Leaderboard

The key word is “reality”. These drawings are single discipline, unless you have provided a ‘line out’ of your other large bore services such as soil and waste pipework etc, so that is always the crux. Current project, CVC supporting and myself installing (and adapting the design to suit) on the fly: I changed a few bits around, and did my own thing with the manifolds to make it more sympathetic. Actual install when it was WIP: As you can see, I abandoned the square box manifolds as I had other services in some of the posi joist voids which took up too much space; these needed to take priority so needs must. It gets very busy very quickly, but this is a sizeable home (~400m2) and I had to get a lot of ‘stuff’ squeezed in. The MVHR install is considerable, but I have installed it all with ZERO impact on GIA; no boxing in etc, and CVC providing solutions to achieve this wherever I needed to reach out. It would 100% been a complete PITA to have to do this from scratch with no initial design, and I have a long history of such installations and am very capable, so any novice or DIY self-builder should defo reach out for support and CVC will do their best (based on the information you give them ).

This totally sounds like a scene on grand designs where the woman boasts about her expensive kitchen widget and kevin Mc Kevin understands how they are 10 million over budget. Sounds like a way to lock you in to only being able to buy a certain type of hob, whereas a normal one is basically the same size hole. I'd do myself a favour and just keep it simple and not create my future self another nightmare.

Do NOT have the connector and isolator tap behind the appliance. Fit it inside an adjacent cupboard unit so it is accessible, and does not restrict the appliance going fully back into it's recess. Same for waste fitting and electrical socket.

New Tank Fitted over the weekend Grant Tank - 180L 2.7m2 coil surface area couple of errors in pipework configuration that are resulting in increased heat loss but I'll fix them over the next couple of weeks. meantime a quick experiment on boiler efficiency (compared to old tank data) revealed Boiler efficiency Old tank when heating HW - efficiency was 88.97% (condensate volume 157 grams - condensate stopped after 10 mins of a 30 min cycle due to return temp being above 54 deg) New tank when heating HW - efficiency is 93.29% (Condensate volume 332 grams was generating condensate all the way thro the 45 min cycle) Can show workings if required....... Heat Loss Old Hot water tank fully lagged pipework - london loops everywhere (U loops on any hot outlets from tank) best I could get in term of temp decay in the tank was 0.4 deg per hour (most of the time it was 0.5 to 0.6 deg per hour) so heat a tank to 50 deg and 20 hours later it would be down to 40 deg (thats a just bearable shower according to SWMBO) New Tank - no lagging on pipework yet and minimal london loops and the tank losses are down to 0.19 deg per hour - so heat a tank to 50 deg and 24 hours later it's still over 45 deg - I think I need a better hobby!!!! PS Yes I need to fit a tank stat PPS The tank is set up as a vented tank (so no G3 certification is required)

I think you have to change your expectations or nothing will suit. I don't know when I last used a decimal mm in construction. I appreciate it may be a mindset and things like cutlery laid approximately can be an issue. I'd be interested to know what measurement would have been acceptable 1mm? 0.5mm? Measuring tapes aren't even that accurate. pencils get thicker as you draw a line. Saw blades have thicknesses, materials are variable, hands are not machines. There will be many worse discrepancies in your house should you choose to look for them. Nobody else will notice.

It’s what I do / have done, in every single kitchen and bathroom job I’ve ever done. Dulux Diamond for the finish stuff in kitchens for most folk, or appropriate bathroom paint from whoever. 2 coats on brand new plaster in the same day, and customers think I’ve gone the whole 9 yards. Contract stuff is fine to leave on ceilings, but it isn’t very good on walls as it’s quite chalky and doesn’t wipe at all well. I use it sacrificially, for obliteration, and as above for use as a paint-come-filler for the very minor imperfections that you cannot see with the eye (until you pole sand lightly to show any defects). You must leave this to go bone dry before sanding, and I only say to dilute 10% water if spraying; current client is about to go full on Picasso and that’s the instructions for dilution from Wagner. Depends on how fussy you are whether you pole sand ceilings, or not, but my go-to plasterer is on site atm and he is shit hot, so very little needs doing tbh; he’s incredibly fussy in corners etc, and is pretty much the best plasterer I know or have ever met. If the plasterer is of ‘lesser finesse’ then you’ll have it “all to do” downstream and will soon regret not getting someone better. He’s Coventry based, and if anyone needs (wants) an exceptionally good spread then PM me for his contact details. He’s also an excellent external renderer, and does micro-cement and Venetian (etc) plasterwork. He has pics of some of the jobs he’s done and it’ll blow you away! Tres bien It’s all in the finish folks, and you’ll be staring at it in every room for the next couple of decades or more, and if that’s not right then what was the point in getting everything else behind it A1?

