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First of all, my apologies for being silent for so long. TBH, having finally settled here in our new home I needed a break from self-build. Not for any particular reason at all, just that I'd been living and breathing it for so many years that I needed some time out, a bit of breathing space if you like. Old age seems to do this, creep up on us almost unnoticed (and I'm now in my 70's). Also I was spending way too much time here, to the exclusion of other things I should have been doing. Anyway, thought I'd post here to hopefully shed some light on how things have gone with our Sunamp adventure, and give a bit of a gentle warning. Those who've been here, and on Ebuild before this place, may remember that we bought a Sunamp PV right back in the early days, before this place existed. We ran that for well over a year, with a few minor teething problems, but it was enough to convince me to swap it for a larger Sunamp UniQ eHW 9, which I did in September 2018. That also had a few teething problems, but Sunamp sorted them out quickly and without fuss. Since then I've been more than happy with the Sunamp. It's provided reliable hot water, mostly heated by excess solar generation, in fact far more hot water than we have ever needed as it turned out to be a bit over-sized. The first time we went away on holiday I turned everything off and was amazed to find that when we got home a week later there was still piping hot water available. I cannot complain at all about its performance, it has been significantly more efficient than a hot water cylinder, which was the reason for me being so enthusiastic about it back in 2016. Sadly, our Sunamp died on Saturday morning, and ejected its phase change material all over the floor, down through the ceiling in the kitchen below: A check upstairs in the services room confirmed that it's death had been spectacular, with PCM all over the floor and a long icicle of sodium acetate crystals down the back of the unit, from the burst casing inside: To it's credit, despite this it had delivered two showers that morning before we spotted the problem. Sadly this was to be its dying endeavour. I contacted Sunamp, not because of any warranty claim (there was no warranty anyway) but to ask them to put me in contact with a local installer for a replacement. I spent the weekend looking at the specs of the newer Thermino models and, given that the 9kWh (11kWh) UniQ was overkill for just two showers a day I decided its replacement would be the smaller Thermino ePlus 150, with the PV02 key to better match it for PV heating via the Eddi (when summer comes back). I found a couple of online suppliers, price, including VAT looked to be around £1,800 or so, plus delivery, which sort of seemed OK. I'm not up to getting the old unit downstairs and the new one up stairs, so I contacted a few local plumbers. All said they wouldn't touch this job. No idea why, it's a pretty straightforward swap, as the PRV, TMV etc is all there, just a matter of re-jigging two 22mm pipes. Seems the technology just scared them off, or, perhaps, it might have something to do with dealing with Sunamp? After a lot of delay, Sunamp customer services came back to me, asked for photos, then went silent. I got on to them again and they gave me contact details for a couple of installers. I contacted them, first one got back to me saying it would be around £6k to swap out our failed unit for a new one. I questioned this. He said it was about a day's work. Now, I'm all in favour of paying a fair rate for a job, but I know how long this job is going to take and I know the cost of all the materials. I am not going to pay a bloke £800 plus per hour, no matter how damned good he is! So, looks like I have to fall back to hiring a stair climber and doing it myself. PITA, as I'd have happily paid someone a few hundred quid to do this (over and above the cost of the bits) but I point blank refuse to stuff over £4k in someone's pocket for a job that is so straightforward, especially when there are installers advertising prices of around £4k to replace an existing hot water system and cylinder for a Sunamp, a job that is a heck of a lot more work. Sorry for the rant, thought it was worth posting here as a warning to others thinking of going down the Sunamp route. I can't fault the performance, but if the cost of repair and maintenance by a Sunamp approved company is so crazy then it may give some pause for thought. I've half a mind to bin the Sunamp and just get a high efficiency 150 litre cylinder installed. No idea what that might cost, but I doubt it would be over £6k. PS: Seems I have hundreds of PMs that have accrued in my time away. Sorry, but I doubt that I have a hope in hell of answering them all!

Welcome back @Jeremy Harris, nothing useful to add to this thread but I wanted to say I have learned a heck of a lot from your posts on the forum (and still getting my head round some of the more technically inclined ones). Thanks for all your input over the years.

Illbrück FM330. The end.

Success! after trimming the foam, there were hardly any draughts and the temp was much better. I still need to add sealant to the very fine gap alongside the vertical trim. But happy with result. 😁 And it was this cold! Our gorgeous Lab still enjoying her walks at aged 13 1/2!

