Originaltwist

My old shed big six roof has a few cracks so I've made a couple of foam backed crawler boards so that I can get up there to start stabilising it. I imagine I'll paint on some sort of gunge along with reinforcing mesh where required. There seem to be a lot of options - rubber - bitumin. Any favoured stuff please? It's about 40ms. Quotes to remove have been around £1,800 and replace about £6,000 and as it's just an old cow shed I'd rather spend a lot less than that. TIA

No sorry - it's solid chestnut with an inlaid stainless sink. I prefer wood for worktops as you don't have to look after it much and it is kinder to wine glasses at the end of the evening.

@Thorfun I love your kitchen picture - the close coupled triangle of hob,sink,fridge is perfect. I'd advocate having the dishwasher next to the sink in the island so you get lots of landing space for the dirties and can rinse quickly before stacking. Mine is similar but looks rather cluttered by comparison. The pan hooks above the sink were good in practice as they could be hung up to drip and not take up the drying rack. I love the lights too, is that easy to do?

Ah, those were the days - red oxide Bondaprimer that really worked. I think Hammerite could be the answer. I once painted a woodworking machine feeder table that tolerated daily abrasion and the lack of wear was astonishing.

Sounds like the design is nailed now. From experience I'd add a a pair of smaller accumulators, rather than one, and valve them off too, along with detachable fittings. That way when the inners need a service you lock it off and remove the whole lot for disassembly. The spare one keeps you going with no draining down. The accumulators are not usually for storing water per se. They just stop short cycling, so a pair of 20 litre ones should suffice, unless your pump is rated lower than demand which is not the way to go.

I did a study on staircase design on https://originaltwist.com/2018/03/16/modern-floating-staircase/ Here's an extract that might help ... about the ratio for a 'comfort stair' Tradition has it that a comfort stair is 7” x 11” for rise and going. Rounding up slightly that’s 180 x 280mm. B.S. regulations give ranges for rise of150 -220mm and 220-300mm for going G. The ratio of rise to going gives an important angle which here would be around 33 degrees and must not exceed 42 degrees. You’ll need this angle to saw off the ends of the beams. The distance H between your two floor levels will set the rise. Find which whole number divides into H to give a rise R near to 180mm or what you prefer. That whole number is one more than the number of treads but note that the bottom tread might be a platform like the one on the sketch above. Tread thickness T. B.S. regs state that a 100mm ball must not pass between stairs or guards so if we say that the open gap between the treads will be 98mm then T = R – 98 or more. The Going overlap. B.S. regs state that the overlap on open stairs must exceed 16mm but too much spoils the design, as you will see when you draw yours. So tread width W = G + 20 will do for a start. So the treads will be something like 300 x 80 in section. As for length just bear in mind that stairs over a metre wide must have hand rails on both sides. I think 85cm looks about right. Length of box beams L. To make life easy you could set the top of the box beam level with the top of the top tread, so; The base of our triangle is (no of treads -1) x G / R and then just use Pythagoras to get the longest length of box…. or, frankly, just draw it and see what you get. The drawing will reveal what angle to cut on the ends of the box beams too. Make a note of all your numbers then make a drawing of the side elevation to scale. Sketchup is perfect for this and is free and easy to use. Note the intersection of the top of the angle iron, the beam and the back of the tread. N.B. Sketchup can repeat copies easily so draw and colour just one tread then copy it upwards by the rise and then across by multiples of the going.

My borehole had no buffer tank at all so the pressure it made was perfect for showers etc. There was an accumulator (20 litre) on the line to prevent short cycling.

A look on the Vesternet web site might give some ideas. Maybe a Z Wave controller and set up to give perimeter breach warnings 'flash the lights' before the real bells go off.

thanks @JohnMo that would work - expensive though. This liitle chap starts at 40c and stops at 25c , a bit limited but under £10 from RS i have to say I have searched in vain for something similar for the cold side

@MikeSharp01 yon have an inquisitive and poineering approach to stuff. How about a go at one of these DIY jobs? https://originaltwist.com/2024/06/26/diy-fan-coil-heater/ Re the condensation issue. I think the 'just in case' drip tray at the bottom is OK, then just try not to need it. I have suggested a way for the unit to run automatically when hot water arrives but haven't sussed the cold water yet - any suggestions welcome.

