Adam2

@Dan F I'm looking at the same softener - are you happy with it? A concern is not wanting to reduce pressure/flow rate so like the 1" connections. cheers

Wow, am pleased my £250 EV charger was bought a week ago and installed before this! In a new build it costs very little over the cost of the kit to have an EV charger fitted yet my electrician tells me of sites where he's out doing the prep and customers are paying 700-1000 for a simple EV charge point from a "specialist"! The smoke and mirrors needs to stop with this. At the moment it seems you can override the system to charge when you need but that may not always be the case! Appreciate the need to balance supply - I'll most likely use an off peak night tarriff after I work out out usage patterns, would seem a sensible choice for many (doubt our planned 4kW solar will do a whole lot for a large EV battery).

I'm just about to install Aeotec 7 sensors (zwave) which are wireless (or can main power) to turn on bathroom lights and if presence detected for>3 mins run boost on the MVHR for 10 mins. Timings of course are flexible. MVHR has a boost signal which I'm connecting to a zwave relay. For showers I'll see how well the MVHR humidity sensor works and if not fast enough may experiment with humidity comparisons between bathrooms and adjacent bedrooms - probably not necessary but I like to experiment 🙂 These sensors I used already to test motion and trigger lights etc - very impressed. But of course this needs a hub to control the logic but I enjoyed learning about that (hubitat elevation)

Yes I think that was pretty clear the issue is the stupid 20% VAT on the panels - why have that? Surely anyone buying a panel is going to be generating green energy and reducing demand on the grid supply so should get this VAT free. I'm hoping as I'm a new build I can buy the PV kit and mainly self install and just put the parts through in my VAT reclaim in a few months.

OK cheers for the advice. Will cut and store then hire and shred!

We have a fair amount of chipping to do and probably will take a while so thinking to buy a chipper. Maybe buy one and sell in a couple of years when the excess branches are all dealt with. Looking at products seems we can get a chipper for 50mm wood like this Forest Master at £410 But I just came across this which claims 75mm for just £180 Is this "bargain" going to be a pile of cack?

It may be preferable to have low and high windows/rooflights to develop a chimney effect with the overheated air rising out the top causing (hopefully) cooler air to be sucked in from lower down and drawn up through the house. Well that's at least my plan but not quite yet moved in so will not be able to experiment just yet! Alternatively if you have a through flow of course that could work depending on wind but I really like the chimney idea as that seems like it should work regardless of wind

I work at home pretty much all the time + my wife 2-3 days a week so figured we'd use a fair amount of our own generation and divert excess to the immersion (though need the right solution for that having read the recent posts about challenges with that so may need source a low kW immersion element?). Have ASHP and intend to use for cooling also so that would seem like we'd have a reasonable chance to use what we generate of we plan accordingly Issue of course is modelling this to factor in the many days where we will not get sufficient solar so would be paying higher price for electricity if we went for an off-peak rather than a standard tariff. Though a model is of course imperfect so maybe we install and have std tariff and monitor for a while before changing to off-peak. The car realistically will be charged over night probably twice a week 75kWh battery (often 20-90% charge). Shame the car is a bit too old to support bi-direction, maybe that's an excuse for a new car 🙂 Anyway, seems like one approach is max of 10 panels on the roof + cheap and cheerful EV charge unit . Looks like Bimble will do 3.75kW kit for 1.8K which seems decent enough and easy to get all in one place + the EV charge unit I linked earlier at just £300 unless anyone can advise on better options.

Resurecting this one too see if any ideas on how to control charging with a dumb ev charge unit so that it operates only during certain hours. Given the energy crisis seems sensible to add solar, use this in the day and then at night stuck up cheaper energy for the ev, heating etc

Interesting, we're on a step hill with no real water in the ground as it is sandy/sandstone and free draining. Will be quite interesting to see if I can get a temp sensor somehow in the ground beneath our slab for some readings through the year.

