jack

We needed our land re-drawn anyway, as the current land title isn't accurate. We therefore had both blocks surveyed and the new boundary drawn by the surveyor. If you're just drawing a line, I suppose you could do it on a copy of the current plans with some measurements to a permanent feature of some sort. Not sure, sorry!

We went via a solicitor in the end. It took a few weeks to be recorded but seems to have gone through well enough. I suppose the issue you face here is that there isn't yet a different owner yet, but I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect them to record the split based on the fact that there's a separate dwelling involved (and one on which an offer has been accepted).

Maybe, but MVHR is a different proposition. The lowest level of extraction should be more than enough to dry out the ducts between steamy situations (oo er missus).

I know, we have one built just like that! I was more thinking of the ceiling void where, as you say, the membrane is accessible. I suppose the difficulty is getting the duct up there in the first place. Do you have space to make one wall a little thicker and use it to run all the vertical ducts to somewhere from which they can head in the required directions along the ceiling membrane? Incidentally, it's worth checking the rear depth of the outlets you plan to use. At best you'll need the duct diameter plus a bit more, but worth checking.

Could you run the duct on the inside of the airtightness membrane? You'd need to check routes, and whether it would be better to install the ducts before or after the membrane is installed, but it would certainly remove any airtightness issues.

Bear in mind that bathroom extractors don't have air being continuously extracted through them 24/7. 90+% of that time the air is not damp, so there's plenty of opportunity for any condensation to dry out.

Famous last words perhaps, but ours are old enough not to do anything like this. I don't they know that the vents are easily removed!

Does your supplier offer floor vents? We used these in the bedrooms, because we had similar access issues and didn't want to give up space just for MVHR duct risers. Not ideal from an air mixing point of view, I know, but we've been in a year and they seem to work fine. You install a unit like this (which can be cut down as required) then drop a vent on the top. We were able to put one in the preferred corner location in each bedroom. Probably saved about 10m of ducting, too.

Thanks Jeremy. As it happens, I just had a look and notice that there's a Safety Data Sheet linked from the Wickes site. Apparently it's 5-10% HCl (so perhaps around the 9% HCl I saw somewhere on a similar product), so as you say, dilute acid only.

Great stuff Joe, must be very satisfying to see after all you've been through!

I'm not talking about adding detergents as a separate product, I'm concerned that some of these "brick cleaner" type products (as distinct from plain acid) will include detergents in them. But short of going to somewhere that sells this stuff and checking the ingredients list, I don't know whether they do. Might just need to bite the bullet and drive to somewhere that sells it. This is one of my major concerns, as there's polished concrete flooring along all the walls that need washing. Shouldn't be too hard to protect. Interesting looking stuff, thanks.

The problem is that builders won't want to spend time sorting waste like you did as a self-builder.

I think some people don't realise that the studies are about a lot more than just falling asleep. The key findings relate to depth and quality of sleep, iirc. Having trouble falling asleep is something that's obvious to the person with the problem, but a night of poor quality sleep may be far less apparent. I'm convinced that my wife can have this problem at times, because she falls asleep very quickly every night, but sometimes is very tired after 9+ hours' sleep. Re: sleep and phones, for a time we had ours in our bedroom, because we used them as alarm clocks after my wife chucked out our alarm clock radio when we moved. Cue last minute checks of social media before going to sleep, and bleary-eyed first-thing checks. We've put them downstairs again now and it's definitely an improvement. Phones more generally are one of the biggest problems of the modern world, imo. I got off Facebook two months ago because I realised how much time it was taking up. Amazing what a positive difference it made in my life. I now need to cut down on online news sites and time spent on the UK's premier self-build forum (ahem).

