FelixtheHousecat

Appreciate I've left this a long time, but Ecology are still not offering mortgages for self-build. I went through Mayflower in the end.

@Alan Ambrose - I hope you're right and they've just hit their Q3 underwriting limits. But if they don't resurrect it at the start of October I'll have to look elsewhere as time will be getting a bit tight.

I had been in conversations with Ecology BS about arranging a mortgage, though I hadn't applied. And now they're not doing self-build loans any more, which is annoying. Any other recommendations out there?

@Barny Sort of depends on what you consider to be expensive... Rockwool isn't that pleasant to install, but once it's in it's great. Pavatextil (made from recycled cotton/ jeans etc) is also good I think - has good density and should be good for this - but it's quite a bit more, almost double. It would be much nicer to install yourself I'd imagine.

I do too, just not a Luddite

You can also easily do this in Windows 10 with FancyZones from Microsoft - had it installed for years, works very well

Have 21:9 monitors at work and I moderately dislike them. Have 2x 32" 4k monitors at home and love them - I can rotate them into portrait and typically do with one of the two most of the time - this makes it useful for stacking apps vertically. I work in cybersecurity, so it's useful to have a lot of space for the obligatory binary waterfalls and meaningless green code while I'm slouching in a hoody. I think you made the right choice with the conventional aspect ratio in 32"

I want cooling, too. I have only a 1% overheating risk above 25 degrees and I may be able to further design that out, but 25 degrees isn't my comfort zone for sleeping, so I want cooling - even if only a little. I know a few on here are successfully doing cooling above the dew point with UFH, but I want it to work out of the box with no additional programming or stress and without so much predictive planning going on to monitor the weather later in the day.

Yeah, maybe I am. I concede that. The thing that gets me, though, is that even at a lower probability, the impact is far greater and the monetary and disruptive cost to rectify is far higher. Digging up floors is never fun. It could also go unseen for a while longer than above ground. Anyway, that's my risk tolerance - well, my partner's actually. I suppose dealing with insurance claims all day will do that to you.

Had the same thoughts. Arostor or similar for DWH plus A2A for heating/cooling. Priced it up and came out quite a bit more, plus I'd prefer the HP unit outside the house - plant room is kind of close to a bedroom. Then there's the planning permission. In a conservation area and had a fair bit of trouble just getting permission to build. Won't allow Solar PV because you can see the back (south) of the house from a side-street, though I'm pushing back on this. Which makes immersion and direct electric a bit harder to justify. Having said that, the bathroom will just be an electric towel rail! So only direct electric.... Thought about dual fuel and a second heating zone, but I don't want the complexity.

Yeah, agreed. Which is why I wanted something like this https://www.daikin.ie/en_gb/product-group/air-to-air-heat-pumps/multiplus.html one high level unit upstairs, one console unit downstairs, and the UVC right next to the bathroom - very little copper piping. The most likely thing to go wrong with be the condensate pump failing on one of the units. Probably would have been a cheap-ish installation. But I can't buy it with any UK support or warranty, and I don't fancy bringing it over on the ferry from Ireland and having nobody to install it.

How infuriating and depressing

I am indeed likely to go with a 5kW ASHP, 250L UVC, plus 5x fan coils, and that's it. Not doing UFH. My partner is an insurance underwriter, and the majority of the domestic claims are for ingress of water in badly installed systems. Not a headache I need with the small heating requirements - won't have a passive slab, will be beam and block. But that wasn't really my question. It was about why these units are being manufactured and sold in other countries, including Ireland, but not in the UK.

The UK gov released their consultation into incrementally green building standards a couple of week ago - link here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/the-future-homes-and-buildings-standards-2023-consultation/the-future-homes-and-buildings-standards-2023-consultation#scope-of-consultation I guess the main takeaways will be the probability of mandatory heat pumps and possibility of mandatory solar panels? I can't claim to understand fully the changes to SAP calcs. Just wondered what the feeling was around the proposals? Missed opportunity? Positive? Unambitious? All you'd hoped for?

Hello buildhub residents. My first post here. I'm self-building a passive house in East Anglia and I'm looking at heating, DWH and potentially cooling solutions. My question is this - a load of companies seem to manufacture units that are either multi-split of mini VRF and have A2A refrigerant inverters available with a hydrobox for DWH (that's my reading of the marketing docs, please correct me if I've misunderstood the technology) But NONE OF THEM are available in the UK it seems (I hope I'm wrong, but I've called them and nobody knows anything about these units here). Does anyone have a good sense of why they're ether not bothering with the UK market, or why they're unable to get them licensed here? Maybe something to do with the distortions created by the Boiler Upgrade Scheme? The list has most of the big guys one it: Mitsubishi PXZ series - see around page 25 of this pdf here: https://kokotasgroup.gr/entypa/pdf/FULL_PRODUCT_HEATING_WEB--281-29_6166.pdf Samsung EHS TDM Plus Climatehub - https://samsung-climatesolutions.com/en-gb/b2c/our-solutions/home/heat-pump-solutions/heating-cooling/tdm-plus.html Daikin Multi Plus - https://www.daikin.ie/en_gb/product-group/air-to-air-heat-pumps/multiplus.html Panasonic Aquarea Ecoflex - https://www.aircon.panasonic.eu/IE_en/happening/aquarea-ecoflex/ LG Multi-V compact with Hydro kit - probably too big for my house, but anyway https://images.b2bmkt.lge.com/Web/LGElectronics/%7Bc5c4ca24-a96c-4aed-9cc9-97e1f6dbabf2%7D_2023_4Q_White_paper_Hydro_Kit_Low.pdf? ArgoClima iseries split - https://www.keaneenvironmental.ie/argoclima/iseries-split-pump/ Midea CirQHP- https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/midea-comes-to-ish-frankfurt-2023-with-its-latest-water-and-space-heating-solutions-301774592.html And yet - nothing available in the UK....