Two thoughts: 1. If designing from scratch the additional cost of adding cooling will be minimal in the overall scheme of things so put it in at the start. 2. Why on earth would anyone building a new house in 2026 NOT want to add cooling?

We moved into our new pad just as the first heatwave hit. We are epc A, well insulated, good airtightness, mvhr, ashp that cools the ufh (downstairs). We passed part O (overheating) with flying colours......our experience is that we should have put WAY more thought into our cooling strategy beforehand.....we are in the process of changing track ...(a2a rather than fan coils from ashp), so not sure whereabouts you are but..........

Be very wary as width, length and depth are often confused. It is errors such as these that can lead to screwups. For kitchens I consider length and width to be side-to-side and depth to be front-to-back. Height and thickness can also cause confusion. With some of the induction hobs in a 600 deep worktop there is often only 50mm remaining front and back after the cutout.

I I think these are the type of screws for hangers etc. https://www.tcfixings.co.uk/product/simpson-tx20-csa-connector-screws-50mm-x-35mm/17499?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=17347847741&gbraid=0AAAAADfLLCp7Mywl_VK9JlivX3AWSyoTk&gclid=Cj0KCQjwk5nVBhDiARIsAHNGqadLNGLJMo6ttMmHRe1au_g_ycT8PQaa09USMbr3oTc-UsjKuZZcrDoaAqAKEALw_wcB Normal screws are not suitable, these have a shoulder to fit the hole.

so they aren't brittle in shear. Nails are comparatively ductile

With ours, the stone provider did all this. When they came to template the worktops, as well as making their plywood templates, they took the sink with them, so ensure the hole they cut in the worktop fitted the sink correctly. They also fitted their preferred type of fixings to the worktop to secure the sink (not the ones supplied with it) and on fitting the worktop they secured and sealed the sink to the underside of the worktop. In our case, the hole in the worktop is a few mm smaller than the size of the sink, so there is a very small lip around the sink. I don't find this a problem, and it has the advantage that you don't see any of the sealant used unless you put your head down into the sink. I was very glad it was a supply and fit contract. When two strong men walked in carrying a long heavy granite worktop with a sink hole in the middle and the two halves joined by just the strips front and back of the sink hole, it looked very vunerable to damage at that stage, and I was glad it was them fitting it not me.

I think people would be worried about the unfamiliarity of it because we're all somewhat cavemanish when it comes to our houses. Mind you a few weeks of no sleep in 30deg bedrooms in conventionally heated houses this year might broaden people's imaginations.

Just go with the original SE design. Send the drawings to Keystone or IG for a take-off and quote for the lintels.

I’ve done this umpteen times, with all kinds of services; matters not a single jot what service(s) it is / are . For the split AC on my current clients build I simply used offcuts of 92mm MVHR duct as the sleeves, taped these to the interior AT layer, fed the pipes and cables through, and then the duct will get pumped full of Illbruck FM330 AT foam to complete; the foam seals for AT but is also, in a nutshell, liquid PIR insulation to boot. Condensate cannot be terminated internally I assume? If not, just send that through the same oversized duct. Externally I just use a mastic such as CT1, or similar NON silicone sealant, and bond the duct to the external medivent board, leaving a load of it as excess. Then push the outer membrane into the mastic, smooth with a tool, then go over the lot again until mummified. I’m home today but back on site tomorrow, so I’ll post some pics for you. Very easy to do, so don’t be intimidated by this at all

We’ve gone fancoils upstairs and UFH downstairs. Dual zone setup on Ashp so we can run the fancoils with proper chilled water in hot temperatures. Hoping we will be in in next few months and will report back in summer if it works!!

That's because you are thinking the wrong way. With UFH (cooling) it's not really about cooling the airspace, will come that in a second. The floor surface becomes cooler than your body, its primary cooling method is a radiant heater in reverse. Your body is the heat source and the floor sucks the heat from you. The second thing it does, is it becomes a heat sink for the building fabric, it again sucks the heat away. Biggest thing we noticed when we did UFH cooling was the thermostat on wall only reads a couple of degrees cooler. But you feel way cooler and more importantly the whole building gets back to a nice temperature way quicker. We have recently also added a DIY MVHR cooler (car heater matrix installed into a duct filter housing), not because it's just like Aircon, because it isn't, as airflow rates are way to low, but because it cools the air coming into the building and gets to the high areas in rooms. That air is about 6 degrees cooler than it would otherwise be. So over a few hours has a cooling effect. A chart showing the effect on the air existing the MVHR unit to go into the rooms The yellow line is air temperature as it leaves the MVHR unit. Blue is after the heat exchanger Red is water temperature.

