TheMitchells

Oh no - please dont confuse me any more - there are so many options already!😁🫤

I dont have one. I am trying to use Jeremy's spreadsheet but there are bits I dont understand. Here is my attempt. But as we dont nhave an mvhr, that may spoil any results. Heat loss calculator.xlsx

Scarily, it looks like they use 10,000 kW per year for hot water and heating. 😬 They do like it hot! Hubby is asking why we cant just add the radiators and a simple gas combi boiler?? I guess the easy answer is that there isnt gas to the property and the supplier for their area is talking about installation 10-12 weeks after acceptance of the quote, which was £1200. Unless we are able to connect into the neighbours incoming pipe? But with the central warm air unit still working (just), we could manage for a few months, getting the radiators fitted so that as soon as the gas is connected, a combi boiler could be fitted. It goes agaisnt my principles to use gas/fossil fuel. But it would be easy to install and probablly the cheapest option. Urhghh! The bill below shows their day and night use. The only thing on the night meter is the heating (mostly off currently apart from a small night storage heater in the shower room, turned low) and the hot water heating.

Plan now is to get an electrician round to connect the night circuit to the day one, so the poor Smart Meter only has one supply to worry about. And we can add the time switches as suggested by Alan Ambrose. Best he can do is Monday though 😒. Will i need to get Octopus to turn anything off? Or can he do it with the supply still on? And if they need to turn off the supply, can they do it remotely or do they need to come at the same time?

One bath but not used very often - once a week? I looked at Octopus for a quote but it looks like you have to pay £500 for it, which is then deducted from the cost. The ufh install will come with the extension but thats not for a couple of years time. I'm looking for a simple heat loss calculator that i can use myself. I know jeremy had one. Will look for that.

One more thing - is a 210 hot water cyinder normal? our current one is only 120l and that seems fine. There is only ever going to be two people living there. And we have an electric shower so that would not come from the cylinder.

Okay - we have the first quote for ashp, radiators to 2 beds, bathroom, shower room and hall. (thats 5 rads), HWC and ufh to the lounge and kitchen - even though we didnt ask for that. I plan to add ufh when we do the extension as we will be re-doing the whole back of the bungalow. So will get that taken off. But its rather a lot!! while the EPC shows D, the bungalow is only 68m2 with an additional 28m2 when we do the new extension. So it is not huge. And we plan to retrofit insulation and renovate to a better air tightness. Am I being taken for a ride! That seems a large ashp for such a small building. I can see the Grant ashp for sale for £4,266 plus £800 for the installation packhttps://www.plumbnation.co.uk/grant-aerona3-13kw-r32-inverter-driven-air-source-heat-pump-hpid13r32body-111-37273?gad_source=1. But adding in the rads, hiring a plumber and electrician, should I just bite the bullet and get it done? I do have a second chap coming tomorrow for another quote. Unfortunately CVC have still not come back with a quote. I asked them over 2 weeks ago but nothing yet.

Tried that last week as I too heard they were good at customer service but our experience was awful! Especially when the parents were logged as vulnerable. Several days with no one calling back, even when they said they would. I was ringing daily but it took till Friday evening for someone to actually take control of this (from initial call on Monday morning) and get things moving. I like Octopus but they did not do a good job dealing withthis. Even if it turns out not to be their meter causing the problem; they should have contacted us sooner. But i guess all companies can drop the ball occasionally. 🤔

that sounds like a good idea and it would mean i could control things remotely for them. I shall suggest that to the electrician when he returns my call. he's an old school sort so hopefully can understand what they currently have. 😁

Well, Octopus are saying we have to get an electrician to test everything and see if it is all working. So i am going down that route first. I just hope they can check things during the day when there is no power to that circuit.... hubby plans to go over tomorrow evening and stay the night so he can test the incoming cable from the meter himself. unfortunately he can't go tonight. he seems to think the electrician can do a 'dead test' on the night circuit. Its only the night storage and immersion on there.

Can i ask Octopus to remove the Smart meter and replace it with a dual rate meter??

