MJNewton

Are you saying it's an issue for MVHR (which I assume would be considered 'low volume low velocity')? What sort of issue have you seen?

Is that recommendation from personal experience? I've not heard that approach before. I found 75mm semi-rigid radial ducting perfect for the job and a joy (well, almost!) to use once I'd got the hang of it. No joins (barring the two end points of course!), easy to route around obstacles, swept bends, loose coupling with the house structure to avoid vibrations etc. I didn't find the pricing particularly offensive, especially given how quick it was to install, and it wouldn't surprise me if it was far cheaper the drainpipe given all the fittings you'd need. My case was a retrofit and so solid piping would never have been any option but I think my positive experience would be equally applicable to a new build with much easier access. P.S. Being more specific, I used Airflow Airflex (the red stuff) and whilst Blauberg do a similar (compatible) product in green I had a piece and found it far less flexible and not quite as self-supporting in making a tight bend should that be required.

No problem at all. Indeed that's one of the benefits of using a 5A socket for plug-in lights as it prevents you plugging something else in (e.g. TV) that wouldn't like being fed by a dimmer. Make sure your bulb is dimmable though.

You might as well make a weekend of it then it takes the pressure off the NSBRC having to live up to any expectations!

Yeah, not cheap. Good value though in my mind. To be honest given that durability/washability was an important requirement for me I was naturally comparing the Optiva 5 with the likes of Dulux Trade Diamond and Johnstone's Durable which are comparably priced so if you're just after normal paint I'm sure there are more cost effective options (I'd probably look at other Tikkurilla options such as their 'Super White' but I've no knowledge/experience of them).

For what's it worth, when my folks bring their caravan down they always stay in the Cirencester club site which is a very well kept site and within walking distance of Cirencester and not too far a drive from Swindon. I suppose in a motorhome you might be less reliant on the facilities though, and I bet you could almost get away with staying right by the NSBRC given it's tucked away in an industrial/office estate!

I sneaked into a professional decorators forum and by far and away the most popular 'white' emulsion paint was Tikkurila Optiva 5 for walls and Tikkurila Anti-Reflex 2 for ceilings. For the walls I may have been drawn to the desire for washability and so was drawn to that perspective when their preferences were stated, and similarly for ceilings I was looking to minimise the visibility of imperfections due to the large open-plan area we've got and full-wall glass doors. Certainly having used both products and been really pleased with them I can't imagine looking at other options now. P.S. Just spotted your 'Cotswold' username and so would also recommend Holman Specialist Paints in Swindon to get it from if that's within reach of you. Tikkurila isn't as widely available as the high-street names, although it can be bought online.

We use our boost switches often as whilst the humidistat captures showers, baths and simmering it is still handy to help shift smells from cooking etc on demand. I sometimes use app control for this but you can't beat physical switches that anyone can use.

You shouldn't have to calibrate these sensors. Were yours copies @TerryE? The genuine ones aren't that much more in the grand scheme of things.

.. which tend to run at far higher air flow rates than MVHR systems given their intermittent operation so I wouldn't be too concerned about that (and I'd normally expect 150mm for high-flow hoods). For what it's worth our Titon 1.25 (feeding 6 supplies and 5 extracts) uses 125mm spigots and ducts and is practically inaudible. Only on boost do do you hear anything but that's just the expected air flow sound at the ceiling terminals and not due to the system/unit itself.

Whilst I don't have personal experience of your situation to draw upon I wouldn't consider anything but the 150mm outer duct option. It's only 12.5mm all the way round which seems ideal for the likes of expanding foam or similar, and of course gives you a bit of wriggle room for accommodating differences in nominal pipe sizes.

Well spotted @AliG and @Mr Punter - the architrave is the original which has yet to be painted. And yes, the walls will end up much busier in due course - my wife is keen to have a lot of framed photos in this room and some small shelves (more decorative effect than practical). Splashback too.

The style/colour is 'Calacatta Stream Unique' but is unbranded, or rather it carries the suppliers name (Natural Stone Surfaces) and I do beleive it might be one unique to them. One revealing factor is that the colour-matched silicone they used was Silestone Blanco Norte and whose worktop of the same name does use the term 'creamy white' which I guess is what we've got... I think this really cements the idea that this is our fault in not fully anticipating that the off-white would be exaggerated towards the darker end of the room. This is particularly frustrating given that we thought we felt we'd put so much effort into exploring all the options, visiting showrooms, getting samples etc but I guess there's nothing quite like it being in your own home.

