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>>> Option 1/ will only make relations worse IMO I think sometimes you need to be firm with unreasonable people. As an example: I have a neighbour to my plot who recently declared "water from the rear of your plot is not going to cross our property". He hasn't given a reason or any hint about what kind of problem this might cause, if any. I have been perfectly pleasant to him to date. The drainage is, of course, very important for us and historically there has been drainage ditch there (now a culvert, converted before I bought the plot). It runs in his direction and all the neighbours use it for rainwater drainage and treatment plant outflow. I have sent him a pamphlet from our LPA describing how riparian rights work with the relevant sections highlighted. He hasn't replied. Next I will offer him the opportunity to withdraw his statement/threat or the alternative of a solicitor's letter confirming how riparian rights work. In my experience there's always someone trying to take the piss. You can try and deal with them sensibly and argue them round. But sometimes you have to treat fire with fire.

Keep it simple Get local plumber to install UFH on ground floor only (plus any upstairs bathrooms). Set ground floor UFH on 150 to 200mm centres throughout. Any bathrooms on 100mm centres due to less usable areas. Buy a Panasonic heat pump to suit your heat loss, a heat pump cylinder (any make) with at least 3m2 coil. Manifold for UFH, no pump, no mixer, a 28mm diverter valve. Self install or direct plumber and electrician. Use Panasonic controller as a single over temp thermostat, run system on a very small weather comp curve. Possibly starting at 15 Outside and 25 deg flow and -5 outside and 28-32 deg flow. Run everything as single zone. Provision with option to install electric panel heaters in bedrooms, but don't install unless you need them once moved in. Add electric towel rads to bathrooms use around 500W plus ones and get an external timer thermostat for them.

Surely any wood shop can make these, 12 months ago I would have made them for you ( saw bench and thicknesser planer) but have sold up my big tools.

It’s been flawless since the day it went in, still amazes me when I go outside and they’ve been burning stuff on the farms nearby, inside you would never know. No noticeable noise increase, my unit is fairly small though since it’s only serving around 72m2 and the cleanbox is rated for a much higher throughput. it did take 3 attempts at getting a unit which was completely intact with all the rivets where they should be, hopefully that will have just been bad luck

A few general comments on posts all worth a good read and consideration. Mine are: 1/ Do your best to take the heat out of things. 2/ Allow access for your neighbours representative to take all round photographs. State that you want to avoid any escalation of call it a "misunderstanding / communication breakdown" rather than a dispute. Don't use the word dispute or other verbage that suggests a big barny.. use words like you want to "alleviate" their concerns (excuse my spelling / grammer !) I'm not being soft here.. just say this ended up in court.. any aggressive language you use at this early stage could come back to bite you. 3/ Don't ask for their representatives credentials at this stage as it will just get their back up. If for example they breach the data protection act for example then there will trouble for them later. Just go with the flow for now credential wise. I do a bit of dispute work from time to time.. at the end of the day its that facts of the matter that you can prove by calculation and reference to design codes and other literature for example. Await their report.. if its a load of bollocks then plenty time to rip it to death later. Sometimes you need to give folk enough rope to hang themselves on! 4/ Be amenable and agree a time for a visit from the neighbours representative. But state that you also want access to their property on the same day for you to take photographs and a short video. In other words watch what their rep does and replicate on their side.. the video is important as your camera may be a bit "wobbly" and may wander a bit.. record your information and sent it to your neighbour's rep and an independant person on the same day. This is arguably fair. But most importantly is the technical approach to resolving a problem like this.. you want photographic evidence from both sides of the wall on the same day, with the same weather conditions and so on. 5/ Do NOT share any photographs / drawings / local authority permissions etc relating to any construction work you have carried out at this stage. 6/ Ask their representative when they think thier report will be avialable. That's all for now best of luck from my end.

This isn't compliant with part L though is it. That requires at least 2 zones (and recommends one per room, which will be where the OP's installer is getting that from)

I used a 44mm hockey stick for 35mm2 SWA cable. It fitted but it was hard work. If it’s into a kiosk the guys won’t care if it’s a hockey stick or the smoothwall flexible electrical ducting. I put an extra hockey stick into my kiosk just in case I had a need to run something else into it.

Jack of all master of none now retired, well I thought I was, but the wife wants a dormer conversion on our bungalow. So that's what I'm currently doing.

Thanks for that, I've found the S'E' web site its states, ICIOB MEWI Qualifications Associate Member Architecture and Surveying Institute 2003 Incorporated Member Chartered Institute of Building 2013 Member of Expert Witness Institute

Maybe Section 75 or a small claims court action if you believe that the report was not fit for purpose i.e. not what you asked them to do.

