Iceverge

I think the plan is just a minimal trim on the door and window bucks and caulk to the print. Should be a fast process. They're obviously beginning at a medium/highish spec side of the market to cover the costs of the initial set up with that comes the investment needed in the tech. I think this is one of the reasons for the very high ceilings and polished concrete floor. They can absorb the imperfections in the wall quality by compensating elsewhere. A low ceiling and bog standard floors and it'd probably look a bit cheap. However I really like it. I love the organic feel to the curved walls. Really sympathetic. A couple of issues I see. 1. Thermal bridging at the windows and doors. 2. In flexibility with layout of sockets etc once built. 3. The printer seems to need a foundational all of its own which appears to be a pretty precise structure. 4. How well would the concrete paste perform in very wet weather. Advantages maybe not mentioned. 1. Raw materials, aggregate and cement are super cheap and readily available worldwide. 2. No plastering 3. No chasing walls 4. Great flexibility with design. Just draw it in CAD and press GO. 5. Ability to make very wide cavities for insulation. 6. Very sound proof. 7. No more suffering for brickies. Thoughts on potential applications. 1. Foundations. It would be super accurate and asthetics are not an issue. Could easily do the job of strip foundations without all the hassle of layout etc. Suitable for any kind of build. No need for the footings even to be level. In fact it could do them too. 2. If used to print an arch it could replace lintels and even make domes to complete roof structures. 3. Farm buildings for animal handling etc. Often require curves etc. This could do it all if the price was right. No sharp corners that can hurt animals. 4. It could print floors too. Just add a few mm of pumped screed to finally level it out. 5. Add a nozzle with EPS bonded beads and it could make super insulated structures on one pass.

Do you have any details of the type of house proposed already. Drawings/sketches would help but don't forget to de-identify your name and location please. Two aspects to low carbon building. Firstly sort the energy use of the house in use. @Marvins AIM APE sums it up. Airtight Insulation Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery (MVHR) then ASHP (heat pump) PV (solar electric) EV (electric vehicle) Log homes can often be poor in terms of Airtightness detailing and insulation values. Do you have a spec or link to the product you fancy? Secondly embodied energy. This only real make an impact over the life of the building if you sort out the heat loss in use first . As mantra just build out of stuff that used to be plants. Log houses are good here. Wood, cellulose, hemp, straw. Avoid energy intensive materials. Cement, steel etc.

Get a price for 300mm EPS for the floor. Shouldn't be much in it cost wise. It's a cheap place to add insulation and the UFH pipes will be the hottest thing in the building, hence loosing the most heat, important to have them well insulated. That plumbing quote sounds bananas. How large is the house? Lots of us have done our own, I did after the plumber made a mess of it. The Hep2O parts and a 300l direct UVC were about €2000. Add UFH for the ground floor and provision for a future ASHP and the total for parts would be still less than 4k. Then source an ASHP yourself. Reasonable monoblocks come up on eBay for about £2k regularly enough.

Another option might be to forgo the PIR on the window jambs and use something like MDF which has a thermal conductivity of about 0.1 W/mK. Not as good as PIR but not terrible. Screw one layer into the jamb and tape it to the window and inner face of the PIR as your airtight layer. Then glue another layer over the top and paint. It might be easier to work with and get a good finish than UPVC which always cracks when I try cutting it. (Might be my ham fists! )

It all helps. However the window frame probably has a U value of about 1/2 that of the timber as is. More important is getting it air sealed correctly. BTW you can get 22mm and 30mm insulated plasterboard. No, it's too dear and the house is unlightly to be so good elsewhere that it'll make a material difference, especially on timber which isn't actually that bad. .Some kind of an insulating blinds or shutter would be much better if you were really concerned. It's unlikely anyone but you would ever notice. If it was me I would put some PIR there, but not sweat about it. Make a really good job of the airtightness though.

Looks fine really. Check the silencer, rigid ones like a car exhaust are better than flexible ones IMO. I can't see any external grills or ducting clips.

Hi Patrick and welcome. Sorry to hear about this. It doesn't sound like much fun. This really sounds like the landlords issue. Why can't they solve it? Are you sure they won't hold you responsible if something goes wrong? I would get something in writing before you tackle this, a text message would do.

An accurate oil usage should be easy to obtain if you look back through receipts or bank statements. How big is the house? Can you describe the current insulation, windows etc? A better result may be obtained from upgrading the fabric. I'm not massively aware of the situation in the UK but I see no reason why the ASHP grant would not be available to A2A. Given the amount of PV I think any heat pump for DHW will never ever be worthwhile. Maybe a full multi-split A2A like @Hanksyand a few others.

Good to hear. You would probably save £3k of bought in aggregate to as a complete guess.

Doesn't the heat recovery aspect of an MVHR compensate for this somewhat? This crossed my mind . If I had an oil boiler this is what I'd choose. The 250l Maxipod TS I put in my parents house is working really well. All the benefits of an UVC ( on oil or gas) and no G3 requirement or expansion vessels etc. Easily tied into a solid fuel boiler cooker in their case too. They're not much use with an ASHP unfortunately as they require ginormous volume to compensate for the lower temp.

It depends on how you look at it. If you are not using MVHR the heat due to ventilation will be lost anyway. With an ESHP you can forego the MVHR as you'll be recovering the energy into the DHW. In fact from an energy point of view I think they're probably better than MVHR in older leaky properties as they need a certain amount of infiltration to work correctly unlike MVHR which becomes a bit pointless in houses with high air changes.