Interesting, thanks - I do expect we'll adjust as our expectations-that-weren't-met begin the dilute. And, yes, we are expecting that adding pictures etc to the walls will draw the eye somewhat and having something out on the worktops should help as even our desired white worktop would likely look a little stark with nothing out. And as you say different coloured walls is always an option, and an easy/cheap one at that. I suppose we're lucky in that the two walls are seperated from the rest of the room by a door on the left and the tall units on the right so that should give us a bit more freedom.

Yes, they are polished - glass like to the touch. Incidentally, the machining of them is great - perfect bevels, cutouts etc - we've been really impressed by those aspects.

Yes, always worth looking for the positives. If we're emulating natural marble here then perhaps we just got the creamy bit of the mountain.. right at the top...

Yes, I can relate to all of that @dangti6, and I won't be fobbed off with the tolerances. Their requirements made me work to within 3mm over 2m for the unit levelling so I expect them to match/beat that... ?

@MikeGrahamT21 and @dangti6, yes - the white walls and probably having a big impact. Re artificial lighting we're a big fan of 2700k unfortunately and so wouldn't be happy with cooler lights for other reasons. We can live with the 'warm' look in the evening though to be fair; I think we've trained our eyes to expect that and so the night-time look is less of a concern (particularly noting it's a 'family room' and so we're using the other end for more relaxing activities and didn't want too much lighting variation across the room... You can see the bank of dimmers by the doors which we use to tweak things and having lived in it for the best part of a year now like this (but without worktops!) we're happy with that side of things. If they cost £500 we'd just bite the bullet and re-start our search for something different knowing the potential importance of the whiteness but at £3.8k (£500 of that for templating/installation) that doesn't feel like a sensible option. I think we'll crack on with getting the flooring down, moving the kitcheny stuff onto the worktops and getting some wall pictures/shelves up. That, and a bit of time getting used to it, might be all that's required... I guess we should be reminding ourselves that if our biggest problem right now is the colour of a worktop we're not doing too bad at all. Edit: The island slab is a different issue but will see what the supplier has to say and take things one step at a time. Maybe a good outcome there is, rather than them replace it, they give us some money back and we'll take measures to ensure it is adequately supported from underneath. I don't think normal people would notice - only people like me that walk round with a spirit level or bags of marbles.

Yes, we learnt (and were warned to be fair) early on that 10cm samples don't really do much other than give you an impression of the sort of 'features' that particular style has. That said, I don't think we fully appreciated how even the base colour of a 10cm slab doesn't necessarily give you the full impression of what a large piece will look like. We certainly didn't shove it in the darkest corner of the room... even if we had though I don't know if we'd have caused any alarm bells to ring. There's a video here showing how the veined quartz slabs are made.

We did visit but before they had our batch in. Instead we saw a 20mm (so apparently definitely a different batch run from our 30mm) slab they had in but it was outside on a bright but overcast day so in hindsight I imagine it made things look white than an indirectly-lit internal room.

I should've added some pics really but don't feel able to show it off given how we feel! Sod that though, as you can there are three pieces on total (two ~2.5m x 0.6m lengths and a 1.4m x 0.9m island) and so I am assuming they were cut from two slabs: I don't know how many slabs are in a batch but assuming there's some left I would expect a replacement to match. It might be hard to tell from the photo but you can probably see they're not white-white (like the walls), but then we always knew they weren't... just didn't expect it to be so pronounced once in the room. To be fair the room is definitely darker at this end given the lack of windows (there's a roof lantern and large sliding doors to 4m to the right of the photo above so there's definitely a light gradient across the room during the day). The samples are similar in colour, but perhaps a shade lighter towards white. Again to be fair it probably is within the expected variation of a mixed-ingredient product, particular with what we have no doubts are more towards the budget end of worktops than the more upmarket branded ones. Bowing aside, we're resigning ourselves to thinking we've just got an unfortunate set of circumstances here - perhaps a slightly 'warmer' batch, not the brightest of rooms, brilliant-white walls, bare walls without pictures or ornamental shelves up yet etc. My Dad reckons once the wooden floor is down that'll 'warm' the room up and perhaps give something for the worktop to relate to (I never had my Dad down as a Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen but there you go).

