jack

Man, I feel for you. We had an UFH pipe nicked (honest mistake) in a much more accessible place and even that caused a lot angst.

Worse, a wooden floor is going over the top.

My recollection is that the consultation date is the latest date by which you can submit comments and guarantee that they will be heard, but there's nothing to stop comments being considered after that date. I think you or a trusted friend being there to take notes would be highly desirable.

I've heard from more than one source that testing them (or having them open due to an over-pressure/temperature event) is the quickest way to cause them to fail.

I've had this problem repeatedly over the last 8 years. First time I noticed it, it was exactly as Dave said (expansion vessel bladder failed). Replaced the expansion vessel, but it still leaked when the immersion diverter was on for any length of time (albeit not as badly). Had a G3 service, and one of the temp/pressure safety valves was found to be leaking. That was replaced, but I still have the issue, and I notice it's gotten worse again recently. No help to you of course, but in answer to your question, yes, they can fail!

Thanks for the photos. Is your stone base MOT1 or similar? I've more commonly seen large no-fines stone specced - something like railway ballast.

Fair enough. I rarely change titles, but someone searching for information about inverters ought to be able to find this thread!

I'd at least run the cabling for three phase. It's orders of magnitude more work to go back and add it later.

Welcome!

It might depend on what "making people abundantly aware" involved, but I think it could well be their fault: That said, if I learned anything during our build, it's that virtually no-one ever listened to anything we said. In my experience, unless you were stood there looking over their shoulders, most trades just did things however they fancied, irrespective of what was agreed beforehand.

Unfortunately it won't be that easy:

I didn't say above, but I have a 250 L tank and I think it's too small. If all four of us have a shower in the morning or evening, there's a chance we might run out of water (especially if number two child isn't physically dragged out of the shower in time). We also have waste water heat recovery, which probably helps a bit, so if you don't have that it could be even worse. Also, we have a PV immersion diverter. The larger your tank, the more free heat you can store. On sunny days in summer and some of the shoulder months, with a big tank you can probably store a couple of days' of heat from just one sunny day. I'd probably be looking at 400 L if I were doing this again.

If I were doing it again, I'd consider a larger DHW tank and a decent sized buffer for the UFH to allow more heat to be stored during the cheap overnight period. That would also enable a larger ASHP to be used, as it wouldn't need to modulate down so much.

If you're using an ASHP, I'd go larger than the recommendations suggest. A larger volume allows you to heat more water to a lower temperature, giving you the same useful output but allowing a higher COP.

Speculating, but: As a gas, water is just a bunch of free H2O molecules flying around. If they find a hole big enough, they'll work their way through. In contrast, the molecules in liquid water are attracted to each other due to their polar nature. The negative side of each molecule is attracted to the positive side of adjacent molcules. Surface tension is an example of this - the attraction causes water to form droplets rather than spread out in a molecule-thin sheet over a surface. That attraction causes liquid water to clump together in a way that impedes its ability to traverse pores that are big enough to allow individual water molecules to pass through.

All of the temperature sensors were already installed, and I had spare relays, so there was literally zero hardware cost to implement it in Loxone. Feel free to query the need for home automation, but why would I add the cost of a separate thermostat that's guaranteed to be at most (but almost certainly not) as functional?

I use it in place of a thermostat. It allows me to do things like enabling limited overheating during the cheap Octopus window, forcing heating when upstairs gets too cold. It does add complication, and arguably we could just accept the limitations of a fixed thermostat, but it seems a shame to have the capability and not use it.

There are quite a few of us. Use the search function to find out more if of interest.

Discussed here. Locking this thread so we keep everything in one place.

We're 290 m2 and our 5 kW Panasonic has been fine for 8 years. It does run a lot of the time when it's very cold, but no issues heating DHW as as needed.

Ours are the same. It only happens when the blinds are in the fully closed position, and I've only noticed it on the side of the house that faces the prevailing wind.

We went motorised. A lot of the benefit of these is having them programmed to go up and down (or at least tilt between open and closed) depending on the time of day and the season. For example, some east-facing blinds are programmed to retract completely first thing in the morning during the cooler months, to maximise light, then to close at dusk. Those same blinds stay down and tilted only slightly open during the day in summer, to help keep the heat out. As well as airtightness, you also need to think about having a thermal bridge. If the axle is metal, it's going to be a good conductor of heat. Even a small amount of air getting into whatever space it passed through will cause condensation. Personally I wouldn't do it.

Almost identical size and shape to what we had done with 600 x 300 slabs a few years back. I'm sure it took two of them well under two weeks, including digging out and laying a sub-base.

We have external venetians on several windows, including some large first floor windows that face directly into the prevailing wind. In over eight years, we've never had any issues with very strong winds, other than rattling (which can be a bit annoying if you're a light sleeper). I used to raise them in very bad weather, but once they'd got through a few bad days when I forgot or wasn't around, I stopped worrying about it.

I've done so a couple of times. It takes longer for them to reply than they suggested would be the case, but otherwise no issues. I had exactly the same situation a couple of years back. I was genuinely surprised they let the number get so high. Additional plug: if anyone's thinking of moving to Octopus, you can help fund BuildHub and earn £50 for yourself: