JohnnyB

Thanks, I hadn't seen that, although I do remember reading the thread you linked to a while back but I couldn't find it again this morning - I quess because I wasn't looking in the ASHP section. My quote isn't as high as that one, although I do have quite a bit less going into mine. My space limit is in diameter but have standard height ceilings. I can get a 600mm diameter tank in there but there's not much room for lots of pipework around it. I know they have said a pre plumbed tank wouldn't fit. @Dave Jones I do wonder if i am paying over the odds, hence the post. This isn't being done with the grant so I don't have to go MCS registered. The problem I have is I don't have the knowledge to sort it myself and don't have a local plumber I know and trust to do it well. I've done most small jobs myself and haven't needed a plumber for years. This company have a good reputation and have installed a lot of ASHP locally and seem to know what they are doing. It depends on how much over the odds I'm paying and if there are cheaper ways of doing it. I have read a few of your posts this evening and it seems your advice is to keep it very simple. Speaking to Nick earlier today I'm going to look into a Sunamp, or even a standard hot water tank heated with an immersion heater, with the ASHP just connected to the UFH. That may help.

How much are people being quoted to get a 5kW ASHP installed in a new build? I have just been quoted £8k as below. It seems rather expensive to me but after reading a few other threads on here it may not be too bad? This is for the 'annexe' and the grant will be used againest the main house. I was given an estimate of £13k after the grant for the heating and second fix plumbing in the house, which was the cheapest quote I received. It was hard to even get quotes on that about a year ago. Any suggestions for sensible quotes in Suffolk if this isn't sensible? Thanks.

Yes, that would work but I'm not sure I have the time. I would need to wait for the plasterer to come and put a thin coat on and then let it dry before I could fit the windows. The windows are arrive about the same time the plasterer is coming to start on the internal walls. My previous attempts at plastering have been terrible so I'm not going to try doing it myself.

Thank you Nick, that is very kind. cuold you send me your address please and I'll head round at some point very soon

I'm looking for advice on sealing around the windows and doors in our hempcrete house. I was thinking I would use compriband tape and then airtight tape on the inside between window frame and studwork but the hempcrete doesn't have a smooth even finish and there are gaps under the timber spacers fixed to the timber frame. Does compriband expand into small gaps and holes to seal tight againest the weather or would I be better to use FM330 foam and then us something else in the gap between the frame and wall to insulate the gap? If I used the foam any ideas on options to insulate the gap if it doesn't have compriband tape in there? Compriband would seem a little expensive/overkill if I use FM330 to seal the outside. The outside is timber clad so I will have timber around the outside reveal and the inside will have woodwool board and then plastered. Also any thoughts on fixing plates? I was thinking of simple metal strips but are there other options? Thanks, Johnny

My new connections was in January this year and I had to have at least a the standpipe as Nod's picture with pipe going to the edge of the road for them to fit a meter to before they would fit the meter. They sent someone out to check it was all to their spec a few days/weeks before they came to make the connection. If you contact whichever compnay supplies your water they will give you a quote and a list of their requirements, what you have to pay them for and what you can get other contractors to do. I dug the trench, fitted the stand pipe with a pipe going to a point they specified My cost was about £3k with about half of that being the cost to close the road.

@ReedRichards You are right that a heating system is more comfortable to live with and discussing it over the weekend we are coming to the conclusion that we should be fitting a heat pump, but when we were planning the build the intention was to put this building up cheaply and fit it out to a basic level to start with. We planned to use this as extra space for a games room/yoga studio/additional space when family and friends come to stay. We were then planning to fit it out as a full house as we had time and funds to do so. I have several years worth of free logs stored already and more drying so it is free heat. Most of the year it won't need any heat so lightling a fire when we want to use it seemed fairly simple. As it happens timings haven't worked out as planned, we started building a lot later than expected and ended up building this buildng first. It's turned out to be a slightly quirky building and a space I really love that I can imagine living in once we want a smaller house, although my wife isn't so sure she wants to do that. We will probably spend a year living in it while we build the main house that we are now planning to start next year. We have been discussing fitting an air source heat pump over the last few days and the plumbers are going to give us a price for that. We've already had UFH pipes fitted in the screed ready for future use so it would make sense to use those. From their initial estimates it will probably be about the same cost as fitting a woodburner as a reasonable stove and flue isn't a cheap option, especially as it needs to go through the airtight membrane. The main issue is that several things have been designed around the woodburner being where it is including the staircase going round it and the walls of the 'chimney' surround supporting the 1st floor landing so the space for it can't be removed at this stage.