You absolutely should be.

Haha so literally, the architect omitted about the need for plant room space, but when you suggested your ideas for heating he rubbished those plans and asserted the need for something else that requires more plant room space? Smh There's a really awkward circular dependency you need to pick your way around. Ideally you get the eventual installer in before tender pack is created, as heatpump installers are trained (and obliged to provide) design services as part of their industry certificated supply and install package. But obviously you can't tender the work until you have a tender pack. And if you're going for a single principal contractor to run the whole build (this sounds like custom build rather than self build so i very much assume you will), many principal contractors have their own tame subbies they much rather work with and will slap a hefty P&A surcharge on dealing with anyone else you foist on them. (And/or use it to play the finger pointing game when issues occur). My own suggestion would be to specify the thing that's cheapest in professional fees that you could definitely live with if the install price is right, e.g. UFH everywhere, and be very upfront during tendering that you're open to engage in constructive value engineering on anything that is adding undue build cost, and flag that as one such candidates. A good builder will come back with their own suggestions or loop in their preferred installer to participate in that decision. And yes, you'll have full SAP figures by then so it'll be a more substantiated discussion. To your other points, 1. ufh can work fine with thick carpets, so long as all the building exterior is much more thickly insulated, and you run the ashp low and slow (as is best for it anyway) the ufh heat will warm the fabric of the building and make its way to where you need it rather than being lost outside. 2. Even if you're 100% set on not having cooling, I'd still recommend running the numbers to confirm exactly what your overheating risks are, do some stress testing of it based on increasingly warm summers, and also do a little bit of future proofing thinking on what you'd do if retrofitting it proves necessary in the future. Considering window placements and external shuttering to minimise overheating is even more important at the earlier design stage than stressing over active cooling.

The architect telling you rads won't work is essentially the architect telling you they're going to design a shit house that needs more heating than you would like. Did you talk about levels of insulation and airtightness? You're doing mvhr so I'd start there, figure out some heating (and cooling) demands then decide if you need. IME architects will often speak a pile of bumkin about what is and isn't possible in terms of heating. In most cases this is based on having one bad experience and wanting to have themselves future hassle. Passivhaus/ AECB qualified architects are sometimes better, but they can swing the other way and under specify. Also in my experience you can spend many hours and pounds on iterating this at design stage, only for the eventual contractor that gets the job to rip up those plans and do something completely different. Case in point my current project (BMS for a london town house reno), I suggested ashp for heating+cooling, architect said it's not possible in a Victorian terrace, client paid M&E consultant who specified system boiler and multisplit Aircon, that was all thrown out in value engineering and re-tendering (not to mention planning application refusal), eventual contractor is now installing a single Veissman ashp to do everything via a mix of UFH, fan assist and even cast iron rads.

fancoils over UFH for 1st floor / bedrooms all day long. free air con.

Is agree. UFH all the way in 1st floor. We bought towel rads as well, still sitting in their boxes. As we had concrete and screed 1st floors, cost of UFH on 1st floor was minimal, 500m of pipe, pump and manifold. rads would have coated way more and compromised the rooms.

It is a lot more complicated than it first looks. Will you want cooling? Why place radiators against a potentially colder wall Wil any of the bedrooms be used for other purposes i.e. children doing home work in them. Will forced ventillation be fitted, with, or without heat recovery. Will secondary heating be fitted i.e. a wood burner (just don't fit one). How is the house expected to perform during the day and different seasons i.e. solar gain, or lack of it. How simple do you want the system. How controllable do you want the system. Do you want to take advantage of different, and potentially unknown, time of use tariffs.

I suspect there is a stronger correlation between sites with good paperwork and low accident rates.

That's the trouble. Many are generic rubbish along the lines of safety being our priority. Also you need to see their insurance... the whole document. Eg I once had a roofer who was highly competent but on checking, his insurance excluded work above 3m. He knew it said that, and it was cheap or all he could get. but nobody had ever checked. I've met HSE inspectors several times. They asked for the paperwork but actually wanted to see competence and safe practices. They were genuinely interested and helpful... but tough. I'd hate their job... squashed people, missing digits... look and report. Meanwhile being disliked by the workforce. What they hate is to find nobody in control. On the occasions they told us or our contractors off, they were right. The safety people who like paperwork are safety consultants and company safety officers....