Hi Jack, My father was involved with the first fully robotic brick plant in the world under Redland, my work experience was in Redland PLC labs weighing clay samples for chemical analysis and loss of ignition analysis and lime slurry input into the line at Wealden aged 12 (or was it Warnham...?) Strong post? When you know you know. With kind regards PS

The planning system NEEDS to be streamlined to scrap all these reports about newts and bats, complicated and unecessary conditions etc. ALL they do is result in exactly the same building being built, but at extra cost and time to the applicant and extra work for the planners. All at a time when the planning system needs streamlining to make it quicker and more efficient and pass more planning applications quicker.

Or, more discretely as it's not your problem, just inform the neighbour and allow him to take it up with the BCO. I'm not saying it's good, but I've seen far worse from 'brick technicians' laying overhand. An old-fashioned time-served craftsman 'brickie' would find this unacceptable, but there can't be more than a handful of breeding pairs left in the country... probably extinct by the end of this year!

Get the ratio of gas to electric to less than 1:3 and making a HP cheaper to run than a boiler becomes much easier. At that point people will start to adopt much faster.

What a cracking question! Talk about putting folk on the spot! Forgive me if I don't deal with some detail or give a definitive answer. One main reason is I use my own name and while my PI insurance covers me to write on a public forum (give unpaid advice).. it's not open ended. I make some comment later that may help the self builder / folk extending say. It's good guidance. The following is some general comment for discussion purposes only. The guidance adds to / provides a methodology to support some of the things we have been doing for a long time anyway. The recent changes in the regs formalise this and aim to hold folk to account for their design, contractor to their duties and say the duty of a self builder, even someone doing and extension in timber frame. I support anything that will keep folk safe. The document is a guidance document. Many of the clauses in the Buildings regs, British Standards, Eurocodes, product manufacturer's guidance / data etc are.. guidance. But if you choose not to follow this and something goes wrong then you can find yourself on a sticky wicket as the onus falls on you, as often you need to prove that what you have done is equal to or better than the guidance. There are times when SE's need to go back to first principles and develop stuff from scratch. This crops up a lot when renovating, upgrading old buildings and say converting farm buildings to domestic use. You get funny sized cavities / flexible steel frames / old mortar and all sorts. Generally once we get into the "higher risk" building category.. could be a flamible house next door, a TF of say 3 storeys or more, close to an old folks home, a block of flats, a fuel station etc then the bells start ringing. At the concept design stage we would pick this sort of thing up.. good designers spot this kind of thing. To go back a bit let's look at what we are trying to achieve. The following list is not comprehensive and I've tried to put things in some kind of sensible order. 1/ We want everyone who works on the site or attends site to go home safely at the end of the day. It's basic Health and Safety stuff. Everyone on site needs to know what to do and where the exits are if a fire breaks out. This includes anyone working on scaffolding / mast climbers or the like. There is plenty information readily available on this from the HSE and other knowledge bases. One key point more applicable now is that a Client should aside enough in their budget to enable a contractor to comply with the current HSE regs and stipulations from the designer regarding say construction sequence. It's always been there under CDM but hidden to some extent from the domestic Client ( self builder / extender) For all on BH. When getting prices from builders it's worth getting them to itemise out a sum for safety complicance on site. This lets eveyone see that you are taking safety seriously from the outset. 2/ OK say there is a fire and everyone is off site safely. The fire brigade turn up. They need to be kept safe also. You can't have a structure suddenly collapsing on them. Now we are getting into the design / planning of the method of construction and sequence. As a designer when faced with this I would introduce this at an early stage to a Client.. this is usually an expansion of the explanation about fire boundary conditions that apply post completion. See my previousish posts. 3/ OK say we want to do a self build in TF that during contruction poses a risk to a neighbouring building? The Building regs talk about fire boundary conditions.. you can have one even if there is no house next door! Most of the time we know that the construction phase is relatively short cf the common 50 year design life of a house and can see if there is a structure next door or know if one is planned during the construction phase. 4/ Well we can look at the STA guidance for fire during the construction phase, refer to other stuff we are aware of and importanly apply common sense. Then find that we either can't have a TF under the STA guidance or it is going to become too costly to do a self build of say 2 storeys. 5/ Now we need to go back an look at the risks of the particular project. No project is without risk so what can we do? 6/ For me I look at how could a fire start. Again much of this is covered in the HSE regs and guidance on fire safety on site. But basics are no smoking, no hot work, no using a grinder that causes sparks.. no hot site lighting and managing material handling / storage that can add to the fire load (the fuel for a fire) the basic stuff. I look at my design.. Have I / will design something that adds risk? What is not so well covered is site security (your location) and the way you conduct your personal business! A few years ago we had a big problem up my neck of the woods with the criminal fraternity washing money in site security. Bills were not paid and a lot of TFs went on fire at the weekend / at night. Mind you the poor spark got the blame some of the time for dodgy site security electrics! A big risk is theft from containers. Folk use burning gear to cut the container open.. keep your container away from the house if you can. 7/ If we can't get the risk down enough (say 24 hour site security, a fire watch at critical times etc) we may then say let's put up a few TF panels and get the brick cladding up straight away to fire stop level. We may need to get some cross walls in to act as lateral support to the external walls and worst case provide some temporary protection. In summary it's about looking at the risks and mitigating them to an acceptable level. The question is what is acceptable! For me part of the foundation of acceptible is a Client that will engage / discuss, that is my starting point, rather than just "seeing me" as an unwanted expense, a route to getting BC approval and then going off an going their own thing.. the new regs are intended to put a stop to this in some ways. Some may say it's jobs for the boys! But if you get you designer in early and just talk through the job it can lead to lots of other savings and ideas that can easily offset the professional design fee. To exagerate to make a point. In item (2) I point out that we don't want the structure to collapse on the fire brigade. The structure is connected to the foundations and these can provide rotational support to a wall subject to fire @saveasteading has written lots about encastre support / wall and steel frame base fixity and you can find out more about this if you look at his posts. So now we talk about your founds / floor joist span, type etc etc.. and this leads to holistic design and cost savings. Some clouds have a silver lining even if you have to stump up a bit more cash at the outset in terms of design fees. Over my working life I've seen two fatalites and one serious injury on site (loss of a limb). Two were preventable, one was a freek of nature to some extent. I myself got briefly trapped in a tight solum space when I was a young builder (before I became an SE) and set fire to the floor above when using a gas plumbing torch.. I could see the flames above and that rapid crawl to get out stays with me to this day, worst still there were kids in the house so it was just not myself I was looking after! Uncontrolled fire is an awful thing. That's it for now @LnP

