Nickfromwales

Having a slab means you can charge with heat also means you can almost always load shift from off-peak electricity, ‘injecting’ heat into the slab once or twice a day. Even heating by direct electricity is palatable with such an effective heat store, subject to the house performing well of course.

Open accounts with the respective suppliers. Approve the materials on request and make the orders yourself. VAT trail is neat and tidy, and it’s a very effective method for controlling materials overspend. You do due diligence, and prices are kept as low as practicable. Labour only; Pay wages for the guys / gals on site weekly, 7 days in arrears, and be 1000% prompt each Friday / Saturday ( if invoices are suitably surrendered ) with no excuses. Funds need to be at hand no matter what so you can make those payments religiously. Bespoke is difficult to cost, but any decent builder can employ their own QS for their own reassurance BEFORE summarising. You’ll pay for that service ( indirectly ) anyway, so why not QS it yourself and administer the results to your contractors with you in the driving seat If you have a fixed set of plans then this is do-able. You just need a contractor who can fragment this into known-knows and known-unknown’s. The former fixed, the latter variable. Fair all round then, with a view to where costs could escalate, and %’s of unknown liability being ‘reasonably’ identifiable from the outset. After that it’s in for a penny, in for a pound. Whatever difficulties your contractors suffer will simply come out of the coffers, AFTER they’ve demonstrated them to you before hand. Do not allow the contractors to undertake any ‘extras’ without prior approval, and give them documented correspondence stating any such work, undertaken without said prior approval, will not be paid for. It’s then easy for you to identify if they’re squeezing you for more money when they just have to work hard, rather than having actually needed to carry out unidentified / genuine extra work. Oh, and if you want this to go smoothly, you’ll want a project manager / project coordinator to keep a finger on the pulse. That person ( can be yourselves ) needs to be available, by phone at the minimum, EVERY working day. Or, agree a fee, day rate + X %, for the lead builder to take on that roll. Sounds like you may need to be at the helm a lot here, particularly at the outset, to get the ship onto calm waters... ?

FYI, the amount of hot water ( volume vs temp ) is a mere ‘spike’ in the terms of the ‘capability to discharge under duress’ for most modern plastics. The real problem starts when you’ve got 2-300L of roasting hot water to potentially be discharged. That’s when plastics can melt, seals become compromised. In reality, a piddly little boiling water tap is of near zero consequence in that equation.

Building regs will always bow to manufacturers instructions. If you fit it as per the MI’s you’re good to go ( as they’ve already sought approval prior to releasing the product ).

He has a point

You should hear it open tbh as the gurgle sound of the water flowing is open to atmosphere at the AAV when it functions. Can you block off the AAV temporarily to start a process of elimination? Last job like this ( same symptoms ) was a big juicy dead ? that got jammed in the battens behind the wallboards. The thing was dripping out of its own back end when I found it. Yuk. Smell is very similar but also distinctively rat, not crap, is easily identifiable to those who’s nose knows. ?

Nice jacket ?

BCO in Dorset said no too. It’s a dying facility me thinks.

But you’re a special case, so we make allowances. ??

+1. If the tanking has been on long enough to get some surface dust on it, just clean it lightly with a damp sponge prior to laying on. I use a grout float to butter the tanking with the tile adhesive ( rubber edges trowel ) about 1M2 at a time and then you’re guaranteed a great bond. Do that for the 1st metre of the wall, and then you can fall back to just a wipe and laying by bedding the tile only ( depending upon how flat the walls are of course ). Do not EVER consider using acrylic ( ready made in a tub ) adhesive over tanking ( ask me how I know how that goes lol ). 3 days later, porcelain tile, acrylic adhesive ( bragged up by the Ultra area rep ) and over tanking, and when I removed the supports to cut the lowest course in all the tiles slid down the wall ?. Cementitious products ONLY over tanking, especially with porcelain ?

I only fit Brink now, excellent products. I can heartily recommend CVC ventilation for supply of the Brink stuff. They have their own in house PH certified specialist and their design services are spot on.

Indeed. I recall some time ago having a conversation with a client where she baulked at paying the higher amount for a PH certified heat & cool MVHR unit ( sub 30db ) and staying “I’m not paying that it’s unjustifiable. I’ll have the cheaper unit and put up with it” so exactly the case of “you get what you pay for”. Can’t have a champagne job on lemonade money, sorry. ? Probably good to note here that retrospectively ‘silencing’ a cheap MVHR unit with bolt-on silencers is nonsense, as that does nothing to attenuate the noise from the MVHR unit itself. That only reduces audibility at the supply and extract terminals, so if the audibility at the terminals is acceptable then you’re stuck with the decision to purchase a cheaper / noisier unit. Also; It’s easy to tell if your MVHR installer has fitted the required ( primary ) silencer. It’s usually a large silver foil flexible section coming off the MVHR unit ‘fresh’ aka ‘supply’ outlet off the unit. They are lined with a fluffy material that immediately absorbs sound and stops it getting to the rooms as nuisance ‘noise’. If you have one of those, then you have a technically complete installation. Buying other bolt-ons at that stage will be utterly pointless.

Ok. We’re getting somewhere ?. Agreed. Any last thoughts folks before this becomes read-only? ?. “Say now, or forever hold my piece.......” @zoothorn, good luck with moving forward. . Keep your chin up and your ? together ?.

We don’t bother vertically tbh, but horizontally and especially overhead then it’s just good practice tbh. Deciding what is or isn’t an egress / escape route is a judgment call I don’t want to make. Being behind plasterboard ( ceilings ) is of zero consequence for discounting this rule afaic, but sense can prevail as to how many bands are fitted and where, but taking 90 degree bends through superstructures helps as the changes in direction will arrest the fall to some extent too.

Yup. Speak to Byron. Just beware asking for designs as a member here had less than good results when they designed their UFH layout. They may have their ducks in a row now though as that was a while back. I used to buy all my UFH pipe and consumables from them, quite competitive.

Not likely ! I already have plenty to keep him busy......for about a year lol ?

Ok, it’s pretty much a single standard for clipping ( banding ) but as I said you can cheat if there are pozi joists and you run through the points where the two metal webs converted on the lower chord. ?. Now the 18th Ed refreshers are out and most sparks have sat it and are fluent, it’s things like this which are now getting reiterated whereas before most sparks treated it as ‘optional’ or done to attain a gold star. My lead electrician has just done his 18th / peripheral refreshers and is now ‘on point’ in all these matters of elastictrickery. ?

Distances between clips ( you need to know the regs old bean ). Who is going to sign this off? They need to witness all this and should be advising you !!!

You’ve drained the chuffing thing so many times it’ll be like Evian by now ?. +1. Contamination is moot afaic if there’s a filter in place and the water is correctly chemically treated. LLH all the way for me. Hydraulic separation is way OTT here sorry.

Wouldn’t a decent LLH suffice here? Example

Not quite. There’s a bit more ‘science’ to it than that.

Not when it’s wrapped around your regulator and you can’t reach it. And you’re in a burning building. That’s why the fire brigade brought about this legislation

Any chuffing cables. C’mon batman. THINK DAMNIT! ( please ) lol ?

Because you didn’t say please.... it’s a tool station link ✌️ Bingo

Tray is WAY OTT in a domestic situation, and still does not negate banding.