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I’ve wet dashed ours with K Dash Ive several pumps that spray the dash but my wife wanted it more random Like I used to do 30 years back in the Lake District White cement Silver sand 3-1-1 The silicone renders keep there colour better

Well we had our big pour today... Nervous all week. Had a big blowout on the corner...twice! Same corner, 4 blocks gone. Others bits stayed up when I thought they wouldn't. Will have to do the other walls another day. Learnt alot today. I would definitely recommend strap, brace and brace the corners again and again!

i understand this but one thing i've learnt (and there have been many!) during my journey is that not all 'accredited' professionals are created equal. nothing beats getting the opinions of others (even if they are complete strangers on the internet) as they generally do not have any sort of vested interest in the questions you're asking or solutions you're trying to find. and then you can compare the answers and make an informed decision. Also there are many ways to skin a cat. and just because someone says one way is best doesn't mean there isn't another way that is equally as good. just my 2 cents.

You only need to call the plumber back once ?

5ACH is poor. You should be targeting less than 1ACH and MVHR should be considered a must have. If your architect does not understand MVHR you need to find someone that does.

Alright alright, come on I need some positives here!

Do you have a picture of that area of pipework? Tbf, without one nobody would have expected that pipe to be there / for them to be congregated so densely. I take pics of everything before laying, saved my arse a few times.

Pretty much and have a thermal performance of about 0.021-0.022. Cooltherm is lower at about 0.019, but you pay more for that.

Yes they are broadly the same.

I don’t think building a cheap house exists anymore, materials and labour have gone through the roof.

In a similar situation I did this: + block wall was already there and fairly secure. Quite big hollow blocks and with some indeterminate mix of soil / concrete in the hollows. Various builders and fencers had had a go at fixing long softwood uprights onto the block wall with super long screws and wallplugs. Average life was a year or so before it blew down / fell apart. It does get a bit of wind sometimes and the leverage on the screws is high. + decided I would fix this once & for all. Ordered oak posts and rails and OKed a hit-and-miss design with the neighbour to reduce windage. Used resin anchors into the block wall carefully. Can’t remember whether I used the little sock thingies as the blocks were hollowish. Used 3 anchors to mount each post with the ss anchors. Attached rails with ss bolts and little serrated joiny things a fencer mate recommended. + added the hit and miss verticals. Has been super-solid since 2020 when it was done. A bit of a faff but should last a few decades. + the neighbour knew they would end up with a deep looking fence. That’s what they had before though and is more or less all you can end up with as our lane is on a 5 degrees slope. They did experience the situation when the fence was down temporarily and neither of us liked the overlooking thing. + however they’ve put trellis on their side and they grow plants up it and if front of if etc so it doesn’t look bad. In fact it’s obviously better quality than the previous softwood attempts and now they don’t have to worry that the fence might blow down on their 11 year old. p.s. the blocks were already on some kind of concrete foundation.

Did that include any allowance for heating the DHW? It can have a material effect on the sizing depending on # of occupants and usage pattern. Also an MCS installer may insist on changing the tank, what have you currently got and importantly what is the coil surface area?

That's fair enough, I don't mean to be dismissive of advice provided just trying to sort through what to take account of. There is some more info here: https://sustainability.stackexchange.com/questions/9621/air-source-heat-pumps-does-prevailing-wind-matter It seems that it is complicated but broadly: Definitely need: Airflow, don't create a cool micro climate near ASHP (but consider creating warm one) Definitely helps: Run ASHP during hot part of day when heat differential between inside and outside low. Might help: Sunlight (for defrosting the coil if run in low temperatures) Definitely avoid: High winds (causes frosting of the coil), Placement where servicing is hard. Restricted Airflow Don't forget: Noise and pipework likely more important than most of the above.

Thats going to be a pretty good conductor vs your walls and roof which are pretty good insulators. This being the case I seriously doubt you will maintain much of a temp diff between top floor and floor below, so you may well get the lowest cost by leaving the emitters on the top floor on, allowing you to reduce your flow temp to the absolute min. Otherwise you risk having to adjust your flow temp up to satisfy the demand of three floors from the emitter area of two. Unfortunately conducting meaningful experiments isnt easy because you don't have control of the variables (namely the OAT). I would be tempted to adjust the WC curve with all floors heated, doing this for a year until you are comfortable its as good as its going to get. Then turn off the emitters upstairs and see if you have to increase the flow temp up to compensate. If you do have to, you are probably better off leaving the top floor heated.

