G and J

Ta. That’s helped me get my thinking straight. We will be putting solar PV in day one but batteries only once we are sure we can afford them which depends on how the total spend goes. Our lecky meter will be in our attached garage and so I’m intending to bring the ac from the solar inverter back to the garage to a cross connection point where I can insert a battery unit thingy like you have but at a later date. I’m also planning to have two CUs, each separately fed from the cross connection point, one to feed lights, MVHR, router, Wi-Fi and freezer, which can then be battery backed up, and the other for everything else. My thinking is that the extra cable and second CU is a small short term cost to allow for easy installation of a decent sized battery system in the garage when prices drop and funds allow.

To check my understanding, your summer/winter switch determines if you are in mode “1. During cooling…” or mode “2. During heating…”. I’m guessing automating that switch would require logic beyond thermostats. Do you have a schematic/written description of the settings in case someone else needs to fix a fault with the system? (If you do guess who wants a copy!)

WOO HOO! I got it right. I think I’m starting to get there! If it wasn’t so late I’d crack open a cream soda to celebrate!

Fab. I’ll plug that into Jeremy’s spreadsheet.

So, if I’ve understood that correctly, the Victron inverter & battery can run the whole house if the grid is disconnected, and unless the bypass is activated, grid power comes through the Victron. Your main CU only connects directly to either the grid or the Victron. The west roof inverter however connects to the CU in parallel with either the Victron or the grid, depending on the bypass, which I think means your west roof kit is connected as @Pollock73’s schematics.

I think I know the answer to this but as I’m not sure I’ll wait for others who do know to answer.

Please could you show me a simple diagram of that. I thought I understood how our Solar PV would connect but I’m clearly missing something.

Ta. Appreciate it.

So I am building a Passivehouse - brilliant!

Play nicely ewe lot or aisle take yaw nail gun away.

Wren kitchens have that too. It’s brilliant.

To @CalvinHobbes The utility room will, I presume intentionally, function as an airlock and a boot room. Yes it’s a use of space but if that’s valuable to you and you are happy with the resultant layout then that’s cool. It’s always a brave move asking for a critique of your design, but don’t take it to heart.

Have you engaged a PH consultant?

Tuck, our air fryer, has proven itself invaluable, but like his fictional namesake he is a wedgie one so takes up a lot of space in me pantry. So I’m going for a combined fan oven/air fryer. Methinks all an air fryer is is a powerful fan and a nicely powerful heating element.

Well, whatever I calculate my ASHP will be a bit too big and when I light the fire none of the calcs will even start to be relevant… And so from my point of view I’m not sure I care what figure I should use in Jeremy’s spreadsheet as long as it gives me an approximate answer to the ‘how close am I really’ to passive house standard. Maybe I shouldn’t worry. Maybe it’s better to travel in hope….

My oven is likely to go below worktop. It’s not used that much and it’s not that hard to use in that position, and I am someone who’s knees are such that I have issues getting into the back of our under counter fridge. I think oven cleaning is harder when the oven is below worktop - but one could always use an oven cleaning company or get a self cleaning oven or both. My microwave will be a standard one in a cupboard. Cheaper and easier to replace, not in show and I like hidden, and when I’ve talked to sales peeps they’ve been cagey about whether a combined oven/microwave is as good as a simple stand alone microwave.

So the lowest external temperature is 4.8C so if I plug that into Jeremy’s spreadsheet my heat load is nicely less than 10W/m2 so I’m building a passive house after all. Good job. Where do I hang my certificate? 😉

Obsessively Virgoan Disorder. Do keep up! (or maybe V just happens to be next to C on a qwerty keyboard and I need to clean my glasses again lol)

Not sure if he’s OCD, but that’s wonderfully neat work. To be very highly commended (yes of course my long list of neuroses include OVD -I’m a Virgo!)

Most importantly @Nick Laslett are you happy with the finish? And was the cost of having tape/jointing/FST done very different from a traditional skim?

In my experience self employment suits some but not all, and there’s a good few different aspects to that, including: vulnerability to income anxiety; need for social interaction; aptitude for organisation and admin; level of personal confidence. I personally don’t believe everyone is suited to it, but I do believe that if one is suited, it's easy to underestimate how hard others might find it.

(Given that the service was good in the end…) what overal u value did you get with those doors?

The trouble with answering a post like yours is that I pretend to myself that I’m being objective but in reality I can’t help unconsciously putting my personal preferences forward. So be warned….. but… If I’ve understood correctly the main bed faces south east, and the end gable of the single story bit faces roughly north east, i.e. the direction the sun come up in in summer. I’m with Nod on making the single story bit double, and I’d be tempted to use it for a bigger and more luxurious main bedroom with a really nice sized bathroom and dressing room. And I’d face the windows (plot and planning allowing of course) towards the morning sun, with the bed facing the windows. (Oh look, I’ve just described our build lol) It’s lovely that you appear to be giving your kids so much room but fast forward to when they’ve their own families and you may find that layout means you are cramped but not using a large area of upstairs. I’d price up putting steel in so the wall between kitchen and snug could be removed (which would be a lot cheaper if you did go two storey above the snug) to allow reconfiguration of downstairs later as your needs and preferences change. And I’d allow for plant somewhere (not the loft), maybe a decent sized cupboard.

As if by magic, the answer appears…..

Don’t be. I’ve probably learnt more on here from diversions than direct responses - it’s the lifeblood of a forum methinks. Fab. Do you happen to know if the results are comparable with PHPP? If not then I need to be careful how excited or depressed I get!