jack

One thing that annoys me a bit about aluminium cills is that they're noisy when it rains. Big drops fall off the head of the window onto the cill. They're more annoying than the general sound of rain because they're a lot louder, and they're intermittent.

I have a 5kW Panasonic Aquarea that's about 6 years old. You can't hear it when it's doing UFH. There's a slight noise when it's doing DHW, but it's still pretty quiet. To minimise noise, it's important that you mount it properly (ground mounting much better than wall mounting for noise) and connect it with flexible connectors to avoid vibration transmission to the house.

Hmm, can't find it at the moment. Pretty sure it was a video about Mike Whitfield building something designed by Janet Cotterell (who co-wrote "The Passivhaus Handbook"). Saw it around 2014 or 2015, but it might have been a year or two older than that. He showed how he built up a passive raft using just sheets of EPS. It was something like these: https://tdscustomconstruction.com/blog/passive-house/the-foundation-system/ https://terrahaus.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/frost-protected-shallow-foundations/

While you wait for @Bitpipe to reply, one thing to keep in mind about ICF basements is that you can't inspect the concrete to ensure it's continuous and void free. Not such a big deal when it's above ground and covered in cladding, but potentially an issue if it's underground and potentially in long-term contact with water.

I remember reading about a builder who did this years ago. Let me see if I can find the site.

It may be to do with power limiting. We have a Siemens hob and one pair of adjacent rings (the two smallest) has some sort of power-sharing arrangement. If I try to, say, boil water on both, they will alternately pulse as they share power. The other rings aren't affected by this, and other than this issue, all others modulate down fine without pulsing.

I think you'd get away with 12mm given how well-supported it is. Re plastering up to it, you could perhaps put a stop for the plasterer to skim up to then install the plywood and caulk the remaining gap. I'm sure a couple of people on here have done that when skimming up to windows and door frames. Not sure about fixing. Glue would work, although it'll be a devil to get off of you ever want to replace it. Perhaps just use a minimal amount?

Committees aren't required to go along with recommendations. Politely, you're focusing on the wrong issues. You need to focus on the three words used in the rejection. You then need to decide whether an appeal is the right response, rather than resubmitting while taking these issues into account.

I know, but I don't think that's the only question you should be asking. You did ask for comments. You say this information "was presented to the committee in the councils written and verbal presentation as being 11m long and 6.2 meters high along its entire length". Did they use the term "entire length"? Or did they just say something like the wall was 8m long and 6.2m high? Either way, I suspect you're not in a strong position. You're the applicant, it's your site, and presumably there's no-one better placed to pick up an error like this, assuming you had view of this information before it was relied upon. If you didn't spot it, why is it reasonable to expect that the consultant should have? Also, the drawings very clearly show that the wall height varies along its length. No reasonable person would just ignore the drawings. To win at appeal on this ground you'll need to show that the error was a material factor in the decision. I suspect that will be difficult.

Even at 4.8m high, that's still 2.5 times higher than an ordinary garden fence. Is there a reason the wall is so tall?

I know VPN can have an impact on performance, but we regularly stream media to two different TVs at the same time, and there's still plenty of bandwidth left to simultaneously video conference on a PC. We're about the same distance from the cabinet as you, and typically get around 30mbps.

The pain threshold for water immersion is 41-42°C. Believe me, 50°C is unbearably, scalding hot, I don't care how cold the bathroom is or how hot they think they like it! I used to run our DHW at 55°C (the max our ASHP heat pump can output). However, I turned it down to 50°C as an experiment, and there's no practical difference.

I didn't. I said IR panels (i.e., the articles themselves) are expensive. Have you priced fitting out a house with these? You're not going to get change out of £200 per 500W panel, and more by the time you include thermostats and installation. You could easily spend not much less than an ASHP and end up with no better performance and 2-3 times the energy costs. I'm not saying don't do it, I'm saying do a proper costing.

Be careful about getting the other guy involved. Who (or what entity, if a company), exactly, did you engage to do the work initially? Who was the recipient of the funds (ideally evidenced by an invoice)? If it was a company or the first guy, I'd want it in writing that the funds already paid will cover this other guy coming in to finish up.

I've got one of the Kreg ones. They're pretty good, but work best with thicker wood. 12mm is marginal. I recently did some 19mm plywood and it worked well. Also, they work best when you put the pocket on the outside of the joint. If you do it from inside (which is often the best for concealment purposes), you're angling the screw towards the outer edge of the board to which you're joining, which makes for a weaker joint and greater chance of splitting. For the right job though, they're great.

Whatever else can be said about them, IR panels are an expensive way of converting electricity to heat.

No problem, just wanted to note it for others who might be reading in the future.

I'd do some research on the experiences of some members with Sunamp before putting it too categorically in the "yes" section.

Given the complexity of the situation, I wouldn't expect anything for free (although I'm sure a couple of the 6 or 8 architects we spoke with provides some back-of-a-napkin type sketches with their quotes). It sounds like you have a decent budget, so why not pay each of them to spend half a day thinking and sketching out some really rough ideas for you to consider? I suspect some architects would be quite interested in being paid to do a morning's creative thinking and doodling without having to get too bogged down in details.

As mentioned above, an assumption that air heating via MVHR would be the primary source of heat for a PassivHaus is a major factor in the peak heat load set by the PH standard. However, the fact that so few PassivHaus projects use MVHR heating should tell you something.

Is it 5 years? Wow, I thought it was only a couple.

Not at all. You can get planning permission for someone else's property without their permission. How is this different?

We have an ASHP heating a single downstairs zone and no heating upstairs. I don't actually know exactly what ours does, but at the moment I just leave it on continuously and let it do its thing. As far as I can tell, in cold weather it just comes on periodically for a while at quite a low output. Of all the things I'd consider changing or tweaking, adding any form of MVHR heating is at or near the end of the list. You can't easily add enough heat via MVHR to make much difference to the overall temperature of the house. To accomplish that, you'd need a huge amount of airflow. In a typical MVHR system with much narrower ducts than a typical ducted heating system (like Americans use), the required airflow rate will be high, making it noisy. High airflow also mean lower humidity inside, especially on cold dry winter days. You'll also use a lot more energy running an MVHR at high rate for long periods, and the heat exchanger efficiency drops at high flow rates. And finally, I prefer the bedrooms to be cooler, and that's hard to accomplish if you have heated air coming through the MVHR system. Curious about why you think that might be something to aim for? Your main heat source is likely to be the most efficient and effective way of heating your house. Why would you need/want more?

Because before this happened, there was a chance to negotiate a proper party wall that was on the boundary. As it is, the neighbour's extension is on his land. What if he'd wanted to replace that wall? The neighbor has stolen from him the right to control his own wall on his own land. It's theft, plain and simple.

I know, what a time sink of a topic! Now have a look at Woodrat videos...