ragg987

The water in UFH should be in a closed loop and treated. I achieve a similar effect, in a small way, as I have a 90l buffer for the UFH heating. Mains incoming water flows through a coil in this buffer. This raises the mains a few degrees and the buffer cools to about 14C, I can circulate this cooler water through UFH. This is only useful while we are using water in the house - if taps are off for an extended period there is no cooling. In the end you need to do the calcs to understand the effect. Above method "removes" perhaps 1 or 2kWh per 24hrs. On a hot day and with solar gain you will be gaining a lot more energy, so while there will be some cooling it may not be sufficient.

Just occurred to me that my DHW cylinder is behaving like a battery, except it stores the energy as heat and not electricity. DHW has 300l capacity, so potentially the equivalent of approx 15kWh battery. 1,225 kWh of solar PV was diverted to the cylinder in the last 12 months. Approx £150 saving per year at 12p per kWh.

They do pay back - I have used these in the past. They make money on the basis that once the direct debit is set it becomes income for life and people omit to take advantage of it - a bit like gym memberships. I just started my subs with Sovereign. Have ordered my glasses and done a dental check, so once claim is in not needed for a few more years (hopefully).

Approx 4Mwh. (Measured 3,860kWh from 24 Jan to 31 Dec 2017. Did not connect monitoring until 24 Jan)

I don't see how that would work. On a sunny day you would charge up your 4.8kWh and that is it done. When the sun goes down you use it until it is depleted. Our 4kWp is capable of generating 25kWh per day, though the mean is 11kWh. The mean is meaningless (!) in the context of ability to charge a battery - I have the daily data someplace of actual daily generation so this might help to model your annual saving, though of course just because you generate 4.8kWh on a given day does not mean your battery will fully charge as you home will consume a background load. Without doing the modelling, I fail to see how this could save you more than around £100-£150 per year (for a 4kWp array and 4.8kWh battery).

My measurements for a full 12 months show I exported 3% back to the grid. South-facing array 4kWp, positioned to maximise yield. Using a PV diverter to my 300l DHW. For me it makes no sense to have east and west-facing panels to lengthen the generation period. Also, in winter you will take a bigger hit having East / West panels.

I looked at DCV briefly before settling on MVHR. I saw DCV as similar to leaving a window open all the time, you throw heat out, the only part you control is how wide your window is open based on air monitoring. DCV would be a benefit compared to a ventilation system that ran at a constant speed. As you are aiming for a low energy build, it seems pointless. Agree that as a forum there are quite a few similarities, and some of us have taken very similar approaches. "Tried and tested".

That site shows plastic pictures of pools next to plastic basements! Tempting fate!

All good points from @Mr Punter. We went with an ICF basement (no extra tanking or drainage required) but we checked our water table first, it is below the basement. We kept the area free of water installations to avoid the additional risk and costs, had a single light-well / fire escape on one side and the other side is window-less by design (home-cinema). We were not permitted to connect our surface drainage to the main drains, but we agreed with BC that the light-well drain could be the exception. I would say we were closer to double cost compared to above ground as excavation and muck-away were significant. Hard to be sure our basement costs were part of a lump-sum that included all groundworks, drains, soakaways, cast concrete stairs and beam-and-block cap to the basement. Our site has a compound slope, both back to front and left to right that adds to complexity and cost. An estate agent I spoke to prior to build said sales price of £325 per sq ft for standard accomodation space, but extra spaces (like the basement) was likely to be £180. After build our house was valued at £345 psf on average, so for us it was cost effective and the extra space is great.

I prefer the open plan but would not want the external door straight into my lounge. Some ideas. make the stairs a feature into the lounge - e.g. nice oak staircase / glass / open treads etc, lots of options make a feature of the space underneath the stairs - e.g. decorative / lighting or maybe practical like storage external lean-to / porch (if permitted) so there is a break from the external door to the lounge think about the swing to the front door, if you switch sides it may provide some degree of visual barrier into the lounge people coming in dump shoes / coats / scarves - where will they go? No it will not. Convection could be the major factor, but if yours is a low energy house with no significant temp gradients then I would not be unduly concerned.

Rigid insulation is polystyrene? Heat is simplest for light polystyrene. From a 9v battery across a resistant wire to more complex tools.

Below a certain value (from memory about £30 - do check) yes. Else i would not risk it, ask them to reissue?

I put up to 3 in key rooms (e.g. study, home theatre) and a few points with 1. In most cases I rely on wi-fi. Do factor in your wi-fi point into first fix - make it as central as possible so it covers your whole house (in both horizontal and vertical planes), and allow for at least 2 2x13A sockets, 2x wired ethernet cables, 1x telephone cable to that point, direct from your master BT point. Our kids do not need ethernet points - modern slim devices like laptops, smartphones, kindles have wi-fi only. Xbox is wireless and it works well. Sky Q is crap on wireless in our environment. I also wired one to the garage in case of future integration with car charging / powerwall or similar. Our 16-port switch is in the plant room where I wire in a few plant devices direct - alarm panel, Immersun, solar PV. I did not do this, but you might need to allow for external points in your first fix, especially if you are aiming for an air-tight build. E.g. you may wish to add an external wi-fi booster or antenna, and in our case I gave up with landline-based internet and added an external wireless dish. Another factor for later (not first-fix) is your wi-fi modem / router. Dump your ISP provided one and buy a good device for this function. I wrestled with 4 BT routers before I got this message, and the TP-Link AC2600 has been stable and issue free for a few months now.