Lots of ways to do this. If the pipe runs are suitable a two port valve is simplest, could power from a Shelley or similar wireless gadget to save a long/difficult wiring run. Set up as a separate Circuit on the Vaillant controls, can then have its own time/temp schedule. Or wireless zone valves or TRVs on the rads, Tado are probably better than my Honeywells (could hardly be much worse!).

Us lot on BH have the advantages of 1. having many and various skills and experience. 2. can take an overview, unclouded by insular expertise. 3. can dare to be wrong. 4. Can think and state ...'but surely'...and wait to be corrected. 5. are very often collectively right. When my (and other) advice is not heeded I usually drop out of conversations. Maybe I'm wrong or maybe there's no point in further discussion. I've said nothing on this though so will read along. But I agree that being in the sun won't make much difference to an ashp, but being next to a big masonry wall in the sun might be a fair bit better than in a permanently dark and damp alley.

I supervised an EWI job for a client and, because they preferred not to extend the roof-line, we specified an 'EWI gutter', which was/is a double-depth (front-back, not top-bottom) alu gutter which forms a 'roof-ette' to the EWI and projects as far over the new wall surface as the gutter did over the original wall-line. It looks fine but since it is made of 2 lengths I worry about the joint in the long term. The contractor just said 'it's good stuff; it'll last forever' which may be slightly optimistic. I'd have the same worries with your set-up, and more, since 'un-building' the EWI gutter would not involve stripping off some of the roof. I think yours might.

Q2 first as that's easiest 🙂 Fit more PIR. Always fit more insulation if you can 🙂 Q1. My approach would be as follows: Membrane bringing it up the walls by 250mm 100mm PIR Around the edges fit an extra 50mm of PIR the width of the studs you propose to fit. (for belt and braces approach, seal the joints between the PIR) Lay pipe and screed in the resulting "paddling pool" You should now have a screeded floor with an edge of PIR showing, the width of your proposed studs Now fit your stud work atop the PIR edge, fit the PIR between and plasterboard the walls.

Although heat pumps modulate, that isn't the only means they match output to heat required, they also cycle. Your cycles really need to be a minimum on time of around 10 minutes. So for example if your heat pump modulates to 6kW, you need an engaged volume of water of around 100L. This can via limiting zones (no small zones) or via a volumiser.

You don't say what emitters you have got on your wood-fired boiler system which would be useful info. My initial thought is not to try and size an HP for the full duty for the reasons you state. As @JamesPa says, if Floor 3 is indeed above Floor 2 you may find depending on the construction of the floor that is is heated from below anyway. Maybe plan to heat the core from the HP and in extreme low OAT either run the fireplace, or if necessary add an A2A HP for Floor 3 later. The problem may be in convincing an MCS installer to size it like that, bc to get the BUS grant it must be designed to heat the whole house from the HP and installed by an MCS installer. I eventually got mine to adjust their assumptions a bit, their initial quote for my 200 sq m barn conversion was for a Stiebel Eltron 15kW unit. Here is some data for the Vaillant Arotherm Plus 12kW which is what I am now planning to fit. Water temp 40 - 45C. Other tables available here. You will see the modulation ratio varies with air temp from 25 to 50%, that is pretty typical. Mitsubishi publish similar tables, but they are hard to find for low end products. Avoid Samsung, they quote a wide turn-down ratio but use hot gas bypass to achieve it which wrecks the efficiency. The Vaillant spec is quite generous and it actually puts out 12.5 kW at your -7C. As you can see from the table below it will even do 14.7kW at OAT = -2 if your emitters are sized for W = 30 - 35C. There is also a 10kW version of this HP but it is the same mechanically with the output restricted by limiting the compressor speed to 85 rps so not much cheaper and the ratio is worse.

Heat rises so, unless there is a fairly serious thermal barrier between the second and third floor, I don't think you will maintain much of a temperature difference and thus your whole house heat loss probably wont be that much less if you don't heat the top floor than if you do. There is a good argument that zoning really does'nt help much or even may hinder with ASHPs, because the whole house heat loss doesnt reduce much (the thermal envelope is still the same) but you have to turn up the flow temperature to compensate for the fact that you are essentially trying to heat the same amount with fewer emitters. With a long, thin, property then it might make sense, with a top floor you don't want to heat, its very doubtful that zoning will save anything material and it may end up costing you more. What sort of insulation standard is the house and how thermally isolated is the top floor? Most major manufacturers do give minimum outputs but often buried in technical data books which can be found but not always easily. Sometimes you have to ask their tech support lines. Those who dont should probably be avoided.

