Nickfromwales

That’s a split unit, with gas lines between the internal and external units. Needs an F-gas installer. Not a horrible option but looks to then become an expensive install! Prob just doubled your installed cost there vs buying boxes and connecting via a local ‘but competent’ plumber. Can’t see much info about DHW (recovery times etc) other than it’s a 200L tank, but I’m not trying too hard today lol. I’d also want to know how noisy the outdoor unit gets when doing DHW. The monoblock Aquerea I’ve just fired up is crazy quiet when going full chat to heat 400L of DHW from standstill for the 1st time. “Panasonic All in One air to water heat pumps should be installed by a qualified installer and preferably an approved Panasonic heat pumps engineer To purchase this heat pump, we will require the installers details and currant F-Gas number before it is dispatched”

I’ve just done a Panasonic monoblock with its own integral pump, so no need for another pump other than the one on the manifold. Some will say to have a pumpless and blending-valveless manifold and fire that off the ASHP pump, with ASHP flow temp as your UFH flow temp which is a little less user friendly an option, imho, but doable. Pre plumbed cylinders will have all the generic stuff on there for a standard S or Y plan arrangement. Plug and play, but a more cumbersome lump in one place; has a much bigger diameter for both physical size and also access / service / maintenance etc so not sympathetic with it hiding in a utility cupboard. . Cost goes up too, and not sure about slimline options there either(?). Don’t have the ASHP pipe rise out of the slab until they are in the plant space!!!! Terrible idea to bring them out early, so go kneel on some pencils until you’ve removed that silly thought from your mind 👉 I use 2 port valves as they’re easier to swap out and you lose one service not both if it snuffs it. 3-ports (diverter valve not mid-position) I only now use if it’s a thermal store with DHW priority as the wiring is standardised and I like these to be generic. Most heat pumps service a 2x 2-port setup out of the box.

If the adjoining room is habitable (bedroom) then your BCO may or may not spot the breach of acoustic control. These habitable spaces should be separated by a full, insulation laden, stud wall of 100mm to comply; subject to the BCO giving a toss or not basically so you’ll need to flip a coin and see who you get. On the last one like this I stuffed the WC frame and associated annoying voids with acoustic batts manually, and then built a 3” stud wall behind the 4” one that the WC frame and cistern went into, to bring it back to compliance (at the request of the client, after I made him aware of the consequences of breaching that acoustic divider). 645 is plenty, agreed. You’ll be surprised to know that the average UK bathroom was the size of a double bed. I’d keep the shower head and riser rail on the end though, with the control valve on the side at the 2/3 marker; easy to reach when showering and before getting in. The real estate between the end and the last 1/3 should be preserved for lathering up out of the spray but just away from the opening. For anything shorter than 1400 you should have a slider really vs an opening afaic. Defo a great choice vs a modular shower tray imho. Flush tiled floors in the shower area just look soooo much better / more ‘expensive’ tbf. You’ll be into tanking then so would need to plan accordingly. @richo106, the only issue you’ll have is foot space to dry off in after a bath, so I would take the basin down to within 100mm of the bath, move WC to suit, and create some towelling off area which I think will be of much more long term benefit than having nice big gaps that choke to circulation space up. Consider niches for the shower area, somewhere for goops & goos, and maybe bring the bath 50mm away from the wall to create a ledge and exaggerated window ‘shelf’ for same goops there. Just imagine how you will manage without those bits of storage for everything you currently have to hand and then realise the importance of not forgetting to allow for it.

