Nickfromwales

I agree with 96.7% of that.

UK planners can be such tossers.

Just make a retrospective planning application for the fence, doesn’t sound like anyones going to die from this! And for the trees and protection, that’s the biggest hairsplitting I’ve ever heard of, just ask if that can be dismissed from their concerns and show some pics of the trees still alive and healthy.

I don’t have this evidence around my Icon fan, which is routinely flowing air much faster, but it is proud of the surface. To be honest, I doubt airflow is going fast enough for long enough to make this an issue, and I’d rather paint my ceiling every couple of years vs have the utilitarian looking vents on the ceiling. If you’re balancing at the manifold then just use a linear version which is bigger / longer than you need to distribute the airflow over a much bigger surface area. Do you know what valves you’re using to control the flow of air, as poor ones will gain you the audibility that you are trying to rid the system of.

Just get Aurora compact depth ones, which are fire rated and acoustic rated, ticking both boxes. https://www.electrical2go.co.uk/aurora-en-fd103sn-gu10-ip65-86mm-acoustic-compact-fire-downlight-satin-nickel.html

Trades on mass build site (sausage factories) are beaten up on price and don’t really care about workmanship. Just spend 30 mins on YouTube to confirm how these houses get built nowadays. The trades know they’ll never be held accountable so rarely give 2 hoots.

You still need to pump if underground, and there’s the cost of the kit and installation. RWH is RWH, regardless of what you do with the water? Thats why I said do above ground and a cheap pump.

Get the insulated plasterboards on and you should be in a good place then. Are you using fans to speed up the drying process for the wet brickwork? They’ll help by moving drier air to that area and also by pushing away the moisture coming off it which would otherwise stagnate locally. Fit them with a 25mm gap at the bottom so you can foam all the way along the bottom of the boards, same at each end, which will stop thermal tenting. If insulation is installed poorly you’ll have gained zero and spent £lots.

Hosepipe bans happen in extended periods of drought, so the water in there would be used quickly and not replenished. And ironically, to keep the pump healthy, if you run short the tank will take perfectly good potable water from the cold mains to satisfy its thirst. Cheaper to spray potable water on the ground is just the bones of it, unless you can bury 10,000L of storage or more. Better off diverting rainwater to above ground IBC’s and using a £100 hippo pump until it fails and then replacing it when it does. RWH pumps are stupidly expensive and fail as quickly as <2 years. Buy solar PV instead. Cant remember the last hosepipe ban either so I’ll not be investing 1000’s to protect myself……

https://www.stuart-turner.co.uk/contentfiles/Mainsboost-Monobloc-IG.pdf

Please browse the forum as this has been discussed quite comprehensively, with most in agreement that it costs more, long term, than it saves.

Ok, so you have a heat source for the UFH, that’s good. If you do go A2A AC heat & cool then you can get one outdoor unit that will do up to 4 or even 5 indoor units, so maybe kills a few birds with one stone to ditch UFH and go that route. The caveat is, that they’d all be either heating o4 cooling not a mix, if fed off one outdoor unit.

You ever head the phrase “too good to be true”? Not going to improve your situation with that I’m afraid. That’s the kind of thing you’d use on a conservatory roof to keep the sun from cooking you alive, largely by reflection vs insulation.

Not the foggiest. Can you find reference to it in any paperwork you have there? I am assuming it has been “recreated” by the plumber in the previous post.

I don’t see any pressure reducing valves in the installation guide, so I’m now curious as to why you have them and why they’re set so low. I see what I think are non return valves (green defo, but not sure about blue), a Y strainer (red), and a PRedV (yellow), so we need to find out what’s supposed to be there, what’s not, and what could be causing issue.

Can you confirm if this upstream ‘line in kit’ is present / installed?

Ok.

Ok. If it is off the cold mains from the street, then it can give you the first bit of info we need, eg the max static pressure you have prior to the booster / attic plumbing. From there we can make suggestions to maybe increase the pressure to the supply going to the pump. Even an uplift of 0.5bar would be a major jump, and should see the pump run time reduce massively whilst improving the recovery time from when the stored capacity is near to depleted. I’ll have a look at the installation manual and see what that says about “tweaking”. Grab that pressure gauge from screw fix and it should screw onto the outside tap. Take a reading with nothing drawing water in the house, and then take it back for a full refund. 👍

That’s been written by someone in a padded cell, totally bonkers advice 👎 Defo the best advice here, even more so if there’s solar PV, but depending on budget and the noise of this running, even electric panel heaters shouldn’t be ruled out. Is there already a central heating system (gas boiler) in the property?

