puntloos

The fundamental problem is that if you want to cool the air (given 'FCU' - not talking about UFH here), with an A2W ASHP only: - You can't surgically cool an area when heating elsewhere - You can't cool while the ASHP is heating water (I imagine not a huge problem normally) But most importantly - efficiency. Assuming all other things equal there is one extra stage in the track: A2W ASHP: Air -> Coolant -> Water -> Air A2A ASHP: Air -> Coolant -> Air This seems to be borne out from my research - same brand ASHPs - the A2A has a COP of 4.7, the A2W is 3.2, and the R32 FCUs are much more quiet (if I calculate "DB per Watt") than the Water ones.

2 options, which one would you pick for my passivhaus design and why (and am I missing any arguments?) Option A: A2W ASHP for UFH, hot water taps A2A ASHP R32 coolant e.g. MXZ-4F83VF, 4x SEZ-M25DA 2.5kW FCUs Arguments for this Option: Pro: More efficient. Water is not a great heat carrier compared to coolant. Easier to make powerful devices. Pro: Coolant line is easier to insulate, less loss from back of garden to the devices, water is more lossy Pro: No need to switch the ASHP from heating to cooling with all the associated hassle especially if you want some hot water during hot summer. Pro: Surprisingly, more quiet than the equivalent Water based FCU, at least comparing PEFY-WP25VMS1-E (water) with SEZ-M25DA (R32)). Option B: A2W ASHP for everything, 4x in-ceiling 1kW cooling power fan coil units Arguments for this option Pro: Water coolant is safe, although R32 is not lethally toxic unless you truly douse yourself in it for ages. There's a chance R32 will be outlawed at some point in the medium/far future but right now if anything it's the #1 recommended coolant Pro: A2W means 'standard' engineers can work with it, no coolant certification needed Pro: Somewhat cheaper (don't need an extra 4500 GBP device, but the A2W needs to be a little bigger and pricier) Pro: Smaller footprint in my garden, only 1 big fan device vs 2 Final thoughts: - I know some people consider any FCU overkill, however we've all heard the issues with locally(e.g. bedroom at night) overheating passivhauses , so I'm pretty set on having FCUs. But, I suspect even 1kW would probably suffice in most cases, even though in some rooms more power might be nice. - The power of the FCUs is a weird one, the 2.5kW R32 FCU is more quiet than the 2.5kW water one, the 1kW water one is, on 'low' setting equally quiet than the 2.5kW R32 one, but to reach 1kW, the water one really needs to make itself angry noise-wise while the R32 will never break a sweat. - I don't think I care too much about the maintenance issues, yes getting a person out will be harder but it's probably rare anyway.

That'll be about the same for me then.. great info, thank you. Yep it clearly goes very quick Was this purely an aesthetic choice? (it looks great!) or did you have practical reasons for this design too? In a way I don't need this because I actually have a high ceiling with a void above it (2700 + 150 void) so any lamps I want to get in there the void can be used for exactly that..

Yep indeed, DIY seems to be the way to go. I'm not a great illustrator though but can see where I go

Nice! Your plan doesn't have any dimensions but eyeballing off the door widths in those 'side alcoves' I'm guessing they are effectively about 1500 deep on each side, so the island is about 2200 away from the closest window? 30 lux at 2m is not a lot, and indeed you need 200 for comfortable kitchening - but I'm noticing the same here. Slightly off topic but I also note in your living and dining you have a light string in a rectangle shape. Is this an actual pelmet, or did you just embed the lights in the ceiling straight down?

Man, I wish I could click 'like' more than once. Well I can, but that just turns off the like. Rest assured I turned like on and off at least 20x. Your setup isn't quite the same as ours of course, but I think the light levels are very comparable with our future situation since we do have a brighter section right next to the kitchen, but on the flip side you have lights from 3 sides in a cross shape. Hey, is that a converted church? One final thing would be amazing - if you have a mildly modern phone (2017 onwards) they all have dedicated light sensors in them, and a light meter app would be able to give a good indication.. is there any chance you can compare the light of your phone lying on the table near the window on the sun side, and a phone lying on the island? (the light meter typically is next to the selfie camera, above the screen) https://www.photoworkout.com/best-light-meter-apps/ Did you post a floorplan somewhere? I can go through your message log but would love to get a bit better idea of your house dimensions

Would love to see a picture to get an idea, with and without lights on? What do you mean 'overlook'? as in 'don't install it since you don't need it'? Good electric, agreed. Especially since cooking often happens during evening/night anyway. Sorry could you rephrase?

One question I keep on thinking about as well- How much worse is a north-facing kitchen (brightness wise) vs a south-facing kitchen, both in the 'directly next to window' and 'deeper into the house' sense of the word?

