newhome

So mine is an electric boiler and should be backed up by solar thermal. The solar thermal no longer works and no one wants to come and fix it, least of all the guy who installed it, so I’m down to using the electric boiler for both DHW and UFH. I use quite a bit of electric, around 12,000 kWh per year although probably a bit less than that currently as my PHEV car isn’t getting used anywhere near as much as before lockdown as I have been working from home for almost a year now. I have considered swapping to an ASHP but when I received 3 enormously different quotes from 3 MCS registered installers recently it makes me hugely nervous that I might pick the wrong one, and bemused that the quotes could be so different (they all had the same documents to quote from). I couldn’t afford the most expensive one as it was nearly 30k, and the cheapest of the 3 came out at about 12.5k but I was worried that the ASHP specified would be undersized plus there were bits and pieces I had to arrange myself which put me off as the chance of getting all trades to do what was needed in unison is pretty much zero here. If I went for an ASHP then I would have additional annual servicing costs to maintain the warranty so from a cost perspective any saving I might make on fuel costs would be eroded by that. I only really need to fire up the boiler once a day currently as the floor temperature is maintained during the day mostly and it comes on again at about 5am which also provides DHW for showering in the morning. If I want more DHW it takes about half an hour to provide it which is useful. The thought of having to wait hours to provide DHW doesn’t appeal. My ideal solution with this set up would be to move to the Octopus Agile tariff and do all of the thermal store heating overnight when the rate is low. I’ve been on their list for a year so far though as they are apparently not yet providing smart meters for 3 phase set ups in this area as yet. I believe that I could save a significant amount if I were able to move to one of the cheap overnight tariffs as the lion’s share of my electricity costs are for DHW, UFH and car charging all of which can be set to overnight. So I’m not recommending my system but I believe that there are ways of using whatever system you have in the most cost effective way. For a cheap gas combi boiler the difference is probably negligible but when you are paying 11.5p for heating it concentrates the mind a bit. I only heat the rooms I use and the costs are manageable. If I had the option of mains gas I would have it in a heartbeat. Next door one side uses oil and the other side uses bottled gas and a wood burning stove.

I live on the coast and have to be careful with plants due to the extremely windy days we get here. Laurel is a no go. Privet grows ok but it doesn’t seem to want to grow upwards much. It mostly seems to spread outwards. Ceanothus grows like a weed here and could make a good hedge, and Griselinia, a plant that I’d never heard of but was recommended on here also grows well. I have several conifers (smaller than leylandii) but none of them have ended up with issues.

@recoveringbuilder fitted biomass in their new build. Very unhappy with it I believe. @Declan52 also has one.

Welcome. I think @Crofter is away on his travels but he built a small house on Skye. @Thedreamer has also just finished building a house on Skye.

That’s interesting as I got a letter saying that my claim had passed the eligibility check and they would now move onto checking the invoices. That took week (20 weeks end to end in 2018).

Have you paid him that? If so and it was clearly documented that he would provide BC drawings and hasn’t surely you can ask for some sort of refund?

That’s great news, and as they say ‘timing is everything’. Anyone submitting their claim now must hopefully feel much more positive in getting the right result. My claim was in Feb 2018 just before they started the rejection nonsense. Like you I feel for those people in between whose claims were unjustifiably IMO rejected. I wonder if those individuals are able to appeal? I know that they are out of time but if there is any justice they should be given special leave to appeal IMO.

It may not matter too much with a shed but my brother’s next door neighbour planted a row of leylandii trees along the boundary between the 2 houses. The hedge was about 6 foot from my brother’s house (London so houses fairly close together). The roots caused subsidence to his kitchen and he had to have it underpinned and the kitchen replaced (via insurance). The neighbour refused to remove the hedge and sometime later the same thing happened again. The insurance company paid out a second time but the neighbour was told that they (the insurance company) would take further action if it happened again, so they removed the hedge. It very much depends on the soil type I imagine.

Yes indeed. It will only look like the show home if you only have about 12 items of clothing or a housekeeper. Whoever has time to line everything up in order of colours etc?

This is also why I prefer doors on wardrobes.

It wasn’t esplained in the initial post but later the OP has explained that it’s not their PPR.

Ah sorry I misread what you meant ?