Just cut a dozen or more (x) depth PIR chairs to sit on the DPM or rebar and then place a piece of 100mm PIR or EPS on top of them the size of the area plus maybe 50mm extra in each direction. If over rebar, fit concrete mars bars directly under where your PIR chairs will go to stop the deflection when you add ballast. Wrap a bin liner around the soil pipe, then foam around that as much as you need to. That needs to be done so as to prevent concrete getting to or into the pipe, so do that well! A coupler and blanking plug is the best option, but you’ll need to get the pipe cut quite low for that. Easily doable with a multi-tool and some patience. Place a load of concrete blocks or sand bags / other ballast on top of the 100mm sheet and get on with the pour; this will give a ‘perfect’ result. Hack it all out 24hrs after the pour when the concrete is still ‘green’ and that’ll allow you to easily undertake any further chasing out necessary to fit the tray / former / waste & pipework etc. There are loads of ways to over-engineer this btw, and the last load of these I’ve done have been ludicrously complex and time-consuming…..(not). Just get a load of sharp sand and shovel it in to blind off the area and shovel / Henry hoover it all back out the next day or so. Takes appx 10 mins to shovel in, 20 mins to remove, perfect results every damn time. . Bench the sand like making a sandcastle and go 75mm bigger x&y, have it around 50mm higher than TOC, and tell the concrete guys to go easy there so as to not disturb it. I ask them to stop short as it doesn’t matter, and later I back fill with cementitious leveller or a builders screed with fibres, depending on rebar or not. “KISS”, folks. Works a charm. Tools required = 1x sand and 1x shovel. 👌.

Great comments from the new neighbours, plus a happy 9 year old to boot ☺️. Great work, and phase 1 complete. Keep your chin up, it’ll be well worth it in the end. 🫡👊👍

Or just say my name three times @KJL, are you referring to the clip rails or the individual clips? If the latter, they’re just 16mm “nail clips” from any decent merchant and come in bags or boxes of 100. https://amzn.eu/d/amdxnLI 👍 That job had posi joists at 400mm not 600mm, and were designed at the pre-construction phase for the weight of the screed. It was Cemfloor cementitious liquid screed. It’s very solid underfoot now, but still not “concrete solid”.

You'd both be lucky to have me....ffs

£20 is £20

A lot of partial water changes will be necessary to keep this anywhere near healthy and stable tbh. If you’ve a heat pump > UVC then just dumping that into the ‘pool’ would be the easiest and reasonably efficient way of just knocking the chill off the water. Having this heated is going to be a big uplift in cost to maintain, so prob best to set your expectations accordingly. As 👆 but with the caveat that we see value in doing what puts a smile on our kids faces. If any of this is offset by off peak electricity or micro-generation then I could live with it tbh. If it was mine, I’d have a blended valve with a timer and solenoid for filling, with a dedicated outside tap and a hose to the pool. Then I’d partially empty it each evening when in use and then maybe overheat heat it from midnight - 05:00. That would be in conjunction with a good cover on and a good quality local pump and filter being on and regularly cleaned. Otherwise this will quickly become a vat of unhealthy (invisibly so) goop which my kids would be told to avoid. I fitted a 19’ x 5’ above ground heated pool for a client, tiered garden which we reduced at the end so the pool was 4’ below ground and wrapped by a deck, was a nice thing to have if you could afford it. I put up a dedicated ‘shed’ for the boiler and pump house and sand / cartridge filter etc etc and the cost was thousands to get this all right. Unfortunately you’re either dedicating your life and time to this with a big investment in infrastructure, or just emptying and filling with potable (already mildly chlorinated) water prior to use, on demand, and sucking up the cost to provide the heat and the water. Any heated, maintained pool is a money pit and is hugely time / attention hungry. Hot tub owners are one of 2 people; lazy smelly buggers who don’t care and keep adding more chemicals, or immaculate and particular folk who keep the unit spotless, clean, and healthy, and pay the price and have the time. Oh, and with kids, I’d NEVER entertain putting an electric heater into the pool….. The only place for a certified inline electric heater is on the return of the pumped filtered loop, but then you’d just bite the bullet and use a cheap pool ASHP so the running costs were 1:3 / 1:4 which isn’t too bad. Again, used pre 05:00 to do the bulk of the heavy lifting to further reduce costs. @SteamyTea how long would the temp need to be at 45°C (or more?) to do a legionella purge for the 3.5m x 1m pool volume?

