Nickfromwales

Would be no point in producing a higher output panel unless it kept to the typical panel sizes so I assume it'll be kept down to the 'normal' size, or as very near-to as damnit. I have no idea on costs, but will update as soon as this information gets released from he UK reps for Solarwatt.

The bottom line is, there is no short-cut here.

You'd have to build up the existing floor with a blinding layer, to make it snooker table flat. This needs to be immaculate work, and robust enough to not settle retrospectively, as it'll be what levels the whole floor and stops it caving in. I've been to many where the sub-floor prep has been ignored / not given the attention it needed, and I've been asked to rip the lot out and start again..........mostly insurance claims at that point due to the costs and inconvenience. Can you dig out a core to see what thickness the concrete / screed (?) layer is and to confirm what is that you have to work with? You may find it's just a sub 100mm layer which could be removed easily.

They'll use the gel-filled cable as the draw wire

Remember that kg/m2 rtings must include tiles and adhesive / other wall covering. Hence the normal Bregs requirement for 400mm OC's in bathrooms. Ply / OSB3 whatever, but boarding out a bathroom is a complete no brainer for strength / solidity, and to allow the occupier the means to screw anything anywhere with excellent purchase for the fixings. Nothing pisses you off more than a loo roll holder that wont stay straight, or a glass shelf that is drooping.

If adhering to Bregs, I'm pretty sure the BCO will not want waste pipes buried in a wall dividing a bedroom from a room with such services in it. The 'preference' is to surface mount the waste pipes inside the 'offending' room. You could mitigate with deeper studs and a double layer of acoustic plasterboard to the bedroom side, but best to ask your BCO first in case they turn out to be a jobsworth.

Thanks for that. If this is just a shed, why are you spending ( wasting ) any more money with plasterboard / other finises? I painted my ceiling rafters with the same grey floor paint, and all looks perfectly fine to me. Maybe time to stop now, and stop making any more problems to solve. Certainly do NOT fit recessed lighting!! Surface mounted for sure with low profile trunking. Will be plenty neat enough.

Yup. You could also state "by a competent registered installer", but you'd be fully entitled to choose either route retrospectively Box-ticking exercise. The Solarwatt BMS is a very clever bit of kit and monitors the house / PV / consumption patterns and 'learns'. It then decides when it is optimal to charge or discharge. Not insignificant then. I would put all of this into hybrid(s) and batteries, as you'll need to conserve outgoings to make this cost-effective. FYI, Solarwatt are soon to release a panel with an output of 540w !! And yes, we install a LOT of Solarwatt, plus Fronius and Solaredge, but I am looking longer and harder at the cream of the Chinesium offerings atm as maxing out on the D/C side is the future ( until th DNO's give everyone 3ph or a more realistic limit of 1ph at least ).

The pump inlets have gauze filters ( or should have ). If these get blocked by fine debris from the tanks then they will allow water to flow but at a restricted rate. Most pumps switch on via the flow switches in the pump outlets, so those need a minimum flow rate to stay 'in'. Perhaps the flow is just on the cusp of being not quite enough to keep the flow switch in. Either that or a failing flow switch. A strip down of the pump and a service ( check manufacturers website for instructions / to do list ) and go from there.

The wet plaster approach is a good start tbh, but detailing at the joist levels needs a method statement creating for the builder to follow ( adhere to! ) but you can laminate this proposed solution with tapes and membranes, including liquid membranes such as Passive Purple. We've just got a Velox ICF build in at 0.88ach including the doors and windows losses with my suggestions to the builder and the introduction of this 'hybrid' approach, which is pretty damn good afaic!! The fabric of the build is probably in the 0.5-0.6 range but as the doors and windows never got masked off we shall never know. Good quality foams / tapes / membranes etc will be worth every penny. Everyone's attention to detail..........priceless.

Ok. So how do you envisage the batteries knowing that you have excess, and for the software of the BMS to initiate charge for those specific / sporadic pockets of opportunity? If you’re already getting FiT then you have your cake. Divert excess into hot water and you get the cherry. If the other areas for PV are not optimal, and you factor in scaffolding, wiring to / from etc, the economics soon head for the nearest window. If you wish to pursue this, then I’d recommend a dual input hybrid inverter, set to zero export, with your new panels feeding into input 1, and your batteries on input 2. That will put all the new micro generation on the D/C side this not upsetting the DNO when you register. Also, you can put as much battery storage on the D/C side as you like as the A/C side ( grid ) never ‘sees’ it. The biggest issue you’ll have is with finding equipment that will communicate with / support optimisers. That’s the current issue with the system I take delivery of shortly has, but I will likely just add further inverters to take each effective string. Puts the cost up, and elongates the payback, but I’m owed a lot of favours so am getting my equipment for a song ( thankfully ) otherwise I doubt I’d have gone for so much battery storage ( 24kwh intended at this time but will likely double that to 48 in the near future after 12 months of statistical data had been recorded / reviewed ). I’m putting panels on a lot of outbuildings +newly ( purpose built ) “solar gazebo” , as well as the rear of the roof. Do as @SteamyTea says, and work out what the new arrays will likely produce. Then the cost of all the equipment, and have a good think. Optimising your use of peak solar / high load devices and divert to hot water may mop up all of your current excess

Real world experience always brings these chats back down to earth. When I was installing comms for Panasonic we’d regularly be on solicitors / doctors / cooperate settings, and I’d drop a false ceiling tile and the rats nest of data / phone / mains would be like a spider web. Everything still working perfectly with zero segregation, or less. We do strive for the immaculate, just a little to much sometimes.