We did discuss electric heating but he said that would be hard to make work as direct electric heating needs offsetting with solar, which we're not putting on the annexe only on the main house. If I combine @Dave Jones and @ReedRichards suggestions, specifiy a hear pump but never get round to fitting it, maybe we can get around it.

We didn't have SAP calculations done at planning stage, or before we started to build. so wasn't aware of the need for heating controls until now.

We are in the middle of our self build and I have just been told that I can't just have a wood burning stove in our annexe as the heat source. The sap guy has said the heat needs to be controllable otherwise the software will show a fail It is a separate building so is being assessed separately to the main house. It is a 130sq mtr 2 storey building that we are insulating to a good leave and as it isn't intended to be our main residence we thought a wood burner would be a cheap and simple way to heat it when it is being used. If the building wasn't already up with the blockwork in place that creates the space for the stove we would probably say forget the wood burner and fit an ASHP but we seem to have gone slightly too far for that. Does anyone understand what the SAP calculations need, or even better have ideas of ways around fitting a full heating system at this stage. In the future we may want central heating but at this stage it isn't really need as well as the having a wood burner.

It's a very late reply but I had this on a stove I installed myself many years ago. After much investigation and trying different ways to seal the joint, I put it down to condensation as once the chimney was really warm it stopped dripping. There definitely wasn't rain getting in. We had a 12" clay liner and I fitted the flue from the top of the stove straight into that, and I think that was the issue. If I'd fitted a metal liner and back filled so it was insulated then I don't think there would have been a problem but that would have stopped the chimney heating our bedroom. As we ran the stove nearly all the time it wasn't an issue to us and I found that leaving the door open while the chimney warmed up stopped it dripping. Not a great solution but it might shed some light if yours is a similar situation and you haven't sorted it yet

I built a brick one for ours. My electrician wanted enough space for a board inside the box as well and it was getting large and ugly. It wasn't the easy option as there's quite a lot of spec that should be followed but it was still cheaper than buying a box

We coment just recently that we wouldn't want to do it if the kids were small, but that is self build in general not just the static! We have two still living with us but they are 18 and 22. We re pushing hard at the moment to get into a building before it gets too cold again. Stories of people in statics with frozen pipes and heaters on timers to try to take the chill off in the morning isn't really for us. We had water and electric on site and the sewage treatment plant plumbed in before we moved to site. The footings weren't in but that wasn't really a consideration for us and could have been either way. Make sure you have a bit of time to set it up, it took longer than I expected to get it to the right position, level and the plumbing sorted. The pros are being on site all the time and being easy to get on and work whenever there's a free moment. If we weren't living on site I would rarely see the family. It's also much cheaper than renting and it's a big incentive to get on with the build and move out quickly. At the moment the downsides are few, there's less space and the temprature follows outside quite quickly, but my wife loves camping and being outdoors so as long as the weather is good then all is OK. We have additional space in a shed for washing, drying, fridge etc. Make sure there is hard standing or a good path between any buildings. It gets very mucky when it rains and that easily carries inside. Personally we wouldn't do it with young kids or over winter, but were getting a bit older and not so hardy as we were 20 years ago when we first looked at selfbuilding. For us it is working well at the moment and we are quite happy most of the time.

I don't want to block out the outside. We have moved to the countryside and love the sound of the wildlife around. Living in a static caravan on site helps us to hear what is going on around us!

Have you used them? I hadn't seen them before. Do they sell in England, looks like they are based in Ireland? Looking at their website it doesn't look like the type of thing we would go for and I would expect hardwood windows to be expensive. I can make contact and see what they offer.