Leaderboard

Course we multitask. The very thought. Perfectly capable of simultaneously appreciating the skills of at least two beach volleyball teams, AND drinking a glass of beer, AND supervising someone cooking lunch. Bah-humbug!

Do you have a link? To be honest I’m not too concerned about the stiffness issues, I’m more concerned about my ability to use as much of the available PV generation. Given that mine is a none feed in tariff (DIY) installation, any generated energy is a “GIFT” to the grid and a financial loss to me. On reflection it’s a double wammy, I’m not being paid for anything I export and I’ve then got to buy it back to charge the Sunamp! To be honest, I would not of placed an order for a Sunamp if I’d been aware of the new versions inability to charge using avalable PV generation. I really dont want to have to be adding a DIY Willie heater system to something that should ‘work out of the box’.

How about you change yours to Teutonic and people would get us mixed up?

Hi and welcome I researched filter mounds as I very nearly used one myself. They are not that scary. No 1 thing is to do a percolation test. But you don't dig a deep hole as normal, you dig a 300mm cube hole at the surface, fill it with water and time how long that takes to drain away. I can fill you in more on the details as this progresses. This will give you your percolation rate Vp. From this, and the No of bedrooms in the house you can then calculate the area of ground that needs to be covered by a filter mound. This filter mound is just a pile of graded sand of a known percolation rate. Because it is graded it is more expensive than building sand, I got a quote and it would have been about £1000 for the graded filter sand. Add a bit for a ferry ride unless there is a quarry on the island that can supply it. You build a mound of sand, about 1 metre high, on top goes your normal perforated drainage field then the whole lot gets covered in soil, so you have a garden with a bump in it. All you need to know about filter mounds is contained in this little book https://www.brebookshop.com/details.jsp?id=148788 It is only about 25 pages and I objected to paying £2 per page, so I borrowed it from our local library, they got it on an inter library loan for me at a cost of just over £1 for the postage. Once you have worked out how big the filter mound needs to be, you have to work out where you can fit it, given the building regs limits how close it can go to a building and a boundary. It was lack of space in the end that made SEPA give in and give me a permit to discharge to a burn instead. Another tip: Avoid treatment plants that have moving mechanical parts. Trust me, you do not want to be servicing them when they go wrong. Instead choose one that works on an air blower principle like Biopure, Vortex, Conder, Graff and probably many others.

Not allowable. Sorry The Management However, I see Procrastinator General, or Two Speeds: Dead Slow and Stop are both available.....

Welcome. Mind if I nick "Tectonic" as my new username?

Interesting. I've just been looking up the phase transition temperature for paraffin waxes and it seems that they can be very finely tuned, with one form of paraffin wax having a phase transition temperature of 21.7 °C , which looks to be a good match to a room temperature stabilisation system like this. The effect would be to increase the thermal time constant of the house a fair bit, I would imagine, with the panels absorbing heat when the room temperature is over 21.7 °C and then releasing it when it drops below that temperature.

Our blockwork started three weeks ago. This was always going to be weather dependent and it was mixed for the first two weeks in November but since then we have had a really good weather window where its been calm, sunny and not too cold which allowed the remaining work to be completed. Our brickie was fitted a temporary gutter which could be taken off when required. This gable end is where the prevailing wind comes down off the mountains, we have shelter belt here but its nice to know that we now have a solid concrete wall. Next on the list is fitting the concrete windows cills which should be next week. The sections that don't have blockwork will be fitted with the remaining Siberian larch cladding in early December.

Luv you too sweetie!

Stick to IT luv

Just be aware that they will let you defer delivery once you’ve ordered and the customer service is top notch.

Next size jubilee clips down - get from the local motor factors. Smear of silicon grease (not Vaseline...)

If it goes wrong, put the original hose back.

Good advice I use a a grouting float to flatten down

She did. The flow from the springs is in the south ditch/drain and is a little more than that of the drain pictured, but not a great deal. It does sound as though the mound is a manageable option. I need to investigate how much for sand, and how much sand... so perc test next I think...

I would move that land drain you have dug ASAP right up to your plot boundary, and fill in the ditch you have already opened. The problem you have is a filter mound needs to be 10 metres from a watercourse, and if SEPA decide that is a watercourse that excludes a large chunk of your land from being usable as a soakaway. There wasn't a watercourse there before you dug it so make it so again. I would be inclined to dig a land drain right around the whole perimiter of your site, fill it with rock, making it a French Drain, and cover with geotextile and a thin layer of soil. Make it run into the roadside drain, as inconspicuously as you can.

I got quite a bit on eBay (UFH mats, latex, tanking kits, MPDE fittings etc..) on eBay and got VAT receipts from them all.