Hi. The issue you’ll have is how to connect the shower door to that panel to ‘complete’ the enclosed shower area. The return profile usually needs ( requires ) drilled fixings which may be deeper than the ‘stone’ if only 20mm. Sticking with glass would be a lot simpler, and would give the room a much more open feel. I think that stone panel would be quite obtrusive in such a small room vs glass. My own opinion of course

Some people choose to pour their hard earned cash into different endeavours, regardless of the economics. Entirely their prerogative. The heart wants what the heart wants. If you did a proper paper study, the heart would ( should ) get overruled by the head. Bottom line is, do whatever you wish with your money, but hear, here, the pros / cons / caveats in order to arrive at your own informed decision. My 2 cents is, for the biggest damn tank you can afford, as that’s when ( and IMO ONLY when ) it makes any sense to install RWH.

When the garden needs watering, the tank will be empty. When the tanks full, it’s because it’s raining……on the garden. Same argument about using PV to run the heat pump for heating in the winter. Both = 👎. If you can fit a huge ( 10,000L ) tank to catch every single drop of rain then I’d say you’d be in with a chance, but a system that flushes the WC’s and washing machine will also have a cold mains fill valve to keep the head of water a minimum of 100mm above the pump inlet, so once you get down to 1000L in a 5000L tank you’ll be back to using fresh water eg a 5000L tank is a more closer to a 4000L useful capacity. When the pump snuffs it you’ll be back to a break even of 20+ years. Add to that the electricity to run the pump all the time your flushing loo’s / watering gardens / washing cars etc and the maths ( and longevity ) go negative. Spend the money on something that will give you enjoyment, like lots more solar PV, so you can wave a smug and satisfying 2 fingers at the big 6. ✌️

I heard the all sat near grandads tongue whilst he sucked an extra strong mint…..

As peter says, the C-clip collars need to be fitted to JG Speedfit to have a fully correct and warranty-able installation. No plumbers bother because most push fit kings are lazy bastards. I’ve seen the collars used in probably 5% of installs I’ve come across. Add to that the issue that a lot only part tighten the fittings and it’s a worry for sure. JG Speedfit made an exceptionally poor fitting with the huge flaw of it eventually untwisted all by itself. Hep2O is just night and day better, and just as available these days as screwfix and CPS carry stock. You absolutist must shadow these guys when on site opening this up. Do not leave their side, and tell them of your concerns before they start opening up to access the fault. Tell them you want a full and satisfactory answer for what has gone wrong. As a plumber of 30 years I can tell you I have had my share of issues / leaks etc, and any plumber who says they’ve never had a leak is a true bull-shitter. It’s sometimes down to a drip starting after you’ve left, or sometimes a faulty fitting. I recently had such an issue on one project. Was a failed o-ring in a Hep2o fitting, sorted in no time at all, at my expense, just one of those things. Fingers crossed this will be just a simple faux-pas and not negligence.

Move the bed 300mm closer to the desk. Give yourself some room at the side of the bath. It’s an ideal shape for a shower, but not ideal for a bath in honesty. If you must have the bath ( can’t you just give him a shower and he soaks in the master bathroom ?! ) then grab handles for getting in and out would be sensible. The risk of personal injury here is very high with your current layout. Or, rotator the bed 90 degrees across the window. Move desk over. Put bath opposite end, move that corner tight to the bed and put the WC at the end of where the bath is shown. Basin etc to best suit residual space. If you’re gaining the use of a second (?) WC by creating this room, just ask him to shower there, soak in master, and the family can use that new loo when the master is engaged. If this is under BRegs radar they may have issue with that room. You’d need to ask, or do the room ‘off the radar’ as many others have done / are doing.

Let them use the 6kW body drier you tight bastard.

Graven Hill is now just like shooting fish in a barrel. Almost mafia run now.

That, and also the pump not operating at full potential as the rotor is not fully immersed. That can also cause overheating ( kettling ) by water then spending too much time in the HeatEx. I would consider changing the overheat stat also, as it runs quite close to the normal max operational temp of the boiler. You should be able to get the as-new resistance reading from the manufacturer to allow you to compare what you have, eg before removal. A decent plumber is always a help when trouble finding. Found 2 young guns about to remove a perfectly good WB boiler in a pensioners flat as they failed to diagnose a £6 flow switch part had failed...... They had quoted £800 labour plus the new boiler costs. Jeez!

Are you absolutely sure you cannot go strip founds and infill between with insulated slabs, eg thus negating the B&B floor altogether?

AS we have extended periods of shitty winter weather, it is very much a good strategy to install ( over install ) for some decent revenue when the heating is running, based on an estimated max solar revenue of 25% of the installed kWp of solar panels. This 12kWp array would be a sub 3kWp array in the winter, a 4kWp less than 1000w. There is a lot of sense to this approach imho, and even more so if you have an EV which can trickle charge from an EV charger during the day as 'the battery'. Needs more thought and sense-checking, especially with the forecast of rapidly rising energy costs. PV and additional batteries for me, but I've decided to sell the battery system I had earmarked, due to an offer I couldn't refuse, and now I will go with an AGM setup instead, due to the much higher bang for the buck, and am awaiting conformation of delivery times for a 24kWh bank. AGM also reasonably unaffected by the Lithium issues of late, other than prices now creeping up in the background. Tesla Powerwalls will not reach new owners doorsteps for well over a year, and they will likely only fill 6 out of 10 orders.

Unless you had a decent size battery bank?

Could be the pump starting to fail, but not just stopping all together. Have you checked the automatic air vent is not blocked also, and that air is not getting trapped in the main HeatEx?