jack

My favourite youtuber reviewed this a while ago:

My wife likes it too. I can't stand it. Instant headache the moment I get even a whiff of it.

My other recollection of that thread is that the guy who was affected (I think his wife suffered the most, from memory, due to some sort of respiratory complaint) seemed to be completely convinced that the local authority were the ones who should act. I actually gave up reading it after tens of pages, when it became clear that he wasn't willing to bite the bullet and take legal action. I don't actually know how it ended up - I stopped reading over there due to the general nasty vibe I got from some of the regulars.

Example: I give my recently-acquired beard a quick brush when I get out of the shower, in front of a mirror that's temporarily sitting on a chest of drawers against a wall in our bedroom. The movement of my hand is enough to make the mirror wobble. I suspect part of the issue is that the posi-joists in this area span between an outer wall and a very long steel beam. It may be that I happen to brush at a resonant frequency of the system as a whole!

That thread lost me the will to live. It went on for YEARS!

Ours are 400mm spacing and there's still more bounce than I'd like in some areas.

From what you've said, I think they've justified it to the level required in the circumstances. In a conservation area, they do have the right to control appearance, and if you can't convince them, you need to consider moving towards what they're asking. Is there a way to make it feel like you're giving them something while still retaining most of what you want? You say they're contradicting themselves, but I'm not so sure. Yes, they want new buildings to look like new buildings. That's the way of modern planning. That doesn't mean that they want every element to be completely different from the existing buildings. On the contrary, the usual approach is to stick to a similar form and introduce an interesting play with materials, or stick with existing materials and play with form. What you can't do is both, or do one to too great an extent. You're right that the line feels subjective, but unfortunately there isn't a perfectly objective way of judging this. I'd also say that your planning department seems to be engaging and working with you in a very positive way - it isn't always like this, as many people here will tell you from experience (Aside: when I went to our planning department to get some informal feedback on our plans, the senior planning officer's first comment was "Please don't show me something from Grand Designs. We can't stand Grand Designs around here. We've managed to only allow two Huf Houses and we fought both of them all the way to appeal". At the time, I had my hand in a bag to pull out an issue of Grand Designs magazine that had a picture of something along the lines of what we were thinking of applying for. I quickly put the bag down!). Incidentally, I know you're not looking for feedback on the design, but to me, all that dark zinc does feel a bit oppressive relative to the "lighter" feel of the surrounding houses, especially when a lot of the lighter areas of the cladding are obscured by hedging. Also, I agree with you on the additional materials point. That just sounds arbitrary. In particular, I don't like their suggestions for combining render with another form of wall cladding and then having a third material for the roof. I'd rather have more render on the walls and stick with just the two materials. I hope you don't mind this level of honest feedback.

Wireless of all forms has improved continuously over the years, but you can't beat properly installed physical wiring. Personally, I'd hard wire given the marginal additional cost and effort (possibly the more expensive wireless components would make up the difference anyway)

Strictly, I believe that cooling mode capability is acceptable, as long as it isn't enabled. Our unit, for example, is eligible for the RHI. It has a cooling mode, but it's disabled at the factory and needs to be enabled via service mode. It would be feasible to install the unit with the mode disabled, get the RHI, and then enable it. From memory, the instructions for enabling cooling mode were on a card in the instructions that came with the ASHP!

CCTV is looking at the outlet of his boiler!

The only thing I'll add is that I wouldn't ever email an ultimatum in such a situation. If you can make your next communication in person somehow, that would be ideal. Next best would be a phone call. Putting things in writing just seems to inflame things in my experience, especially in "difficult" situations, or where something doesn't seem/feel right.

Definitely include provision for heating in bathrooms. Not including this was one of the biggest errors we made during our build. We have a house with PH-level insulation and airtightness, but even when the air temperature is a consistent 21-22oC, it's still slightly cooler than desirable when you step out of the shower in the middle of winter. Tiles on the floor, in particular, tend to suck heat from your feet, giving the impression that the room is colder than is actually the case. Personally, I'd put UFH in the bathroom (low temperature) just to take the chill off the tiles in the morning, and wire for a radiator of some sort in case you find you need it. We're planning on retro-fitting some infrared panels to address this issue. It would have been a lot cheaper and more effective to include UFH when the house was being built.

No, we used a shower wastewater heat recovery unit like this (can't remember the actual brand - edited to add: think it was the Recoup Pipe+ HE), plumbed into the two showers we use the most. They offer a several percent increase in SAP rating, depending on size. I believe the unit you're looking at is intended to collect heat from all wastewater, not just from showers. I don't know what it costs compared to the shower-only version, but I seem to recall that I didn't like the prospect of the inside of the whole house version gumming up with all sorts of 'orrible stuff over time. I don't doubt the shower recovery version will look pretty skanky on the inside as well, but in theory it's cleanable. The other thing is that in our house, the main sources of hot water are showers, with the washing machine and dishwasher a distant second. Neither the washing machine nor the dishwasher are in positions that would have made connection to a whole house unit convenient. The shower unit just sits out of the way in the back of a cupboard in our utility room, which puts it midway between the two showers from which it drains. Edited to add: @Thedreamer, look here and at page 12 of this document for some info on getting the most out of SAP with this technology.

In theory, this shouldn't be a long term problem. Most likely, the flies that are in the ducts will be pushed out by the moving air (they're probably already all out). Unless they're actually getting by the filter, that should be the end of it.

I've no doubt you're right. Interesting that after 35 years of data and improving knowledge of how to build, we're still stuck with exactly the same figure, with no allowance for climate or house size. I think there's decent basis for starting again based on what's now known, and developing a more realistic standard that allows some flexibility based on, eg, location and climate, while not punishing smaller houses.

The only thing I lost from start to finish was an electric chainsaw (and to be fair, I can't remember when I last saw it - I may have lent it to someone), and a spare unbranded battery for my Makita stuff. By the time everyone left, we'd gained a small aluminium platform, a fluorescent worklight, a couple of cheap handsaws, and a hammer. Same for us. I think they're so cheap now that people treat them as disposable. I seem to recall seeing a basic Stanley saw for around a fiver - crazy stuff.

Waste water heat recovery is worth a few SAP points for not too much money.

Might be apocryphal, but I believe that the Passivhaus space heating standard (15kWh/M2/annum) was originally chosen based on the maximum amount of energy that could be delivered via duct heating without scorching dust. That's one of the reasons the PH standard annoys me - they've chosen this number based on an arbitrary decision to assume warm air heating via MVHR. The number could just as easily have been higher if they'd assumed, eg, underfloor heating.

Had to talk the missus out of these for our house. Do they meet regs?

Are you sure the filters are completely across the pipework (ie, so no flies can get past)?

Well he learned something that day, didn't he? Our SAP assessor was highly experienced, but had never seen a SAP number as high as ours. I suspect that's partly because he does a lot of work for developers!

I do think it's nice to have a three-digit number for your SAP score though

Agreed. I think it's nice to hit 100 (ours is 100 or 101 from memory), but I can't see the point in making much effort - or more importantly paying anything more - to go beyond that.

Don't be silly. You want the proper high octane leaded version.

They probably meant Greek yoghurt.