Be my guest Thanks! Offshore Argyll, isle of Mull.

Good to hear that the "caravan days" are behind you albeit not in the manner you had hoped I'm sure. Hopefully the pellet stove business will be sorted sooner than later and you can then concentrate on moving forward - even if it is just one day or one job at a time. You will get there, just be patient.

try a cable tie or two instead of the jubilee clips.

Both, at least around here. We've got a lot of big new developments that have gone up around Salisbury in the past few years, and at a guess I'd say around 20 to 30% were timber frame, with rendered block or brick exteriors, some with partial timber cladding, the rest were block and brick. From just looking at them whilst passing by I'd say that the block and brick ones have the most glaring faults - most appeared to have missing insulation, poor cavity closings etc. The timber frame ones looked marginally better, but that may well be because it's not so obvious from outside when the insulation is missing or has big gaps.

But sometimes the EBay savings are greater than the VAT reclaim rate!

You lot will like this ! My requirement to the builder was that 4 uvc showers and an electric shower could run simultaneously ( lower flow of course ! ) and be usable . Someone gave a nice diagram of a system to do that ( showing a cold accumulator tank ) . Anyway right at the start of the refurb I showed it to builders “uvc expert” ( the guy who installed it ) . He’d “never seen anything like that “ - so it was left . Today I run the electric shower and 3 uvc simultaneously- guess what ? . Underflow light comes on electric shower and naturally water cold . Builder takes a look - he’s never heard of a ‘cold accumulator ‘ . Anyway he has to do some ‘internet research ‘ and undoubtedly will retro fit a pressurised cold accumulator just for the shower . I didn’t say “I told you “ . The more I employ ‘trades’ ; the more knowledge I gain ! ???

Or watching motor racing, drinking beer and using the remote. That was my hubby’s best effort at multitasking but then he had lots of practice with that one ?

I work away one night a week and get up same day as the wife to get to the station to commute to London. The rest of the time I work from home and when she gets up at 5am and is rattling around it drives me insane, I'm partly deaf and most of the time I struggle to hear anything without my hearing aids but at 5am my hearing seems to be amazing ? I casually emerge at 830 and log on in my PJs. When it gets to the weekend I wake up at a godly early hour when she wants a lie in!

Yes, they were pointed to it about a week ago now, I think.

Exactly. This might just turn out to be a simple software fix. Or maybe software + changed temperature sensor string, or something like that. Let's hope Sunamp give some indication soon but until they do discussion is so speculative as to be mostly a source of confusion.

No, we have the eHW, as the PV version is only suitable for small PV arrays (less than 3 kWp IIRC) and only has a small (I think 1 kW) electric heating element. Ours has a 3 kW heating element and was sold as being suitable for use with a higher capacity PV system. The label inside our Qontroller states that it is a UniQ_SBC_01_PV, implying that it should have been set up to utilise excess PV generation, however, as supplied, it was set up with Option 1 ON, which meant that it didn't start accepting any charge until it was 90% discharged. I changed that last Friday, in the light of information received during an email exchange with Sunamp, so that it now starts to accept a charge from 50% discharged, which should be better, but it's a long way from being ideal.

Had a very brief correspondence with http://www.rubitherm.com/ in 2005 regarding the prices their phase-change waxes. They were around €5/kg then. IIRC they did PCM wax micro-capsules embedded in plasterboard then, as well. Don't seem to be on their site now. I think they made the micro-capsules and somebody else put them in the plasterboard. Another intriguing German-speaking phase-change heat store idea is being done by a couple in eastern Austria where they use a tank of water under their house as a store of tepid water (from ambient temperature) which is used as the input to a heat pump. They have a very passive non-insulated thermal collector which picks up ambient heat from the environment (including a bit of sunlight, presumably) to replenish the store over the winter. But, they also deliberately allow the store to freeze as a source of energy. https://elkement.blog/2017/10/12/data-for-the-heat-pump-system-heating-season-2016-2017/ . I'm not entirely sure it's worth the hassle over a standard ASHP but in an environment where your ASHP might well finish up buried in snow it might make sense.

.

I’d happily use such a system if it were available off the shelf from Sunamp. Maybe this is the answer, “oh you want to optimise PV, you’ll need the Sunamp PV optimisation add-on”. A bit like buying a BMW, you want alloy wheels! That’ll be £x extra!