While I tend to sleep lightly (the kids' feet on the carpet in the hall wakes me up if they get out of bed) and briefly wake up every time I turn over, I've never really had trouble sleeping until we did a self build. At times when things were going wrong, if I chanced to start thinking about it during my turn-over wake-up, I could be awake for a couple of hours in panic mode. I eventually trained myself to just think blank thoughts when I woke up. Worked reasonably well. One thing about self-building is that you need to deal with issues and problems face to face with people. If, like me, you dislike confrontation and telling people how you want things done, the process can be incredibly stressful. It's worse if, again like me, you have trouble letting things go. I can analyse and worry about a stressful interaction for months if left to my own devices! One thing is to cut out all caffeine after the middle of the day, and to limit the number of caffeinated drinks you have in general. Personally, I have two coffees before midday, and that's it. I know I'm more caffeine sensitive than most but there are a lot of studies showing links between caffeine consumption, poor sleep, stress and anxiety.

Thanks all. Yes, that's the sort of stuff I was trying to compare to ordinary muriatic acid. They seem to be a bit coy on the websites about HCl concentration, but I did see one product that was around 9% HCl, so about a quarter the concentration of muriatic. I'm not sure what else is in it though. My main concern about using something like this is the potential for residues given that I can't exactly hose down as I go, hence my reference to: whether or not to get something with detergents (rather than plain old brick acid) or thickening agents Maybe these products are just watered down acid, in which case it's really cheeky charging more than the price of muriatic for the same size container at a quarter the concentration! But if they do have detergents in them, then it might be better getting plain muriatic and watering it down. They look perfect for the job, thanks for the tip! Oh no! Photos?

Hi all We're starting to work our way through the outstanding to-do list. A few of these tasks have been put off because they're awkward or we're not sure how to approach them for one reason or another. I'm going to try and start posting questions about these so that I have one fewer excuse to not do them! So this one relates to cleaning brickwork. We have a couple of internal feature walls that are covered in stafford blue brick slips. They mirror the part of the house outside that has the same. We went for a light grey coloured mortar, but we learned from the outside clean-up that the colour doesn't survive acid-washing, so it's gone back to a more natural colour (which, as at happens, we prefer anyway). We now want to clean the inside slips. Here's what we have: My question is how best to clean this off given that we're inside. I can use an acid- based cleaner, of course, but does anyone have any tips on things like: whether or not to get something with detergents (rather than plain old brick acid) or thickening agents what sort of dilution, if any, we should be looking at what precautions we should take, other than the usual eye protection, decent gloves and old clothing to what extent should I be worried about fumes - what sort of mask should I consider, and should I be concerned about leaving things like furniture in the room? how much rinsing should I aim for? We're working inside so obviously we can't just blast it with a hose! Assuming I can get it properly clean, is it strictly necessary to rinse it? HCl is a gas, so perhaps it'll just disperse on its own given time... Depending on the answers to these questions, I was considering chipping away at lunchtime each day and properly cleaning a section at a time, working from the top. That would give time for it to disperse each day before starting again the following day. Any reason not to take this approach? If you can think of anything else I should be considering, fire away! Many thanks, as always

I did consider Nibe. I think I spoke to someone at ecobuild or something and they seemed very technically switched on. Their interface was head and shoulders (and several other body parts) above the Panasonic too. I just couldn't justify the additional cost (it came at a time when we were really feeling hammered on outgoings)

Found the spreadsheet. It was a Nibe 8kW unit (Nibe is a very respected Swedish manufacturer). Note that these are a bit deceptive, as the x-axis isn't a monotonic value. It gives you some idea though. The other thing to keep in mind is that I believe these figures assume dry conditions. In damp, cold conditions, it's perfectly possible that the the design and/or control of the Nibe will result in relatively better performance. I don't know enough to say what could influence that: a larger heat exchanger, for example? Either way, both units will perform a lot worse in real world conditions when it's damp and around low single digit temps. Still interesting, I thought. Interesting that the "8kW" Nibe doesn't appear to actually deliver much more than 6kW at any point across these parameters.

What brand of ASHP do you have? If it's a Panasonic I'm happy to share what tech details I've managed to find (not much, admittedly!)

I don't think there's much experience in the UK of linking the MVHR system with an ASHP or UFH. The only real connection between them would be if you were using the ASHP to provide heat for delivery by the MVHR. I suppose you could also want to synchronise any MVHR heat supply with the UFH heating supply (maybe you do or don't want them both on at once, for example), although there's no reason they couldn't be programmed independently to work with each other in this way.

