Nickfromwales

Indeed, just I've seen first hand what it takes to get woodcrete airtight, and the rain just gets into the house until you're 100% complete outside. Worse detail of the Isotex block is the woodcrete bridge in the cavity, which joins water and air directly to the house interior leaf. Velox wasn't much easier, but they use a metal tie to keep the internal and external leafs in place, but all the way up to having the UFH pipes installed and getting the screed down, there would often be a little river appear and start meandering through a room. That only stops with woodcrete once you're totally weathertight externally, which is a ball-ache if you're building through a winter, not so impactful if not. EPS systems are weathertight from the moment you plonk the last block down, really allows you to get going on the inside without delays. I could also see daylight out of a lot of the bottom corners of the Isotex project, where the concrete pour didn't get to the slab, which likely answers somewhat for the AT score of 3..... The Velox build was one where the builder and his team were meticulous and easy to engage with, so I managed to liaise with the builder and the client to parge / seal with Passive Purple ( liquid AT membrane ) and install membranes appropriately, and that got a score of 0.88. This was let down by the Ideal Combi doors, so I am expecting a better result when it gets tested as-built. If the doors were sealed for the provisional test, I am confident we'd have got that under 0.6 ACH. Quite a result for a woodcrete structure tbh.

Ok, just anything other than EPS ( a-la Nudura etc ) it's a big PITA to get right in masonry or woodcrete. Woodcrete would be my last choice, but tbh I'd probably go masonry if woodcrete was the only remaining contender. Have you considered the XR35 Nudura block? I can recall the exact depth of block, but iirc its 100 - 150 - 100 so a 350 depth EPS to EPS. You'll save money as even though the shell will be expensive ( but quick ) to put up, you'll save a lot on being instantly water-tight, and getting super-airtight is then child's-play.

If you want contact details for an excellent guy for Nudura, let me know. I've mentioned him on here a couple of times, and he has recently completed one BH members house, and is 2/3rds of the way currently on another BH members build. His work is fantastic, straightest walls I've seen since being in this industry, and super reliable / trustworthy, ( caveat is, that he is quite expensive, but this is value for money as putting a wonky finished ICF house straight is a 5-figure setback ).

Are you looking to get airtight and install MVHR?

Nope!

Which is why I think that the Mixergy cylinders are an over-complicated re-invention of the wheel. In my personal opinion, the wheel they have re-invented has 5 sides. Just buy an UVC and enjoy the simplicity of none of the above nonsense. Life is too short to be adding more losses, more components, moving parts and more maintenance and up-keep, and for what? A part energy-filled tank that loses more energy than it saves?! Add heating this from an ASHP and I'm already loading my 12-guage. The elongated path of energy transfer will see the ASHP dedicated ( predisposed ) to DHW priority for WAY too long. Massive thumbs-down from me. UVC, simple and efficient, why consider anything else? Doesn't the above schematic omit the flow switch?

For comparison. I run a business, and for a couple of clients projects I didn't get paid back what I had shelled out from my account on variation orders ( 5 figures worth on each build ) which they now own and enjoy, daily. This ran me bone dry, and it was quite difficult to stay afloat. Worse still, whilst owing me money, the same clients managed to see gaps in my bookkeeping and play that to their advantage, SUCCESSFULLY suing ME when I refused to continue making their project asset rich ( due to the chuffing non-payment!!! DUH!! ). It makes my blood boil typing this btw, as I ended up robbing Peter to pay Paul and that caused upset to some of my genuine clients when I had to delay ( long delay ) delivering on my promises to them. All since refunded and at zero balance, I hasten to add, with sincere apologies given. The 2 aforementioned assholes are not included, they can come get their money from my cold dead fingers, or die trying. I have kept the 'doors open' despite being over £40k out of pocket, and I had always understood that I will recover, which I have done, ( because I am a tenacious bastard who makes lemonade when given lemons ), and that was the ethos upon which I kept taking deposits for new projects from my downstream clients. As folk above have said "lesson learned", but a bloody painful and expensive one to boot. To hear that members here were asked for money as recently as March is just black and white, it is theft. Theft is generally defined in law as "an intent to deprive". That was demonstrated here, and I am sincerely gutted for those who have been fcuked over by this disingenuous behavior. I frequent a lot of the public self-build exhibition shows, per annum, as an exhibitor. I have worked alongside Jamie and we often spoke at the shows, and I am shocked to hear this has gone on if I'm honest. Just goes to show, yet again, that the people I often aspired to become as successful as, are just putting on a show. He once shouted across the Farnborough exhibition floor "you're a knobhead" at me, as I had ( in his eyes ) berated the Isotex woodcrete block on here. Doubt that I need to finish this anecdote.....

Who are you going with? If you don't mind me asking of course.

Yup. +1.