Maybe I’ve got the wrong end of this one, but I’m thinking… Any property could work out with an ASHP with the right heat emitters, be that large rads or UFH. The most common heating system is gas with rads designed first high flow temperatures. Replace a gas boiler with an electric heat source providing a high flow temp will increase bills (be it resistive or heat pump based). Expecting peeps to replace working rads just to enable them to spend yet more capital to save the planet a little bit is rather hopeful. So…. hoping for wholesale voluntary transfer to electrical based heating is not going to work. How about we think about banning new houses having gas boilers and we accept slow change…. Oh, they tried that one then worried about re-election. Sigh.

Hi Everyone, I am just about to start on a renovation and extension project in Co Clare hoping to bring a 1920s land commission up to EnerPhit/Passive standard. The project is currently awaiting planning permission decision due next week and then its all systems go. Looking forward to learning from this great community best jason the pic is ground zero.....

Hi all! Long time listener, first time caller. My partner and I are wrapping up a renovation project, turning a 1970s semi-detached into our home for the next ten years or so. We “moved in” yesterday after about a year and a half of work, but we still have a lot to do, including finishing the flooring, tiling, kitchen, and a lot of the electrical works. So very much still a building site!

Hi Just wondering has anyone any experience of this either using hempcrete blocks or the hemp panels as an internal skin up against an existing mass concrete wall? I have a theory that being breathable they would make for a nice living environment and enhance heat retention with EWI of wood fibre or something else breathable on the outside. I used a hemp and lime plaster on internal walls of a stone house in a previous project and was impressed with the result

Hello, just an update, I have now filled the hole with concrete and hope that works. Thank you all for your great suggestions, that helped a lot!

Is that not a WEE responsibility for the manufacturer?

Good to see you back @Jeremy Harris even if your Sunamp tale has me nervously looking into the utility room to check our Sunamp hasn’t gone pop! Im just up the road from you and more than happy to lend muscle to help you get the beast up the stairs, it’s the least I can do, your post etc were HUGELY helpful and informative for our build. Hasn’t your PCM core got a 10 year warranty? I’m pretty sure mine has.