A bit a write up here https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/does-heat-pump-work-better-its-sunshine-graham-hendra

and there is also a habit of humans not admitting they're wrong especially when there's been a large financial outlay or it might lose them face. so just because someone says "it's brilliant and works exactly as i hoped" or "i'm really happy with my purchase and wouldn't have done anything else" doesn't necessarily mean they're telling the truth as they don't want to look bad or admit they made a mistake. it takes a brave person to admit they were wrong

We had rotten floor joists so replaced with a slab and UFH. Fitted 100mm PIR as advised by a builder at the time, and wish we'd gone thicker, will be doing so for the extension. It's certainly no more expensive than rads though, and IMO is a far superior distribution of heat.

With 100mm insulation stick with radiators, but oversize for low flow temperature. You really need 150mm (ground bearing) insulation under UFH to make viable from a downward heat loss perspective, block and beam makes matters worse with downwards heat loss. Assuming you have a gas boiler get that changed to run X plan if you can, one temp for hot water and the other weather compensation for heating.

Did it scare the crap out of you ??

The wind load on a 6ft fence can be huge so the dwarf wall would really need to be cast concrete. Use posts for the fence and build the wall in front or around for aesthetics rather than structural

Ditto. all my branches up to an inch dia or so go through my bosch machine and make mulch. It drags the small stuff with it Everything else to compost. I've got 2 daleks that take everyday stuff plus kitchen veg waste, and an old coal bunker that takes sticky stuff like hay and hedge cuttings..it take 2 years to go through and comes out like soil. 10 barrowloads of compost each year, and much better than the bought stuff. Brambles and hedge cuttings d destroy under the lawnmower, and into the compost too. If the apple trees are diseased then burning is best,

The magnet causes the two switch blades in a sealed glass capsule to be attracted to one another so completing the circuit. As others have pointed out it is not a type of switch really suited to controlling a load like a pump. I would add with the pump running measure the voltage across the switch, and between the neutral at the pump and a neutral on a different circuit. Report back with the results of the tests upthread suggested by me and @Temp, then we can help further.

Ok, I see what you mean that it's not damp, but that is not necessarily what the breathability thing is about. If you were using a modern non-breathable insulant which effectively closes off the breathability on the inside, you would want a breathability path to the outside so that if any water vapour *does* get through (via a faulty vapour control layer, for example), it can find a way out to the outside. Get it modelled in WUFI. I am not advertising them but a wood-fibre supply firm with a name rather like how you'd describe your position if you were sitting against a mud bank will do a WUFI assessment for you for free. Basically if you are assured that the insulant (wood-fibre or cork) is OK to let the wall breathe to inside then it may not be so critical if the exterior is less breathable. Better to have a moisture model tell you that than me, though.

89sqm. it will be less than that when we get the VAT return

Write to your MP by snail mail. In the first sentence of you letter say something like... "Please could you write to Scottish Water asking why it's taking so long to make a simple connection to solve the problem we have with lead in our water pipe" Then you can explain the problem as per your OP above. Provide the address for SW. Then all your MP has to do is read the first line and get his secretary to dash off a letter.

Yep, it’s a PITA you cut out the ridge and cut the rafters back to the correct length, then fit a timber into the web of the steel and lift it up to the full height. it can be easier to remove all the old rafters and ridge and replace with new steel ridge and wooden rafters.

For both you will need a traditional slab or block and beam The polished concrete will go down like a screed afterwards The timber floor can be easily matched as a floating floor

My house (EPC A rated) has done nearly 60 years so far. Stick built. Rgds Damon

If I am reading this right, the ONLY room thermostat is in the hall which is often a cold a draughty place. What is the room temperature in the living rooms? I take it there are no individual room thermostats as is sometimes common with UFH. My point being if the rooms are warm enough, and it is just the silly placing of the only thermostat that is the problem then you need to move the thermostat. You can get wireless thermostats if re routing the wiring is too disruptive.