As requested, I've moved this from the other thread. Not sure how helpful it is here, but someone might find it useful: I've left out inline valves, filling loops, cold feed and hot supply from the tank, etc. The tank is a 250L UVC with 100mm spray insulation. We also have an Immersun unit (not shown) driven by PV when available. I need to go back and check my notes but from memory: - The ASHP is controlled by the standard dumb/annoying controller that comes with it. For DHW I've programmed it to come on between 4 and 6 every morning and heat the tank to 55 deg. I haven't in the past noticed too much defrosting, but it could well be happening all the time in cold weather. I don't have any desire to be out in the freezing cold before 6 am to check! I've been meaning to put a temperature sensor on the supply pipe from the ASHP and seeing how its temperature changes between 4 and 6 in the morning - might do that this weekend if I have some time. [Edited: have just moved on of my 1-wire sensors onto the ASHP return. Will report back on what happens tomorrow morning] - The immersions are connected to, and driven by, the Immersun. It's on a timer to give a one hour boost to the top immersion in the mornings once the ASHP has finished its work. I need to get around to changing that boost time until later in the day (more chance of there being PV available, plus slightly lower losses due to not having hot water sitting in the tank all day). As to performance, with this arrangement, we almost never run out of DHW. This week is the first time time we've actually come close - I had a shower at around 9 after coming home from the gym and the water was definitely getting tepid. I think we had about 6 showers yesterday between us. A couple of days before we had a similar situation so we hit the immersion for an hour before my wife had a shower. Re: heating, I was running the ASHP with weather compensation until recently: flow temp of 25 deg (minimum possible) for temps above 8 deg and a flow temp of 29 deg for temps below 0 deg, with a linear range between those two. This gave temperature overshoots in very cold weather. It's surprising how hot the house feels when the floor temp is at 23.5-24 deg compared to 22 deg! My wife loved it but I really didn't like it. I turned weather compensation off recently and the slab temp has slowly been falling with this long run of cold weather (regularly below zero for 10-15 hours). Based on this, I think a reduced upper flow temp (say, 27 deg) and a lower ambient temp for the weather compensation to kick in (say, 5 deg) might work. Needs some time allocated for mucking about with it, basically! My main annoyance is the lack of ability to integrate control of the ASHP and Immersun. My home automation system is smart enough to do this, but as is so common, both the ASHP and Immersun don't make it easy to control them externally. There is a bolt-on modbus module for the ASHP, but it's an insane several hundred quid for a plastic box with what I assume is a cheap microcontroller in it. I'd then need a £200 modbus extension for my home automation system. It's very hard to find any information about what the interface would actually give me in terms of data and control. I don't think there's an easy way of interfacing the Immersun with a home automation system. In the future I plan to look into controlling the immersions with the home automation system and having the Immersun run in parallel. Integrated control isn't really a priority, if I'm honest. I just want it to be plug and play as far as possible, with an easy interface to manually boost via the immersion(s) if needed. Once I get the weather compensation right, I think it'll be good enough for the time being.

For reference, our 5kW Panasonic Aquarea was £1760 (ex-VAT), using my electrician's discount at the local Senate/Rexel outlet. That included the basic programmer, and (from memory) delivery. Interestingly, the price is identical today, 18 months later! The basic programmer is a bit of a faff, but the unit itself is a corker in terms of COP and low temperature performance. I made some graphs for our plumber to show that in most weather conditions it wasn't far off the power delivery of a 7kW (or was it 8kW?) unit from one of the more common ASHP suppliers in the UK (might have been Ecodan).

Oh no! Was there a terrible accident?

I've repeatedly put it to visitors that the thing about building your own home isn't that you don't have to compromise, but that you get to choose both where and how much to compromise. For example, I'd have dearly loved a proper home cinema/music room, but it just didn't make sense in the context of the rest of the house or the budget, so the idea was jettisoned pretty early. Compromise, yes, but our compromise!

All correct, except the Loxone stuff (dimmers, relays, controller) is all in another cabinet... which is even bigger than this one!