jack

Hi Mike, welcome to the forum. Thanks for not just plonking down your question in the Introduce Yourself forum. What sort of suggestions are you looking for? How to find a main contractor who'll work with the housebuilder you've likely chosen? If so, then "Project and Site Management" is probably the most appropriate subforum: https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/forum/105-project-site-management/ If you're looking for other suggestions, give us some more detail and we'll sort out the best subforum to post them in.

We considered this but never got around to implementing it. Would have been great for rinsing the dog down. Another thing to consider is a softened water tap if you wash your car a lot (not really a problem we face!) Also consider adding internal stopcocks for your exterior taps so you can turn them off and drain them down in winter. 100% this. Even running armoured cable to points within a garden where you might want a shed, lighting, etc in the future makes a lot of sense. Same with running undergound pipework if you need water a long way from your outside taps. It's so much easier to do when you have diggers onsite doing groundwork. Also consider running generously proportioned underground conduit if you have locations where you might want any form of wiring in the future. I wouldn't be without one. Forgot to put veggies on? Instant boiling water for peas or corn. Late getting the pasta going? Full pot of boiling water in 20 seconds. I think this is a good idea in theory, but we tend to do a lot of washing and drying overnight. I'm a really light sleeper, and with wooden floors upstairs and longish-span pozijoists, I was worried about noise. Jury's out about whether it was the right decision - my partner still thinks we should have found/made space for a washing machine and dryer upstairs.

To be fair, it sounds like you're using your loft as a plant room of sorts.

To be fair, I didn't expect that they'd be used a lot. I read a lot of the classic architecture book "A Pattern Language" before we engaged an architect. One of the tenets in the book is that balconies less than about 6 feet deep will seldom be used. I thought we'd use it now and again - open the door, stand there and enjoy the garden for a bit, that sort of thing. But it really hasn't worked out like that. Our late decision to include a bath in the ensuite is a similar failure. I think it's been used three or four times in nearly nine years. My wife chose it based on how it looks, but it's one of those egg-shaped things, so it's really uncomfortable unless it's full. I don't have the patience to wait that long! I agree that it isn't necessary to have everything in one room, but our plant room is dead in the middle of the house, so is positioned for the shortest (average) runs to everywhere. We actually have a lot of home automation stuff in a separate cupboard, and had I planned it better, I suspect it would have been better to put all the electrics in there. Whichever approach is preferred for the circumstances (or based on personal preference), my warning is really more about my massive failure to plan properly.

It's interested how many points are being repeated (and I experienced several of them). We don't have UFH in the bathrooms. I think this was probably the biggest mistake, at least in terms of being reminded about it every single morning in winter. We've retrofitted IR panels in the ceilings, but it isn't the same sort of heat. I reckon it cost us at least twice as much to do that as what it would have cost us to add UFH mats during the original build. I'd have thought a lot harder about windows. Examples: We have floor to ceiling windows on the two "free" sides of our kitchen diner. Great for views, but terrible for furniture placement. One window is a 5.5m long slider, which if I were doing it again would be replaced by a pair of central doors with windows either side (starting at least a metre off the floor). The downstairs toilet has a window that finishes just above cistern height. Although it opens out onto a space beside the house where no-one generally walks and can't be seen from next door, we do park out there, and it would really have made more sense to have a smaller, higher-set window in this position. The same applies to the bathrooms on the same (north-facing) elevation. Our bedroom window is way too big, and again, floor to ceiling. Some of the windows have opening panes that are too large. This means they swing an awfully long way into the room, making them borderline unusable in some places (can tilt them rather than open them, but sometimes you want to maximise airflow!) Some of the upstairs windows have large opening panes but also start only 500 or 600 mm off the floor. For safety, we should really have stays preventing them from opening, or some form of railing or glass panel. Doing this again, I'd have had a fixed pane on the bottom up to the building regs height, and split the window into equal opening panes (rather than one very large and one small). I would have used a cheaper window supplier. I didn't think hard enough about the kitchen diner layout. We do have space for a sofa but it isn't really a place to spend a lot of time in comfort. We have balconies off two of the bedrooms. They're never, ever used, and all they do is collect leaves and dust (and, we noticed yesterday, a dead bird from some time ago). I'd have left the overhangs (which are only a metre or so) but done away with the balconies. They also introduced cold bridges that we didn't discover until it was too late. I'd have spent less on windows and found the money for a partial basement. One thing we'd really get a lot of use from as a family would be a gym, which basements are great for. We currently have half of the garage taken up with gym gear. It's fine, but it's way too cold in winter, and I'd rather use the garage for other things. I'd have put external venetians on more of the windows. They're hugely effective - it's very noticeable during hot spells which rooms have them. I'd have gone for a larger plant room and, more importantly, thought a lot harder about the layout. We have a lot of awkward runs of electrical conduit and pipework that could have significantly been reduced if we'd thought harder about things up front. It looks horrible.

Welcome to BuildHub! You'll get better responses to your questions if you post them in the relevant sub-forums. A lot of members don't follow what goes on in the Introduce Yourself section. Keeping this section focused on intros only also ensures that useful information doesn't end up lost in here. Thanks.

Hi Wes, welcome to the forum. You'll get much better responses if you post your questions in the relevant sub-forums. Let me know if you want me to move this one to the solar PV forum. Alternatively, feel free to start a fresh topic over there if you'd prefer to leave this post here as a brief introduction.

@marno17, we try to keep the Introduce Yourself section to introductions only. I've moved this to the building regulations section, but you might do better starting separate questions in whatever you think is the best sub-forum for each. Thanks.

@Amateur bob, could you please post your questions in the relevant sub-forum rather than the Introduce Yourself section? Saves me having to move them, plus you get to choose the sub-forum rather than getting stuck with whatever I think is the most appropriate. I've moved this one - let me know if you want it moved somewhere else. Thanks.

That Top Gear episode where they took the piss out of the Chinese motor industry was only about 12 years ago. Utterly stunning how far they've come in that time.

That'd be an interesting tariff, for sure. My concern would be how they deal with the fact that solar generation makes a contribution to ASHP power consumption, especially during the shoulder months.

Thank you for posting in the relevant forums!

I'm glad to hear no-one was hurt! I personally wouldn't want sandstone this close to a fire. I lived in Australia when I was younger. There's lots of sandstone around, and I remember being told more than once not to use sandstone around campfires due to the potential for explosion. As @Alan Ambrose says, it's more likely to be moisture than air. Air won't expand aggressively enough to cause an explosion. What you've probably experienced is a small version of what happens in a pressurised hot water cylinder explosion. Water gets into a closed space (e.g., water enters space as vapour but condenses to liquid that can no longer get out the way the vapour got in edited: having thought further about this, I think it's more likely that water gets into spaces in the sandestone via capillary action.) Water heats up Water wants to boil, but if the vapour can't get out fast enough, pressure builds up Higher pressure means the boiling point rises Pressure and boiling point continue to rise in tandem Eventually, the pressure causes something to break Superheated water (i.e., above the boiling point at atmospheric pressure) hits the atmosphere and explosively boils, causing a steam explosion due to the rapid increase in volume

I can't remember what I said about them, but we haven't experienced any issues in the 9 years since they were installed. Zero drafts to speak of, but that's at least partly because they're all in remote parts of the bedrooms (all of our bedrooms have them).

Welcome to BuildHub!

And once cheap grid-scale batteries are available, they'll install those (no nimbys to slow them down), and their renewables will really come into their own.

Spoonerism alert 🧐 Welcome to the forum.

The same connection is used for both import and export. The inverter manages things automatically based on how much power your panels are producing and how much power your house is using. Perhaps there's a new meter needed?

Ha, I'll try not to read too much into that comment given the subject of the video 🤣

Mushroom, mushroom! (I hope that reference is still current!)

If you're able to leave and decide to go with Octopus, please consider using BuildHub's referral code to get the benefit of £100 split between you and the forum. Details are in the link in my signature. Good luck either way.

The sounds are from the unit itself and airflow within the system, particularly through any throttle points. I doubt putting an attenuator between the unit and the outside will have any impact on the noise at the internal inlets/outlets. These are the standard approach with Ubbink (Brink) manifolds. The designer told us the right number of rings to pop out and everything was close enough that we needed only slight adjustments on the room vents in a couple of places to get everything balanced. I don't know whether there's a way of estimating the number of rings to pop out for other systems.

Welcome to BuildHub. Sounds like an unpleasant position to be in. First thing I'd do is provide some more information. I don't know much about them, but at a guess, that would include: a plan of the site (locations of house, digester, outlet, and connections between them) any information you have about levels (particularly where the unit is supposed to drain) any photos you think might be useful Lots of people on here have experience installing/maintaining these units and I'm sure some of them will be able to help you get this sorted as cheaply as possible once they have the info they need.

Great to hear you've done the boring but effective stuff first. When it comes to window installation (3G or otherwise) you really want to make sure the installers know what they're doing. There are ample horror stories on BuildHub (+ Grand Designs etc) about installers cocking things up. I had plenty of issues - the window installation is one of the two biggest cock-ups I had on our build. If possible, consider having have the supplier arrange the installation, even if it's a bit more expensive. What you don't want is something happening and the supplier blaming the installer and vice versa. If one party is doing both, you completely skip that argument if something goes wrong. I'm sure you're on it, but anything you can do to improve insulation around the frame will help. If the gaps are big, that might include putting in some rigid or rockwool insulation to completely fill the gap before sealing inside and out. You can also use compriband or similar products to provide the outermost seal. The only other thing that jumps to mind is to think about how your windows are mounted. Our installer used galvanised straps, but bent them in such a way that it made plasterboarding very difficult. Good luck.

And the amazing thing is that, despite those numbers, @Pocster is known more for quality than quantity.