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I am embarking on the unique and ambitious project of building.....yet another timber framed garden room based off knowledge from the internet. Yes I know, done to death! Over the weeks of researching I found this sub full of really helpful knowledge and thought maybe there would be a benefit to me being part of this community. I've done lots of DIY from joinery to electrics but nothing as big as this or that has put all those skills together. Should be exciting...

We have started on our journey of Enerphit retrofit as we are in progress with purchasing a bungalow built in 1995 and extending/ changing rooms to meet our needs and desires. Our goal is to reach the EnerPHit standard with a retrofit plus utilise every single grant we can get and ideally get off the gas grid and bring an old house into the low energy world. Very early days but have been reading a lot already around the forum.

Mine is a gently curving 130m, across a field. As mine was judged to be a potentaily deep-ploughed field I had to adhere to the extra depth, 1,100mm iirc rather than 750mm for power and water. I put the water pipe in the trench, you can get long coils of the pipe to save having connections in the field, but they wanted to see the pipe before I back filled to ensure depth. Power wanted to pull the cable through, but were happy for me to put the ducting in and backfill without them inspecting it. Power did specify Ø160mm duct, but my "expereinced" ground workers said that wasn't needed and Ø100 would be OK. It really wasn't, and Power Networks nearly gave up on the pull-through. The loads were beyond the limit of their cable puller, but they only just achieved it in the end. I couldn't convince Power Networks to come right up to the curtilage with the large, public network cable, they said their rules were to stop 35m from the property and join to a domestic cable. This was still installed by Power Networks, but meant a joint in the field. For yours, I'm sure it will need to be done in 3 pulls, maybe in seperate lengths with joints. My power installation (for 3 phase) was around £4,500 (in 2017) for the pull-through, and connection at either end, then another £3K for a transformer upgrade.

Gav.. You have a couple of choices.. Take the risk that you have built something that is not safe.. bad move. OR Pay your SE to come to site and sort it out. Then try and claw back the SE fee money from your builders. My advice.. pay your SE and do things right and remediate if need be. If BC spot anything you'll have to pay anyway to get it fixed.

IMO it’s not about you being a perfectionist it’s about workers being able to read and do their job properly (cowboys!!!!) get them to add/change them to the schedule.

Skew-nail them - it gives you more distance to play with. And stagger the battens, so that they joint over different rafters.

Try to identify who made the building / who makes something similar & ask them if they can send someone? You'll only know that by stripping off parts of the shell. In addition to the timber, I'd suggest that the joints between sections would need to be exposed to verify their structural integrity.

Take away the radiator completely. Cold shrinkage will make them have to sit down and then no mess.

Have you considered a curved shower rail from the short width to the long width, and a curtain with 3 magnets, one at both ends and one in the middle. we had a low ceiling which meant the screen was no good.

Vitodens 100-W B1HF System 11kW GB. Noisier than expected, but we now reliably have hot water and the promise of gas burned heating the radiators not just going out the flue this winter, so all good.

Electrify it.

I'm all for other people's OCD, it makes mine feel less Thanks for that, I'll apply similar logic to mine. We had a Viessmann fitted in June (and a previously undetected 4.8kWh/day internal gas leak sorted) so next year should be significantly better than this year.

Don’t bother, neighbours like this are never satisfied, stuff them, it looks good, well done 👍

should be ok but bring your dpm up the inside of the wall at least 150mm (above the level of the outside ground level) before you fit your internal wall board

Just checked, and I've mis-remebered, UKPN stipulated Ø125 rigid ducting for Network 3 phase cable, which could have reduced to a Ø50 "service" duct for the last 30m of domestic supply.