Presumably this will be a fully qualified and independent Structural Engineer. Don't be shy about asking and getting their full details. That might be IStructE or MICE , Or FStructE or FICE for most senior. MICE would be fine, but few people know that this includes Structures. Why? SE can be used as a term without too much detail, sometimes misleadingly. eg a Building Surveyor. Also I feel they must be working as an independent consultant , not the representative of a contractor. Any SEs on here might be able to advise on the ethical position. But as a Chartered Civil Engineer, my loyalty has to be first to society/ the world at large and secondly to a client. ie it isn't like other professions where you can twist the truth to make a case for the person paying. Thus you could sensibly ask the SE what their brief is, before allowing them access. It should be quite clear, and not just 'the neighbour has asked me to look around for anything that might be a problem'. a sensible brief might be ' the neighbour thinks that the retaining wall is moving/ breaking up and asked me to look for any likely cause including on your property.' btw feel free to put up a sketch or photo, keeping it anonymous.

OK, let's say you currently have 75mm (quite typical) deep joists and your structural engineer says you need 175 or 200mm joists. Your new joists will either protrude above (reducing the height in the new bedroom) or below the joists (reducing the ceiling height in the room below) by 100-125mm. Let's assume that you have 75mm rafters too. The gov't's guidance suggests a 50mm ventilation gap above any insulation, so you can only get 25mm between the 75mm joists. If you use polyisocyanurate (PIR) insulation (Kingspan or Celotex) you'll need a further 125mm to get a compliant U value of 0.16W/m2K as required by the Building Regulations. Add to that the need for say 25mm battens and 15mm of plasterboard and skim, and the need to to have some ventilation 'crossover' at the top of the room (and of course the need for floorboards which I have not yet advised you to put on top of the joists(!) ) and you'll see how the height loss builds up. If, like many attic rooms, you want to have a flat area of ceiling at the top of the room you will of course reduce the room height still further. If we go for 2.1m as a desirable minimum height the example above (losses at top and bottom of the room) could mean that you lose up to 290-315mm off the apparently-available height. If you decide to use more 'friendly' insulants you'll lose more than that. If you have a good tall steep-pitched roof then you may be fine. Not tall and not steep-pitched, you may be less fine.

I used a 100 mil smooth wall duct with a draw rope And it was still a lot of pulling to get a 25 mil cable an separate earth through No chance with a hockey stick

There’s no reason to let them take photographs of anything other than the retaining wall. The SE won’t want to get involved in whatever the wider dispute is. They will have heard it all from your neighbour. Don’t give in to the temptation of you telling the SE your side of the story just concentrate on the wall and nothing else.

I am sorry this has escalated. Do allow their structural engineer to carry out an inspection. Try to avoid this becoming a dispute, as it may affect any future sale of your property if it is not resolved. Roots from bushes should not cause a retaining wall to move so perhaps it has not been properly designed or it needs replacing.

4kW heat pump would be fine. Go for something like a Panasonic. You will generally get some cycling, but that is normal. Then you need something else to heat the hot water.

Not quite correct. If you heat demand was 4kW and you install a 4kW output heat pump at your lowest design temp. The coldest day would require 4 x 24 or 96kWh for the 24 hrs. Now if you take 2 hrs to heat DHW you now only have 22 hrs to deliver 96kWh, so you have a short fall in available energy.

I think you mean 4.5 KW ( which seems high given you said near passive house spec ) in which case you really don’t need 10-12 kw ASHP my build is 190m2 my heat loss calc at -5 is 3kw so I have a 4KW ASHP. I had previously been told you have to make the heat pump bigger to allow for DHW but that’s not true as I don’t believe the pump will heat both at the same time

Sorry! First Floor. The joists immediately below the space you hope to use.

Bigger holes and 25mm conduit. Anything smaller and it's a pain pulling the pipe through. Did it in several places.

If your heating demand is under 2kw you'll struggle to get an (air to water) HP rated for much less than 3.5kw. Has the house been built yet? Such a low demand might suit an air to air HP (aka air conditioner) instead (depending on layout, preference etc)

Sorry but are they fit for purpose as a designer. With LoopCad (UFH design tool) you can easily match heat demand to the amount of pipe in the room. Or you can install more pipe and balance the flow rates to get correct room temps. It would appear their design is basically bounce room temps on a thermostat to manage room temperature. How are you heating the water, boiler or heat pump?