You ask all bonafide contractors for their RAMS too, before they step foot on site, and you also do inductions (regardless of how “busy” you are). And make the site a safe and organised place to be. Allow a lot of time clearing up, sweeping (M-class vacuum needs to be on site as you’re not supposed to kick up dust these days), festoon lighting, don’t have sharp or ‘stabby’ things poking out of ground (rebar protruding needs to be bent back over itself or a mushroom cap put on it), no unmarked or open pits or trenches or barrier around them, list goes on but not rocket science. Take risks with your own life all you like, they can’t jail you for that, but when you invite any 3rd party there then the onus is on you to make them ‘not expire’ ahead of their predetermined departure from this life.

i pole sanded my ceilings and walls and quite often i dab on a bit of thick contract where there may be a little nick or divot and then just flat that back once dry. I find that works way better than any filler and it sands like its not even there with a sanding sponge. Ok thats what i'll do in the bathroom as well then, then cover in Diamon or more likely the Zinsser. I did my plastering in the bathroom as its only small so im ok to smother that in contract to fill it bits i may have left a bit rough. Cheers lads.

Those with a bit of foresight would have been "adapting" for a long time. I would not as a matter of course buy a house less than 10 metres above sea level or built on a river flood plain. If everybody had planned ahead like that, no such new houses would have been built like that over say the last 20 years. But if that is the only place planners will grant permission then the sheeple have been ushered into a whole load of expensive trouble ahead. I have been sharing this wisdom with my daughter who is buying her first house. I have advised her not to consider any in the area she is currently renting as there is a flood history there (next to a river) She has settled on one in a different part of town much higher up.

There was, and still isnt, any possibility of collective action by everyone to do what needs to be done, before we consider there are no guarantees that even if we did it would make any useful difference. Human behaviour being what it is, it was always going to be that way. Adapation was and is the only realistic route forwards.

When I fitted our undermounted sinks, I used G clips to fix them. http://www.gclip.co.uk/Home.html All that should have been taken care of when it was templated. If there is to be an upstand then minor gaps are covered.

The Zehnder Q450 from HSL was £2651 and the Brink Flair 600 from CVC was £2510. Design required flow for my house is 320 m3/h but CVC say they nevertheless recommend a 600 m3/h unit, which they say gives less noise, greater efficiency and longer fan life. I bought a Worcester Greenstar 4000 25 kW combi boiler in 2022 which cost me £666, but that was with a trade discount. Current online price is about £1500. So I tend to agree, these MVHRs look expensive. Prices from people like CVC and HSL are without a trade discount.

Exactly that, just doesn’t matter for one, but in domestic you get a poor selection of fittings whereas the UG stuff opens up a much greater selection. 🤝👍

No, the laptop fan is ten times noisier.

Interesting - mine came in at £6103 (CVC) for not far off a similar size.

I'm not qualified to answer your question, but if I was going to spend hours working in a tiny office, with perhaps minimal ventilation in the winter months, for comfort & to keep the heating costs down, I'd get myself a CO2 monitor (about £100 - £150 for a good one, I should think) & I'd do some Googling to learn about this then monitor the CO2 levels, because even a safe, but elevated, level of CO2 can make you feel drowsy & kill your productivity.

FWIW, we plumped for a Wash Water as they offered a longish warranty (AFIK without the need for annual servicing) and the option to buy with 28mm flexi hoses to give good flow for the whole house.

I would like one, but think it is too hard to make it dirty free. And a replacement hob won't fit.

I was in the Black Forest in Germany over the summer, and saw a huge amount of houses that used timber shingles. Mostly traditional, but also several new builds. The new builds looked amazing, but I didn't pay too much attention to the detailing. If you don't have much luck finding detailing solutions in the UK, it could be worth getting friendly with Google Translate and exploring German self build sites.

I am content with my Atlantis Eco-Logic AT350, which I bought as a refurbished unit from a manufacturer local to me (Cambridgeshire). They provided good service. https://www.atlantis-uk.com/at350-technical-specifications

Yes, definitely something to watch out for. I printed out all the dimensions for our washer to use for planning, and the plumber said the dryer would be slimmer than the washer, which I also expected. However when I did check the heat pump dryer dimensions I was shocked to find it actually deeper than the washer. Indeed I think it was 610mm deep and therefore incapable of ever being fitted in the standard 600 by 600 space. The manufacturers seem to compete heavily on machine capacity and so are constantly trying to make the drums bigger - pushing ever outwards at the back and at the front by making the front panel and the door stick ever further forward.

