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Just a follow up on this, for those that remember. We pulled out of the purchase, they put the house straight back on the market. It went to SSTC, and was relisted, four more times. So clearly massively dodgy. It's now being rented out.

Everyone interested in timber frame construction should read this. https://www.merronbrook.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/timberframepocketguide-aug2016.pdf

Hello Buildhub, I need your experience please. Theres a bit of a story to go with this, so bear with me. We completed our house last year and have been living here for over 18 months. The house is built to Passivhaus principles - air tightness tested at 0.38, insulation is great with floor 0.09, roof 0.1 and walls 0.13. Triple glazed throughout (Norrsken, very happy), MVHR at 86%, thermal bridges minimised. We did not complete a PHPP but do have detailed heat loss calculations for each room. As funds got a bit tight, we didn’t put in the ASHP we planned, and instead put in an electric flow boiler which feeds our lower floor UFH, and we have a direct electric cylinder. Maybe this was a mistake, no point go in back over it. The house is performing exceptionally well. We batch heat the lower floor slab overnight in Intelligent Octopus GO hours, and typically the requirement is 10-15kWh a day. We don’t really top it up during the day except when very cold outside, which is not very often in Devon. The internal temperature loss is around 1 to 1.5 degrees a day and we maintain the lower floor between 20 and 22 degrees (heat to 21.5 overnight). All of our heat for the last 12 months (2600 kWh) cost us £191, which I think is pretty good. Hot water (4100 kWh) about £340 a year, again overnight. All this points to an ASHP being of marginal value, we won’t save much on £530 a year and need to add in annual servicing. At a COP of 3, we might save £350 a year on the electricity? This would all be “case closed” if it were not for our mortgage, which is with Ecology (who are fantastic). Ecology offer a discount for achieving a B or higher SAP on the as-built building. Our SAP as designed was A101, our as-built is C79. The only difference is the change from ASHP to electric boiler, everything on the SAP certificate is “very good” except for heating and hot water, which are “very poor”. Our insulation levels exceed the as-designed SAP numbers. We could spend some time discussing how SAP does not do a great job for houses like ours, but again not much value here. So, I had an MCS certified contractor around to look at replacing the electric boiler. He pretty much understood that we have a house with very low heat loss, but old me that he had to install heat emitters in every habitable room. We don’t have UFH or radiators on the upper floor, and adding them would add a lot of cost and make quite a mess of the house. Any advice or experience from anyone on whether it’s is an MCS requirement to have heat emitters in every room, or any other thoughts on how to proceed? The mortgage discount is worth doing if the costs are less than £2500 including the government grant. Thanks all

https://www.air2heat.co.uk/mcs-umbrella-scheme Paul was fantastic throughout.

So @Alan Ambrose you are a "general purpose engineer". The numbers kind? Then you can do it. if you are following the suggestions above then great. If not, get someone to do it. The projected lines to safe positions are vital. The corners will get knocked out or dug out, then have to go back in. Most new houses are built out of square and level. This is becaise the managers and operatves can't use tapes and levels properly. If you can control that, then all the workmanship is better. I've got a total station. A waste of £10k. But I use tapes and a site level. And string line. This is because the building is usually a rectangle and i know where it is / goes. Actually I have a sophisticated sort of water level, using oil in the tube, so I can do levelling without someone holding a staff. Checking stuff discretely after the workers have left avoids pressure and awkwardness.

Hi, we are in middle of a deep refit of 1960's house 250m2, triple glazed, good levels of insulation, dug out floors retrofitted with ufh (best thing we ever did) and initially ran on a Viessmann boiler. This summer I replaced it with a Vaillant Arotherm plus 7kW. The route I took after getting multiple quotes was to purchase kit and install myself but claim the £7.5k grant via umbrella mcs company. This route worked great for us and made the install cost neutral. The money we saved was placed into 25 kWh of battery storage running via a Sunsynk 5.5kWh inverter (solar still to be installed) now running the house 24 x 7 @ 5p kWh (Tomato Energy) and couldn't be happier.

Fixed speed, little or no modulation. But ideal for batch charging the floor as the OP does. Would I bother connecting to DHW? You may be better setting to 35 to 40 degs.

So if you have 7 hrs of cheap electric, that's about 2kW per HR to charge the floor, plus an allowance for DHW heating. I would do it my self. A very basic heat pump set flow temp. Your floor is a buffer, charge as you do now, so keep it simple. This lives in the house so you need two holes in the wall. It's a fixed flow temp, super simple, which is all you really need. Don't bother with the grant. https://www.theheatpumpwarehouse.co.uk/shop/heat-pumps/trianco-activair-indoor-heatpump-3kw/

No. I'm not aware of any light switch using wired ethernet. But yes CAT6a to each light switch is a possible option if doing something like knx, Loxone tree or retractive switches. Many variables so there's no one size fits all answer. (No hiding the fact it's considerably more work to plan than conventional wiring)

That sounds very much like the old RHI scheme, NOT the current one.

