jack

Now you have me worried. I have a new 4-stroke mower and am mowing some very steeply angled sections of lawn (alternating directions each run!). I was a little worried about seizing, but I do tend to worry too much generally, so had convinced myself it's probably fine. I know it's a bit of a "how long's a piece of string" question, but anyone care to hazard a guess at what sort of angles and for how long could cause oil starvation and hence seizing? Will pausing for a few moments on the flat at the end of each run help? I assume making sure it's topped up with oil at all times should help...

I installed a Loxone system with the help of my electrician (an ex-Nokia electronics engineer), and that was probably of similar complexity to KNX. Loxone is arguably a little simpler to install and program than a full KNX system. We managed, but I think I'd have struggled by myself (my education includes an electronics degree, but that's quite a while ago!) Realistically, I think you'll struggle to handle the level of automation you plan without professional help given your lack of technical background. From what I understand about KNX, it'll also be very expensive to get all the gear to do what you want to do (it may not even be possible). On the MVHR/ASHP, check what sort of interface the manufacturers supply. Annoyingly, many of them run proprietary Modbus-type protocols that require you to buy their controllers (which in turn aren't that easy to integrate with a home automation system). Often you can access basic functionality with volt-free contacts - I plan to control my MVHR fan speed using this option. Have a look at Loxone as well. I've been pretty happy with them, although the way they do one or things can make the installation seem expensive (your choice of not including dimming will have a big impact - dimming via Loxone is expensive!) As with all home automation, you're placing yourself at the whim of the manufacturer unless you use an open-source model like Openhab (and they tend to be more complicated and often a lot uglier and less user-friendly to program and use). I'm far from being an expect, but please feel free to contact me offline if you want a chat.

Great stuff. I remember the feeling very well! The build will bring its own stresses, so definitely take a moment to celebrate now!

This makes sense to me. It's worst in areas that will have stayed wet the longest (and we've had some long wet periods since the cladding was installed, for sure!) I'm hoping that things might improve over summer, but will ask the supplier for more info anyway. There might be something that can be painted on to kill mould/fungus (if that's what it is) or to bleach it slightly. Edited to add: from doing a quick bit of research, it appears that initial discolouration is quite common and should fade over time. I'll still check with the supplier though...

I seem to recall that our MVHR was shipped from the warehouse of our supplier's competitor!

We bought a fair bit of Siberian larch from Russwood about 6-9 months ago. I can't remember exactly how much we got, but it was enough to cover a 3.5m high area that extends around three quarters of our 290m2 house. I also can't remember the price (not much help, am I?!), although I do recall there was very little movement on the initial quote. The quality of the wood was excellent - so much better (denser, fewer knots) than the Scottish stuff we got a sample of from another supplier. The one thing I will say is that some of the wood has darkened considerably since it was installed. It almost looks like a surface mould. I've been meaning to get back to them for weeks for advice about whether this is normal, and if not, what we can do about it.

Yes, that's the one. It goes under the ringbeam from the insulation side then up between the upstand and the slab, then over the upstand and down the outside. I was considering at least waterproofing the top surface of the slab, but hadn't thought about liquid DPM (I have half a largish tin of that lying around somewhere actually). Makes sense, thanks.

Nearly all the big ticket items I bought were bought 9-18 mths ago.

Yes, that makes sense. With all of these ideas, I'm concerned about what to do with the DPM. I can lift it up and cut away the EPS without damaging it, but still need to make sure that I manage water at the DPM/slab junction. That's the hardest part of all this!

I was more concerned about managing the DPM than introducing a cold bridge. This is definitely something I need to think about though.

Is there a local (ie, UK or UK+Ireland) distributor involved? I got the distinct impression with at least some high-cost items that there was an extra layer of distribution to the UK. So our rooflight, for example, had to come via a trade outlet ( I think Travis Perkins, of all places, did the best price), but we figured out exactly what we needed to order by talking to the UK distributor. If I'd sourced the rooflight direct from Poland, the seller would have sourced the product direct from the factory rather than via an intermediate distributor. I might be wrong, but I got the feeling it was the same with our MVHR.

If it's a cold loft, then your ducting will need significant insulation, which I suspect will be a tedious process unless you can get pre-insulated ducting

Morning. Work begins on our driveway and front garden today. As usual, I've forgotten to discuss a critical aspect of this with the guy in charge of the work, and he isn't available at the moment. So the problem is this: I have an attached garage. It sits on an insulated raft, like the rest of the house. This is a section (sorry it's blurry): There are three issues: 1. Because I wasn't here when it was measured up for and later installed, the door frame has been installed flush with the surface of the slab. There's no slope off the concrete, and quite a large area of slab sticking out under the garage door. As a result, when we get heavy or driving rain, it tends to get under the door and into the garage. 2. I need a way of allowing a car to traverse the EPS upstand. 3. We'll have gravel outside the garage, and will need have some sort of ramp up to the garage level. We can only bring the gravel up to within about 100mm of the slab level. Here's a photo of one side: I was thinking about building a reinforced strip of foundation across the front of the garage, incorporating a ramp ending up level with the slab. I could then bridge the gap with galvanised checker plate with a slight upward lip on the garage side to go up under the seal of the garage door. I might be able to work in a slight fall off the check plate by scrabbling a bit off the concrete that's outside the door, and lifting the DPM and cutting back the EPS a bit - not sure. Anyone have any feedback (or better ideas)? Many thanks

A very similar situation to what's led to me needing to do a repair. Our electrician, by far the most conscientious and eco-knowledgeable guy on site, accidentally nicked a UFH pipe when put under pressure to install piece of protective steel immediately prior to our polished concrete being laid. Poor guy was mortified, but as you say, these things happen. I plan to use two 16 x 16 connectors with a loop of UFH pipe in the middle (no room for a straight section) so that both joints have perfectly aligned incoming pipes on both sides.

