Nickfromwales

You should have selected an architect, then formally engaged, then they should have offered to connect you with trusted associates. Typically it makes sense to get a draft revision of your chosen plans for discussion and comment, before you ask a planning consultant to engage; if there’s nothing yet to review then they’re redundant. Sounds like some backscratching, or over-enthusiasm to spend your money. Time to see other people methinks, just not good behaviour.

ICF is a great choice, and you’ll be very happy. I'm not a fan of woodcrete, so my advice would be to go with the EPS based systems. My experiences are direct, not hypothetical, as I’ve worked with a lot of self builders and have been on all types of projects, through to PH / PH+ and beyond, with the benefit of these being anything from masonry EnerPHit style refurbishments, to turnkey TF, and all types of ICF. Seen the good, bad, and ugly. Good to see you getting this in check before breaking ground, as early planning will pay huge dividends later on.

Indeed, but I think putting it simply @MikeSharp01’s looking to explore and understand. We suffer the same affliction. For simplicity, immersions usually have an inbuilt thermostat, some fixed max temp and some user-definable, but ALL with a manual overheat cutout. The immersion should simply only require a suitable sized heat resistant 3-core flex and that to be broken by a local 20a DP switch, fed from a unique 16a B breaker in the CU. That’s it. Some ASHP’s have an inbuilt immersion, others need to manipulate a 3rd party one, the idea of each to be able to perform the anti-legionella purge. I fit a lot of Panasonic unit, and these use an inbuilt 3kw heater to cover the event of the compressor failing, this provides space heating in failsafe. I’m not certain, but to heat the DHW in such an event, iirc, it would issue a signal to turn on the immersion. Either that or you just go flick the 20a switch when you realise the 💩 has hit the fan. Cylinder DHW temp is a simple probe stat that pushes into the stat pocket. I push some insulation in to keep the probe in place by friction, and to make it a little more accurate / reliable. As above, too many different ways from too many manufacturers, and should just be one standard. But that would be too easy I guess.

In the Telford MI’s, cylinders over a certain size have instructions to bridge the cylinder flow and return tappings together with a simple inline gate valve (iirc) to allow a permanent, adjustable bypass to take this bump out of the road. I wonder if the engineer upped the pump speed, in an attempt to combat the frequency of the low flow issue, eg giving the ASHP access to a bit more throttle; this would account for why you had no cylinder noise issue before. I strongly dislike these filters as they have such low capacity for functioning when there’s even a slight build up of crud. @canalsiderenovation Get a larger mag filter installed, like a Fernox TF1 or an Adey Magnaclean for easy life going forward. This one will keep blocking prematurely afaic. I'd also ask specifically if the pump speed had been increased and that’s what has caused the cylinder rattle.

This is why I always bin the tiny supplied tundish and go from 15mm in / 22mm out, to 22mm in / 28mm out, and have the vertical drop sufficient for the gravity runoff to never back up. I always add another EV and I always buy my own tundish. Stock supply doesn’t cater for worst case or near-to-ok installation standards (or worse), plus the supplied items are bean-counted to death. Factory EV to the left (400L UVC) and the one I added sits alongside. As this has a hot return there is additional heated volume of DHW outside the cylinder to consider, so I always go nuts on expansion and I don’t get recalls to jobs. Some of my handy work : Note, these EV’s all have the splendid Tesla service valves on them

Ask the supplier if the lights are fire rated or not. If not, then you’ll need to fit fire ‘hoods’ behind them, in the void, or make boxes up out of 15mm FR plasterboard (sealing all joints with intumescent caulk). If your steel is not exposed, it doesn’t need to be fire boarded, as the 12.5mm PB + skim coat gives you 30 mins FR.

Likely that the original windows were solid timber, maybe a hardwood, so when the windows were changed to UPVC the external face course of brickwork had a chance to drop slightly. Back in the day the windows would have gone in as the wall was going up, and they would have bricked to them / on top of them. A lot of bay windows fail after the original hardwood windows have been removed as useless fitters don’t realise they were sharing the load through the frames / mullions. Not a worry, very typical, just needs pointing again to do the job a bit better.

None whatsoever, and even less of a worry here as you’re skimming new over new. This is perfectly fine for refurbishing old houses, so fill your boots. 🥾

They’ll have to raise the red vessels, as that’s on fixed pipework, but the white ones are on flexible hoses so make sure that if they just bend the hoses instead of lifting them that the hoses aren’t kinked. If you can ask them to raise the brackets for all the vessels, to accommodate the Tesla valves, then I’d do so to ensure as good job has been done as possible for the fee.

Ok. Once the glycol has been topped up, ask them to pressurise when cold to exactly 1.5bar so you can use that as a benchmark to monitor by.

Yup. Shite service.

You should just be able to PVA the wall, but then I'd never do less than 2 sets over PVA, if you want it perfect.

....they didn't top back up and run the system to bleed it after topping up the glycol.... That's what my money is on if this issue never previously existed, and has now 'gone away'. Will be interesting to hear you report back as it is best to now check it every other week and note any drop. Check it when the system is cold if you can, so the readings aren't of hot (expanded) and then cold (contracted back). Amen.