In spite of the name, Porotherm has not thermal insulating properties. Quite the reverse, as it has hallow voids that allow air to move inside the blocks. Also a pig to fix to as they shatter. No fun to cut either. Sockets, pipes, wires all a pita. Also you will struggle to find anyone willing to install and may have issues with wall ties and brick coursing. Why is it on the top of your list?

That’s such a kind offer, thank you. I’ll do some more reading in my spare time (yep, when laying awake) and pick one system to play with and start prototyping.

@Nickfromwales >>> we found a chap who was ‘no win no fee’ that handled the DNO application on the clients behalf. Possible to give out his contact details? I think people & companies that do a good job should be shared openly - we all need a bit of help sometimes finding the right people.

It can be very difficult to find and seal leaks in shower screens, often the water is getting under or behind the metal frame and travelling to where it comes out/appears to. Silicon on the outside rarely works because the water is still getting out of the shower area. Quite possible it is the frame to wall connection which usually requires removal of the screen and sealant applied before fitting the frame back against the wall and base.

It will not be a new dwelling, you won’t get the vat back, it’s just another extension. same as the loft conversion.

It’s just a small Linux box with HA installed. They do (did) the yellow version which is more powerful/flexible. You can run HA on pretty much anything though including an old laptop if you happen to have one but that’s an involved configuration. I run it on my Synology NAS for example.

Over the last few months I have noticed that my autofill/autocorrect, on both the phone and PC, are putting in random words and phrases. Is it Google and Microsoft playing about with AI.

If your steels are behind an adequate FR system the steels are protected and require no further protection. Usually this would require 12.5mm fireline or similar lining for a ceiling. 12.5mm regular plasterboard wouldn't cut it. To prove this to the BCO go to british gypsum or whoever your board manufacturer is and get a copy of their declared fire performance for your system.

Good for Scotland. The rest of UK submit plans and start work same day. Hence a shit show of non-compliance. Shitty drawings/specifications, ignorant first time self builders lead by sub-contractors of varying pride levels with no interest in the overall build. Complaining about building control for their own short comings and not offering professional design advice. Its really a joke but the public are funding one of the biggest investments the are likely to make on it, so its not funny.

Agree. Disagree as there is a lack of understanding.. still in the building trade and by designers who have practical site experience. Its your money.. spend as you wish. Can be achieved.. so there! Ok to sum up. Look after your Thermalite et all blocks when they get delivered to site. Use the right strength of mortar with plasticiser. Use a brickie that is properly trained. Now we are getting technical. We call this aggregate interlock.. same thing happens in concrete floor slabs and how you can design joints in slabs taking advantage of the aggregate interlock. This is a clue.. but there are loads of other factors. Here lies a big clue! Depends on what kind of cement you buy. Most brickies unless properly trained have no clue, I caught one the other day with a bottle of Fairy liquid lying beside the mixer.. used to entrain air.. this is a no no!

I have one of Shelleys 16A relays to switch on and off the charger for my EV. It looks and feels like quality and it works a treat. Obviously the product you are looking at is a different one, but if my experience of Shelley is anything to go by I would give it a try.

it's been a long journey (although about a 1/3 of the time it took @Pocster) but we finally have our final certificate sign-off from BCO. we are over the moon to have passed that hurdle. There's still a long way to go but we are living in the house now and it is performing beyond our expectations and is a wonderful place to live. thank you to everyone on the forum for your help along the way. this place has been invaluable for us.

thanks. i am very happy that my lack of knowledge and inhibitions at sharing my mistakes will help many others to not make the same mistakes in the future.

If you already have a report they usually say they last 2 years so you might not need a new one. And if you don't get the right reports or it looks like you're not playing the game, the LPA Conservation Officer will start digging more, I suspect. But do shop around. Also this is a bad time of year for this kind of report as things start to hibernate so you might need to hold off til May, or ask for it to be a planning condition that you get a report in the season. There are costs and you will need to pay them, I'm afraid - key question is how much.

Hi - long time casual reader, first time feeling I have something to contribute... We had a similar issue with the same machine - turned out that it was drawing so much air through the drain that it was stopping water from draining. For us the drain was initially running into tall pipe with a trap at the bottom that also served the washing machine. Loads of air getting sucked through becoming bubbling and gurgling once the weather got cold (holding in enough water just to fill the inside a few times). Fixed the noises with a water-less trap - but the suction was sufficient to hold the trap closed, the machine filled up and started leaking. Have now got the trap fitted fully vertical a decent way below the machine so the pipe holds sufficient volume to push the diaphragm open. No noises or leaking since.

It may or may not be. You @Pocster are a legend. We all know that, you know that. But the BCO doesn't. Convince him of your legendary status as somebody who conserves energy - nervous energy - and just bloody does it instead of worrying about it. Better put JustBloodyDoIt - JBDI

I think it’s stands for what A (expletive deleted)

https://www.acronymfinder.com/Slang/WAF.html

I am sooooo gonna regret asking this, but what does WAF stand for?

I just googled typical Control4 costs. Take this with a pinch of salt obviously but bloody hell it looks very dear. https://mwsmarthomes.co.uk/control4-installation-cost/