Welcome back. Hope you’re refreshed after your hiatus. I also learned loads from your posts so thank you. ☺️

Welcome back. Sorry to hear about the problems. We've moved to the west country, so are a bit closer to your neck of the woods. I'd be happy to provide assistance but as I'm also in my 70s I don't think it would actually be much help. Hope it all gets sorted successfully.

Going back to the orginal topic Say we have a storage heater flat Uses upto 90kwh a day. If it had 6 storage heaters, each holding upto 15kwh - those are typically about 700mm 1000mm and 190mm deep. Maximum output is around 1kw (dimplex xle) E7 rates are about 14p Octopus go is 8p Let's say it uses 90x8 kwh in day. £7.20 If each heater was replaced by a. K33 700x1000 (similar size shonshoikdbe aa straight swap). Those provide 2.8kw @dt50 (flow 70C). If we aim for a flow of 45C which generally gives ascopp of over 3.5 (vaillant arotherm) the dT is 25. That derates the rads to about 40%, which is 1kw. So the rads will output upto 1kw, which matches the storage heaters. Assuming a cost of 24p per kwh then the cost per kwh delivered is 6.8p. So for 90kwh, £6.17 or 17% cheaper. Nearly 50% cheaper if you use 14p/kwh tarrifs. So for a house using storage heaters it is absolutely possible to run cheaper and with no loss of comfort or space.

Thanks for returning and providing the feedback - which is very disappointing. I'll cross my fingers extra hard as I've someone lined someone up (for a lot less than €6,000 labour) to install one later this year in my French apartment...

Yes, its 750mm wide by about 500 deep. Might need some mechanical help though at 38Kg. I thought of buying a pulley set. Thanks guys. I dont see why it should be a big deal but wasn't sure if that was just my ignorance making me miss an obvious parameter.

I'm more a theoretical type but I'd be more than happy to come up and stand and point at things while others lift and fit the Sunamp. I can even hand people the right tool at the right time..!

Same, more than happy to come over and help with lifting. Great to see you back after such a long time @Jeremy Harris

Buildhub divining rods to the rescue lol!

Seriously, I'd be happy to pop down and help lift it out etc.

Would an extra pair(s) of hands help with the heavy lifting?

& it still leaks!

Welcome back! I still haven't finished the bathroom btw..

You’re back ! Knew you would ! I’ve tried to match your level of expertise and knowledge in your absence. Think I did ok 👍

i couldn’t see the heating coil when I cut the top off once I’d cut the coil connections and pulled it out this was was left inside

Saves the captives calling for help through it as well...

+1. It is sloppy, even for overhand work. I'd approach the BCO and suggest that it contravenes Part 7 (b): Materials and workmanship 7.—Building work shall be carried out— (a)with adequate and proper materials which— (i)are appropriate for the circumstances in which they are used, (ii)are adequately mixed or prepared, and (iii)are applied, used or fixed so as adequately to perform the functions for which they are designed; and (b)in a workmanlike manner.

It's a different skill set. Lots of people use architects to provide planning advice and I'm sure it works out fine, but it's not core to their business. You can even do it yourself if you're prepared to take the time to read lots and learn it and if your situation is straightforward. But there are lots of wrinkles and traps - CIL, BNG, heat pumps, bat surveys etc and there's new stuff coming along all the time. Some of it is not written in the guidance and very subjective and based on precedent. Our project is in two parts. The first part was to renovate a Victorian coach house in the garden, for which we needed to get planning permission. It took so long to be determined and we wanted to get started that our planning consultant advised we could take the risk and start. We were 2/3 complete by the time we got the planning permission. I wouldn't have done that without professional advice. The second part of our project is proving to be not straightforward and I'm glad to have his support. Wherever you go, you'll have to pay for it so my preference was to engage an expert. I found our guy through the RTPI web site. We engaged him before we engaged an architect because we needed to sort out planning issues first. He was previously head of development and control at our local authority so he does know his way around.

@John Carroll I had a chance to run a couple more tests and finally found a few minutes to write the results down for you: Constant dP, target pressure 100mbar - this was after a while of running so hopefully steady state rather than ramping up: Modulation: 34% Target Flow: 62 Actual Flow: 62 Actual Return: 46 Flow rate: 477 l/hour Pump speed: 21% Fixed pump stage 50% Modulation: 32% Target Flow: 62 Actual Flow: 62 Actual Return: 48 Flow rate: 505 l/hour Pump speed: 50% I have to admit I haven't had a time to fully digest your posts yet sorry

Welcome I dreamt that I was in the Bahamas, then awoke, and found I was in my pyjamas.