Funny - we have under-cabinet lighting in our current rental and absolutely never use it. Somewhat of a laziness factor. Perhaps, but is a dark-ish kitchen that you constantly (have to?) light a true downside or are we imagining this? Frankly I should stop and think about my kitchen behavior, we currently have a fairly direct-light kitchen but I haven't really stopped to see if/when I turn on the light. Yes, the rear inside wall has no further windows, just fridges, cupboards.

Any chance you can give us a picture of your kitchen? (and some detail about time of day, if you would turn on lights at this point etc)

Please take a quick look at the below, and would love an opinion on: A/ Would this kitchen be too dark as it is. B/ What is the official/scientific way to go about finding this out? Is there some rule such as "at least xyz lux measured at 3pm on the furthest horizontal surface..." C/ Anyone have a similarish kitchen - basically sun-facing but no direct light - that can put us at ease? D/ Should it be too dark, will replacing the navy and potentially the oak with some light/white colour help anything? - "Too dark" would be defined as that you probably need to turn on kitchen lights even at 3pm during a normal-ish day - As you can see, house is SSE facing, sun disappears from the last tip of the garden room at 4pm already. Some renders with different settings, certainly not officially representative of an actual situation but to get an idea. Note that even the livingroom in the back looks 'darkish' so clearly computers are not great at simulating what a real human would think of the situation, especially since our eyes easily adapt etc etc. The gardenroom has a ton of glass as can be seen, 2 rooflights, triangle, etc. Also big glass doors in living but a bit further and not a huge amount of surface can be seen from the kitchen and as for the kitchen colour scheme: - White, warm oak floor, navy.

One fun one - amtico reviews are terrible on trustpilot: https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/amtico.com (and karndean - which was suggested to me was inferior - is actually better reviewed but still pretty poor) Maybe I should just go for concrete and be done with it or somesuch. Sigh. But more seriously, we are now gravitating somewhat back to tiles, or tiles(kitchen/bath) and engineered wood (living downstairs). Or should we ignore trustpilot?

But nobody have an actual Fancy Toilet? Would love to understand the extra value for money. My main concern around the simple hose+sprayer is that there's still a good amount of poo flying around with the water, including getting on your hands and the actual shataf itself. You'll be Shat AF. <rimshot>. If there's a device that can really clean to a good degree without hands, that might sway me, but if it just adds "some" water to the situation, not sure if that suffices.

Perhaps this is the answer, as long - I guess - there's warm water One thing though which is that someone in my area expressed the concern installing these would violate building regs. (something about a water source being able to touch a dirty water point aka the toilet bowl.) Anyone able to confirm or refute that a separate sprayer (shataf?) is legal? Or is there perhaps some valve you can build that makes it legal?

I'm somewhat convinced that a water spray is a more hygienic way to deal with poo, as opposed to just spreading it all around with paper until a low-ish amount remains. But, well, the price for such a marvel of modern shittorial science goes up real quick depending on what features you need. Would love to know which toilets people have experience with? Some thoughts: I *think* the only feature that's crucial is an upward-ish spray, which, somewhat strangely, eliminates the cheapest option, which is the Vitra Aquacare - 550GBP, which seems to just tick that box. But I have the impression it wouldn't be able to 'hit the spot'. - fixed sprayer The cheapest device with an upward-ish spray I've found is the more electronic and has a lot more fluff-ish features Vitra V-Care Basic, 1100 GBP - pretty flexible sprayer - e.g. a bit more gentle for women, adjustable extension - seat heating Only slightly more expensive is the Aqua Lava device, which is 1198 GBP - Adjustable spray, temp, pressure - Nozzle Oscillation - Warm Air Drying: 5 settings The warm air is somewhat interesting, but I would suspect it will take much too long to do its job vs just using a bit of paper. Does anyone have a toilet with a butt dryer? How long until you're dry? Once we get into the 1500-2000 range, there's a range of devices that are somewhat similarly featured: Grohe Sensia - 1669 - All of the above plus heated toilet seat. And then, as far as I'm aware, the cheapest toilet from the most premium brand: Toto Washlet RG Lite - 1949 - Doesn't have air dryer. So.. thoughts? The Aqua Lava seems to be the best deal but will it be poorly designed or break after 2 monsterpoops?

Fair. I might have to go ahead with them then. There is a model but it's not in my hand. My architect/contractor have it.

