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SOLVED - The surveyor amended the construction to traditional brick. Thank you all for your kind help and advice. Take care

Sounds shit to me with a capital S as has been said DO NOT RUN A POWER CABLE THROUGH A PIECE OF MDPE , unless of course you are a complete fool. Run the power cable in an appropriate duct for electric, it is pennies in the grand scheme of things. Nobody will hack through a duct without asking themselves what’s in this, whereas a bit of blue poly I would just hack through it with a mattock and kapow surprised at some of the people above who think this isn’t a silly idea.

I resisted the urge to say big pipe fans

Hmm...Perhaps not a mini Graven Hill then, but perhaps simply a few likeminded folks joining together to buy a bigger parcel and splitting it up.

Cover it in PV, it has an energy yield about 40 times of biomass.

Hi DevilDamo, That looks very nice well done, I will keep you posted on my progress.

Being a corner plot, you have more PD restrictions... https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/830643/190910_Tech_Guide_for_publishing.pdf (Page 16)

yes, in an industrial estate, not agricultural land ?‍♂️

I gave that number purely as an indication of how to size the ASHP as it is defined by the worst days. We use 75,000 total a year. That is around 20,000 for the pool, 15,000 for hot water (we use too much hot water) and 40,000 for heating. I have never got round checking on days when it is and is not used. It would depend how long it is open for, but I suspect it is 5-10kWh. I will see if I can check this. It shouldn't matter. You just need to run a certain amount of water a day through the filter. I am sure it could run bit less, but the pool is lovely and clear. The pool guy set it up to run during the day so it did not disturb people at night. But you cannot hear it upstairs, so I would rather it ran at night anyway. It is quite noisy when you are in the pool room (it kicks into a higher speed when the pool is open). He tried to change it once and it didn't work, but I think I could probably change the settings myself if I had a smart meter. It looks like the system is set up to maximise self use and they have total control of the system. I have 5kW of solar. The savings on their calculator seem to go down with more solar. For a simple calculation, say you use £2000 a year in electricity. Reducing your cost from 15p/kWh to 11p/kWh will save £500 a year. The Powerwall is £10k and only has a useful life of 10 years at best. Most of the cost is the Powerwall itself, so you won't be able to save much. It does indeed, but I doubt it would produce half of the pool's heating costs as they don't produce as much during winter. The equation is slightly different with gas as although PV produces less energy it displaces electricity which is a lot more expensive than gas. Still with a ASHP water heating costs around 4p/kWh versus pure electricity at around 15p. Thus PV might still produce better or similar savings. I am not sure this would be worthwhile. When your solar thermal is generating it should all be eaten up by the pool using 50kWh a day. It is an even larger buffer. You will need a smaller one to manage the heat transfer, but I don't think an enormous one. You'd only need a large buffer if there were days the solar thermal generated more than you need for the pool and hot water which seems unlikely.

Dead easy with 20 quid of hardware. Be interesting to see if yours is still logging, hot to be a couple of years since I was last over.

A current clamp and multimeter with a data logging port connected to a laptop would do this to reasonable accuracy.

yes - they use the GPS clock signal. They are moving away from the old time signal as it’s not going to be continued so all the meters and the system use the same mechanism of UTC. The lead/lag in HH metering is about 2-3 seconds anyway so it’s swings and roundabouts to be honest.

I wonder if all parts of the smart meter system are synchronized to the same time zone?

Yep, according to this it is: https://database.passivehouse.com/en/components/details/ventilation_small/brink-climate-systems-bv-brink-flair-400-1362vs03

that's not really an objection? There's lots of things I don't want to be happening near me, but putting small industry away from where people are living seems better than having it in amongst where people live?

Ahh, now with the different rates i can see your concern.

Res bar will do

Absolute shambles. The sole reason for forcing smart meters on us is the eventual aim of charging us all half hourly metering (different tariff for each half hour of the day). If the damned things cannot even do that properly, with the sum of all the half hours usage equalling the total days usage then that is a dirty great big FAIL. I will resist having one as long as I can and hope that by the time one is forced on me, they will have got this simple bit of programming correct. On the plus side you are with Octopus who have a good reputation for customer service. I can see people with other suppliers hitting a brick wall with an issue like that.