Thank you so much @Iceverge for your huge hep, this incredible message rounds all the other messages in this thread and makes this much easier to understand for me.

Call out for a washing machine repair £35.00 min. Two hours say to run a couple of cycles, say all in £100.00 Someone who knows about design (who will spend many hours putting this all together and listening to your brief) that you have staked you savings and mortgage on for £150.00 quid?

The other bit is the "green taxes" (a crap name) that pay for stuff like insulation upgrades, social tariffs.for struggling customers, historical subsidies for wind and solar (but not new ones) all tend to go onto electricity prices rather than gas prices. So when there are grants for insulating lofts - that's paid for out of electric prices not gas. Thry aren't huge, a few pence per unit but if we took 2p.from the 23p electricity unit cost and added it to the 5p gas cost we'd have 21p vs 7p so you need a 3:1 efficency to break even (fairly doable) rather than 4.5:1

Sorry for the late reply but having a sips build now up and weather tight I would not chose the sips system again. Without a doubt if I were to do it again I would go down the timber frame route mostly due to the many issues that have arised directly because of the sips panel structure.

Obviously the rafter section is different since the space has already been converted, but that's how traditional roofs are done up here; basically no eaves, slate over felt nailed through directly to the sarking. But it seems Russel has answered my question definitively - if they can't take a nail securely they're not an adequate substitute for the boards in this case. A shame but it is what it is, I'll just have to shrink the internal space a little to fit adequate insulation and put vents in

How about we don’t actually need more houses, we need less people.

Blimey! I've had some success! I took a different approach today. 2 rads refused to heat and they have been the the bain so I turned all 19 rads off completely, turned heat back on and opened 15 rads 1/4 turn. I've gone back a tweaked those 15 and now they are all lovrly and warm. I've shut down the remaining 4 in the rooms that are never used...I can live with that. I'm cross though because I don't knnow why that method has worked. I'll go back later and measure the F and R out of curiosity but right now I have a lovely warm home and I don't know why!! 😄

@John Carroll would probably be able to tell you what that circulation pump flows but on Pump Speed 3 it should be more than enough to cope with a big circuit of 19 rads TL:DR - might be worth checking / cleaning pump internals?? Long Version I've just had a thought (based on my experience a couple of years back) My CH circuit always ran on PS 1 (Pump Speed setting one) ie the slowest setting on the pump - gave best DT's at the rads - the house warmed up quickly and all was good in the world (I didn't have WC but ran a fixed Flow temp of 55 Deg C because below that the HW tank wouldn't heat up in the time slot) Only when it was really cold did I bump the pump speed to 2 rather than turn up the flow temp. I didn't like PS 2 because it circuit was noisier and Mrs Marshian is a stupidly light sleeper and circuit noise wakes her up. Then one winter the house wouldn't heat up as well and I had to turn the pump speed up to 2 when it wasn't really that cold outside. I really struggled to understand what was happening but eventually put it down to an aging pump (20 years old) Then when it got really cold I needed PS3 - something was really wrong. So I isolated the pump, removed it and split it This is what the impeller looked like Yeah that's really not going to help move water I have a magnaclean in circuit it never pulls much out of the system - this is typical after 6 months However there was one thing I missed - the magnaclean is after the pump not before it so protecting the boiler but not the pump So I cleaned all the vanes out on the impeller Yes I know it doesn't look like new but the magnatite I scraped out was a good half an egg cup worth. Pump back together and guess what - Pump Speed 1 was absolutely fine again - no system noise, warm house, happy wife = happy life. Next time I did some work to the CH circuit I swapped pump and magnaclean unit so it now protects the pump as well as the boiler.

A garage ceiling built to modern regs should be 2 layers of 15mm pink fireblock plasterboard, with the joints on both layers staggered. I very much doubt you have that much now. So best bet is take down the plasterboard ceiling you have, insulate between the joists with rockwoll etc then re board with 2 layers as above to modern specs.