Yes

Nobody listens to instructions, nobody reads drawings. They're forbidden from thinking. Not because they're not capable but because there's a cultural rift between those allowed to do the thinking and those allowed to do the doing. It's totally archaic. If I was to do the house again I'd lock the site with one key and keep it that way unless I was there.

Then the entire loop has to be replaced, no brainer. You will never stop worrying about this if its not. Have you got their admission in writing? If so insist that you cannot have a joint in a UFH pipe.

We've had compression fittings last fine. Reality is, you'd detect with a damp meter through the carpet if an issue was suspected. Carpet lift and refit no issue, fix, refit. ... Few £100 and days work should worse case happen. Worse shit happens. Average house probably has several dozen pipe joints all over the place! Get them rejointed, pressurise over a weekend to ensure pressure is fine... Forget and move on!!!

Definitely pull it out or more to the point get them to sort it out and re pressurize the system

One question you need to ask is why is it so close to the top of the floor anyway? Someone messed up in the first place by looks of it.

Every switch in our (Loxone powered) house is a simple spring loaded switch. Two-way for blinds, one way for lights and other things. Works perfectly well. The main issue for me is that the return spring on the Definity Click switches we have is quite aggressive, to the point where it can be hard to click (and particularly to double-click) quietly.

Can't comment on the vid distribution due to only having a single TV (I know, radical) but maybe my Loxone experience can help here... Firstly, I'd not go for the Loxone occupancy sensor but go for the Faradite instead unless you want the acoustic angle? Personally I think they are much nicer - they are small, no relay clicks, just put them everywhere On to cabling - I went tree for the Loxone switches, spots and LED strip stuff (spots run from tree based on load, a single tree to each room and branching as you mention would be more than enough and my recommendation) and then ran a separate CAT6 for the Faradite with a couple of cables serving 2 sensors with diff cores (watch digital and analogue input counts on the Loxone end as that escalates!). I also have all 240v radial obviously routing back to Loxone over 1.5/2.5mm T&E. I was originally going to run T&E to each light switch but didn't bother and I think that was the right decision, switches will move away from needing T&E over time IMO and it's a waste of money/resources. You can happily run the Touch switches using normal CAT6 (as I am for a couple). I separately ran CAT6a for all my PoE gear e.g. Unifi cameras and AP. Not strictly required but has worked a charm with some very long runs. Now, what would I have done diff...? Run more spare cables (CAT6 and T&E) between key areas (for me this would be comms room, utility room, loft and garage) and put in spare twin wall ducts (100mm ones, it's easier to slot insulation down them into slab and for me again this is loft to comms, comms to utility and utility to garage). I ran specifically colour-coded cables which helped too - green for tree and green CAT6 for Faradite, blue for CAT6a PoE, orange for data, etc...