If you don’t have a Ltd company there are things that a self builder has to pay VAT on, such as architect and structural engineer fees that a Ltd company can avoid. The reclaim scheme is supposed to put a self builder in the same position as a commercial builder but it really doesn’t. Plus if it’s not a self build, eg built to let out as in this case, you can’t reclaim VAT via the reclaim scheme so to avoid any VAT all work must be done by a VAT registered builder on a supply & fit basis.

Can’t comment on the Ltd company position but there is no way of avoiding CIL unless you are a self builder and you live in the flat for 3 years post completion. So you could consider moving into the new flat and renting out the old one to get round that and your neighbour would need to do the same. And you would need to be very careful to follow the CIL exemption process to the letter.

IKEA clearance? https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/offers/limited-time-offers/?filters=f-subcategories%3Ametod kitchen all parts%2423598

Offering to get someone’s wife pregnant? A biological impossibility ?

Ask her if she wants to get pregnant or run £££££ over budget ?

Well it depends. What I’ve got now works (well apart from the solar thermal) and costs me nothing to maintain pretty much. An ASHP would cost a fair bit of cash upfront and I doubt it would ever pay back in the time that I live in this house. My nervousness at having 3 quotes that are miles apart in terms of spec and cost (one was almost 30k!) leaves me thinking that I may as well opt for the safe option and stay as I am.

I have MVHR everywhere but the sun room / extension that was added later. Building Control picked up on it and said that I had to put trickle vents in 2 of the windows unless the windows had night ventilation (they didn't). I argued that the vents would be closed 24 x 7 and that there were 2 set of internal double doors into the room so there was a ton of ventilation already. Didn't matter I had to have them retrofitted. In the end I could have just stuck them on because they never came out to check - they just wanted a photo. I have never opened the trickle vents in 5 years.

Yeah and I’ve asked for one and am supposedly on the list. When I enquired again back in the summer I was told “it will be a long wait unfortunately”. I’ve been ‘on the list’ for over a year now. Their standard tariff is miles more expensive than the one I’m on now so I’m staying put for the time being.

All 3 quotes were done on a 'whole house usage' supposedly. Not really because you won't need to use oil on the low days either.

True but when people have ripped out an oil boiler and been told that it will save them money that's got to be pretty unlikely in cold weather surely even if the system is designed correctly as the difference in price between oil and electric is much more than you will save at this time of year when the COP is taken into account? Everyone is very keen to lower their carbon emissions until it starts to hit their wallet significantly. And I think the big problem is that not enough people understand how they should work optimally even when they are so called Trustmark and MCS registered. I had 3 quotes - 3 completely different sizes of ASHP specified. I had 8.5kw, 12kw and 18kw in 3 different quotes. How the hell is the customer supposed to know which one is correct? ???

I’m sure some are. I think unless you have a really modern new build with great insulation and decent air tightness then they can be very expensive to run. I’ve been considering one as a retrofit here but although I’m on 100% electric currently my bills are manageable and I have no annual maintenance costs. I clean out the magnafilter from time to time and that’s about it. If I moved to an ASHP I would need annual maintenance on both the UVC and ASHP to preserve the warranty which would just about negate any saving I might make via the heat pump’s COP, and from what I can tell you have to plan the use of your DHW carefully with an ASHP. Currently I can switch on the boiler and have water hot enough to run a full bath in 30 minutes or less. If they ever get round to providing smart meters for 3 phase I can move to something like Octopus Agile and save money by putting the heating on during the cheap hours. I’ve swapped to putting it on overnight rather than late afternoon because I have worked from home for nearly a year now but it has also demonstrated to me that I could easily run it at the cheaper rates when I get the opportunity to. On a heat pump forum I’ve been looking at there are so many people complaining about how much the running costs are. The stock answer appears to be ‘well it’s been cold’ but my usage averages about £5 a day in winter and that’s for everything; car (although not being used much these days), washing machine, dryer, dishwasher et al. Some people on the heat pump forum are spending £10 a day on heating and DHW with an ASHP. I wonder what Zoot’s bill will be like when one finally arrives ...

From what I can see on another forum people buy a new house that had one, hate it, or bills are through the roof as they’ve not been set up properly and then rip them out.

Yes and then you have to stick with the same builder, ie you can’t employ a different builder a few weeks down the line. The work also has to be completed within a year of the property being acquired if you live in it before work starts.