Nickfromwales

Get a room you two........

Has everyone lost the grasp of plain English here lately? National typo week here atm lol.

I’m willing to chip in £5 for additional fuel costs. Don’t want anyone saying I don’t pay my way.

It's to take the known (or anticipated) weight of the tiles, as it's going to be bathroom I spec 400mm cc or for the walls at 600mm cc to be sheathed with OSB. Usually the OSB option is favoured, as it means that anywhere you go to put a screw of fix a towel rail etc, there's something to screw into. It's also a bit better for sound deadening too.

Random grab. Build for the situation, plan for the build, do it right once. Do Stud Walls Have 400 or 600 Centres in the UK? In the UK, the spacing between studs in a stud wall is typically 400 millimetres on centre, which is referred to as "400 centres." This spacing is in line with the building regulations and standards in the UK, which specify the minimum spacing requirements for timber studs in walls. However, it's worth noting that the spacing may vary depending on the specific construction project, as the requirements may differ based on the load-bearing capacity and the types of materials used in the wall construction. It's always best to consult with a professional builder or structural engineer for specific information on stud wall spacing for a particular project.

Not afaic. It works silently, and completely reliably down at 20 degrees C. No regular mechanical TMV can do this. Most shit the bed at 30 degrees, and whine or make noise, and really struggle to blend down.

Thanks for this update, and it's good to heat this has at least been slowed or stopped. It's this type of real-life feedback that is of the most value, and more so when a health condition can possibly be alleviated or improved by any measure. Best to both.

Yes and no. If the flow goes to the ‘coldest end’ of the room first so the heat lessens as it comes into the centre of the room then pretty moot in these circumstances tbf. The time you lose the choice is when the cc of the pipes are less than the minimum bending radius of the pipe, eg at 150mm cc you will seriously struggle to perform a U -turn at the end of every serpentine loop. If you lay ‘snail’ or inverted loop then you are only performing 2 U-turns per loop, with all others just a 90° turn (if the space is a perfect square or rectangle eg). At 100mm cc as per this… …you’d have zero chance of going serpentine. TBH, unless it’s a job with 200mm cc, I’d just go to snail layout as default. Just a better job imho. This was at 150mm cc iirc… …still note just the 2 U-turns at the centre of each loop. Much easier.

Relax, I’ve got you covered . This. These clients have all 3, so you can go to the ball, Cinders

Same remit as the last lot of clients, for the latter part. Some lap up the design and complication, and others just stare straight through me. I’m fine with either option as they’re employing me to gauge their needs and expectations, and meet or exceed them. So far so good I guess.

That’s what I do, to get the volume, and nobody’s called me to say one end of the room is hotter / cooler than the other. These just seem to blend into each other, from my direct experience(s). If doing this on paper then you’ll get number-drunk, just so many variables to try to balance out, but doing it in real life, in real homes, for real clients gives me an eye into the world of ‘did it, it was fine’ and then on to the next one.

The thing I’d say is, when you’ve PH levels of fabric, then setting (or attempting to set) different temps for different spaces just doesn’t really work that well in practice. The house seems to achieve one general ambient, and cooler spaces steal heat from warmer ones, ergo none are ever that different. A few people have commented to that effect, so it’s not a misconception, one of the advantages here is folk being good enough to offer feedback after moving in. Doing this all on paper, even for the great Jeremy Harris, didn’t work out well in practice. Basic heat loss calcs, to decide the size of the heat source, plus DHW, then UFH spaced uniformly accordingly (avoiding any spaces you simply don’t want to specifically heat such as pantry) and that’s you pretty much done afaic. Having digital control of the input temp and a good thermostat or WC will allow you quite a lot of accurate control over what that ambient will be. The mix becomes more of a thing when you ttt to balance the heat over upper and lower floors, but some will omit FF heating, and some won’t. Finding the sweet spot is just about tweaking up or down on the flow temps (for heat source efficiency) and thus altering the room temps to suit. How much more control you actually need after this basic commission is the real question. MVHR is introduced and you’re off to the scientific calculator to attempt to factor that in. PHPP is slightly helpful, largely for identifying overheat risk %, but tbh common sense and basic practice will get you most of the way here. Self builders can focus on this until they get dizzy and self destruct, but the mainstream heating people just rock up and fit a bunch of boxes, almost always a buffer (they need an insurance policy against client interference, or the manufacturer does so mandates it in their installation instructions) and a stat gets slapped on the wall, zoned per floor. Why we fight this so is a question I am finding myself asking, as, once it’s set up and you’re happy, you just leave it alone to do its thing. Most of my clients are happy with a box on the wall that gives them control to the nearest 0.1-0.2°C (plenty good enough hysteresis for PH) and they can walk away from that as happy as Larry. The one great thing about these types of dwellings is the way they hold an ambient temp so well (effectively) and you can just set these systems up to ‘just get on with it’, minus human intervention. One system we did in Leicester had zones, AHU, heat & cool, a room thermostat centrally mounted, and a buffer and ESBE mixing, etc, etc, and had an SCOP of 5.3. It’s a Stiebel Eltron setup and the company who supported dialled in to it to show me live data. So this is a fact. Performing incredibly well, running extremely efficiently, and has been doing so for a couple of years now. I'm beginning to accept the two different types of client (all self builders); there are those who want to know / understand / fiddle etc, and those who simply don’t.