I have never used Jackoboard but I have used 'straight' XPS to tile onto. I just relied on the tiles and silicone sealant and that has worked for over 15 years. It occurs to me that a 'tweak' might have been to rebate the XPS so that the tray sat, say, 10mm underneath, with silicone 'buttering' as a waterproofing aid. Then the 2nd-stage waterproofing would be the tiles/silicone (or big board/silicone as 'usual'. That depends a little on the depth of the shower-tray perimeter. I do not claim to be an expert in tiling. shower-fitting or waterproofing (I hate it!), but what I have done seems to have worked.

You can cut them and go that route, but best to get your BCO's input to see how much overlap and the number of fixings they'd "like to see" used. In honesty, an overlap of 100mm past the face of the supporting structure in each direction should suffice, with a bolted connection, but best to ask first and execute once

I meant the control board inside the circulating pump. If the HP only provides a standard LNE connection to the circulating pump then I don't think it can do anything clever. Pumps with inbuilt electronic control will modulate according to demand so esp if only a few rads are open (a) will reduce their power consumption compared with a fixed speed pump and (b) may be less noisy either in themselves or for flow noise in the pipework. So I have one of these Wilo pumps for my thermal store, but largely bc it was left over from a previous installation (and luckily wasn't damaged when the garage got flooded), advantage is it does not mind if there is zero flow. Personally I would try and fix the existing pump myself and if unsuccessful replace it like-for-like. But you could elect to try a cheapo own-brand replacement from yr local builders merchant and might well get away with it.

Option 1/ will only make relations worse IMO option 2/ will be open and show your willing to be co operative and probably defuse the situation somewhat.

Ah tricky neighbours, don't you love them? >>> they are trying to blame me for it. Ah you sure that's the case or is that just a fear? There are a couple of options: (1) If you're sure they're just causing unnecessary trouble, then I might string them along and let them get their court order. Write to the solicitor as often as you can to bulk up their legal bill. In the meantime, be assertive and send your pictures to them with a polite but firm letter. By all means chat to them in person and see if you can defuse the situation and thereby stop wasting your joint resources. (2) If you're sure you have not caused a problem, give them access, and give the SE your dated photos, bend the SE's ear re your theories about their plants.

Yes, but you still own it.

I would not have an issue with giving access to inspect a wall. Get an assurance from the engineer that the inspection will be limited to assessing the condition of their wall and fence.

Almost any pump of that size will work, the Wilo are good because they are very quiet.

Sounds like a failed capacitor, it's typical that you might get a motor to run without it but not reliably so (had this problem with the heat exchanger motor in our MVHR plant). If you can find one of the right capacitance and voltage rating you could solder in a new one for a few quid. If OTOH the control board has failed you might not be so lucky. Sorry but no idea how essential a fancy pwm pump might be in yr circs.

Google for your specific meter; our ‘secure 100’ smets1 meter has a led on it that blinks like morse code showing ‘WAN’ signal strength with 1-5 blinks. Solid led =no signal, 1 blink is poor, 5 blinks is max signal strength.

Thanks for the registration. I've seen loads of interesting discussions and info on here. Looking forward to learning from you all. We are planning a chalet/cabin-build on our new croft on Skye. Trying to get our heads round the complexities and regs. Thanks again - and greetings.

Thanks. @Crofter's blog looks really informative. I'll be back when I've read and digested it.

FF = Ferguson Formula - A 4 wheel drive system that was applied to quite a few marques back in the day (Jenson and Opel) I've got more knowledge on the Opel side (as they are what float my boat) that and the fact a Jenson is out of my budget

Yes we have been lucky on getting out the ground but the roof cost have gone up. Not much is happening at the moment so next will be week 5 and 6.

Well I currently have 18 x 425w panels facing west and get approx 4400kw a year. so with more than double the amount of panels spread across east, south and west elevations, I’d hope to see 10000kw. The system I have at moment is Voltacon 11kw off grid inverter, 20kw of pylontech us5000c battery storage and Tigo optimisers on the 18 panels. It were a self install apart from the electric back up from the mains and the connection to the consumer unit. Hour and half for electrician. Wouldnt go back. Been brilliant and I charge up batteries in winter on octopus go tariff if needed. On the new build I’d go with double the storage and 2 x inverters to cope with 22kw loads and as a back up if one went went down.

Agree a light tube would really help. Also think that main living area could do with something - potentially gloomy. But of course that does go back to orientation somewhat.

We didn't fully spec the electrics, and the electrician utterly buggered us as a captive audience. Plan plan plan.