Whether you are converting a barn, like us, or building from scratch I just don't know where the time goes. Agreed hubby works full time and although I'm only supposed to work 3 days per week I've been doing a lot more lately as we are so busy with the work new build. It's also been dark and cold which doesn't inspire enthusiasm to get outside to do things. I'm also very limited in what I can do, I'm not very strong and don't always know how to do things. I've also found that keeping the site clean and tidy is a thankless and time consuming job, but essential, last week we lost a crow bar and took days to find it buried in a pile of old newspapers that should have been thrown away. One of our bigger issues is the barn being so full of all sorts of things gathered over the years before we even start, as it was pig units it's split into 7 large areas with a corridor with a wall down the middle. Some of the stuff is rubbish and can be disposed off, but I'm loath to get rid of anything at this stage in case it may have a use in the future. One area we used for hay and horse feed, which they are almost through being the end of winter. Of course by next winter I'm going to need somewhere else to store this, it may be next year that it's still in the barn as we are most likely still going to be putting the outside together. The other areas have tack and cat food, another one wood, then there is the farm implements, the tractor, the digger and other machinery. So, to store the things we really need I cleared out the old bike sheds, these had collapsed roofs which had to be removed, cut up and taken to the tip. Then to provide us with storage space they had to be rebuilt. The wood wasn't a problem, over the years we have knocked down lots of old sheds so we had lots of wood around which was good enough for this purpose. We also had some roofing sheets from old sheds, enough for one of the bike sheds. Even though the sheds suffer from subsidence they should be good enough for the duration of the build (we hope) when they can be knocked down. We then needed more sheets and some long lengths of wood to put a roof on the 2nd bike shed. So, I had to take some off the roof of the barn to provide what we needed. Not being a building expert in any way I was surprised at how much was involved in this, with battens, insulation, rafters, roofing sheets attached with lots and lots of long nails. Also, after that more wood on the top of each wall, wall plates I guess, I thought that they would be one piece, but oh no, it was battens with 2 pieces in between, lots of mouse nests and more nails. So, that's one shed, with the roof off, only another 6 to go and then the corridor. Each roofing sheet is 20' plus and far too heavy for me to move so I remove the nails with hammer and crowbar and then get hubby to get the sheets off. This week I've also removed the old gutters and what used to be wood holding them up. It did make me wonder, this barn is about 50 years old and lots of the wood is completely rotten, so what protects timber framed houses. I guess that they are just not exposed like this. This side of the barn is south facing as well so gets lots of sun. This lower roof that I'm removing at the moment will be raised to be the same height as the other part which along with digging out the floor will give us enough roof height at the lower end to pass muster. We also went shopping this month and spent a large chunk of our budget buying a digger, wacker plate, breaker, nail gun and some tiles. All auction purchases at Cheffins plant sale in Ely. We spent more on this than intended because of the VAT that we can't claim back, and will lose when we eventually sell it. But, it's going to make our life so much easier. The first task though is to dig out some huge troublesome brambles that have spread very quickly. Good practice before we need to dig out the floor in the barn. That will be done once I've finished removing the roof. Another urgent task is to get some concrete fibre roof sheets removed as they may contain that pesky asbestos. These are on the 'L' part of the barn, the majority is the metal sheets. On as more sedentary note I spent many weeks going through everything that I think we need for the build from nails to zinc roof. This was 100's of items which I then manually searched for the best price for. Then I contacted 8 builders merchants asking about trade accounts, only 4 responded with Wickes saying "do it yourself from our website". The big boys didn't even reply at all. The 3 that did respond were all local merchants who returned my spreadsheet with largely varying prices, but all offering good discounts due to the volume of stuff that we need. They also said that they sometimes have special deals, in one case 75 - 80% for some items. Of the 4 I looked at 3 priced Kingspan insulation whereas one of them listed Celotex. This is what is in the barn at the moment to keep the piggy's warm, is there much difference as the Celotex was a lot cheaper. During April, I want to get the rest of the back roof off and also get the asbestos cleared and removed from site. This does necessitate some water and electrical changes as this roof is in the area where the power and water come in from the host house.

About £35 a meter for materials, and the same for fitting, I did mine myself and saved a big chunk. I used metal solutions, ask for Kevin tell him I sent you, I was originally going with Tata / catnic until I found metal solutions.

I only have experience with Catnic/Tata and it does not take that long to be honest. Putting the panels down is easy, if it is just a straight up and over detached roof with no hips/valleys then you could finish that in a day easily. The setting out and doing the edges, starter panel and ridge detail a bit longer but nowhere near £8000 worth. I went on the day course with Tata and saved a small fortune by doing it myself.

@Roz who has specced the reinforcing in the slab...? If its the engineer then it has to go where they say. If its the builder then consider fibre reinforcing ! Pipes can be anywhere but suggest its below half way as it slows the rapid swings of the floor/room temperature and allows the floor to act as a heat buffer. For example I'm in a building where its 100mm slab with 25mm limestone flooring, and the pipes are in the Wunda trays at the bottom of the slab. If you open the back door and leave it open for 20 mins, then close it, the room recovers reasonably quickly as the slab is heated through so probably only drops 0.5c or less even though the room drops by 6-8c. Depending on layout needed, you can install the A146 or whatever reinforcing and zip tie the pipes to the mesh - standard RC25 will not damage this at all, and if its pressurised during the pour there is a school of thought that makes it harder to crush still. If you don't have any spec on the rebar then you could use the Wunda or Polypipe trays, put the pipes in then lay the rebar over the top. Either is fine, one is a little more expensive but easier to DIY.

With proper permissions, and a bit of care a good deal of practice, it's fine to shoot pigeons. The problem I have is getting it past SWMBO: hence image intensifier and night shooting: Shoot> recover> bag> bin> pub> return all smiles. "Nice time sweetheart? " "Yep" "What are those feathers stuck to your boots? " "I cleaned out the chickens earlier today" Pheeeewww . Close.