Hi All, As the title says, I'm a structural engineer. Must confess most of my background is in £ms projects, but will help where I can. As with most people I've dabbled in resi helping out friends, family and colleagues with their domestic stuff for a bit of cash on the side in my youth. I also designed my own double storey side extension and internal refurb in the past. I've also got friends who work for NHBC and BC. I'm afraid my own build ambitions are less Grand Designs and more just a small 1st floor extension. So I will be here with a few questions of my own. But you seem a friendly knowledgeable bunch and I will repay with some help along the way for others. Right, off to post a load of questions on other threads! Ads

dig it out. working back from top. 65mm screed 150mm insulation 150mm hardcore nice and toasty.

Where we are it is likely UKPN would refuse to use sewer pipe as cable duct. They can even get snitty if the duct is not marked with the right BS EN number.

flexi duct is the work of the devil. I ran all ours in 110 sewer and left a couple m of flexi at the end for paperwork/nonsense. Zero issues pulling the 3-phase through it.

I’ve been supplying and fitting them on one site for three years Skim over and forget about them 0 patching

Do you want the full sad story or the precis? I'll stick with the precis I think but in a nutshell I've been a smidge OCD with meter readings (for smidge you can expect very OCD * See Note) Summer water heating is easy to measure no CH to worry about and our daily kWh usage averages out at 4.2 kWh Winter water heating needs a bit more input energy wise - mains water is colder - loft tank is colder and boiler starts from a lower ambient temperature but a bit of math has that as a factor of 15% increase so 4.8 kWh as a daily average Roughly 182 days a year at 4.2 = 766 kWh 182 days a year at 4.8 = 876 kWh Annual Gas usage 7800 so HW (766 + 876) is 21% of the total used Cooking whilst a small percentage is also easy to work out when you aren't using CH or HW Only two people in the household typically 2 showers each daily and Mrs BC likes a long hot bath once a week - ~112 Litre Hot water tank heated to 50 every morning and normally lasts 18 hrs *Note - Just to clarify how OCD - During the course of 2023 from Jan 1 to Dec 31 I have 1,658 meter readings tabulated in a spreadsheet (cross referenced against HDD and House/Water temps and boiler parameters)

..you pay per lm for the cable..I was quoted £17 per lm last year. The lions share of the cost was bringing the supply to the property boundary from the other side of the public highway which also involved a road closure, traffic diversion etc. All in all it was about £9k for a 15 lm on site connection and 6 lm of offsite connection. ..off grid options?

I think it needs intermediate draw points at the corners, whether pits or chambers. I've seen a 32mm cable stick in an official duct with just a slight bend in it. OR these 90° bends are indicative and very slow bends are allowed. Straight into trench would be so much easier, as long as you don't have to fence it off for safety.

Old Pump - Grundfos 15/50 Selectric 3 Speed (it was 25 years old to be fair - purchased in 1999 for £47.99 as a direct replacement for the previous 15/50 which was fitted when the house was built in 1982) This has been replaced with DAB Evosta3 60/130 DAB PN - 60193271 Max Flow rate - 3.6m3/h Max Head 6m

Get a quote for the electricity supply, then you will know for certain where it actually has to connect to. Then see if once you have accepted the quote they can issue the cable for you to bury in the field. It does not have to be in duct is is usually suitable for direct burying. If you do go for duct, put large diameter twin wall flexible with gentle bends, don't put elbows. Then never contemplate using the provided drawstring, use that just to pull through a larger bit of rope as your drawstring.

Who’s job was it to supply fixings if you are supplying all materials then you should have had them on site if it was your joiner then they have deviated from the approved plan so need to change them at their own cost. m8 raw bolts will be available in any merchants.

I still struggle with those two words (my native language is German) . So I had a quick look and found this. No wonder I'm still struggling with it. I mean it's not far off the confusion I feel when I listen to plumbers talking about irons and olives .... or @SteamyTea and his Killerwots

When I was building my house, I too did not believe it would require so little heat. So I did a test. Once the building was complete, insulated and all windows in I put a simple electric convector heater on 24/7 in the middle of the downstairs, for a week, and took daily internal and external temperature measurements, and confirmed the difference was in line with what you would expect with that much heat input thus proving Jeremy's spreadsheet was bang on. I then had the confidence to buy a heat pump.

