Crofter

Thanks for the feedback Jeremy. One thing that I haven't been able to convey in the sketches is that it would be possible to put vents into the 'internal gable', which is at the left hand edge of the shaded area in the main room. This would allow vents higher up in the room, right up to the apex- but of course that brings them close to the centreline.

OK as promised, some rough sketches showing the space I have to work with. First one shows the floorplan. The main room is open to the bedroom via a double doorway- this was originally going to have french doors in it, but I have shelved that plan at least for the time being. There is a cupboard off the main room, and an en-suite off the bedroom. Second pic shows, in grey, the areas in which it is possible to fit ducts/vents for MVHR. Vaulted ceilings prevent any ducts being taken outside of these zones without recourse to ugly box outs, which would be aesthetically unacceptable. The third pic shows my proposed vent locations, with one additional extract in the warm loft space, not shown.

Thanks for those thoughts. The only bedroom (this is a very small house) is open plan to the living room/kitchen. The only places in the bedroom that I can duct air to are pretty close to the en suite doorway, so I think that any supply placed there will just end up being sucked out through the gap under the door. The loft extraction point would be a trickle really, just to prevent buildup of warm moist air.

I'm aware of the basics of an MVHR install, that you want to keep everything balanced, you want to maximise the distance between supply and extract points, and that you want to extract from areas of higher humidity i.e. bathrooms and kitchens. My problem is that with a very small open plan house, I am struggling to find places to put the supply vents. I obviously want an extract in the bathroom, one in the kitchen, and I think it would be good to put one at high level in the loft space as that is where all the humid warm air will tend to go. These three points would end up as far from one another as it is possible to get. If I then had a single supply vent centrally located, that would maximise the distance between supply and extract points. But it's obviously not great from the point of view of keeping everything balanced. I'll try to attach some pictures of the house and a floorplan later.

Well if you're being quoted £5k for the whole job inc a new soakaway, that's a fair bit less than I ended up paying.

Are you retaining the existing soakaway? That can be a bigger project than the tank/plant itself.

Will try to reply properly when I have more time, but yes basically a bothy is a small, simple house located somewhere remote. Could also be a shieling, nowadays gently used by walkers and climbers. You wouldn't traditionally expect plumbing, lighting, etc- a super posh one might have a woodburner, more likely an open fire. Toilet facilities would consist of a shovel and, if you're really lucky, half a roll of toilet paper!

My Telford Tempest UVC is now all plumbed in and has had a night to heat up on E7. SWMBO says she's going to rest drive the shower this morning Anyway, I've noticed how hot the pipework gets where it meets the tank. I've already added lagging to the pipe and fitting that comes out of the top of the tank, next step would be where the PRV emerges- would this be allowable? I know you're not supposed to cover up the immersions. Thanks

In her infinite wisdom, SMBO selected bevel-edged metro tiles throughout. Little did I realise what this would mean when it came to lay them! I've finished the toilet/shower, thank goodness, and am shortly moving on to the kitchen splashback. Basic question: what should I do to start off the first row of tiles? I don't have an upstand, by the way. I think that starting with a whole tile looks a bit odd, because of the bevel. But maybe that's just me. Is it normal to cut off the bevel and start with a slightly smaller tile? Finally... anybody got any tips for siliconing the edges of these bloody things?

It's a few mm under 600- will have to measure it tomorrow. I thought that if I put the carcasses either side exactly 600mm apart, then the door wouldn't actually cover the gap...?

Holey moley it's another world out there. I consider £1000/yr an acceptable cost for a car, to cover say 6k miles. I can see why Tesla had to go for the top end of the market first, though, to become established. Here's hoping that the Model 3 production bugs will be ironed out and they will start becoming an option for more people (like me!)

Hopefully this is a straightforward one. My kitchen is a straight run of units that comes to 4m total, with an integrated fridge and dishwasher, both full size (600mm nominal). I have two doors to be fitted to the appliances, which are yet to be bought. These measure just under 600mm. I'm at the stage of getting the unit levelled up and fixed to the wall, so I need to know exactly what gap to leave. Do I want to make this exactly the same as the door, or a little bit under, so that the door closes against the carcasses on either side? Cheers

Can't remember exactly now, but I have a vague feeling it might have been the one that Damian was talking about on another forum?

I've had mine run up to test it, but not finished the installation yet. I have to say I'm not blown away by it. It's noisier than I expected (hoping final install will sort this) and the humidity sensor is, stupidly, mounted in the control unit. I'm actually going to remove it from the pcb and mount it remotely, in the extract duct. Shouldn't really have to resort to that sort of bodge. And finally, the power consumption is relatively high, at 50w, which I knew before I bought it- a different make might cost only £30/yr to run vs the £50 for the Boulder, so I couldn't justify the extra cost of a better unit on that basis alone as the payback time would be measured in decades...

Thanks chaps... and have a good Christmas

With a tall pillar tap it doesn't really matter whether it's fitted to te basin or not- it's still way up inside a narrow space, inside the tap pillar itself.

Fitting the tap for the basin. Three parts to this question: - how the heck do you tighten up the tails on a tall pillar monobloc, when the connection is buried several inches up inside the thing? Or is hand tight sufficient? - should I junk the flexi tails that came with the tap, and get solid copper ones instead? And if I do, are the connections at the top end all the same? - I need to hook this up to Hep2O, so is it worth junking the supplied flexis which end in a 1/2" thread, and fitting Hepworth's own flexis that have push fit connectors already on them? The other option is to use the existing flexis and buy Hep tap conns, which only saves a few quid and means extra connections. I'd also trust a Hep flexi over an unbranded eBay one. Thanks for any help

That unit looks decent, nice find

@Cpd What MVHR unit are you looking at?

@visti In the end I went with my local Jewsons. I got a really good quote from Excel roofing but the savings would have been wiped out by the haulage, due to the distance from me, and I didn't want the risk of having the sheets going through mulriple carriers, in case I had to claim for damage.

@Visti Those houses look awfully familiar... are they Dualchas/R.House designs by any chance? I've gone with corrugated steel and am very happy with it. Cost about £1200 for the whole roof inc flashings, ridge, fixings- bear in mind my house only has about 70m2 of roof. This was for the thicker 0.7mm steel and the Plastisol coating which has a 20yr guarantee. Installation was straightforward, I did it singlehanded without scaffolding although tbh most people thought I was being a bit crazy

Sorry I missed this one when it came up. Only thing I can add is about the holiday let exemption from council tax- to qualify, it must meet the Furnished Holiday Let criterion of being available for let for minimum 210 days per year, and actually let for minimum 105 days. Within that period I believe that no individual let can be more than 30 days (to the same party). However you can have longer lets over the remaining 155 days- e.g. some people let their FHL to long(ish) term tennants over the winter as a single let.

Yes as Dave says I'm already exempt, but that's because it's a portable building, rather than because of its size. The intenal floor space is about 43m2. Presumably there are downsides to not having an EPC. The first one that comes to mind is that you'd not get various green subsidies/incentives such as FiT, insulation top ups etc.

Not a nice situation to be in. From all the advice you've given me and others you're obviously a very clued up sparky so I hope you can find plenty of work and see this through to the end. Use the enforced delays to hunt for bargains- plenty good stuff out there on eBay and Gumtree.

About 4.4m on a room that is 4.6m wide... looks good to me. I'd have thought that the external appearance would dictate the pitch and therefore the height?