Couldnt agree more, same with consumer units ... historically all metal, some bakalite, then they must be plastic (for safety) and now back to metal

It’s probably worth counter battening the underside for plaster boarding This will also stop any twisting and will help stop floorboard creek later

I do not have a single screw anchoring my stud walls in place. All held down with a generous tube or two of PU adhesive. I needed to adjust one and dismantled the stud wall, I had to use a crowbar to get the sole plate up, and it actually pulled lumps out of the screed rather than coming unstuck.

Did they give you some sort of monitoring screen with the smart meter? Does that track things any differently to the app?

It was Jeremy’s early reporting on his SunampPV that grabbed my attention way back when. His warts and all explanations of the problems he encountered with the second generation Sunamp was hugely informative and not enough to put me off. I know there are some on here who have had problems and would probably launch their Sunamps off a cliff, if only they had the strength to move them. I guess there are others here who are having no issues? Despite our little er, hiccough, I’m still smitten. Maybe not if it fails again though.

Let's be honest, that counts for a lot.

Im with Octopus and they have been brilliant, Bills are pretty much as i expect. I tried the app but it was ridiculously inaccurate. Showed me using loads of electricity when i wasnt and nothing while running machines in the workshop. It sounds like the actual usage is as you expect but are App watching and that could lead to frustration

Might be worth checking that the serial number on the account matches the one on the meter

Depends what you're doing. One trick is to do the joint with CT1 clear, get loads in there then wipe of flush with a baby wipe. Then go over the top (once the CT1 is set) with a silicone of your choice than can be periodically replaced when it gets grubby. I did this where my wall tiles meet the floor tiles. The wall ones were set on 1mm packers. When the tile adhesive had set I pumped clear CT1 in. Wiped off flush and then did a bead of grey Mapei. Yellow 1mm packers: (Tbh, never having tiled I started with the most difficult corner in the room ? my tiling really let the whole job down at the end. Next time I'd use a tile levelling system 100%). For doing any silicone work buy a Cramer Fugi set like this. The only silicone tools you'll need. Other makes that look like them are poor imitations. These are magic and help even an amateur get a good result. I even nailed a couple of bits of MDF together at right angles to have a practice at "siliconing": The Cramer kit is a revelation! The little black clip on bits allow the tool to ride over the grout lines: Never do this, total waste of time using tape to try and get straight lines. When you pull the tape up you lift the edges of the bead slightly and dirt and bacteria can get in: I was so unimpressed with my first attempt at doing the silicone I ripped it all out and did it again. It's useable: Looks pretty good...with the lights off mind! When I get some heating in there it'll be even better! ?

I found interesting that in between turning the heating off last night at 10pm and checking temperatures this morning at 10am when it was 3 degrees, the lowest thermostat readings were 19 degrees which were rooms which formed part of the existing bungalow and have no EWI yet (the extension was warmer but this has far better insulation in walls). I didn't think this was too bad with 12 hours of no heating when we have no EWI and no render.

Oh dear, sorry to hear of your ongoing problems. Good for you for keeping evidence of your meter readings. This is another reason I like being a Luddite, I hate tech, don’t do apps etc. etc. I just read my meter once a month (after an Email prompt) and pay what I use (also Octopus). Stick to your guns, at the end of the day your meter readings are the accurate ones. Regarding being mad, we all are, join the club ?

Doing it properly is the way to go, it will show the buyer you do things properly. If it’s spotted they will try to deduct more than the cost from your asking price ?.

My application is still in planning! ? Crossing licence granted. Building regs submitted Wednesday night, spoke to the allocated BCO this morning, they have already looked over the plans, they don't see any major issues and likely to grant permission end of next week subject to me sending them SAP and structural info today. Worlds apart between planning and BC!

Controversial I know @newhome but does anyone in the village own a car or ever need it maintained?

If you are intending to use any form of glue down flooring, LVT etc you will want to use ply. Don't use MDF. I doubt you will be able to get any sort of G/Tee from your glue down flooring company, if you are asking them to stick down to MDF.