Well this is topical as I'm hoping to put most of my surface water drainage to bed today. I'll add to the thread if the OP is willing as it's on topic. >>> 27 cube ! Is it for a block of 25 flats ? Thats mad, so your 'SE' is saying you need 27 thousand litres of storage to catch the water that used to fall on the footprint of your building ? The 'SE', as you put it, is a fairly well known firm of SEs. I suspect that many SEs use an external web service anyway as it's a specialised calc. Of course, to be able to compare houses & attenuation tanks you need to know the catchment areas (roof & hard surfaces e.g. driveway), the ground conditions & the allowed nozzle rate. The location, and therefore storm rates, will make some difference too. I'm on clay with an apparent high GW level so similar to @SBMS. I thought my SE's number sounded high and I was interested in how it was calculated, so I had another calc done by Freeflush (dumb name I think) for £100. I should say that I am very inquisitive and interested in how everything works and am treating the house build as a big learning exercise. I was also looking for clues in order to modify the SE's proposed design a little. I supplied the roof and drive areas and the location, Freeflush did the rest. As it happens I also had the FEH13 & 22 numbers from WHS which I puchased for £7. Freeflush came up with 26 m^3 and used the FEH13 numbers - so very similar to the SE. The FEH22 numbers will be a little different. Freeflush's calc sheet below and I've also added the FEH13 numbers from WHS for anyone who is curious. The big result I got back was that both the SE and Freeflush had treated the permeable driveway and patio as impermeable as @SBMS suggested above. @SBMS - do you have your areas for comparison? It would be good to bottom out why we have such different attenuation volumes. FEH_Point_Rainfall_FEH13_AM (anonymised).xlsx

i was looking at these, but more the downlight ones. At £2 a pop seems "ok" but in the end i just thought i was spending on stuff for the sake of it so didnt bother. If i was skimming myself id have got them, but id imagine a plasterer wouldnt be bothered either way.

You have wisely choosen a pump that displays the flowrate in m3/hr which you may find very useful when you commission the CH, I have tuned a few relations systems with/without WC and I set the flowrate to 1.0LPM per KW of rated rad(s) output, your system, assuming total rated rad output of 15kw would require a flowrate of 15.0LPM (0.94m3/hr), would suggest setting the pump on CC2 (constant curve) "speed 2" or CP2 (constant pressure) both 3M pump head, and see how it goes, the setting can, if required be increased to CP3 (4.5M pump head.) I would also suggest that you install a digital roomstat somewhere, ( I have mine in the combined two rooms where we spend most of our time), Viessmann seem to think that WC alone is only required? but again IMO, the OT can fall or rise by 6 or 8C over a 1 or two hour period which can result in over/undershoot of the room temps, at least you have a master control with one roomstat.

That is like suspending a very heavy car `(Landrover etc) every 600mm. It is a lot of load . This is too technical and specific for me to say much on, However, without doing any analysis I would simply say that you will not be needing 24kN resistance eat 600 centres. I would go for '2' probably, but it isn't for me to say....and you will worry whenever the wind blows. especially as you say you are a perfectionist, so must make your own mind up. So you should probably ask your SE immediately while telling your joiner to pause OR use the specified fixings.

Which bit? I am confused as well with that statement, and that is allowing for @Dave Jones usual ridiculous 'statements of fact'.

Not sure that is really true for fan coils, they have been about very little changed for decades. But the context has moved, were really only ever used in commercial buildings, not homes. The thing that has changed is heat pumps are being installed, people realise they can cool as well as heat. The fan coil in a domestic setting is the thing starting to mature. But a long a long way go yet.

Go for one that is on most of the banks lists and the cheapest None of them pay out

You really should state you want Weather Compensation also. Then either dump most the TRVs and run single zone. Then you set the pump flow to match the need of all the radiators. You should get a 25% reduction in gas consumption, because most the time the boiler is in condensing mode. You also no longer need bypass valve.