You say, "only Openreach can do this work". I'd be very surprised if that's true. Perhaps only Openreach should do the work, but if they're charging you £633 to send their salesman round to price up the job, I think they are abusing their monopoly position & you have all the justification you need to get any old telecom engineer to come round & do whole the job for £200 or whatever. & why run a new cable from the box? It sounds to me like you just need a connector & a couple of meters of new cable on your house. I have incurred a large unexpected cost on my build today: I planned to dig the trench foundations at the start of October, because, historically, that's when our water table has been at its lowest. With the weather we've had over the past month, the water table is very much higher than expected. I have a large supply of reclaimed OSB & plywood that's been sitting on my site, to use as shuttering, to stop my foundations caving in as they're dug. My builder called this morning to say it's all too damp & the braces are just punching through the boards, so he'll have to buy new ply (to run the whole length of the foundations x 2 sides). He says OSB won't be strong enough as the ground is so wet. I don't know how much this will add yet, but it will be a lot.

From my recent experience on this topic I would ask your chosen Structural Engineer for a detailed explanation of exactly what information he/she needs in order to correctly design your foundations/house. But still be prepared for some vacillating from them. We needed to have some ground investigation done (planning requirement) regarding percolation rates, drainage etc. I found a suitable company and got a quote from them for the work. I then sent that quote to the SE and said "Will this survey be sufficient for you to do the foundation design work?". Yes, was the answer. When the results came back, I sent them to the SE and told him to crack on. He then said he didn't have all the information he needed and suggested I might need another survey... A short re-briefing ensued, I told him to speak directly to the ground investigation company, and harmony has now been re-established.

I have, thanks. This is why I insisted it was inspected ahead of exchange of contracts.

as in 'cost'. some methods do not require earth removal. make sure these are considered if appropriate to your ground. all the more so when different solutions are being considered anything?

You could extend the vents out to the end of the patio with ducting? I'm going to do that but my air bricks are a few courses below yours so I'd imagine it's significantly easier. Depending on the patio you may need to use a telescopic to move it back down again... It's not a good detail by the architect sadly.

You need to build it to comply with building regs, I don’t care about your planning, but for future use if you allow anybody to sleep in it and you have a fire and somebody is hurt they will crucify you. what if after the build you want to chuck it on air b+b, it will need to have a fire safety plan to let it. doing it right will not cost much more and you will end up with a usable building, doing it on the cheap I bet two or three years after you move out it will be scrap. have you looked at the timber cabins and add more insulation and stuff. I agree about renting £25 grand down the drain build something that will be useful. will the house have a big garage. how about a big triple garage with granny flat above, build that first and it’s there forever.

Back to the point. One of those Scottish heritage studies measured the in situ U-Values of old stone and lime walls. (I think I linked it in one of @saveasteadings earliest threads). The U-Value correlated with the moisture content in the wall. Damp Wall = Bad U-Value. More importantly moisture in a structure that wasn't designed to be damp causes decay, through mould, fungus, frost action and physical water erosion. My understanding of the issue is as follows. This moisture gets into walls because of: A. Bulk water ingress. Solved by (but not limited to) Unblocking drains and gutters Repointing externally Adding roof overhangs/flashings External brick creams, French drains to lower the local water table. Fixing leaking pipes and showers enclosures. Water proof external render or paint B. Condensation from humid internal air. Solved by (but not limited to) Managing internal humidity with adequate heating and ventilation. Entirely blocking air paths through the wall to prevent air "carrying" moisture to a part of the wall below the dew point. Keeping the entire structure above the dew point. Normally with insulation, thermal Bridges must be managed!!!! Now that's all fine in theory, but unless you build your house in a laboratory that's impossible to achieve. In any case, there'll be some construction moisture in the walls anyway. You need to allow your wall to dry. To deal with this you need to the moisture to leave the wall via evaporation. This can be achieved by (but not limited to) Keeping the wall warm through heating, limiting IWI or fitting EWI. Keeping internal humidity low. Not trapping moisture between materials of too low vapour permeability. (This is nuanced, more later....) Alternatively for some construction types moisture is acceptable (e.g. foundations) but you'll need to build it out of permanently moisture tolerant materials like concrete, stainless steel and plastic.

Was this the video? The installation has put me right off. Going from a boiler hidden neatly inside a kitchen cupboard to a grey washing machine sitting on your drive with all that pipework and black trunking going to it really doesn't feel like progress to me.

A6 Corridor Development Area round by us is starting to wake back up again @nod. One busy-ness indicator is to try and get a B+B in the neighbourhood. When the sites are busy, you can't get a bed : and when its not so busy - fairly easy. With one exception - the B+B near us. Talk about posh...... I know where I'm going if SWMBO kicks me out.

I have had 3 new fibre connections to new flats from Openreach at no cost. I guess they must subsidise them by ripping off the likes of @Bancroft.