This will be a massive anti climax for pipe fans. I went out with my auger and hoe. Cored out a hole and hit the pipe in no time. The pipe is the rusty brown area in this picture. It was only 65cm deep. This would put the bottom of the pipe at 1.05m So I called the SE. He said that he had just heard back from SW and they had checked at the nearest valve and believed the pipe was 1.5m deep. We decided it wasn't worth arguing whether we put a strip 500m deep below our raft or 1m deep to protect it from a possible water leak. They have agreed with our position of the pipe. Now we have to finalise the redesign and go back to the council to get approval. Everyone tells me they will do it as an amendment, so let's see. The planning officer has historically been painfully slow to deal with. Then we have to get MBC to redesign the frame and foundations.

Dragging this thread kicking and screaming back up to date and on topic. We love our Sunamp and are definitely in the ‘marry’ camp though I suspect what follows will make most readers think we are nuts. We had the Sunamp on site for 10 months before it was finally commissioned and when it was finally commissioned there was a click, a couple of lights in the control unit and that was it, 30 mins later it was producing hot water. That first full charge was all we gave it for a week or two (we weren’t living there) and it was only towards the end of the second week that it became obvious that the water temperature was dropping. We hadn’t used it for much, washing up and the like, but I was quite surprised at how long it was able to produce hot water for. I’ve never treated a UVC in the same way so no idea if that would continue to produce hot water for the best part of two weeks after initially getting up to temperature. Would it? All was well for a month or so charging up every time the sun came out, and if the sun couldn’t be bothered to shine then we didn’t charge it. Then it stopped working. In the control box the LED’s were telling us that there was a ‘temperature sensor fault’. The only reset button was not the issue. A call to Sunamp and their technical department got back to me quickly. The problem was diagnosed as a failure of the 4 core temperature sensor that slides down a thin tube in the centre of the PCM. They sent an electrician out to confirm that, and then sent him back to refit a new one so everything is back up and running and hunky dory at the moment. If that fails again, or any other part does, then I’m sure my good lady will insist on a divorce, from the Sunamp to start with I guess, because when that was down there was no hot water, apart from the Quooker. Actually the Quooker was great, I could still do the washing up because you can get it to dispense boiling water and cold at the same time so even without the Sunamps help it is a perfect mixer tap. But probably a bit of a stretch to have a bath that way! Has anyone else experienced a failure of the temperature sensor? Is it likely that it was faulty and a few charges killed it? Could our ‘charge every fortnight if we felt like it’ policy have killed it? Any other ideas as to why that bit of wire and gubbins would have failed? One other thing (if anyone has got this far) when it was first commissioned the LED’s never showed ‘cold start active’. When the replacement temperature sensor was fitted there was still no ‘cold start active’ indication from the LED’s but on starting after the replacement temperature sensor was fitted the cracking from the PCM as it started to melt was louder than I’d heard before. Much louder.

Yes, that’s exactly what we did, thank you! We included a covering letter stating clearly that we understood a payment was needed and that we wished to pay as soon as possible. And brilliantly they let us make the payment nice and early on, phew!

6mm ply isn’t that expensive and is more resilient than 6mm MDF. MR MDF is about the same price as ply anyway.

I'm sorry but I don't see the aesthetic joys in multipanel. They're reminiscent of caravans, hospitals and any commercial changing space. But for ease and improvement of waterproofing may be subject to them in a downstairs toilet.

I get Wendy to do work like that. She is my go to person for narrow holes and trenches. This was at our last house back in the 90s and it was only 2m deep.

SWMBO said the same

SWMBO said the same

SWMBO says that too me all the time

a much better location fir such a venture IMO, We are currently fighting a massive solar PV site on good agricultural land next to us.

The designs Wunda will do for you for free - and their tech support is at the end of the phone. There is only 12 months parts warranty on the NuHeat stuff. The only thing that goes wrong is the actuators or the pumps and they are change of £25/£100 respectively. If you send me the £950 I’ll give you a 5 year parts warranty on the moving parts too ... and I’ll probably still have £950 at the end of 5 years !!

Challenging for steam buffs like me who like to move the logs down to the house by train - what will I do with all my spare time?

My god you two are speaking another language