NSS

Went live with Agile last week. Cost saving against standard tariff (Octopus Flexible) is 35% for the first four days.

We have intentionally not changed our usage pattern (it was pretty disciplined already having reprogrammed the ASHP to suit the Agile tariff about six weeks ago), but cost saving for energy used against the old tariff is currently averaging just over 30%. That's only 3 days of data to date though.

Well we finally went live with Agile on Wednesday as the meter wasn't commissioned properly when first installed. Early days yet but already seeing a substantial (circa 30%) cost reduction versus Flexible Octopus.

Welcome, you'll find many dreamers here. The trick is avoiding the nightmares, but it sounds like you at least know the direction you're aiming to travel in. We built 165m2 TF with similar aspirations. Detail is everything and will result in the dream becoming a reality. Good luck ?

Any number of new builds around here with as few as two PV panels on the roof. Presumably there to help the developer reach the required EPC but, from what you say Dave, probably all but useless.

Indecisions, indecisions, indecisions.

Be mindful also to where any condensate drain exits from the unit

As mentioned, developers don't have to test every property so that figure may not even be for your home, just one like it. That means that yours could in fact be better or worse. The only way to know is to do a test on it.

Probably not of 1.1 acres in an AONB though Dave.

Everything is relative. There are areas where £30k won't get you a single parking space let alone 1.1 acres.

Had our SMETS2 meter installed today to enable switch to Agile as our fixed-rate tariff has just ended. New rate would have added circa £90/year to our bill so decided to give Agile a try. Spent the evening working out the optimum new program settings for the ASHP.

Welcome. Would I be correct in assuming the Victorian building you speak of is an ex-school?

Depends on what sort of provision you're making I guess, Joe. In our case, the addition of the Panasonic Air Rad required both a dedicated fused spur and the supply/return loop for heated (or cooled) water from the ASHP. As you know, the provision of cooling capacity was as important for us as heating capacity due to our requirement to keep a sealed environment for air quality.

Late to this thread so apologies if what I'm about to add has already been covered. We have a 1.5 storey (chalet bungalow) of total 165m2 of which is split circa 75% ground floor to 25% first floor. We have wall and roof circa 1.4, Windows 0.7, airtightness of 1.6, Panasonic 9Kw ashp, Paul Novus 300 mvhr and an EPC score of 96. Not the best on here but not bad, but we still find during really cold spells (we're on the south coast so we're not talking Scottish Highlands cold) that we appreciate the Panasonic air rad in our bedroom. As already said, mvhr won't spread the heat and even in a well insulated house we find very little heat finds it's way upstairs (though that may in part be due to our design which has the staircase in a floor to vaulted roof space that has outside walls to three sides). I suspect someone somewhere later in the thread will have suggested at least making provision for some heating upstairs, but if not then I'd strongly recommend it. Easier not to use it than find you need it when it's too late to add.

Do you really need two joins if not centred on the sink? We have a 5m run of granite worktop with a fairly centrally positioned sink and only one join (away from the sink) but I believe our supplier can do 4.2m as a single slab.

Not sure how much of that stuff would have found its way online (the legal stuff was mid-90's). I think I still have a box of papers somewhere but not sure I fancy trawling through them again, even if I could find them. The following paragraph is however from a short piece on the lead law firms site. "After the first death here, the programme was immediately stopped following consultation among the clinicians involved, and Hgh was replaced by a synthetic version. The human based product had been prepared from pituitary glands recovered from cadavers - pituitaries were routinely collected at post-mortem examination in mortuaries and it is estimated that over 960,000 pituitaries were harvested to make Hgh and/or other pituitary derived hormone treatments." To add a little more background, mortuary technicians were paid 20p for each pituitary gland (apparently removed without any permissions from next of kin). Some of these mortuaries received cadavers of residents from what were then known as mental institutions. Typically the glands were stored in glass jars for weeks/months until collected by the MRC. In crude terms, we were told the glands were then "boiled up in a huge vat" to extract the hGH. Sterilisation practice at the time would have had no effect on the CJD prion and hence each new batch was to a lesser or greater degree contaminated by any affected glands in previous batches, regardless of whether the batch being processed contained any infected glands. I understand that at least 80 of the approximately 1,900 kids treated with hGH have since gone on to die from CJD (though one report I read suggested it could be as many as 129). Of course, many of the others died of other causes (one of the reasons it was given was to replace hGH lost when treating pituitary gland cancer that subsequently killed them anyway), and the longest gestation thus far has been 38 years after treatment. Mrs NSS was one of those treated very early on in the programme and all the evidence points to her treatment having been completed around two months before the first contamination is believed to have taken place. She is one of the lucky ones. Ironically, she was the only patient in the UK to receive hGH that was not growth hormone deficient (either naturally or as a result of radiotherapy). She had a much more rare growth disorder but her consultant at GOSH thought it worth trying hGH. It had zero impact and she is in fact a little smaller than average for women with her syndrome.