Does the front fascia plate allow access to those two brass hex inserts? Eg, when installed, will they need to be tiled over or is the plate big enough to have them left accessible?

Don't cheap out on the choice of unit Get everything else you need from begging / stealing / borrowing, but the beating heart should not be bean-counted. Remember this....you will switch the MVHR on, and then NEVER turn it back off again for the rest of your time in the dwelling. If you choose poorly here, it'll not pay dividends from day 1, plus it'll come back and bite you on the ass when it fails early. Also make sure you pay homage to box attenuators before the distribution manifolds, as noise needs addressing. If you buy a compact (cheaper) unit, it'll have inherent problems as 'size matters' here I'm afraid. Look for units which have pre-heaters as an integral feature, so the unit doesn't shut down when incoming air temp comes close to freezing the unit. Brink for me, great price for an excellent unit. Watch for grey imports as they are 'return to source' warranty only, and do not come with on board controls; you need to buy these as a bolt-on, and then all of a sudden it wasn't so cheap after all.

Not so with the Ivar sets. Totally different beasts, have you used these before? How do you achieve disenable segregation of the GF and FF if there not two stats (and therefore 2 zones)? Not a stab btw, I'm still at school every day I'm concious. This... ....with this on top. When we know 'TOG' and anticipated floor coverings, plus the GF situation. Don't worry about it, but don't discount it quite yet, is my 2 cents. It would be a bugger if you design for x floor coverings, and then cannot have anything else, ever, in its place for eg.

Telling people they've done a good job, and that you appreciate it, goes a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong way. Don't put that off

Hmmmmmmm. So, here's the facts Stud walls for bathrooms should be at 400mm cc, not 600mm. The weight per m2 is the concern, but if your tiles are that big then......so what? It's still exactly the same kg/m2 as you putting 100x100mm tiles on. If the tiles you bought are 30kg/m2, then so will tiles 25mm x 25mm be. It's physics. Where you apply the math is the board and the way its fixed, so you'd be going for 12.5mm MR PB (if I was doing it) and then screwing it to studs at 400mm cc, and having a screw into the PB at every 100mm max cc. Then you could patio slab the damn walls. If you have studs at 600mm cc then you (or I) would then be installing horizontal noggins to create 400mm cc horizontally. This would give you boxes of 600mm x 400mm which you'd then divide the installed weight of your BFO tiles, per that exact amount of area. You've not been reliably informed. I've been sticking BFO tiles to bathroom walls for 3 decades, and not one's fallen off....yet. I've always used plasterboard, and always gone bat-shit crazy on studs and screwing the MR PB to them. Then I tank the shit out of everything, to the point people think I need help, and the results speak for themselves. No need for fancy XPS boards, cement or tile backer boards, all just stuff introduced so it can be sold to folk to turn a profit. "No".

Nope. This is spot on. The internal of the black cowl is sat atop the roof penetration 'top-hat', and that keeps the rain from getting down into that junction. It needs to be high enough to stave of splashing rain. Buy him a beer, and say "thanks", it looks very robust and a good job afaic.

Ahhhhhhh! I've seen this before, and I think we're in quite a predicament here, so sorry to be the bearer of bad news. How can I say this......I guess just come straight out with it I suppose........here goes........................................ Questionable rug.

The two separate waterless traps with a decent bit of distance (head) keeps that in check. Drains as shown are for 1x overflow, and 1x regen output. One does nothing for the rest of its life, the other pukes water out daily, in large quantities, for the regen.

30 is cooler than skin temp, so you'll not suffer too much annoyance.

Factory bypass came with the softener. TMV 1 does all ‘hot’ outlets at 50°, and TMV2 does wash hand basins (on a hot return loop) at 46°. Cooler flow for the recirculating loop = lower losses.

It’s been discussed recently, so can be done with a cheap TMV. Just set it as low as you can but also plumb it in with an isolator on the hot side, so hot can be shut off for the rest of the year. The TMV will allow cold through without hot pressure present, but it won’t let hot through without cold pressure; these are set up to prevent scalding if the cold fails.

OK, I may need to get up to speed here then, as pre Covid I couldn’t get much sense for this type of setup out of a few tech guys from the big hitters. Stiebel Eltron were the only ones offering something ‘elegant’ out of the box at the time. The issue I see for eg when the ASHP has been almost sized to the heating demand, is a very long time being taken to reheat DHW, more-so if it’s a larger UVC.

That’s correct, but how many of these can do this out of the box, and what cost and complexity will ensue? Mixers vs mixer? Eg qty 2 if UFH over 2 floors? This plus the fact that this will defo need a volumiser for when the house is at / near to target temps and the heat demand reduces.