An interesting comment from my SE was that with a concrete slab, which is what we have, adding extra floor installation (we have 150 PIR) may not really make much difference as the earth around this will over time increase temp to close to slab temp, appreciate thoughts on that

I had a price with no time limit agreed. Turns out the scaffolding co decided I had it too long and said they were going to take it down. So ended up having to agree to pay them per week extra!!! Just really a bit of caution for you. Not a lot you can do about crap like that unless you want to waste time and risk bigger dramas with lawyers etc

Very nice and similar to our own design. BC said no to the half width treads. We'll put a handrail of some sort - that will be easily detachable for maintenance purposes. You may get more luck with your BC person. Maybe show them when they are round next time and if OK follow up with an email else see what they think will be acceptable for sign-off

I have a double fan cool energy unit in a temp location and it is very stable so just make a decent flat base. Note that in mine at least there is a LOT of water generated around the unit, seems to just drain through the bottom of the case so you may want to divert that depending on your environment

I didn't do any detailed analysis of options really just liked the price and community and the multi hub option due to the house structure and size. Probably fine with a timber build. Always have the option to add hubs if needed. There is an antenna mod if you like that kind of fun but I'll try and go without that. @pocster getting on ok with that? Any issues?

I am. I was using Fibaro hub but did not like the programming/design side and much refer Hubitat. My plans are 4 x hubs with 1 per floor as we have a lot of concrete walls and floors. Just about to setup a slave type arrangement to test that out - will be doing it for real in 4 weeks so figured would experiment now with less stress! The online community seems pretty good also.

I went to Roccia in Preston, they did a decent deal on volume. About 31 /m on 1mx1m grey marbly things. These are Spanish recitified. Also got some smaller 700x700 in low 20s so if not too much hassle could be worth a visit - best to call first and talk volumes. I found Ashif to be really helpful

Thanks @jello will try and remember to get this right on invoices & VAT claim 🙂 mine are 100% part of a solar gain control system

I did question the real benefit of having pir on upper floors and was advised to keep it to make hearing more responsive. 25mm PIR is not that expensive so just carried on even though I feel it has little benefit as the aim is for the whole house to be same temp anyway inc floor structure but at least is something to clip ufh to!

Well I hope so 🙂 We had 2 floors in our build with precast planks that had both the usual camber and of course the gaps where they join each other. We just used the dry sand and placed boards on top then plastic then UFH pipes then screeded it - no issues that I can tell. The PIR boards were not rocking around and no obvious hollows. With the screed 55-75mm thick I can't see any small voids which we may have missed causing any issues.

We used dry sand to level the precast planks under the insulation sheets

Pyracantha looks nice with more colour than Holly. Maybe a mix of these could work well. Also available at a local wholesale nursery at a decent price

We've a space next to our neighbors fence that we were thinking to plant with gorse but not sure if will be OK due to shade as apparently likes full sun. The area is sandy soil so free draining but is a bit acidic due to pine needles. Any other suggestions that could work? Ideally something to cover the ground and prevent a casual fence jumper gaining access. Area is about 2m x 8m going down a slope between a fence and our driveway - shaded as the slope goes down and the driveway is to the south and is elevated.

I have the bigger iVT-18 unit - double fans I'm in Poole, welcome to visit if passing.

For those that question the accredited installer piece - this is not necessarily meaning MCS and does not mean an excessive cost. I had a price from a Cool Energy accredited installer who was also MCS at ballpark 1.8K for install of UVC/Buffer/ASHP and various connections into the rest of the system on a new build. This including the MCS paperwork. As it happened I think the installer didn't want to travel my way in March as probably had plenty of more local work with the RHI scheme ending so I ended up using my own plumber which may have saved a bit but then I paid for an inspection which equaled things out. Total about 6K parts and call it 2K install so ~7K all in and RHI payments (fingers crossed) to cover that. I'd say overall I'm a happy customer - originally I was looking at the more common well known brands and the pricing was pretty high in comparison. Support was very responsive and always very positive attitude from them so I'd recommend - BUT mine has only been running the past few weeks so not a long term endorsement or anything. With many things I'm happy to buy from China/wherever but something you can't send back (140kgs ASHP) I'd rather get locally just in case 🙂