Nickfromwales

Have a look at SolarWatt's glass/glass offering. I think there's YT footage of them being driven over by a transit van, and iirc then having golf balls fired at them at 80kph! The SolarWatt stuff have excellent performance and product warranties too, 30 years at 90% for the panels, and 12 years at 80% for the batteries. New stuff just been released, literally the paint is drying on the logos, and I saw it for the first time last Saturday at Farnborough HB&R show. Warranties and guarantees all backed by a company that is basically BMW. The biggest kick with warranties for solar, is that most offer long periods of cover, but if the installer goes bust your warranty goes with them. The other gotcha is that IF you get a replacement panel under warranty, you get exactly that....a panel delivered to your front door. Scaffold and fitting (including working out which one is duff) is down to you. So, if you're going to fit some solar, and it is going to be a functioning part of the fabric of your build (on the roof as the rain-screen) then you'd want to fit the best panel by the most reputable supplier, so you don't ever have to climb back on the roof. Some places it's fine to tighten the purse-strings, budgets aren't infinite by any stretch, but in some places it's best practice (IMHO) to pay a little more to get the best that's out there; providing it is not grotesquely over-priced for what it is, of course.

Bonjour, as we say in Wales It's not the biggest crime in the world, I did this christ knows how many times (before I stepped out of the dark and into the light) lol. I would always use the brown horsehair / hessian type of 'wrap' to give some kind of thermal separation between the pipe and the sub floor or masonry of a wall, plus I have never buried a copper pipe that wasn't first mummified in duct / gaffa tape. Plumbers should know nowadays that anything that gets hot should NOT be in direct contact with something cool or cold, it's just not cricket. If, however they can fit suitably sized pipe insulation around these and THEN fit the floor insulation around that, then they can crack on. Less of a problem on pipes where they heat sporadically (hot water drawn), vs heating pipework that is very hot for a very long time. The biggest issue is you cannot bury pushfit fittings in the slab, so unless the depth of finished floor is deep enough for the pipe to bend upwards and outboard of the slab and finishes, and THEN have a fitting put on, it;s "no dice". I've had the same phone number for over 25 years, and nobody's rung me to say their pipes leaked (they damn well would too!). Soldering joints and wrapping the pipe in duct tape to prevent corrosion etc, plus working to a high standard prevents these issues afaic. Leaks come from poorly made joints, rather than pipes corroding between joints. I've seen original (bare) copper pipe that's been buried directly into concrete or mortar etc for 30+ years, and still doesn't leak (doesn't look like it would be far off by then, but what would you expect there?!). Leaks are caused by shit plumbing, in a nutshell. Pipes will be free to expand / move in the thinnest of insulation, so 9mm for cold water, 13 or 19mm for hot water, and 19 or 25mm insulation wall thickness for heating (if buried). Insulation will act like a protective conduit, but if you think you can pull these in/out retrospectively then you're mistaken, sorry, unless they're arrow straight, short runs, with access both ends where they emerge from the slab. Plumb properly, fit & forget In a true manifold arrangement, you are right, there should be a single pipe to each outlet / appliance. Question is, do you need that? It is perfectly acceptable to plumb a single 15mm cold feed to a single bathroom, as your chap suggests, and how many time are there more then 1 person in that room using water at any one time? If this is not a multi-bathroom, 6 bedroom mansion, then I'd suggest your plumbers logic is sound. This is both practical and far more cost-effective imho. Last job I did: 13 outlets, 13 valves, 13 pipes.

Yup, indeed. I think the OP is translating to comment here, so I thought I'd keep to the basics

Probably rules the idea out to be honest, plus there's a lot of depth then for 'infill'. Maybe just add 50 or 75mm of treated sawn timber to the underside of the existing timbers, if access permits, and then use 140mm or 160mm PIR (respective to the additional timber) for all the insulation, cut in from above. Then just foil tape everything up top (running continuously from the foil of the PIR board, over the top of the joist, and onto the next PIR board) as the vapour barrier. Then use Illbruck FM330 foam to all perimeter / gaps where cutting in the PIR isn't feasible. The fact that draughtiness and cold air infiltration will be almost completely neutralised with this proposal will allow you to install thinner (high performance) insulation and still get a great end result.

The blue one is for the appliance, the one near the floor is your incoming (main) house stopcock. If you need to turn the water off to the whole house, this (should) be the one. Its a poor job for them to have built the cupboard over the blue tap, looks difficult to disconnect / reconnect if the appliance ever fails and needs to be replaced. You may want to make that hole bigger, and make a removeable cover (patch) to keep things looking tidy. Something like a simple vent with 4 screws will suffice. LINK something like this.