Yup. I have an ever-growing portfolio of “deceased” Sunamp units, which is a constant reminder of why I fit unvented cylinders. With an UVC you get; 1/3 of the price. Lifetime warranty. Sunamp will insist your install is “non-standard” and try and palm you off with you stumping up the replacement cost. Site interchangeable immersion heater. Sunamp / Thermino has to be disconnected electrically, drained and all the plumbing disconnected, then hump 200kG of dead weight out of your house, palletise and return it to base, and wait for it to come back. Wash your hair with a kettle until it gets back to yours. Local service & maintenance is pretty much on every street corner. Sunamp units need “specialist” installers and they all rely on SA for the technical info / design. Used to take an age for any kind of response, and that was usually just to say “we don’t deal with the public”. May be different now, but this used to be a major gripe from the clients I used to get sent to to repair / replace these things. UVC every single time for me, and I regret swaying towards these things for the time that I did. Most recent one to go ‘pop’ was January 2023. Sunamp tried to wriggle off the hook stating the usual “it’s not covered by warranty as it’s a non-standard installation”. What these idiots forgot was that my company developed the design with them for this client, so it was all installed with them involved directly!!! Wasn’t long after I got involved that they ‘decided’ to replace the failed unit FOC. 🙄👎.

Yup.You only ask for the inverter kW capacity with a hybrid. 🤜

Nope. The hybrid I have my eye on is 8.8kW 1ph, and I can go all the ay down to zero export. Behind that, on the DC side, I can load this up with however much capacity I want without limit. Final plan ( just in the process of checking the roof structural integrity is ok for additional weight ) is 52 x 400w panels E/W split, between house roof and some very 'sunny' garden room / gazebo areas getting panelled too. Caveat is they all need Tigo's, but at least then I'll get panel by panel monitoring and can geek out ( prob once or twice than the novelty will wear off in favour of beer and BBQ time ).

Avoid the 610, it's the work of the devil. Literally NEVER cures and whatever you get it on, cannot EVER be cleaned off. Any of the tanking solutions will be fine. Paint all the areas first, allow to dry ( it'll dry very quickly ), and keep going until you have a decent layer built up. You then need to wallop a load of it where the strip will go, and immediately bed it into the wet solution. Use a 3" paintbrush to squeegee the excess solution outwards to the edges / ends, and brush the excess out and flat. Repeat until you're happy.

Let us know how you get on. 👍

🙄

3ph unnecessary in the da house, Capt. Blobby. Push back. Why only 4kWp of solar? You spent too much money on anti-stress beer? Defo don't need 3ph inverter for 4kWp, that's a tiddly bit of solar!

Fantastic review of them, and thanks for sharing. Always great to mention troopers like those chaps on here for others to possibly then get support from. Doubt they'd want to travel to the M25 region?

What about painted surfaces, like reveals around windows etc which would attract the "overspray"? Is this stuff water-based? Needs a bit more info before I would jump on it, but sounds like a no-brainer if the horse has bolted.

Seems very neat, and looks like you had minimal amounts to clean back? Are you happy to share who the installers / suppliers were?

As above, surely this is just way too indiscriminate? Door-locks would be the first victim, unless it states you have to mitigate against these things before letting it penetrate every last nook and cranny? Can't argue with the stated results in that timeframe. Persimmon homes probably be the first people to give this a whirl :Phone rings: "Hi, does your product block holes and fill uninsulated voids with sheet insulation?" "No, sir, why do you ask?". "It's fine. Just asking for a friend, thanks anyways, bye" Sales lady turns up to then palm off the offending house to another victim, and says, "WTF? I can't get the bloody key in the lock!"

One such builder recently overlooked the AT of the roof, after spending ££££ on the walls etc. So that hole was 140m2 lol.

Agreed. Please continue in the original thread, as linked by @ProDave folks! Thread now locked to new / further comments here.

Absolutely. Yes, but for safety sake. Indeed, as you wouldn't want to get zapped when working on something that had defective / incorrect cabling downstream of the CU, and you come to then work on it as a 3rd party. Switching 'off' the front of house RCD or main switch should give double-pole isolation of the entire electrical installation from both sides of the incoming supply.

The 'tripping coil' is kept in absolute equilibrium, regardless of direction, as power flows through line and neutral in equal 'quantities' in normal conditions. So in theory it will work with these reversed as there would be no pushing or pulling, just a constant current along both, ergo no potential present in the tripping coil. The RCD / RCBO gets tripped by the difference of potential created when line or neutral becomes partly compromised by being 'shorted' to earth, with there then being an electromagnetic flux thus created from this imbalance and that is collected ( detected ) by the coil ( a-la a CT clamp ), hence the name Residual Current Device. It's why you can get an RCD / RCBO to trip by shorting neutral to earth as well as line to earth. It's the reason birds can land on HV power lines and sit there, not becoming toast, as the left foot is at 132,000v, and the right foot is 132,000v so the difference between 132,000v and 132,000v is absolute zero. Poly happy. But, if they decided to sit in a row, and it was raining and the last one got his wet wing to ( or near to ) the earthed metal structure, then it's "en-flambe" for the lot of them. The 20 live birds who were sitting there energised at the line voltage ( 132,000v to 400,000v but have no current passing though them ) happily minding their birdy-business suddenly just got grounded, and the difference of potential is then 132,000v. Bye bye Polly.

Not necessarily, just where they're running flat out etc / defrosting like crazy etc. Poorly implemented / poorly selected etc vs just crap workmanship