Hardware failures of the Miniserver are relatively rare but if they do happen then swapping it out for a replacement is fairly quick and straightforward. It's more complicated if you are swapping a Gen1 for a Gen2. I do keep a couple of spare Gen1 and Gen2 Miniservers just in case a client needs a quick replacement to get their system back up and running. The main failures are more likely with the SD cards, so always keep a back up with a recent copy of the config file. The Miniservers are just the hardware, all the system config software is on the SD card.

I know this is an old topic / post but thought that (as a brick maker) I would post what is good practise and often gets missed by DIYers and professional builders alike: Portable sample boards ARE NOT to be relied upon as being truly representative of the product that may be delivered. You should: Request a sample from the manufacturer of enough product to build a site panel 1M2 to be used as a reference panel. This should be built on site on a level, weather protected area and used to build subsequent sample panels from each delivery to make sure they are a reasonable match to the reference panel. The product supplied by the manufacturer should NOT be filtered (with the exception of broken pieces) and laid as received. If critical you should also request the manufacturer approve that what has been built is acceptable to them as to what will be received in the main deliveries. This is as per PAS (Publicly Acessible Standard) 70:2003 for good site practise. So the question usually is why do you have to do this - surely "They should all match the sample board"... Clays, sands, kilns, thermocouples, valves, fans, motors, sprayers, people and the wind direction changes. I kid you not - these are factors that can affect the appearance of the finished product and I have probably missed a few factors. So imagine you order a sample board (which are usually 3 courses of1 and a half bricks - so 4.5 bricks) 18 months before you build and rely upon that as your reference. 1) 4.5 bricks is not usually representative of a complex blend due to the size of the sample 2) The stock pile the brick works might change from when the sample was made and current production runs - clay stock piles can subtly differ in their chemical composition due to the nature of how clay deposits are laid down. 3) The works may have upgraded/changed its kilns from i.e. a Hoffman to a tunnel kiln 4) The sand stains originally used may have run out and a similar (but not quite the same) product has been sourced 5) If the works is a clamp works (that being where the bricks are piled in a huge mound with coal between each layer and fired in the open air) for example the wind might have been stronger this batch than the one you sampled from meaning they fired faster and hotter - which changes the firing curve affecting the product achieved. 6) The temperature measuring devices (thermocouples) can drift. This is usually compensated by yearly calibration BUT they do drift and a noticeable colour difference can occur with a firing temperature difference of 5 degrees C in 1100 i.e. a 0.45% change... 7) Coal addition is usually done by inline belt weighers - these can also be affected by mis calibration / poor maintenance affecting the weighed amount added. 8 ) The product may be in high demand so it may be that the management want a higher throughput to meet demand. This means that the works manager might increase the speed of the firing (usually by either increasing the ramp speed of trimming the top soak). This modification can affect the colour and appearance. I could go on but these are some of the factors that can affect why one batch may differ from the other. In short - the only true way to garauntee the product you show planners (for example) is a perfect match to what you end up building with is to go to the manufacturer, inspect the yard stock, get it ring-fenced and randomly sample from that exact batch. Clearly for small builders this is not really practical. This is what the big house builders used to do i.e. they would call Redland and say we are looking at buying 400k Dorking Multi / w/e. Redland would then make 400k bricks and invite the buyer to come over, sample for his reference panel and ring fence it if he was happy. HTH for those who are confused why sometimes bricks do not match the sample / image.

I meet with a group of "Car Guys" under the umbrella of Norfolk Mountain Rescue Club I think that sometimes people think we actually do mountain rescues - I have to explain that Norfolk is well flat (unless you are on a push bike) It's just an opportunity to share tools, knowledge and occasionally we have been known to hold a spanner party

But this is not social, this Is important multi disaplinamary business interactions with other sectors of the self build community in your location (dear!) 🤣

Do you mean compressed between two layers of wood?

I made some edits. I was interrupted by a puking child on my first attempt. Keep the big island. Just make it the focus of the design, not an afterthought. Ours is 3.2m long and 1m deep and it's fantastic. I've the hob at one end, all pots and pans under it, oven directly behind, bins, chopping boards, knives etc just a step away. Sink almost directly behind as well. Keep the sink at the window for sure. Try to picture using the kitchen day to day. What happens when somebody is cooking at the hob and transferring food to the oven while somebody else is making a cup of tea? Do they ever occupy the same space? The answer should be no. That's how we designed ours, designated zones by activity type. A rendering of ours. The door on the LHS past the fridge is in to our boot room / pantry.