Variable speed is good for improving efficiency. Lowering the speed when the boiler isn't working at 100% is good to lower the pump electricity consumption and also raise the boiler efficiency due to the lower return temperature increasing condensing. However it also reduces the valve authority of your TRVs and can result in an unbalanced system and some rooms getting insufficent heat input. The problem comes from your bypass valve. In an ideal world there would never be flow through the bypass as this is pointless and reduces efficiency. However with TRVs and an incorrectly set weather compensation curve it's possible for boiler flow to reduce below the minimum without the bypass valve. Thus the bypass valve and constant speed pump. As flow reduces, differential pressure increases until the bypass valve opens assuming the pump speed and valve pressure preset are correct. Having a constant-pressure or proportional-pressure pump in principle breaks the pressure-operated bypass valve as bypass would either be constant, or increase with the flow through the rest of the system (precisely the opposite of what you want!). If I were in your position I would ensure I had weather comp set up correctly and the TRVs adjusted right (so the bypass should never bypass), then set the pump to the lowest constant pressure curve such that all the radiators get warm and the boiler is happy. I wouldn't bother with proportional pressure unless I had a badly designed system with microbore or something. OTOH, keeping it in constant speed mode with the bypass valve set to bypass at low flow will work fine too, and there isn't really that much difference in the running costs/noise levels. This whole thing sort of highlights the benefits of getting a system boiler rather than heat only - the boiler controller can control the pump to ensure optimal flow for efficiency but also that it meets its minimum requirements.

Hi, I bought a cheap Victorian end terrace as my first house. It hadn't been touched since the 60s and I'm trying to renovate it while living in it at the same time. Many rooms are now back to brick/timber and I'm now trying to "build it back better". I've got a "clean room" with bed etc. that I've temporarily fitted with an exterior UPVC door that seals tight and now I'm starting at the top and working my way down, one room at a time.

We didn't go down to the gutter, but instead straight to a flat roof. I got a 300mm angled aluminium trim made up that went under the bottom tray and down on to the flat roof.

I'm just guessing, but perhaps the maximum size of aggregate in the plaster? A 3mm gap won't let 4mm particles through, but a 6mm gap will.

You need to make the place a bit more upmarket. A new mirror will help them see what they are doing. I have found just the one.

One more reason not to be a LL.

Exactly? Maybe he going to insulate it with a magic substance, that means paper thin walls, total silence, and no heating required. And costs pennies to build. That would be unique.

Just noticed my joiner has fixed the sole plate down with 7.5 x 120mm concrete screws at 400mm centres into my slab. The fixing schedule calls for rawl bolt concrete anchors which are M8 x 120mm. These Rawl bolts are actually 10mm in diameter so prob more of a difference than he thought. I looked up the specs and the 7.5mm concrete screws hold about 1.8kn while the rawl bolt anchors hold 24kn so more than ten times as strong. Stuff like this drives me mental especially as we live in a very windy site, I think it is also prob not an issue as the house will probably weigh enough to hold itself down. This is why self build is so stressful if you are a perfectionist in the mechanical/structural stuff. Possible fixes I can think of if it's an issue are. 1. remove the screws and drill bigger, the 7.5mm screws are actually 7.5mm so a 8mm drill should clear out all the concrete that has been cut by the flutes leaving a new hole to start again. Downside is I will need to get bolts and take the time to do it. They were going to stand the walls tomorrow. We don't have the floor joists or scaffolding for three weeks so there will be a break in the meantime anyway. Could not stand the wall and change the bolts anyway 2. Forget about it and don't tell building control or the engineer. 3. Leave the screws in and fix longer correct bolts near the originals. I don't like this so much as I dont know where the old screws are. I could mark the sole plate for the screw locations, possible fix for that issue. There are also about 15 heavy duty glued in hold down brackets on the gables and front wall. The engineer hasn't replied yet but I'm assuming these will be the main hold down/racking points and maybe the concrete screws are redundant. If this is the case that just leave the back wall to fix down.