My wife was one of the kids it was injected into, in her case twice a week for 7 years. I've read an awful lot on the subject, not least all the legal submissions from experts because she was involved in the group action that was brought over the scandal. Still, I bow to the superior knowledge you acquired across a dinner table over 20 years ago.

Utter rubbish. BSE was/is the bovine equivalent of CJD, the latter (and the prions that cause it) having been known of long before the BSE/vCJD scandal. Prions are abnormal, mutated proteins that accumulate in the brain and invariably result in fatality, usually within 12 months of the onset of symptoms. They also make Covid positively easy to deal with as the normal extremes of heat or radiation typically used to eliminate bacteria/viruses have no effect, and nor do antibiotics or antiviral treatments. It's why a number of kids who received human growth hormone injections in the 70's and 80's went on to contract CJD. The hGH was extracted from pituitary glands harvested from human corpses. Unfortunately some of those they were harvested from had died with CJD. Once the prion found its way into the equipment used to extract the growth hormone it infected every subsequent batch as the sterilisation process failed to destroy it.

We have a Panasonic Aquarea T-Cap. Not sure how different it is to yours, or whether this is any help, but we had this fault and it was the water pump (it had seized). Unit was circa 2.5 years old at the time (4.5 years old now) and Panasonic supplied replacement without even needing to see the faulty one (which suggests it wasn't the first) and paid a fixed fee to our installer to replace.

Well done Ian. And just in time to get a ladder out to hang Christmas lights around your fabulous creation ?

Nah, only 1900 or so posts in 14 months, can't possibly be Jeremy ?

This is a pic of the rear elevation, albeit taken over two years ago when we were still landscaping.

Hi Helen, I think we were probably a slightly unusual client for Scandia Hus. I'd designed the house as none of their 'standard' designs met our need. The house was totally designed around my wife's needs (due to health, stature and mobility issues) and it was for these reasons in part that we didn't use SH's preferred window and MVHR partners. They were very supportive and great at turning my vision into working drawings. They also suggested some minor but worthwhile amendments (that I'd probably never have thought of) which we really appreciated. By comparison to most Scandia Hus properties it's also fairly modest in size (165m2 chalet bungalow) so I'm not sure how relevant it would be to your project, but I'll see if I can dig out a few photos. Edited to add: We only contracted SH to supply and erect the timber frame. Groundworks and all work beyond the erection of the timber frame was managed by me, calling in specialist trades as needed, but also doing a fair amount of the work myself. I know SH has started offering a 'turnkey' package more recently.

@Helen Vowls you'll find their standard component schedule linked from the following page - https://www.scandia-hus.co.uk/design-build/price-guide/

Hi @Helen Vowls We have a Scandia Hus timber frame (erected five years ago). At the time, their quote was accompanied by a very comprehensive list of what was included. We chose to omit windows, MVHR and staircase, but our package included (for example) all of the insulation (external walls, roof, internal walls and ceilings), all of the stud wall timber, plasterboard and internal battens, the t&g chipboard flooring for the first floor, the roof sarking boards, battens and roof membrane, crane and telehandler hire, even all of the fixings for most of the above. We were very happy with the service provided by Scandia Hus and, whilst I have no doubt there are less expensive suppliers, we felt safe using them - not least because they offered an ESCROW arrangement for payments.