Went through this journey with our new build and ended up with a Samsung French door fridge-freezer that ticked our requirements list. Not cheap but been a pleasure to use - family of 4 including 2 teenage boys. http://www.samsung.com/uk/refrigerators/multi-door-rfg23uers/ Our criteria: more space than the standard 600mm can provide double-width french doors rather than tall american doors, much easier to use and increased usable shelf space smaller freezer and larger fridge (approx 65/35 split) quiet in operation given open plan layout proper steel exterior and not plastic dressed as steel given open plan layout metal rear cover not plastic (fire hazard) This comes with ice and water dispenser, not something i really wanted (loses quite a lot of space as noted by others) but options are limited here. Also, once we solved an issue with a rattling cover plate on the rear (poor design, it flaps around so compressor vibrations made it rattle), pretty quiet in our open-plan lounge / diner / kitchen. Audible when near it but not obtrusive. Samsung have a metallised sticker on the front which was a b**er to remove (I hate latent advertising or labels). But with a bit of friendly persuasion, come-off it did.

I would strike out - seems clearer.

As a comparator, I paid a little under £24k for around 180m2 of clay-tile and 4kWp of PV.

Life of solar panels is something like 20 to 30 years? If it still works after production will continue to decline. Life of a quality tiled roof is maybe 3 (or more) times longer? I would be concerned that in 30 years my roof behaves like an ordinary tiled roof (at best - assumes the tiles are not compromised by the solar aspects) and hence I have no upgrade path, other than to either replace the whole roof or add solar panels on top. At least with discrete panels (intgrated or otherwise) you can replace them easily. This is a similar reason I refused to fit integrated sockets with USB charging points. Risk / technology averse!

Hope so too. Money back guarantee, but I would rather pay and they work well.

I have just ordered my first pair of varifocals which should be back in about a week, shall report back. Currently finding I have to remove my glasses (short-sighted) for near work, which would be fine, except now mid-distance is getting tricky for instance when driving and reading the sat-nav. Oh and when I remove my glasses I keep forgetting where I left them. All faculties dulling with age!

White plastic will stand out against walls that are not white. I think there is a tendency to "play it safe". Steel kitchen or door handles and taps do not go out of fashion any more than switches would. Full disclosure, we have Schneider brushed stainless.

I once came across an article on the 'net that tried to establish how comfortable people feel when they step on a cold floor, with one variable being the material they stepped on. I cannot find it right now and do not recall the details, but the conclusions were along the lines of: if the floor is cold people tend to feel less comfortable even if the room is warm floor being cold is not just based on floor temperature but depends on the material e.g. stone floors feel colder than wooden floors at the same temperature We all know this instinctively / through experience, but it still surprises me how many people have hard tile or stone floors in their bathrooms which feel cold and echoey despite having heating. Much as I love stone floors, this is a no-no in my view, unless you live in a much warmer country or keep the floor warm through UFH. Based on this we went with "softer" surfaces upstairs where we have no UFH - i.e. Amtico and timber. Amtico has a slight give that also aids comfort and reduces noise. Our bathrooms only have a diect electrical heated towel rail for heating, and stepping on the Amtico feels comfortable. I tend to leave the towel-rail on 24x7 in winter at the lowest setting - perhaps about 50W on average.

Let me ask you a question: if your accountant wife "I do not need a PM for this software development I can do it myself" how would you feel? I think effective PM requires: domain expertise planning and coordinating and identifying dependencies ability to recognise (or better still anticipate) an issue define the high-risk areas that will need extra attention adept at coaching / persuading / pushing thick skin And agree with your architect re H&S aspects, though you could appoint Company 2 as the lead and hence responsible for this aspect. Given you have to live with the PM decisions during the build (so extra costs when you miss a key dependancy) and also once you move into the house (a missed opportunity during the build that was spotted too late), then think hard before you decide to undertake it yourself. I do not see PM as a cost item. A good PM will easily save you some or all of their costs compared to a poor PM. £15k seems a good investment PROVIDED you believe your architect is right for this role. Take references of that aspect before you commit. We have all watched many episodes of Grand Designs where the client PM has led to disasters and groaned at the stupidity of their actions. I suspect when you are under pressure you risk falling into that trap. (Though I recognise that GD is for entertainment and disasters make for more entertaining TV than a smooth build.)

Me too! Based on @JSHarris postings I also added a passive circulator in my UFH. It is difficult to say exactly how effective this is, but I believe it lets our basement receive some heat from e.g. solar gain upstairs. Or the reverse, makes upstairs a bit cooler on very hot days. Note that if you build to PH standards and have a lot of solar gain you risk over-heating in the summer. Suggest you get this analysed. Solar gain will only work as a substitute for input heat if we have any sun. If last winter is anything to go by, these ar not so many. As @joe90 says, PH does not mean you need no heat, just that you need less of it. So yes UFH is not needed, you can simply add e.g. heating into your MVHR or a few well-placed radiators. We add heat into our MVHR upstairs, no UFH.

Note you only need a professional installer for the refrigerant connection between the internal and external unit. A local refrigerant engineer did this part for me, relatively low cost. The rest is no different than a monobloc install from a "special skills" perspective. I feel this is a better solution than monobloc. No need to add glycol (which is not a trivial or cheap option if the volume is large), no need to check or top-up glycol, no need to replace glycol every x years.

Who owns the self-build - you or the contractor? If you own it then: VAT-free is yours to claim No need to register in advance, just make the claim within 3 months of completion (definition of completion on HMRC site) Contracted labour element (either labour-only or supply and fit) must be zero-rated at source, you cannot reclaim it later. This is where your contractor fits, I do not believe there is a need for them to register (but stand to be corrected) Materials you purchase will be VAT-paid and claimed on completion Of course subject to the rules of VAT-free, e.g. must be part of the build and not a service