The smaller blue tank is probably an accumulator to stop the well pump short cycling.

there's always this DIY fan-coil idea https://wordpress.com/post/originaltwist.com/2699

The cost to heat it up is different. 100% electricity vs. 3 times better with tank and a heat pump.

I used to fill my evac tube panels with a garden sprayer - the backpack one with a pump handle - so @Chriswills I hope your pump is just as good. You'll be connecting it to the fill station and as soon as fluid starts heading up to the panels then air will be coming down and the air bleeder on the pump station will need manual bleeding a few times. I'm fairly confident this will work for you because the tube types just have a manifold across the top and can't hold much air.

According to the EDDI manual '3.68kW / 16A max. heater load'

The MVHR exhaust air could be just one input to the heat pump plenum greenhouse shed thing. The others being: Sun (stored in the black drums), ground air pipes (circa +5c lift I believe). Obvs the more extra energy you can get in the fewer defrost cycles and the better COP.

I like the way your project is shaping up but talk of radiator upgrades made me wonder about a DIY fan-coil unit I came up with a while ago. It's cheap and neat and better for low temperature flow - just needs an open mind to give it consideration. There's a description and pictures on https://originaltwist.com/2018/11/14/diy-fan-coil-heater/ so I won't bang on about it here.

I think a lot of things have changed to make off-peak storage in water viable: High temperature heat pumps enable a wider Dt and so more heat stored in smaller tanks. Off-peak electricity becoming even cheaper thanks to the electric car era. Unstopable wind and nuclear power has to be dumped Better insulated homes need far less energy. PV more common, enabling DHW top up with an energy diverter Combine all the above and a 1,000 litre tank works - a few years ago you'd be looking at a swimming pool.

Interesting thought about spare capacity. Here's your idea modelled but with a smaller Dt as it's hard to get the tank below 25C - but yes, 400 litres hits the spot.

@sharpener - I have just gone through your economics analysis (better late than never) and the payback calculation is the only way to approach this of course. As you intimated before, the MCS wallahs might insist on an oversized HP so the extra cost would mainly lie with the thermal store. Having had one myself and encouraged many others to do so, I know that in general they are intrinsically fine bits of kit so water based thermal storage is a good way to go; certainly good enough for anyone going down the heat pump route to give it serious consideration. Off-peak energy is mainly renewable too, so this system is kind to the grid and the planet and your wallet.

For me it's about the triangle thing in your workspace - fridge, cooker, sink. Heres one I did earlier, and it worked really well

Off-peak energy storage for cheaper heating Off-peak energy plus heat pump equals unbelievably cheap heat. But how to store it? High temperature heat pumps might make all the difference (wider Dt) so here’s a shot of my model which shows that a 1,000 litre buffer tank along with, say 300l, DHW and a bit of slab heating might work. 60kW.hrs a day for £300 a year – worth a look! Conclusions are a bit disturbing and contra intuitive as inefficiencies are overcome by economy. Buffer tanks should be huge Blending down is necessary Zoning is easy and a good thing HP running all day is not a good idea A much bigger heat pump is needed A mini-split addition is even more desirable I’ve sketched out how such a system might look on Off-peak energy storage for cheaper heating https://wordpress.com/post/originaltwist.com/7618 So, team, is this worth a look or a step too far? N.B. I'm aware this contradicts all the wise words seen so far on this topic and I apologise for that but I genuinly can't see what will no doubt emerge as the big flaw.

The thing with diverter valves is that flow stops dead during the changeover - can't imagine heat pumps like that. Coster used to do one with constant flow but any other suggestions?

I've done a stairs design here - https://wordpress.com/post/originaltwist.com/1927 - with some notes on typical geometry. Here's an extract Tradition has it that a comfort stair is 7” x 11” for rise and going. Rounding up slightly that’s 180 x 280mm. B.S. regulations give ranges for rise of150 -220mm and 220-300mm for going G. The ratio of rise to going gives an important angle which here would be around 33 degrees and must not exceed 42 degrees

The panel layout will be interesting and there will almost certainly be shading issues. So, microinverters on all the panels (Enphase obvs). That's going to be a bit more expensive to start with but more reliable and cheaper in the long run. Probably Victron to charge the battery and maybe Fogstar for the battery. Eddi for the immersion and I believe that can cascade onto the Zappi. Some thoughts to juggle with anyway.