I've read every word of this thread, and started another to get an understanding of what heat batteries are, so thanks everyone for the information. I'm probably never going to understand the technical in's and outs, i'm not a software engineer or a heating engineer or owt like that. However, I realise that the real core of the issue currently being discussed here is the charge acceptance level. It appears like this is something they are aware of but won't have a definitive fix for some time yet. Also it seems from the phrases being used throughout the last 9 pages indicate some quite intricate if to some quite simple fixes for the issue. They would all obviously cost chunks of money. However with one eye on the key objective of saving money in the long term, would it not be best to just wait for the relevant software updates (if that is all that is required to effectively resolve the issue), and for those with these units, just turn the tap on until the charge level hits 49%. I know there's an element of waste to this, but for those of us who have the time, maybe just take another bath. BY the way, none of that was meant to be patronising, i'm just struggling with why a temporary solution can't be this simple? Obviously I don't think everyone has the luxury of lolling around in baths all day...

We visited Richard Hawkes PH around 2008 while it was being built and he had paraffin wax phase change panels in his walls.

In my defence I have been under a lot of stress during that time...

i read 'mortar mix of 1:5.5' and thought that was weak, normally 1:4 @ProDave it 'could' be down to saving money but my thought was someone 'needed' a few bacgs of cement for a weekend job and made the normal mix stretch a bit further. it could also be down to cr4p cement. i know our brickies are fussy as to what they use due to the amount of ash in some cement bags, i suppose this comes under money saving

He could have had the swimming pool suspended instead http://homeworlddesign.com/embassy-gardens-sky-pool-suspended-glass-swimming-pool/

So far so good. we've just had verbal confirmation they approve of the amended plans. Test holes being dug next week, so I'm hoping this doesn't raise any issues.

I first heard of the weak mortar issue years ago. Sometimes it was 1:15. The solution proposed was to rake out and repoint. My concern would be the remaining 80mm of the brick and all the block also laid in defective mortar.

Dunno, thinking about Felicity Kendall now...

Yep. The Sunamps impart their heat to the water more efficiently too I believe. It's a space thing also. The Sunamps are a fair bit smaller than a "water tank" type heat store. That being said I've often wondered as in my case (space rich, cash light ), whether I could just have a MASSIVE heat store and just treat the heat loss as space heating?

Interesting how we all display our prejudices so openly. For the avoidance of doubt, the client gets not even a shred of sympathy from me pure on the basis of what he does to steal a living.

I would worry about the humidity from the pool damaging the AV equipment... never mind that it looks horrific.

Ok some of this understand and some not. Total newby sorry. "I would bin off the blender" - yes easy, also easy to add the 8 litre expansion vessel here. "connect the flow from the ASHP through a butterfly valve direct to the manifold" - can I use the ball valve currently between the pump and the manifold (circled in pink)? "You’ll need a fill point too but you could be clever and use the drain valve on one end of the manifold as these don’t have one way valves on them." - can i leave the fill with the bleeder (circled purple) and the drain with the pressure gauge (circled blue) where they are and just add a small loop between flow and return on port 4? "return, run through a mag / particle filter and then use a length of copper pipe as the sensor section for the pipe stat which could be where your pump goes." - yes easy, also add antifreeze here. "I’d consider using the Wunda self setting heads to regulate the flow - not expensive either. It will regulate the flow to 7c but you will need the bypass as it could shut the lot down and the ASHP may go into overheat mode." - I am concerned about shutting flow down with actuators / heads do you think it will be ok without? "run the ASHP on setting 4 which means from memory that the positive from the 24v goes to A5, and the negative goes to A2. Should give you 45/50%" - So I just use the grey box for the 24 volt power supply inside it? there doesn't seem to be much more than that in there anyway. "Where are you in the UK out of interest ..??" - I'm in rural Lincolnshire near Boston no gas or oil.

Yes, they are very much aware. As to how big and how itchy the rash is I'm not so certain but I know @Nickfromwales is trying to keep the communication channels open and flowing.

You, me (and many others) all. Slowly though, I'm finding the more issues I face - often after @Onoff levels of procrastination - the more confident I get at sorting them out. Progress is slow however. For me, it's about persistence: consistent persistence. A good few days each month find me mooning around in avoidance mode. Tired, irritable, grizzly. For me BH is a life-saver. Without it, we'd be in a complete mess, and broke. The worst thing is the lack of control. Many of us are (or recently were) professionally at the top of our games. We know (knew) our stuff. And then we decided to build a house. Knowingly threw ourselves into a whirlpool. How many people would have the balls to do that?

As an example, this is (part) of our en suite, what you can see is a little under 2mtrs wide and 2.2m long. Behind the camera is a walk in shower as the room is 4m long. P.S. I LOVE that bath, soo deep you can float in it, I just hope our building inspector hasn’t read the regs on bath size ?.

Window wall inc reveal and one pocket done, awaiting grout. WC wall and 2 pockets done and awaiting grout. Tempted to grout these bits but I like to finish one thing before I start something else...