Thanks. Yes, if you zoom in you can see the 15mm copper pipe with MAINS written on it, so I assume that converts to blue pipe (MDPE) and goes to the attic uninterrupted. If you’re not comfortable messing with plumbing then please don’t! We don’t want your next thread to be about “which are the best wellies I can buy” lol. Best you get a plumber in and you /we put together a list of the things that have been requested or suggested, and then go for a day of finding out what is going on and what is best to do to resolve it. Do you have an outside tap that you could test the mains from the street with? I can only assume that the installers wouldn’t have put the outside tap after the booster.

Largely what the pub is for, someone else cooks and does the dishes, and you get some flavourful lubrication to boot. Mac ‘n cheese is the bomb, especially if it’s homemade. Enjoy.

Not really an overstatement, just physics says that the different downwards heat losses will give you two different results. I’m happy to comment on doing this vs not doing it, whichever you find most helpful. FWIW, I would have UFH in a heartbeat, even if it was less than great to use (running cost wise), but that’s me and I don’t assume people who come here want duff advice from any one person. I am a fan of the Wunda stuff tbh, but their sales patter on the website oozes positivity and doesn’t really address the pitfalls of failing to prepare. I guess their designers would be the ones to give you more of an assurance, and more importantly offer an underwritten solution for heating output and controls, so I guess start there and see what their feedback is. When you factor in the SLC, I’d defo stay at 10mm or a bit more if possible. I ‘Wunda’ how good their support will be regarding overall methodology. The floor will get warm, that’s a given, it’s more about whether or not the spaces be sufficiently heated. The suspended area should be a cold ventilated space so this will need improving before laying the UFH over it, if possible, with some additional draught-proofing to prevent any airflow from the voids up into the rooms. This will pay huge dividends regardless of how you heat the spaces. I think the overlay boards get bonded down, so if the joints are all foamed then this should deal with any residual infiltration. Foam all around the perimeter too, whilst the skirting boards are off, but I’m sure you’ll need to do this to create a moat for the SLC anyways; any gaps you leave for air to travel up is where all the SLC will end up disappearing down. That’s real fun to solve half way through a big pour!! I’m not plucking my comments out of thin air btw, I’m just saying what I’ve seen (and had to rip out and redo) over 30+ years of installing heating and hot water systems in many different arenas . I’ve seen UFH done poorly more times than well, especially retrofit solutions or systems installed by “turnkey builders” with robot plumbers who just need to plough on to get a pay cheque every Friday. If it’s an overlay then you’d have to go over the original section anyway to keep the floor levels the same, so you may as well install the UFH there as well so the floor is at least warmed as the difference where it goes from heated to un-heated would be obvious and likely something you’d find intolerably cold when stepping on one or the other, even with LVT. If going with the SLC option ( Wunda say 5-10mm wish they’d be a bit more specific) I’d recommend using the Mapei construction screed with fibres vs the Ultra 2-part. I used both regularly and they’re both excellent, but I think the fibres would be a good idea where the system goes over the suspended floors. As you’re installing LVT the effect between heated / unheated areas should be minimal, lesser again if you walk on it wearing socks, but this will be the worst covering choice for getting heat into the room from the water in the UFH pipes so you need to understand this fully before proceeding. It’ll just be a lot of money and effort to do, but it can be done, so we’re just replying to you here to prepare you for the journey ahead if you do decide to go down this route. It’s better to discuss this to death here (for free), beforehand, than be coming back to find out how to resolve it and to be told “you can’t”.

Ok, first job is to get a pressure gauge on the end of the blue pipe bringing cold mains up to the attic. Do you have a pic of the other end of that blue pipe, eg at the ground floor stopcock? Turn that off, disconnect the cold feed in the attic, put a pressure gauge on it and see what the static standing pressure is on the mains. Let’s start there. https://www.screwfix.com/p/monument-tools-mains-water-pressure-test-gauge-11bar/82412?gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD8IdPy5YHYzsMfKRwsac1otIxnYQ&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwO6Vm87ZiwMVv5FQBh2ahwdrEAQYAyABEgK5bvD_BwE

Yup, get the basics worked out and then look at adding capacity. DO NOT just add another pump though!

Ahhhh, the relaxing calm of the sabbath. Ok folks, this has been decided to be genuine enough, and anyone who isn’t interested please just click on something else, simples. No more head shaking, please. The mods will decide what stays or goes and what is or isn’t spam. We’ve been doing this reasonably well for many years, and our regular members report improper content and it gets flushed as required, and this means that this forum is quite a nice place to hang around on. All good, chill out folks, go get a roast beef dinner, and……………..“breathe” The management.