timber frame! our SE got us to minimise the slab connections due to DPM/ Gas membrane sealing as we initially wanted power via the slab. Instead we are building a kiosk out side the plant room to push electric and data services back to; and have an external consumer board and network switch which all external needs feed from. Minimising future penetrations. The initial penetrations will be ducted/sealed with grommets and filled. we’ve got water in and out via the slab, as we wanted to be able to isolate external taps from the plant room so no t’s off the main water feed. I’d put the battery outside if possible; I wouldn’t want a battery fire inside. our ASHP /battery/inverter/kiosk are all on the east side next to the plant room. finally our Nuaire design for MVHR insisted on intake and exhaust being on the same side of the building, and to fresh air not to the rear ‘passage’. (Which will be covered by a patio) we having living space above the plant room (kitchen) and bedroom next door which will have additional sound insulation. The plant room is 8mx1.5m.

Hello @openthegate Welcome to Buildhub. I can see you have spent a good bit of time crafting your post, it's appreciated by me. There is loads of info on BH, it's a friendly place. To provide a bit of context and further encouragement. I'm "in the trade" but I always learn something new when I log in. There are a load of other folk that are like minded, we want to share what we know and in return we want folk to reciprocate. This is a good site as folk will tell you.. I did this wrong and here is what went well and this is how I did it. Ok to kick off I've copied and pasted you post and added some initial coment inline with your text. We are still getting plans ready for the planning application. The house is going to be built into the side of a hill (with a gap of around 1.2m between the house and retaining wall.) It works out best for the views (and light) to have an upside down house with bedrooms on the ground floor and living areas on the first floor - where the front door will open out to the roadside. Like the idea of the upside down. The light on the North/West sides is quite limited and it makes sense to put the plant and utility spaces here. Agree but if using ASHP would you get more bang for you buck by facing into the warm prevailing wind from the Southerly direction? You want to extract warm air from outside.. is it a good idea to site it in the coldest spot? Attached is an my initial thought on the layout of the plant/utility space and where to place any ducts - the plan is go for a fabric first approach which includes ensuring all the external connections go through the slab rather through the walls to reduce the cold bridging. In principle I can see what your are doing. But in buildability terms when the pressure is on and the rainjis puring down the less slab penetrations you have the better. My rational for the layout is: ASHP on the north façade - placed the un-vented hot water cylinder much further into the centre of the house so the bath/shower/washing machine are all close to minimise the hot water pipe lengths. By moving this to the Utility space I though it would then be a sensible option to have all the water centric kit (washing machine/dryer/UHC/UFH) separate from the electrical kit. Placed the inverter externally to avoid over heating (as suggested by Jeremy H) - it is not in sun light and there is a cover over as well. If you post some elevations and a few more drawings you'll get a lot more response as it means folk don't have to second guess you.. it's much more efficient this way and then we can get down to the nitty gritty which is chipping to help you achieve a good buildable design at a sensible / affordable cost. In return you need to share what you learn... so all the folk an BH learn, it's not a bad deal and the Mods (who have worn every tea shirt going pretty much) keep everyone on the right track.

Sorry to hear the outcome, it's a long wait to hear a rejection and then feel you are starting again. I didn't want to post previously and bring negative comments about your scheme just as you were going to committee. I did feel however it is over-developed for the plot, and I know my LPA would have rejected it out of hand against their interpretation of the NPPF rules. My feeling was that you had overdone the massing and scale with your proposal, and not traded off anything else within the site to mitigate it. The extra width on front and side elevations, to achieve a full height second floor, does lead to a tangible increase in massing that I feel would be considered as harmful to the openness of the countryside by most LPAs. I've not watched the linked videos or read the Officer's report, so perhaps they've not rejected it on that basis, but it stood out to me. To get around those rules you are in Para 80 (e) territory, where you need to demonstrate: Which is a high bar to pass.

I'm using Yay.com They do a free 14 day trial. iirc it was around £25 to port a number. I'm impressed with the service, even for their lowest cost option. Loads of storage for voicemail and call recording. The voice-to-text transcripts are pretty good too that gets emailed and stored on the account, when voicemails are left.

We were given one of these with our VOIP service. Works great and the base station supports PoE so doesn't even need a socket which is good. Pretty sure you can set this up with any SIP account. https://www.yealink.com/en/product-detail/zoom-phone-w60p https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yealink-Bundle-Package-Handset-Station-Black/dp/B076WVZY2P?th=1 @IanR What VOIP provider to you use?

Yeah I’d fully fill the depth of joists where you can, otherwise do what you can. In terms of breathing, using a breather membrane and breathable insulation like mineral wool should be fine. Any moisture can flow over time through the mineral wool and out through the breather membrane. I have around 0.8m from the bottom of the joists to the ground below. In terms of cost, it was around £700 excluding insulation (entire ground floor of my house). I bought the materials from Latzel in Germany (there’s a thread about it somewhere) and it’s massively cheaper for the Pro-Clima stuff. Knowing what I know now, I’d probably skip the Pro-Clima membranes for this job, and get the equivalent but cheaper elsewhere however the tapes and primers etc I would still absolutely recommend. I hope that helps