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Hi all We built our house about 20 years ago in Buckinghamshire. It is an oak framed building clad in SIP panels, with oak weatherboarding, and oak shakes on the roof. These are split oak and originally came from Germany. The area under the shingles is double battened over the SIP panels with a standard house wrap membrane. The roof has aged well in the main, but some areas of the roof now need attention where weathering has been particularly severe, and there has been runoff from a large glazed area on the ridge which has accelerated the deterioration of the shakes below it, particularly on the north side. We are thinking of replacing the shakes in this area with copper or zinc standing seam roofing or similar. The area is about 2x3m and there is a similar area on the other side of the ridge which may need the same solution. The importance of the correct flashing details puts me off doing it myself - the area either side of the metal roofing would remain as shakes and would need to be correctly detailed and flashed in. So we are looking for a roofing company who will work in Bucks, who has experience of both shingles and metal roofing to get this done and sort out one or two other small areas of deterioration. Any comments and recommendations? Thanks Chris

Might another option be to use a DRV valve on the shorter of the two manifold legs from the boiler to achieve a better balance between the two? Chris

Hi all First posting here. I could do with some advice on a rather ad hoc ufh system ! We planned and built our house some twenty years ago - it is an four bed detached house, with an oak frame clad in SIP panels, so a reasonably high level of insulation and airtightness, but with a very open interior aspect. We designed the underfloor system which serves both the lower and upper floors around a dual circuit Geminox boiler which had a wide modulating range and used weather compensation, varying the flow temperature and using the boiler pump rather than using a blending valve and pump set. We followed the principle that a high delta T plus modulation and weather compensation would deliver the correct amount of heat at the right time. However the layout of the house meant that we had to use two manifolds, one on each side of the house rather than running multiple long loops back and forth - the open aspect of the design meant quite restricted space within the fabric of the structure for the pipes and other services. Each manifold serves a number of rooms which are individually zoned and controlled with Heatmiser stats back to a wiring centre controller and the usual actuator valves, some with multiple loops to cope with the different floor areas. However no flow valves were fitted to the manifolds at the time. This article reflects our thinking at the time: https://modbs.co.uk/news/archivestory.php/aid/1499/Modulating_boilers_are_ideal_partners_for_underfloor_heating.html The system has worked reasonably well up until now with the caveat below. Recently though we had to replace the Geminox and did so with a Viessmann 200-W. An increased flow temperature led to an overall improvement in comfort but showed up some shortcomings in our original ideas and design of the system. One manifold is sited within 2m of the boiler whereas the other is around 18-20m away. Seemingly as a result the loops fed by the second manifold seem to underperform, presumably due to system resistance, and I have been considering what steps to take to address this. Firstly I have changed the manifolds to a set which has flow valves and have also installed Salus auto balancing actuators to even out the differences in return temperature from the individual loops - the system was never balanced properly in the first place! However I don't think this modification is going to address the lower flow rates from the second manifold, which seem inadequate. Floors fed from the second manifold are noticeably cooler due to the lower flow rate. What steps might be advisable to better balance the flow to each manifold from the boiler? I have followed many conversations on here and thought about retro-installing a pump set to each manifold to relieve the boiler pump of some of the load, but I'm not sure if this is the right way to approach the problem. One of the discussions in this forum is about the need(or not) for a blending valve and thermostatic control to limit the flow temperature but there is a strong argument for no blending required for ASHP systems; this also seems to apply to dedicated circuits from a modulating gas boiler with electronic control of flow temperature like the Viessmann. Can anyone comment or suggest a way of improving the flow rate to the second manifold? Is installing a pump set at each manifold the best way to do this? Is a low loss header needed? Are the Salus valves the best way of balancing the loops - I think they are based on a 7 degree temperature difference - perhaps this is going against the principle of a higher Delta T? Any help and comment is appreciated! Chris

Hi all - first post here. I live in a self build constructed from post and beam oak frame clad in SIP panels which I project managed and completed with sub contractors. I made many mistakes but learnt a tremendous amount! We have MVHR in the main house - the original unit was replaced with a Vent-Axia Kinetic Plus which is great. Recently we built a garage which has a workshop room above. Both the garage and workshop room above are well insulated and sealed and thus I decided to install a MVHR unit - I found an Integra Plus unit from which the controller/power supply unit was missing, thinking this would be easy to source. However this is proving difficult - there is little or no information on the internet. I'm having difficulty finding part numbers, or even a source of Vent Axia spares. Can anyone suggest a source of technical information and/or spares? The unit is a Vent Axia Integra Plus with the model number 438300 on the label, and has a pair of Molex connectors to plug into the controller. I was hoping that one of these might turn up on eb*y but no such luck. I am capable of building a controller if necessary but can't find the right technical background information. Any help gratefully received. I haven't yet called Vent Axia directly although am awaiting a reply to an email to tech support. Thanks Chris