When this happened initially, i did contact our electrician and he said it was an issue with the meter so hence dealing with octopus. I am happy to get him back out but as it is both the immersion and the one small night storage heater that go off together, we know it is not one or the other but the whole night ring. I feel that the Octopus 'engineers' have no idea about old systems and how to integrate them to their meters. ideally we would go back to a simple mechanical meter, if possible. But as we are going to ashp and maybe pv soon, it probably is best to keep the smart meter. (happy to be corrrected on that) Re the immersion, no, it is only on a night ring and we cannot operate it during the day, unless we get an electrician to connect the two back at the fusebox. but then it would be on all the time unless my parents switch it off (this is likely to be the short term solution). We need to replace the whole heating/hot water system as it is that very old warm air central unit that is breaking down and I am looking to remove, once an asbestos person tests and removes it. (thats our other post on asbestos). And add ashp. Hoepfully then, it can all be changed to a standard set up, rather than the unusual one we have!

My elderly parents live in our bungalow with an old 2 ring system (one on all the time for most things and one for night, only for the immersion to hwc and night storage heaters). On Wed 10th july, they rang to say that they had no hot water or heating in their bungalow. I rang Octopus and an engineer came later that day and removed the old meter, installing a new Smart meter. As there is a daytime ring and a night time ring (hot water and heating) in the bungalow, we did not know if it had fixed the problem but the following day, it all worked – Hurray! However, on Monday 15th July, Mum rang and said the heating and water had gone off again. We contacted Octopus and I was told someone would contact me regarding this. That evening, someone did ring and we went through some questions that had been emailed to mum. They said they'd 'reset or something' but the following day, it was all still off and I rang Octopus again. I was assured someone would get in touch but no one did; however, everything worked on Wednesday morning. Sunday 21st July, Mum rang. Once again, the heating and hot water was off. I tried ringing Octopus but of course, no one works Sunday, and, as it was not a complete emergency (they did have daytime electricity, just no way of heating the water), I had to wait till Monday to contact them to report the fault. Details were taken and I was told it would be sorted. Long story short - eventually after many calls and two very distressed parents, Octopus sent an engineer on Saturday who replaced the meter again. Sunday, all was fine. But today, its all gone off (it may have gone off overnight sunday but Mum wasnt sure). So what to do?? I cant believe it is the meter again, unless it is not able to work with their two rings?? why does it work for a couple of days then go off?? We are getting quotes for an ashp and radiators, when hopefully the system can be made to work with the Smart Meter - the wiring and fuseboxes were done before we bought it in 2017 so all fairly new. but till we can get the system put in (hopefully as soon as possible), what can we do?? Should i pester Octopus and see what they can do? OH suggested a short term fix of connecting the immersion to the daytime ring and asking them to turn it on a couple of hours each night. They can do without heating luckily for a while. I'd be very grateful for suggestions.

Mix SBR with the cement, and then no need for a slurry on the pavers? Is that what you are saying? What do you mean by 50mm of conc?? concrete?? I plan on a good thickness of concrete, to raise the pavers to the level of the grass. I have laid them on the ground to test the look and if they fit in the space for the seat.

Not sure we have one but will check.

Does anyone have any idea if our warm blown air central heating system is likely to have asbestos in it? Should I get someone in the check? The system consists of a large number of bricks, heated by 3 (only 2 working now) electric wires. Once warm, air is blown around and through ducting around the house. its been in there over 50 years and is now coming out for a new system but it was pointed out that it may contain asbestos. Now I am worried!

Any updates, please? I'm looking to get rads for our bungalow so would be interested in your opinion.

Have not listened yet, but would think it very difficult to do. Unless you really like vegetables and do not mind having the same thing most days. It would be hard work! Looking forward to listening to it. 😃

I am about to lay 4 porcelain tiles (120 x 30cm) and have cleared the ground, ready for the base layer of cement. However, i know that a slurry is recommended for the back of the pavers. I can see the bags of slurry for porcelain are about £30 and as i only have 4 to lay, i would have lots left over. Am i able to use something like the evo-stick flexibond primer as it is only a tenner? https://www.wickes.co.uk/EVO-STIK-Flexibond-Tile-Adhesive-Primer-White---1L/p/253284 I did see that Wickes have this, which is only £20 so if not the Evo-stick, i'll get this. Just thought I'd ask?? https://www.wickes.co.uk/Mapei-Standard-Set-Plus-Grey-Ceramic+Porcelain-Tile-Adhesive---20kg/p/252711?gad_source=1 ps - I know it is recommended to lay on a sub-base but my ground is complete brash - compacted stone, which i have to dig out with a pick-axe. So I am doing away with the sub-base. Its only for a small seat and the ground is solid! I'll surround the pavers with gravel.