Check out https://tornado.co.uk/?srsltid=AfmBOoosdIVoVQ8X45D5y7q25CnrsiL903M2bP-rKjIiqQV0YigJYT_0

As with everything, there are good, bad, and excellent folk out there.

Likewise. My solar go to guy was as curious to know, but the industry in general (and the on site sparkies at the time) were clueless. I even drew a picture on the wall, of the how the pickup coils were positioned and functioned, to show it should be a feature that comes regardless, but also got blank stares.

For a clients build which had some deep lights and mist heads, I just used an off-cut of duct (125mm for mist heads iirc) and some AVCL to create ‘top hats’, and then taped these into cutouts. These were done after the cellulose had been blown in, but wasn’t too difficult or messy as I could push back and compress it enough for it to stay in place for cutting the membrane. A bit of cellulose fell out, but prob not equal to what I needed to remove to create some clear area for the recess, so all good. Doubt you could do this approach before insulation gets blown in, unless you somehow support these when the cellulose gets pressure filled; otherwise your inny’s would become outy’s.

I think these “should”, by the laws of physics, as in EMF passes through coils to register the flow of energy, so should work bi-directionally in principal. Depends on whether the software is told to register the flow in each direction or not, eg it charges you but doesn’t (won’t) refund you. So to answer the question, I’m not sure.

Nice. I went bat-shit crazy balancing out a 3ph system in Leicestershire, as it not only makes sense by design, but also pays long term dividends for the client of the on-site generation and consumption are given proper consideration from the outset; I’d planned the 3ph CU and circuits well in advance of the house even being built, plus all the M&E requirements et-al, so there was a plan in place for when we were allowed on site to execute all of these works. At that early stage I could plan penetrations through steels, ahead of them being delivered to site, but my favourite () bit was being able to see quite quickly that neither the architect nor the SE gave two hoots as to a) where plant was going to need to reside, and b) how pipes and ducts were to get about the building without significant compromise. Getting your ducks (ducts) in a row early on (for power / other services entering and exiting the building) makes so much light work of 1st fix, it’s just a genuine shame to see missed opportunities when these details etc have not been discussed way in advance of the construction phase. Plan ahead people!!

Net metering at the 3ph meter has been discussed here quite a lot, and makes for great reading. In a nutshell you can consume or export on any 1 of the 3 phases, or 2, or 3, and the sum of the activity affects the meter reading in balance. So, you can have a solar system on 1ph, exporting, and be pulling in power over L2, and if it’s 1kw in and 1kw out, the meter stands still. No need for a 3ph ASHP, but 3ph solar and batteries is now pretty easy to resolve, so don’t panic too much here just get the right advice off the right people. @lookseehear If you want a very good designer and installer that doesn’t charge the earth let me know, (PM). If you choose well, then you can connect ASHP > solar > batteries > hot water > EV charger in one family of products that “talk”, with the advantage of rapid EV charging with 3ph. You can have bigger solar and batteries on 1ph, just then you’d go for a hybrid system so the number of panels and size of batteries isn’t the value you ‘ask’ the DNO for permission to connect to the AC grid, aka “AC coupled equipment’”, just the size of the inverter is declared and whatever’s behind the inverter is then of no consequence. Plenty of options and solutions, and I’ve done a good few domestic new builds where the clients had 3ph and large on site micro-generation, with a mix of 1ph and 3ph equipment on site. When I explain the many available options to my clients, with reason / rationale (and how the entire electric arrangement can be harmonised quite easily), the fog soon clears; it’s just folk don’t know what they don’t know, basically. Also, there’s way too many salespeople out there which is why I stay impartial. Lots on here on the subject.

Yup. Zero discernible diagnosis going on here afaic. I’m stating facts. They’ve not stayed to diagnose, they didn’t rectify the zero pressure on the heating situation, they’re just swapping out knee-jerk items hoping that the most common fault is the fault here. The flip side is that someone better could come and actually do some investigation, and THEN start handing out invoices or requests for deposits; (requesting a deposit for stock EV’s is crazy). This screams of them not wanting to be left out of pocket or holding the baby if their assumed fix doesn’t fix it. I expect they’ll get paid and be gone, but the issue won’t be gone, just forgotten for a while. Cold water coming out of a heated UVC is not an issue for T&PRV, so it looks like the issue is the 6bar PRV has opened on the multi-block which means it is that which has failed; likely needs to be stripped down and cleaned / serviced, and then tested for normal operation, before anything else gets changed at (likely significant) cost. I’d be asking what makes them think the EV’s “have failed?”. I'd be asking if the fault returns will they then come and fix what it actually was that’s wrong, on their dollar. I'd be asking why after a service you were left with a system with zero pressure in it. Just crap. Seriously?

One per vessel, so 1x red, plus 2 (or 3) for the white vessels.

Ask these guys for a full diagnosis of the fault, and why it’s occurred, and the solution. Otherwise you’ll be doing this over and over again.

Ask them to supply a 3rd vessel. The valve is in the first page of this thread with Screwfix part number visible

Yup. No getting away from intumescent strips here I’m afraid. Wouldn’t pass muster with BCO but will also be in your b regs spec.