So the common knowledge is that shutters help against (fix?) solar gain - sun shining inside and heating up surfaces. Especially helpful when people choose to have lots of glass. But, with passivhaus, I get the impression that PHPP and passivhaus advisors are somewhat fine with not putting external shutters on windows. Can someone explain the reasoning there? Are they relying on the fact that UK sun only comes out 3x per year or can the house (perhaps ASHP in cooling mode) deal with solar gain as long as it's not too much glass? To put the question very differently, I have 5 velux rooflights (1 morning sun, 2 afternoon sun facing, 2 north facing) and currently they don't have shutters. The top floor doesn't have heating/cooling in the current plan.. so it feels like I should add shutters at least to the sunfacing ones? 500 quid per shutter starts to add up..

See that's why I love you guys (m/f) I figured as much but all these DIY sites straight up claim you'll be fine with 3000 I'm thinking I'll just turn one 600 into a 450 cabinet and be done with it...

Since they list prices online it's probably fine to share - may I ask how much your utility cost (cabinets only and/or complete?)

Tx both, because this is a utility I am aiming for the absolute cheapest options for the cabinets.. I suspect DIY kitchens can't beat e.g. IKEA or B&Q.. but might be worth checking out

So - most kitchens have units of 600 or 450 width. But - my utility is exactly 3000mm wide. (at least, in current design). Will this actually work? Can I put 5x600 units wide in there with e.g. a cheap Ikea/Wren kitchen? Or will I need some buffer - say 3030mm to be sure I can fit 5x600 and not have to worry about things? 3100mm? Or should I give up on 5x600 and assume 4x600 and 1x450? Also, my current kitchen is quite messy, some units have a separator between the unit (plank of about 15mm on each side), some units are packed side to side.

Wife and me are both computer engineers/product guys, and we're struggling to deal with the handwaviness of, well, most builder types we deal with. Our builder is already way below average in attentin to detail so no complaints about them, but especially many subcontractors (e.g. the fireplace thing) are happy to handwave things along - "it will be fine....", and I heard a story from @joth where a shower was fully relocated across the bathroom on the day. His situation came by through an unexpected retrofit point, so sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, but if you start shuffling things around massively then all these "will this clash with that" mostly goes out of the window.. Realise that in general there's truth to it will be fine but for example we are now in a to-and-fro with a bathroom team where we, for example, say "well, the current hinged shower door size is 750, so it would hit this 550 vanity unit on the other side when fully opened. So let's reduce it to 650." And what happens is: - They update the door, but then they find out that the shower cabin they selected doesn't have that size+width and they change the cabin but the cabin needs a different xyz and then they move the rear wall and tadaa.. the shower now overlaps with the bath, which works great on paper, not so great with actual baths and glass panels. So then we go 'hey this bath clashes with the shower wall' - And then they update this and move that and move the vanity and oh here's a sliding door instead! I suppose my main complaint is that suppliers/advisors helpfully move all kinds of things around without telling us, and sometimes without checking knock-on effects. - Yes, the shower wall bath clash story is real. And importantly: They don't tell us which clever things they thought of and which they haven't - Ex: putting a shower head on a side wall means you can more easily lift and spread your arms while facing sideways, where if the shower head is mounted on the rear wall you have less arm space. How do you all navigate the challenge of "thinking of everything"? We multiple times tried to hire an "expert" but most of them come up with a few clever things they can point out but nobody so far convinced us they truly can be trusted to think of most important things.. Halp?

Ha, well spotted, I didn't even notice. No - meaning I'd be fine with it but I really only care high level about the shape so any "black-ish, box-ish" thing is fine, same with the black backsplash bit, could be slate, could be iron could be.. xyz, happy to go with a cheap/reasonable option especially since this electric fire produces only low amounts of heat (passivhaus, can't really heat at classic levels even if i wanted to) so doesn't have to be some 'tempered in mount doom' type materials at all.

Man, fireplace 'stores' are weird. So far, they almost treat fireplaces like white goods, so it's basically "here's a thing, it's GBP 1000, we will come bring you the thing and maybe plug it in". So then there's me who saw this picture in a magazine: - Electrical fireplace e.g. https://www.dimplex.co.uk/optimyst - Some type of light stone enclosure (actual stone - stone slips? - preferred, but I wouldn't even mind just some cladding against a standard wall.) - Slate (or cheaper) backing material And taking this picture to fireplace companies, so far, hasn't worked quite well. The fireplace company can sort-of do the fireplace device and a piece of slate to surround it but they don't do the stone slips, not to mention the 'foot' of the fireplace. How can I find and/or talk to a fireplace company to design a fireplace, and install (perhaps collaborate with my builder for the stone slip surround) Have I just been unlucky to find lazy ones?

No clue but sounds surprising they won't pull out the old floor first? Bottom line, amtico only works if the floor is sooperdooper flat