If you leave the unwanted text and hit refresh on the browser you’ll return to an empty text editor box. When you click on it to make the comment again you’ll see the text reappear and an option to restore that text or ‘clear editor’, so click on clear and the text will all disappear 👍.

Yup. For stuff which you cannot go back to, it is sensible to only use quality, industry standard stuff every time.

I think that would be a "yes", as there has. Just another BS government 'initiative', with MCS being equally as w4nk as the FIT, et-al. And we vote for these people......... (well, not me anyways).

Pan a sonic. #subliminalmessage Cylinders2go for UVC. Fired up another Panasonic today, still very happy with how quiet and cost-effective these are for a simple install. And cool capable straight out of the box.

Time to discover timber methinks, all you masonry addicts! Even load-bearing walls can be done well in timber….. why make life any harder than it already is? 😑😌

Went to get his hair done and a manicure! 💅 obvs. 🙄

Open vented?

Cut back the XPS and set Compacfoam in. I did this with a 4.9m slider, and set the Compacfoam in with flexible tile adhesive so I could tap it gently to level and set the required depth with great accuracy. This isn’t about point loading, so doesn’t need such drastic work-arounds tbh.

I’ve only now got used to pronouncing Welsh words after 50 years of it, lol. Welcome and thanks for sharing your project. 👍

You should thank your guys, they’re doing a very good job there. The female up theory is not ever what happens, and open pipe always gets cut and then a fitting placed on to it to carry on above the slab. Stand back and enjoy as the magic happens, and buy them a few slabs of beer as a thank you. Seems to be very meticulous work compared to some of the muppets I’ve encountered out there

Wet what please? Exact type (cementitious or gypsum or dry S&C) plz?

I have to build up the levels to achieve the floor level and I’m using UFH. Figured we could use cheap EPS to hit two birds with one stone. Labour cost is the same. Small uplift in material cost for EPS/stone Ah, makes sense, sorry. Focus on taping up well to prevent ANY airflow between boards and rafters. If you can add 25mm to the interior face to stave off the repeat cold bridging then that would be the cherry on the cake, and PIR weighs next to nothing so shouldn’t affect those maths.

I have worked for a few exactly as described above, and they are lower to the ground than a slugs ball-sack tbh. Big smiles, "can you do x,y,z", I carry on on good faith and then the bullshit and excuses begin..... There are 2 in particular who I hope d1e soon. Everyone sympathises with clients and little GAF is given to the contractor when the offending clients pop out a few crocodile tears. Nothing satisfies more than them falling on their own sword; when the case is genuine of course. I equally hate people being taken advantage of when they need a decent tradesperson to look after them. @Buildmeup, you can't come on here and actually name or pick someone out, unfortunately, but I completely get where you are coming from. I have been left with zero option other than to assume everyone will do you over, which is a sad state of affairs......but it does allow you to change the way you do business and learn (the hard way) from your mistakes. "What doesn't kill you..." or so they say!

From the 'net: We’re aware that some people focus on the pillars (“dots”) and they can become an objection to using this glass. Let us delve a little closer into why they should not be the focus of rejecting such ground breaking insulating glass: The pillars are very small and back a very short distance from glass cannot even be seen. Window are designed to be looked through to the outside view. Therefore our focus is through the glass not on the glass. If you focus on any type of glass you will see blemishes, dirt, dust, road grime, smudges, finger prints, maybe scratches and even bird poop! The two points below are also crucial considerations to weigh up “can I live with new space aged glass and its benefits if I can see some small dots when I walk up close to the glass”? Conventional rubber sealed double glazing has a very thick black rubber seal and its prone to breaking down, and the seal is very visible, whereas vacuum insulated glass is thin, it fits into windows and it has an edge seal that adds strength, longevity and you cannot see it. No double glazing will provide the level of thermal efficiency any where near that of xxx vacuum insulated double glazing.

Complete and utter insanity on a biblical scale. Conservation officer needs a reality check on what the planet needs moving forwards, other than his short 'tache and raised right hand. Bonkers.