Brendan

I'm having to take on internal carpentry to get my house finished. Most of my door frames are 5-10mm proud of the plastered walls (though due to uneven plastering it might vary from 0-10mm along the height of the frame. I should be able to sand down the plaster in some areas if needed). In order to get the architraves to sit nicely flush against the walls, should I: 1) remove the frames and trim them down, then re-fit 2) rebate the architraves 3) something else?

I had my MVHR system designed by Green Building Store, on the recommendation of my architect. The system was around £5-6k to purchase from them and then I paid Earthwise construction to install and commission it, which was about £4k. GBS use good quality components (well-silenced with rigid pipes) and usually either Paul or Ubbink units. I have the latter as Paul were difficult to get hold of at the time. I’m not living in the house yet so it’s difficult to make much comment about living with it. edit: GBS will design a system for you as well and you can decide whether to purchase from them or elsewhere.

You give the m2 of your property but not the total energy required from your room by room heat loss calculations. That is the information you need to know to correctly size your pump. If you have a very well-insulated house you might end up sizing the pump to meet the requirements of your hot water rather than your heating. For example my total heat loss is around 4kW (probably an over-estimate) so a 5kW heat pump probably would be fine for this. But my hot water demands require a 270L cylinder. I’m having a Vaillant pump along with one of their cylinders. The 5kW pump isn’t compatible with cylinders larger than 250L, so I have to have a 7kW pump to support the 300L cylinder, which is the next size up. Also make sure your plumber knows what they are doing with pipe sizing and heat emitters.

Thank you for the link. This is where I got my FD30 Passivhaus doorset. I think mine was about £5k, so definitely not a budget option, but about the only fire-rated Passivhaus doorset I could find. Then unless you're fitting it yourself, it is very difficult to find someone who wants to fit it (I've not had any luck yet). https://www.principaldoorsets.com/product-range/doors/passivhaus-core/

I have just ended a 7 month dispute with my builder and their plumber about the design of my ASHP system. Their plumber is not MCS certified and has no objective qualifications to prove he understands how to design an ASHP system. I wanted an MCS-certified intallation, partly to get the grant and partly to have some peace of mind that the system is properly designed. I have thoroughly read all of the MCS documents several times. If you take the time to understand what it says, it is clear that a degree of common-sense is required. This is where some MCS-certified designers fail as they just read the basic instructions and use the spreadsheet incorrectly. My house was built in 1961. The MCS-certified designers my builder approached (MCS umbrella schemes - they design and certify a system for a non-certified plumber to install) all decided that for ventilation rates and room temperatures on the MCS spreadsheet, the house therefore needed to be treated as a pre-2000 construction. In reality my house is a heavily renovated property, designed by a specialist architect to meet Enerphit standards. Therefore it makes a lot of sense to treat it as a new (post-2006) building. This makes a huge difference to the heat loss calculations. This is in the spirit of the MCS standards, which also point the designer to the CIBSE heating system design guide, which itself says that for modern, well-insulated buildings, specialist advice would be advised (rather than making uninformed assumptions). My architect's plans included detailed u-values for all sections of the building and I know the manufacturer's u-values for the doors/windows, so there is little guesswork required by the designer. The architect's heat loss for my house came out at around 3.9kW (they use PHPP), I got 4kW out of the MCS spreadsheet calculator, two MCS certified companies I approached got 4kW. The two MCS umbrella scheme providers and my builder's plumber all calculated my house's total heat loss at around 8kW. It all comes down to how carefully you read the instructions, how well you use them and how clearly you understand what you are doing.

Hi all, We are nearly three years along from starting what should have been a 4-6 month Enerphit standard renovation of our 1961 home in Bedfordshire. The builders we employed haven't really engaged well with the energy-efficiency measures, they don't really like learning new ways of doing things and their quality control seems to be set at "that'll do." I am left with lots of jobs to do myself. One of these is to replace a lovely new Internorm triple glazed door with an FD30 rated, very heavy (and expensive), Passivhaus doorset. I wondered is there a "for sale" or "swaps/exchange" section on this site, or can someone recommend a good place to find this? Really I'd like to find someone who would like my Internorm door, can help me remove it and then I can get on with installing the FD30 door in its place. (Attached photos of Internorm door - exterior finish is RAL 5020 - and the new doorset)