I've got two 16mm repair couplings (like this) lying around - somewhere! - if you need to get hold of one quickly. I need them to repair my UFH leak but that isn't going to happen for a while due to general busy-ness. That said, the scratch doesn't seem too bad to me. You might also ask yourself whether a coupling is more or less likely to fail than a scratched pipe. Also, it doesn't sound like there's a way to keep this portion of the pipe accessible for inspection and maintenance in the future, but at the very least you should record its position so you can get to it quickly in the event it eventually leaks.

I can't remember, sorry. It was the largest Recoup HE+, I think, but I don't believe the installation cost was broken out in the plumber's invoice.

They're expressly designed for use with showers, where you have a constant drain at the same time you're using cold water. We hardly ever use baths anyway! And yes, leaving baths to cool down is a useful way of gaining back most of the heat in winter (possibly quite a good fit with MVHR!)

Look at the retrofit+ and various "drain" options here: http://www.recoupenergysolutions.co.uk/products

We have one of these installed, connected to the drains of our two most frequently used showers. I was slightly concerned that our thermostatic valves (Mike Pro by Crosswater) might have trouble coping with warm water being fed to the cold side, especially as the feed temperature changes over the first couple of minutes, but it's been perfectly fine. There are two main types: one with three or four parallel copper pipes spiralling down the outside of a central copper pipe, and another with two concentric pipes such that the incoming cold water passes through the space between them. You also need to look into connection types. You can send the pre-heated water to just the shower(s), or tee off after the unit and send the pre-heated water to both the shower(s) and the cold feed to your DHW system. There are apparently some efficiency gains to be had with the latter system. These devices are in SAP and I understand some developers throw them in where they need easy SAP points (well, that's what the suppliers suggest!) There are question marks over payback, but with four very active people in our house, we seem to take a lot of showers, often in quick succession (the best scenario for heat recovery). We only have a 250L tank, so my thinking is that we probably get a bit more effective hot water than we would without the recovery unit. We probably don't save that much money, each year, but I see no reason why the unit shouldn't have a long life, so it'll keep contributing a little bit for many years to come.

I was told that part of the reason toughened glass is expensive is that the process for making it isn't perfect, and some pieces of glass don't survive it!

This is an interesting comparison to my situation Jeremy. Same construction method by the same builder. Our house doesn't have the southerly gain that yours has, and the land rises steeply to the east so there's some shelter from the very early morning potential solar gain. I run the floor pump constantly during the daylight hours to keep the slab temp evened out. By late morning today it was just starting to get a little too warm in the kitchen, which is at the south east end of the house so had been receiving a lot of direct sun. By the time the sun went past noon, the temperature had stabilised and has since stayed perfectly comfortable all day now. At this rate I suspect it'll take at least a couple more warm sunny days for the slab to heat up enough that the house becomes uncomfortable. The ASHP hasn't yet been set up to cool, but I'll need to take a look at that in the near future. (As an aside, the ASHP hasn't actually come on at all for at least a couple of weeks - the PV means the tank remains too hot overnight for the ASHP to come on during its usual DHW runtime between 4 and 6 am, and I turned off the slab heating once it was clear it wouldn't be needed any more.) We have the opposite issue to you - we appear to need a lot more active heating during the winter, and over a longer season. This just goes to show how critical position, orientation and size of windows is to how these houses perform.

They like the dog more than the cats. Personally I'd be happy to see the back of the dog too, but it seems that's a bridge too far.

Amazing how one trade suddenly closing off an avenue focuses the mind! It'll break your heart (and wallet) breaking up those tiles if it turns out to be uncomfortably chilly down there. If you can afford it, I'd say do it.

I've been meaning to write about this for a while, but my experience with an MBC house isn't quite the same as Jeremy's. I know Jeremy's house is in a bit of a micro-climate that encourages overheating. I think a lot of it is to do with our general lack of solar gain, but we've never, ever had an overheating problem (and I haven't yet commissioned the cooling option on our ASHP). The ASHP is also on pretty regularly at a low level when it's very cold. Based on that, I'd just be cautious about assuming that overheating is a given, and that heating inputs will rarely be required. It's similar to the question about bathroom heating - despite a lot of people getting away without it, I was surprised how cool our bathrooms felt, and now wish we'd installed some form of low temp UFH in them. We'll definitely be retrofitting some form of heating (possibly IR-based) to the bathrooms before next winter.

I have a dog that fulfills that role.