jack

I should add, the sinus problems that have plagued me through much of my adult life have largely gone away since moving into a house with MVHR.

I've lived in a house with MVHR for over a year now and would never be without it. In your case, I'd be slightly concerned about how late the decision to add it is being made. Do you have a location in mind for the unit and associated manifolds? Is there space for you to run ducting to all the required inlets and outlets (as a minimum, usually at least one extract in each bathroom, the kitchen, and utility room, and one supply in each bedroom and reception room)? Where would your main inlet and outlet (through the roof or an external wall) go? These are non-trivial questions, but need to be given a fair bit of thought given the point you're at now.

These things work, I believe, by running a match filter on a code output by the laser, and adjusting a time offset until the match filter confirms it's locked. The distance is worked out from the time offset (=the round trip delay) needed to get the match. The high viz won't affect the round trip delay.

As a guide to longevity, Panasonic in the past has offered a 7 year warranty on ASHPs installed by certified Panasonic installers. Not many appliances give you that sort of warranty, and I think it gives some idea of what they expect from their kit in terms of longevity. ASHPs are basically large fridges. There aren't that many moving parts, and they've been around so long that the engineering is generally pretty robust. We went for an ASHP, but that was largely driven by the lack of gas connection and our speculation that we'd need to cool the slab in summer. That didn't really turn out to be the case in the end, as we just don't have that much solar gain. Do consider UFH pipework in the slab though. Running it for a least a few hours a day (especially when sunny) helps distribute heat evening around the slab. I suspect our kitchen would be intolerably hot at times of the year without this.

Size queen.

Yes. Someone with some sort of clue will be able to tell you how low on the tank you should consider fitting it. The Willis-type arrangement would likely be less of a faff.

Might also be a job for a Willis heater. Bit of pipework involved, but a lot cheaper and easier than replacing the cylinder.

Can't you just retrofit an Essex flange to the existing tank?

That sounds barking to me.

I doubt you'd get by on a non-material amendment, but could you apply for a minor material amendment?

Yes, that's the one. There are smaller through-wall units like this one. I'm sure I've seen counterflow exchangers that are more like conventional through-wall extractor fans, but I can't seem to find one right now. Efficiency is low, but they're cheap, and easy to get rid of if and when you ultimately link the buildings and start using the MVHR in the currently separate room.

Do you absolutely need to connect it to the main MVHR unit? Having long U-shaped ducts seems to be begging for problems. I know you'll be insulating them, but I can't help but think of that Belgian (I think) house that was condemned due to infected earth pre-heat tubes following moisture build-up. At the least, you'll need to consider some sort of sump and drain arrangement (again, I think). My personal preference would be to find a way to ventilate it separately. Is it small enough that one of those in-wall counterflow units would work? Or the Viking House fine wire unit?

So not on the "sod it, the bathroom thread is only a million pages long so what's another delay" basis then?

Have a good time. That sounds like my idea of heaven - my wife might even stop looking at her bloody phone!

Good spot, thanks. I've corrected it. My main point was that it isn't a graph of power.

Bit late to this, but I was away on hols last week. 9 April was our best day since late August last year: (Note: the graph shows Wh per 15 min interval. So, for example, between 12 and 1pm we averaged about 5.6kW) Generation started at 6:30 in the morning and was still going after 7:15 that night. The flattening out between 8 and 9:30 is due to shading from trees beside the house.

I don't doubt that's right. The thing in your favour (as i guess you know with your background) is that unlike the rest of us, solicitors have externally imposed standards they must meet. They can be low cost, and maybe even refuse to talk on the phone, but they do have to be responsive, and they have to keep their client's interests in mind when acting. The delays you're talking about seem to fall foul of both those requirements. Possibly worth starting to keep notes about when you call, who you speak to, and what they say.

I agree with you, this sounds very odd! Was this arrangement made clear in your original engagement documents? Even if it was, I'd expect particularly timely replies to all written correspondence if they won't let you speak to anyone. There's some useful guidance in the SRA Handbook. If you think she's lying to you, ask her for copies of the correspondence she says she's had. Given what's happened so far, I'd be having a word to the SRA or the ombudsman. If you haven't gone through your firm's formal complaints procedure, you can't get the SRA formally involved yet, but they should be able to give guidance on what they consider acceptable behaviour.

Agree completely, she did a stunning job. In fact, we stole a couple aesthetic ideas from her (didn't do as a good a job though ) On time and under budget as well (her's, not ours!)

We have an MBC slab with a ~65mm polished concrete overlay. I too tend to walk around barefoot all year round and find it perfectly pleasant. My wife prefers warmer feet so tends to wear socks except when it's really warm, but she'd do that with any floor covering other than carpet I'd say! Some will remember that we had an accidental puncturing of the UFH heating circuit in our study. I've just gone through the entire winter with that UFH circuit turned off. I wasn't able to measure the floor temperature, unfortunately, but it was markedly colder than that of the rest of the house, especially by Jan/Feb. Even so, as long as I had any form of shoes or socks on, it was fine, and the room itself never felt hugely colder than the rest of the house despite the absence of any heating whatsoever. @divorcingjack, if you're planning to polish an MBC slab, have you been following @MikeSharp01's threads about this? His latest one is here.

I wondered for a moment what forum I'd logged onto!

How did you get Bono to get off his arse and do some work?

One thing to consider is that concrete is very sensitive to mixing and components. We had terrible spalling on the surface of our slab. While the weather (unexpected frost and rain squalls during and after the pour) didn't help, I'm convinced that the onsite mixer lorries didn't help. At various points, the MBC guys were shouting out for less water in the mix. If I were doing it again, I'd insist on premixed concrete rather than the onsite mix, even if it were more expensive. This would doubly be true if I were relying on the final surface being perfect. You should also look into what admixtures might be used to improve curing, reduce cracking, increase hardness, etc. I know there's a lot of thought goes into these where a polished concrete floor is being laid, so there's a chance similar considerations might apply where you're relying on the finished slab surface. I'd talk to a concrete polishing company and see what they think (PM me if you want to know who we used).

Throw in Gibraltar and it's a deal!

@Nickfromwales, in answer to your question on the other thread, we haven't had problems anywhere else. Maybe 5-10 spots over the whole house where screwheads have popped the overlying skim. There are some fine cracks in the odd corner, and a more significant one where one section of ceiling skim joins another due to it not being possible to skim the whole ceiling in one go (long story - the guy doing the skimming was different to the ones who did the boarding - for the most part he did an excellent job). Certainly no bowing or significant cracking that I can see. That said, the internal walls are either double boarded with 12.5mm plasterboard, or have a single layer of 12.5mm Fermacell where we expected things might need to be hung (eg, TV), so not the same as the bathrooms.