Okay - I'll see what they say and post details. I rang one firm yesterday and he turned up this morning, on time, seemed pleasant and not at all pushy, said he'll give a quote in a few days. I was quite impressed. He even seemed to know all about Passivhaus which I took as a good thing. Our bungalow is only 68m2 currently and adding the extensions will only add an aditional 30m2.

Is that true? We are in the process of getting quotes for our Ellesmere bungalow for ASHP, PV, radiators etc. I shall post details on here when they come in but I'd happily pay someone to fit them as it would probably happen so much quicker. I guess for me, taking the worry away of making it all work and getting it done as soon as possible, makes it worth paying more. As long as it isnt too much more!🤔

no - this is the current rear of the bungalow. we are looking to remove the flat roofed extension, add 2 m to the side, in line with the bit sticking out the right hand side (currently a porch) and add a full width extension, with pitched roof. We have not got as far as plans. Just seeing if things are do'able. The beam would go across the current rear wall and hopefully hold up a vaulted ceiling. the second photo shows what we were thinking of. (different building but nearby). I need to measure the height of the current roof to see if we could pitch the new one into it, without it looking silly. it may be too shallow a pitch.

While planning the extension to our bungalow, we are hoping to open up the lounge/kitchen area with a gulam beam, to give a vaulted ceiling. It would need to be around 8m long. We'd like wood for aesthetics. Is this do'able? Or would we need a post in the centre, which would give us difficulties in the layout?

After building the shower room, we had a free shot at planning so I put in for an extension down the side of the bungalow, to create a utility room and this was granted. But we did not think my parents could cope with the building work so it was never implimented. And, as they do little cooking, the current kitchen is enough for them. See origional and permitted plans. However, now that we are planning to move into the bungalow ourselves in the future, we would be looking to remove the flat roofed lounge extension and extend across the whole back to give a larger open plan kitchen/sitting room/dining area. We now need to upgrade the current heating system/addition of ASHP and it would need to have capacity for the new extension too. So we need a plan for whenever we do the renovation. This turned out to be far harder than I thought. The side would be extended out 2m, which would then extend to the current length of the lounge. We would like to have a pitched roof, giving a valted ceiling, tied into the current roof. The new exension would have patio doors to the garden and we'd need another door into the garden (I assume we need a second door rather than use the patio doors). But positions of those and new windows are flexible. We looked at what furniture we would be taking with us, and then after much discussion, came up with plan 1. I am thinking the utility room could have a complete wall of units, including the washing machine and a tall fridge freezer, then just an under-counter fridge in the actual kitchen. We dont have a dishwasher (thats his job) and am thinking an induction hob could sit on the kitchen island. But our plan does not look like we'd have many kitchen units. However, he plans to get rid of anything we dont currently use so is convinced we'd manage. (that arguement does not apply to the garage and workshop - just the kitchen!😁) So with our plan, we can now go ahead with renewing the heating system with an ASHP, radiators in the bedrooms, bathrooms and one large one in the entrance to the lounge. I am hoping the large night storage unit at the far end of the lounge (under a large window) will be able to stay for now. Then, we'd install UFH in the new extension eventually. My main concern would be to see if we can have a single beam across the whole exension, to avoid a post/pillar in the middle of the open plan room. It would need to be nearly 8m. If it were a gulam beam, that would make a fabulous feature with the vaulted ceiling. Any thoughts??

Very interesting. we had a smart meter installed yesterday and are planning PV, ASHP and Battery for my renovation of a bungalow. I'm with Octopus so I may have to have a word. Thanks for the info.