@markocosic even at 15 years lifespan for an ASHP the cost is 16p/kWh. Agreed it's not the whole picture. It depends on a myriad of factors but I can't seem to make sense in many cases on cost alone. @Caerefail, what are your current electric rates? Do you have PV? Is it a combi oil boiler or do you have an existing UVC? If so what size?

Exhaust source heat pump for DHW. https://www.vaillant.com/home/products/arostor-hot-water-heat-pump-10752.html @Thedreamer has a Joule model.

I wouldn't hold my breath. Good governance comes from understanding and this is a clear example of ignorance of the facts. I should happily continue with an oil boiler if I were you, wait until it goes kaput and replace with a new 90+% efficient model when the time comes. The ASHP grants just inflate the prices anyway so don't worry about that. Instead work on reducing your energy use. More insulation. Airtightness. Maybe some decentralised MVHR. Then consider PV and A2A.

Yes. An ASHP at very low flow temps have good efficiencies but I don't think as good as an A2A and ESHP combo. Very much correct re the usage patterns. I am assuming a 25 year PV lifespan too. The trouble with heat pumps for water is they start to run out of COP as you approach usable DHW temp, negating much of their benefit. PV + diverter doesn't care and will heat water from 10-20deg the same as 60-70deg. Yikes, oil is certainly cheap. I didn't realise it was so much so now. From a carbon point of view I think a new oil boiler at 90% plus efficient isn't the worst way to use fossil fuels. A relatively better use of them than a 30% efficient car. Better still would be tackling some of the heat loss of the building although this isn't always readily achievable.

Electric batteries are not worth it really unless you can do some serious load shifting from night to day. I.E work daily on high load computers from home. A 300l UVC is a superb heat battery. We bank 10kWh every day from cheap overnight electricity. From my experience doing calcs the absolute cheapest way to power a house is A2A for space heating and solar PV for with divert for water heating + E7 in winter. Just bought an A2A, waiting for it to be delivered. PV will come too at some stage.

Congratulations and welcome. It'll be good to get some insight on building a useable house for disabled people. Pics and plans always appreciated for us nosey types. Please blank your name and address from any uploads. What does the kit include? An itemised list would give people a good idea of what costs are reasonable

What is the motivation for switching to an ASHP? There's no benefit for cost. An air to air (A2A) may be different. A single unit will deliver heat at a COP of 5 and an installed cost of £1500. Lifespan 7 years. Say it does 5000kWh/heat/year so £1000 bought in at 30p is £300 per year. £300*7 +£1500 is £5000 for 25000 kWh of heat delivered of 5p/kWh. This compares to an ASHP in the above case of a 7 year cost of £10k plus £2550/year for 17000kwh X 5 or 32p/kWh of delivered heat. Or about 10.5p for the oil boiler. TLDR. Oil costs you 10.5p/kWh ASHP would cost 32p/kWh A2A could cost 5p/kWh to supplement the boiler.

Ok, useful info. At 60deg flow temp you're better off with the oil I think. 2000l is about 17000kWh delivered heat to your house at a boiler efficiency of 85% and about £2000. Something like a highly efficient split ASHP would only achieve a COP of about 2 at 60deg. At 17000kWh delivered heat you would need to buy in 8500kWh or electricity, at 30p/kWh you would pay £2550 per year for electricity with a heat pump that could cost £10k to install and have a lifespan of 7 years. £550 * 7 years and £10k up front you could end up at £14k out of pocket for the first 7 years and every 7 years after that.

More info please for an informed decision. ASHP can be expenses if you don't have a suitable house. Do you know how much gas you use per year for instance as is? Do you have any idea of the flow temperature of the water to the radiator's?

Hold fire on the render until this is sorted. You may need to remove the boards. You need to have a 100% weather proof later over the timber frame before proceeding. The outer layer of render board is only really to deal with 99% of water. The one under this (tyvek house wrap) needs to deal with the full 100%. Do you currently have windows and/or a roof on? Has the tyvek been properly lapped at all junctions? Did you tape it? This sounds strange. The vented cavity behind the render board should be able to freely drain away in case of any water ingress. It certainly shouldn't pool behind it . Can you do a quick cross section sketch of what has been built please?

Zoom out please and take more pics. Is this the inside or outside, ground floor, first floor or flat roof. It's hard to tell unfortunately. A few drawings/sketches would help too.

Sorry, I'm a bit confused about this. Do you have more plans and pictures to help please. Is the picture above the first floor or ground floor? Is the wall being battened an external wall or internal? Purple passive and other airtight paint is expensive, much cheaper to use a membrane or a parge coat where you can. It's of limited benefit to apply until you're absolutely sure you've filled every hole you could poke a pencil through first. My advice is to make a DIY blower fan once the windows and doors are in. The get some Illbruck FM330 and fill all the big gaps. Then use a sand cement parge coat to do all the flat surfaces that might leak like un rendered blocks. Then spare the airtight paint for the junctions and hard to reach areas.

You could use a breathable insulant like woodfiber and screw it directly to the wall and lime plaster over the top.

As I remember it's your Airtightness layer too. I would tape the DPM to the membrane such that if any drips run down the outside of the breather they end up outside the building.