Whack them on the marketplace here, they'll soon be gone

Sub £3k for a Panasonic ASHP (monoblock). Drop that one on him.

Most of them are sold by massively exaggerating "efficiency" figures, or just outright lies. I spoke to a few people at Farnborough last weekend, and the shite is still being pedalled at an astonishing rate. "I've got a 1930's brick semi with no insulation and we're about to rip out the gas boiler and fit a heatpump......" say they. "Are you feckers-like" says I, and I then proceed to give them the reason and rational. They quickly see through the BS. So many of these subsidised jobs going in like dogshit, it's just crazy (terrifying).

EDIT. PIR upstand should travel a bit further down, eg past the screed some more, but you get the idea.

Lose some of the inner, upper thermalite block. Move the PIR upstand further out. Thermalite can be cut with a wood saw or multi-tool, so make a staggered top edge and keep the coldest part of the thermalite away from the tiles. Then install the Compacfoam (purple) and that's a wrap I also think your tiles would fracture along that suggested line, given the distance of the dissimilar materials they would have to travel over to get to the door

Hi and welcome! You're wife will be happier, the more you know and the quicker and better the jobs get done Then take her on a holiday with the money you've saved yourselves. Winner winner, chicken dinner 🐔

If the lid is rusted and non accessible, you can ask them to replace it and this is almost always done for free. There should be a second stop tap inside, as @ProDave says, so look for that and make a note of it so if you need to turn the water off to the house in an emergency you are not outside on your knees doing it with a hammer and a torch

Yes, separate the two tanks to the two different disciplines; 1x UVC and 1x buffer, if you need a buffer that is? Have you eliminated the possibility that you could drive the UFH directly, without a buffer? With a HP I am a 100% advocate of installing a much bigger cylinder and storing at the lowest temp possible, and this will help massively with reducing the chances of freezing up the unit, routinely, over winter, when you go to heat it up overnight on cheap rate (as the solar will have next to now output then).

Totally get that, but if the membrane isn't absolutely perfect you'll get problems here. Eg the joints would need taping etc. Have you not considered filling the voids and doing a solid floor? I assume this will remain, otherwise, a cold ventilated space, yes?

Hi. Can you crawl under to execute the SF 036 and the membrane?

Hasn't reverse VAT now worked its way all the way back to the supply chain, even at the merchants? If not then that's just stupid, aka 'normal'..... If the builder / contractor verifies you as zero rated, then they should have a passport for the project which entitles them to zero VAT, even at the base of the pyramid. Since 2019 I have paid VAT out on everything and just waited the 90 days to get it back, it's no real ball ache tbh, and my average return was £7k, but most times I was ahead with billing as I trust the public as far as I can throw them. I guess the government will likely just keep charging VAT at the merchants et-al as there are just too many non VAT registered firms out there.

Yes. I'm sorry. There are no cookies. "somebody" ate them.

Good girl. Help yourself to a cookie.

Yup. Spend the money on something that has no moving parts, near zero maintenance, and gives an instant RoI. Solar PV, or more solar PV, or a battery.

The hole / gap can be filled with CT1 and smoothed flat with a scraper, and left to cure. The tanking solution will cover that in 2 coats with ease. I don’t really bother with those collars / grommets, even when supplied.

Try contacting these folk? https://www.tilingsuppliesdirect.co.uk/product/mapei-mapeguard-st-sealing-tape-corners-gaskets?attribute_option=Pipe Gasket 10-24mm&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADi7Txwhm5bQ3G4JvQUvTF7oz_nyn (Random internet grab)

Yikes. I’ll add that to the list. 🤦‍♂️. Appreciate you sharing that, thanks. That’s provoked me to contact previous clients to get a PRedV installed…… No mention of that in the manufacturers documentation when I installed it. Yay. Didn’t even come with 3-stage filtration, I had to ask the client to order that independently, ahead of my arrival. UV sterilisation should be standard, I assume this would make things far less grotty inside WC’s and washing machines?

What do you think is stupid money? To not have my ceiling cluttered with the usual ‘utilitarian’ looking air valves I’d happily pay these prices, especially in day rooms such as kitchen diners and living rooms etc, but even more so in a bedroom where the linear can be lost over a window etc. Why scrimp on something that you’ll be looking at all day every day? Place them strategically and design the layout sympathetically and you’ll have adequate, even, quiet airflow through any space. The projectile effect, a benefit from the Coanda ethos is a bit OTT here, usually reserved for long throw instances like commercial and public open spaces with vents on the vertical facades vs a small ish residential dwelling No need to go to all this hassle, and I think there’s a bit of overthinking going on here tbh.

Just post the plans again in your next post, please. I have removed them from the original, as it's the documents themselves that need editing before posting vs the post

The inner course should have been done away with at the openings?