Nickfromwales

The 820mm frames have the flush plate low, so the toilet seat lifts up and rests on it. The 1120's have the flush plate high enough for the seat to rest back against the tile / other whilst missing the plate. Pros and cons with each...... With the 820's the seat can rub on the plate if you, ahem, 'lean back' shall we say. With the 1120's, should you go with a mirror chrome finish on the plate, you can get a lovely 'reflection' of the man tackle being drained. I fitted a white plate on an 1120 frame for a customer which works quite well....

These are the pukka captive thread, adjustable and lockable ones This image shows the slide and bolt type that are less than great.

Don't get the "basic" frames as the brackets to fix back to the wall are just bolt together metal brackets with elongated holes, quite shit tbh, instead of the better threaded arrangements with captive nuts and lock ring circlip type nuts which keep things from moving that come with the better frames. Also, I noticed the basic range have the water inlet but no thumb wheel to shut the water off during parts replacement / servicing, so the one I fitted recently ( where budget was tight, and then some ) would need the water to the house shutting off to work on it. Not the end of the world but I can't really see how anyone would want to save the few quid there tbh.

Surfaces of rads etc that get rusty and corroded won't be helped by a power flush. That'll only realistically get rid of the water-born particulate and slightly loose material.

I've often pondered over using an electric undertile controller for running Ufh as the better ones, the Warmup 3ie for example, have a learning facility for the setback times. Basically if you want the room temp at 21oc at 07:30 and the heating comes on and takes 1 hour 30 mins to achieve the set temp, then the stat will sample this over ( iirc ) three 24 hr cycles and then adjust itself accordingly. So basically on the 4th day it'll switch on at 06:00 and then ( again iirc ) it'll do the same for the off setting as the heat will continue to emit after the heating goes off, just probably a lot quicker in some instances but each case is individual. Have a read of the bumf but I think it re-samples occasionally to adjust with seasonal / envoirmnental changes. The 4ie has the wifi / smart phone connectivity so could negate a lot of other system components otherwise needed to control your heating from say a hand made Coracle, ( should, for eg, you have accidentally fallen out of one and into a cold river whilst trout fishing and need to heat the house up ready so when you get home you can run around naked to dry off ? ).

The problem I have is I need to give my customers a regular, reliable, replaceable device that can be bought off the shelf by any other trade or heating installer. As there is a wired version of Jeremy's stat and the performance is tried and tested then I just can't really justify going and 'tweaking' anything else. If it were my house then it would be fair game but all customer solutions need to be off the shelf just in case, as I've said elsewhere, I get eaten by a prehistoric dinosaur brought back to life by an eccentric billionaire. ? It could happen ?

I think @JSHarris's thermostat with its selectable 0.1 or 0.2oC increments is the way forward for the majority of instances TBH. If any solar gain complimented a space being heated by the central heating system in that house, and it was controlled zone by zone, by said thermostats, then the sharp increase in room temp would be responded to far, far quicker and negate any complex multi-functional / global controls. Operating ventilation would need to opposite approach so it only activated upon sustained overheating.

Plus every mdpe stopcock I've ever seen has had no such internal nrv.

Most stopcocks don't fill the requirement, even brass ones which are supposed to fall back and seal themselves ( only really effective under forced back flow imo ) so that's why all water authorities ask for a stand alone NRV immediately after the stopcock on the rising main. If your coil of mdpe is teed off the underground main supply then you should fit a stopcock and a double check NRV immediately after it breaks ground. After that you can do what you like.

Basically just preventing back flow into the main is the criteria, howsoever achieved. After the domestic stopcock you don't need anything really as far as water bylaws / regs are involved / concerned, but it's better to have non returns on. or immediately prior to, the outside taps so draining down inside the house can never syphon dirty water back from a connected outdoor pipe / hose into the potable network. Again, anywhere where the MAIN rises needs the bylaw adhering to, and a non return outside tap does not tick that box .

Pmsl.

Your tank is an UVC is it not? 1oC per hour is typical, even for an well insulated cylinder, I think, and not disastrous tbh. Your backed up by gas though iirc, so with the boiler kicking in to replace lost heat do you find the heat exchange rate isn't enough to cope with demand ( linear )? Eg heat capacity of the UVC + gas boiler input doesn't give much sustain ? Oh, and what kW boiler did you go for?

@JSHarris Do You know if there is a similar room thermostat to your wireless one, but hard wired? I'm thinking of recommending them to the customer I did the manifold and auto-balancing actuators for as they have the basic Honeywell rotary manual stats with a horrible 1.5oC hysteresis . The house has pretty poor floor insulation ( ~70mm pir over a ventilated block and beam ) and a thin liquid screed, so the overshoot is difficult to manage, plus, as the rooms are quite big, the undershoot takes some time to recover. The manifold temp is set a bit higher than would be ideal ( so further exaggerating the overshoot ) so I think an upgrade to the stats would pay dividends.

Do you have any numbers on how the solar thermal is performing ? Iirc, you didn't go with any Pv, no ?

£140 for that 4-way connector will buy you a lot of.............other more necessary stuff. These are unnecessary IMO, and can be replaced, quicker and more easily, with simple Wagos and boxes. You don't need the disconnect-ability as your generic lighting should be fit-n-forget And yes, stay away from these temptresses, or one swift yank and you'll be changing gender

Now, now ? Folk who are currently jumping through hoops whilst bent over backwards would kill for one, even if it did look like a dog license. You could always send it off and have it made into wallpaper for a nice feature wall ??

Yup. Total and utter madness. They rust out in weeks, just crazy that it's not brass also. Good point ?

Why not put Ufh pipes in so the room can be used year round? With the ashp and less than £100 worth of pipe it seems a no brainer ?

I think in the blistering heat of the Scottish highlands you'd be best off continuing to do so. Or, retro fit an internal isolation valve like I did ( to stop the kids arsing around ) and change to a regular ourside tap so you can just turn a valve off and leave the tap open seasonally.

They ( the non return ones ) all have that but it's not meant for routine use. Iirc it's for service / maintenance use.

25-29/30 turns is fine, and the tap will just displace what it doesn't want leaving a 'collar' of tape between the two mating surfaces. Quick whip round with a stanly or junior hacksaw and clean off the excess on show and it's job done. Can't say I've seen much of that TBH, but in colder climates it makes perfect sense as the slug of water trapped between the tap and the NRV has nowhere to go. Best solution is 1) isolation 2) nrv 3) tap. Isolation and nrv inside of possible and when the frost hits just open the tap and close the isolation to prevent bursts.

You only fit NRV's above ground, so basically anywhere where the incoming cold main rises above ground you should have a stopcock and a NRV directly after. Relying on the one in the tap isn't the best measure TBH as in most instances the outside tap is already covered by the house arrangement, ascits fed from the domestic supply not the main. You should have a stopcock, and double check NRV whenever connecting independently to the main .

Tres bien Rodney ?

The link for the stat with 0.1oC hysteresis is here Very important with UFH to reduce the over / undershoot with such a device

Which bit are you standing in ? Welcome aboard from inclement swansea . If you are committed to this persuit then please ask for blogging rights here as it would be of great interest, generate some discussion and provide an excellent, near unique insight to the straw bale journey.