Hi everyone, a penny for your thoughts... We're nearing the end of the what must be the world's longest kitchen extension - I think many of you have built entire houses in the time that we've taken extending our ground floor and creating an open-plan kitchen-lounge-diner. Anyway, the quartz worktops were always going to be a centrepiece of the room and so we put a lot of effort into looking at the options, working out what we wanted, finding a supplier etc and despite having to wait 8 months due to Covid-related supply issues we were happy to wait as we'd really pinned this particular worktop down. The worktop is white with slight grey veining - the sort of look you'd expect to be available everywhere but very few of the ones we found ticked all the boxes... Many had veining that was too rich, some had other colours or fleck present that we didn't want, etc. Yesterday came the day of installation and we were dreading it wondering whether the specified overhangs were correct, had there been a misunderstand over what a bevel vs a chamfered edge is, had we mixed up overhang and reveal when it came to the sink, had the templater made an error, would the fitters take a chunk out of the plaster when manhandling the worktops into place... But, no, that all went perfectly! The problem though, (actually there are two) is: 1. We simply don't like the worktops. They're really not white - I'd say yellow, my wife sees/says beige. We mentioned it to the fitters during installation and they talked about the effects of different lighting etc and we convinced ourselves maybe it was just a bit of a 'warm' summer afternoon light biasing the spectrum... but having nearly done a full day cycle now - no - it really is staying its same very-off-white colour. 2. The island worktop has a slight bow to it. I'd spent a long time (weeks in fact!) levelling up the units in what felt like more than three dimesions and so was surprised to find a bit of gap between the units and worktop towards one corner. I thought maybe the sheer weight had squashed the units down a little and maybe I'd just need to tweak up a carcase here and there... but having put a straight edge on the top it turns out there's a 3mm bow measured over only a 600m length! This means it isn't fully supported as much as it could've been, and is very much resting on a corner with little nearby support. I emailed the supplier last night about the bow with some photos, and only casually mentioned the colour not being quite what we expected as we've been trying to convince ourselves it is what it is. Sure, we'd had samples but they're tiny and whilst they weren't perfectly white they weren't quite as yellow/beige as what we've got (it's hard to compare really, to be fair) and the slab we saw in person (quite some distance away so we couldn't become regulars) seemed very white indeed - but then it was outside (under cover) so perhaps everything looks whiter outside and wasn't from our batch anyway. There were going to send out a batch sample a couple of weeks back (just prior to templating) but that didn't actually happen, and whether it would've changed our position I honestly don't know given how small they are. We're really not sure what to do! The bowed island worktop is probably straightforward - if needs be I'm sure I can justify getting them to replace it but, if it's not going to cause any issues from, say, point loading, then we can probably live with that as no one else would notice unless they walk round with a spirit level like I do. It's the colour though... Whilst we can't say for certain we've been missold anything or there's necessarily been any fault of the supplier, we just can't escape the disappointment with the room's centrepiece! Any thoughts? I suppose at the end of the day we could pay another £4k to get some new worktops but that feels drastic on so many levels - cost, waste, embarrassment, not having an obvious alternative option to hand (but we could just search wider)... What would you do?

I'd lower the Indoor Temp threshold slightly (to, say, 20C or perhaps slightly above your heating set temp) so that the bypass cuts in sooner when the right conditions are met (outdoor temp < indoor temp, indoor > 20C, outdoor >14C). Note that if the outdoor temp is greater than indoor temp then the heat exchanger should remain in-circuit as it works in both directions i.e. heat from the (warmer) outside air will be transferred to the outgoing (cooler) inside air hence cooling the supply slightly (I've seen up to -3C in practice recently). Is the humidity screen a measurement or a trigger setting (e.g. for boost)? The presence of an outdoor value is making me think the former.

On that basis this is non-existent in all honesty, particularly if looking through the glass rather than focusing in on it.

Ah, hadn't considered it being a different material. I think I'll just leave it as it is. If the light is right I can just about see it from about a metre away, but only as I know where exactly to look.