MikeSharp01

Yes because only they can get you the grant so they must do the design or sign off on yours, I put together a design pack for them to pick the bones out of to check and transpose the things they needed for the MCS form and no it did not really limit our choices. They would have been happy, I think, just to get the professional fees for the design and commissioning. I liked the look of their tiny ASHP so I purchased that and a stack of other components from them, sadly their cylinder was not suitable for our space but they rolled our Telford cylinder choice into the design even though we purchased it direct from Telford.

No you would not, because there is also a bill to come from the umbrella company who need to do all the work of calculating the heat losses, setting the spec, providing the design, commissioning and signing off the system. In our case that was a big chunk. (Which we agreed before we signed up.)

No I am not a plumber but I can plumb! I had the PHPP data which I sent them for heat loss along with a set of drawings and sections along with the air tightness certificate and they used that data to create the MCS form entries. I did the whole install and they came down, did a bunch of checks and signed it all off. Although I am emotionally with @JohnMo on not bothering with MCS I do need to get BC sign off and the part G cert so this was an easy way to get all that. We did make a small return on the grant but not after my time!

We did it via Cool Energy. It worked well for us overall. The only issue is controlling their heat pump via modbus. The service was great.

Looks like you have identified all the issues and I can't see any reason why it cannot go higher.

So what advantages does MCS battery install bring over a competent electrician.

Did you need to get your battery install certified or did you jusT plug it in?

We used AFT for the house slab but made our own former for the garden room which we built prior to the house to prove all the techniques we would need. Cannot see any reason you can't make your own corners but getting the outer render on to match might be a bit tougher.

Naturally - but you have spun out a whole other idea here - real time trading of energy consumption. I can imagine an AI agent getting control of a smart enough home to really drive down costs and consumption. Yes but if you achieve 80% cut in cost and use AI to control it why would you not.

Very interesting, we are all going to have to get smarter in one dimension or another to manage this are we not?

We just went through the summer with our build - not live-able but systems being tested, in the south east! We had the cooling running - just the slab and a bit of a windows strategy with our rear rooflight front floor light (What the other half calls the Rat window, because it will let rats in, - A top hinged window at the bottom of the front glazing that opens to create a stack flow through the house) open them over night and until the Outside / Inside temperature flipped over. (MVHR is not yet commissioned) It worked OK but getting control of ASHP was a pain and I need to work on that but essentially we kept the slab as near as we could to 18. We never saw an upstairs temperature, in the roof apex, above 27, never got to 29, for more than a few hours over the whole heat wave periods and downstairs we held it at a max of 24. So with more active cooling when we are living there I think we will be OK plus I have still to commission the Fan Coil Units upstairs.

What drove this approach?

Yes we managed 0.2 on the PH scale. It did need thinking through and attention to detail everywhere but it came out OK for us. We did all the air tightness work ourselves so did not rely on trades to do it.

Ah - that was to address the issue raised by @Onoff at the top here and not have the groove running through switch as it is relatively small - I think the double sockets work with the groove running through. I could double the switch faceplate as all the switches in the house are on the mini grid system. So I could use blanks in the remaining slots as I only need three switches.

Yes, good point, the table in our case is going to be a shelf just below the plug socket and above the lamp / Network socket. There is only 300mm from the bedside to the in panel door edge so its a squeeze but does need thinking through.

Looks like I can achieve this setup. The brown is the paneling (150mm centers), The Cyan is the King Size divan. The circle is the 400mm reach from the corner of the bed to reach the light switches, the white with center lines is the final stud and the sockets and switches look OK to me. As @garrymartin says I could stop the grooves below the Sockets and restart above but I feel it looks more authentic if they run through the center of the sockets.

Yes I have drawn it all up and I can avoid the single socket issue OK I think. Both are focused on Bedside sockets which need to match the bed width - chose king size but spaced so a super king will just fit between the sockets - just! Getting it right is a further pain on one of the walls as it has two doors in it which the other half of the partnership wants to be secret and open on the 'V' grooves - hence the bespoke panelling!

Good old Chesterton - basic systems theory back in 1978 building on the standard INPUT-PROCESS-OUTPUT. Since then a load of other Systems thinking 101 bumper stickers: "Everything is connected to everything else.", "These who neglect History are destined to repeat it.", "Beware your baggage.", "Investment Challenges Change.", "As an attacker, winning the fight will make you the defender." and "The S curve is the pattern of Everything." Then introduce complexity & chaos theory and watch heads explode! Ho Hum....

It's 12mm thick so I can go deeper. I think I will make a sample and see how I feel.

I am making, because the commercial stuff is too thin to act as the actual wall, and fitting V groove panelling in our bedrooms and am not sure what depth I should rout the V grooves. I have looked at commercial panelling and it comes out between 3 and 5 mm deep - I prefer 3mm but is that enough on a 4m run - will it just feel lost. I also have to fit a number of plug sockets and light switches in it and am wondering what the best way to do this as I would like to use dry lining back boxes as there is no structure behind the panelling. Will this look odd with the grooves running behind the face plates? Any thoughts?

Hire, or purchase and resell, some steel road plates - the ones with the corner holes to allow you to move them about - like they use to cover excavations in the road. Works well until some bright spark puts a crane leg down on one and bends it!

No they have just put in the base cables. When they come to fit the socket they will add another length of cable between the sockets on the left.

I assumed - it's a timber frame and so it seemed like a good idea, I guess I should read up and see what's what. I have it all done in fireline board so it feels wrong to fit a bare plastic back boxes although I guess you could assume the fascia will do the job?

I am getting very frustrated with the Scholmore metal dry lining back boxes. They look great in the blurb but I have either got a bad batch or something is fundamentally wrong with the design. They are difficult to fit as the spring mechanism that holds lugs is almost always dysfunctional, slides out of its guide at the bottom & tilts over so takes a lot of fiddling to get it to grip and fitting the face plate involves even more fiddling. Maybe I am missing something but I cannot see what. So I am looking for alternative solutions to fire protection in drywall back boxes. I have found these inserts: From Astroflame which look can work with both plastic and metal back boxes so I can use the standard plastic back boxes and fit these things although, to be honest, they also look a bit clunky - does anyone have an experience of these inserts or perhaps a better solution all round to the problem.

While this is exciting stuff and I applaud the work being done I have not seen the counterveiling discussion around moving energy from the core to the surface and the consequences there of. If we cool the core what are the consequences? As I said this is exciting stuff but we should have learned by now that our use of planetary resources has consequences and geothermal energy may not be a 'renewable' resource.