I was surprised to see how deep some of the condenser dfiers are. Some of the Bosch ones are deeper than 600mm and many others are just under 600mm (eg Hisense).

Sometimes of course it is not possible to put the connection in the adjacent cupboard because the adjacent cupboard is another appliance or a drawer unit etc. This is the case with us and we have the room (670mm worktop depth) to position the connector behind the machine - however we have ensured the supply pipe has a shut off valve under the sink. Regarding height, don't forget some washing machines and dishwashers these days can come with leak detection and shut-off devices attached to the water input pipe. These can be 3-4 inches long, so if mounting the connector facing down for example you probably need at least 6 inches and probably a bit more for the water shut off device and the bend in the pipe.

We have UFH and house is always at a comfortable temperature. The problem we have is at 9pm when you stop doing stuff, stop moving around. This is especially true for the four months mid winter when you want to be snug and cosy in the evening for a couple of hours. Our solution is to light the log burner at around 8.30 pm for literally 2 hours, just to create that felling. There must be other options. It’s not cold without the additional heat, but I find a big difference between comfort temperature doing stuff and watching telly or reading at night. Could always put a pullover on and extra socks!

Me too. I don't like grey wood. I've done this loads of times. We used Sika stain on treated timber. That's 2 layers resisting wasps on the outside, and still 1 on the inner faces. The treatment had to be one of the 'not green or dark brown" ones: your BM will get it in if not their standard.. To keep it looking original we used the Sika 'light oak' colour which you can barely see when applying it. But the timber stays that colour, maybe becoming yellower, and is very long lasting. (Dark colours fade in sun over 10 years). Perhaps the next shade towards brownish is better for rural effect. We didn't try other brands. NB paint overlapping boards before fitting, to allow for movement. I've had wasp nests in the attic and hate to think where their harvest is from. They will also chew pir to form a cavity but that ends up as dust.

Mine is plastic and bamboo composite.

Please shut up about radon. It is low where you are. More chance of being run over by a milk float.

Couple of disparate points. Our last house was Block/stone insulated cavity walls with a lot of glass. We had a GSHP with UFH downstairs and Rads upstairs. It worked well so the architect point on that sounds wrong. However, if I did the same house again I'd not do the same. I would do UFH upstairs on individual room zones rather than rads. UFH gives a much nicer and more effective heat. Rads work but inherently give colder and hotter spots. UFH is much more comfortable. Room zones give much better control that even a well balanced rad system and most are not well balanced meaning some rooms have to be too hot or too cold to get the "key" room at the desired temp.

Why do you need a grease trap? It seems you just need more robust detail on the drain you have to stop soil entering and blocking it?

For general interest. When written risk assessments became a requirement, we put one together that was about 8 pages long, and attached to it a standard A4 form for each specific task. So there might only be one at the start of the job. HSE snap visits (maybe 10% of projects or one per year) asked to see it. They were able to read it in 5 minutes, and follow up with questions and a site tour. One inspector said he wished all manuals were like this, but that sadly it was changing. What they most want to know. Who is in charge? Everyone on site should know. Then asks that person what is happening today, and show me the relevant paperwork. Then a look at the work in progress and site in general. Often they'd give good advice When I retired, our file had expanded somewhat, as required, but was kept relevant and job specific, and was generally one lever arch, half full. On a major national contractor's site I saw they had 3 very full, big files. I happened to be in their cabin, being a subcontractor, when HSE turned up. The manager couldn't find the relevant bit. HSE not impressed. That file was designed to keep the hierarchy safe, not the site personnel. Mine he read and praised, looked at what we were doing and that was that. The bulk of the paperwork that is just waffle was (and is) of no interest. So do it. They don't expect a professional file for a self- build but would from any biggish contactor you are using. They have always been decent people in my experience. The best bit of advice I can give for safety is to think "what could go wrong" and note the measures in place or sort it. Practically it is often by not having too much going on at the same time. If I could find one of my blank forms I'd depersonalise it and publish it here...but I can't. Maybe someone else can. What you really, really don't want is HSE turning up to you after dealing with a nasty accident somewhere else and finding a shambles.

There won’t be any sag as you have insulation under the tray cut at an angle so the tray is fully supported on the batts. you could change the batts for xps or eps if you want something more rigid.