Russdl

Do you have any recourse to the original installer? If your simple cleaning job fixes it, perhaps they can pay for all the additional (ineffectual) call outs you’ve had. I wonder if all the crap in the system has made it’s way into the blending valve or wether it still needs flushing.

Good luck. Really really shoddy installation or is something breaking up in there?

Not in the middle of winter in an electric house. That’s one problem replaced with another.

@revelation Ours is a similar setup. 3 years use and no condensation noticed in or below the cupboards. Were you running boiling water straight down the plug hole for a length of time just to test it? Do you mean you’ve rebated the underside of the wall units? If so you can seal a channel in to that for the LED strip.

We have a couple of portable CO2 monitors that include an alarm feature. Not mandatory down this neck of the woods yet but a damn good idea. In a power cut all is well for a short while unless you start lighting candles etc then the air quality falls off a cliff (according to the monitor, not so easy to detect yourself). I’m sure it would take a good many hours in an airtight house with a non functioning MVHR to become a serious health issue. In our case we’ve bought 11-12 hours of extra MVHR if we lose power with an Ecoflow battery that kicks in to power the MVHR in the event of a power cut - mainly so we don’t have to open any windows and throw the heat away.

I vote for option 1 and keep the MVHR well out of the equation.

Delete the MVHR extract and surely the problem goes away doesn’t it? If the chimney effect is not sufficient then I would have thought an extractor fan of some description would be sufficient to get the required airflow through the cabinet. I have no maths to back up that theory!

Missed that. Is that a good idea anyway? Why not keep that excess heat inside, obviously there will be occasions when it’s not welcome but most of the time it would be.

@puntloos I wonder if you’re overthinking this regarding the MVHR aspect. The downdraft recirculating extractor on our hob can boost at up to 570m3/hr though more normally it’s around the 200-300m3/hr. I’ve not once considered its effect on the MVHR which is seldom above 100m3/hr and never noticed any problems. With the extractor on a high setting it starts moving air internally around the house which becomes apparent if we’re cooking something pungent, with the extractor on a high setting and the kitchen door open, the smell will start spreading around the house indicative of all of the air in the house starting to move around heading towards the kitchen extractor. This is not an obvious airflow, only detectable as the smell spreads around. I would expect the same in your situation that with a high ventilation rate to keep your network cupboard cool the air within the house will slowly start recirculating through the cupboard. The MVHR will just get on with its thing, unperturbed.

Micro Louvre’s are a solution we contemplated for one of our troublesome overheating rooms. We got a sample from them, it wouldn’t be an invisible fix but probably would be a goodish fix. In the end we didn’t go for it as we managed to control the problem by closing the curtains and isolating the room whilst the sun was beating in the east facing window. https://www.smartlouvre.com/

@Roger440 sorry, no idea but @JohnMo’s comment is worth considering.

That sucks. For once it looks like I’ll benefit from my endless prevarication.

https://givenergy.co.uk/breaking-uk-government-announces-tax-relief-on-battery-storage-systems/ Looks like the stars may have aligned for me.

That is exactly what is required I reckon. I suspect you’ll need to drag your other half down the path of learning as well, and you’re right, this is a very good place to start. Your homework for tonight is to read loads and loads.

Why? Do you think it’s ’Fake News’? Why? Is it for fresh air? That is what the MVHR does. It also cleans and pre warms that fresh air as well. A bit of a no brainier really. If it’s for the ambient night time noises, well it can’t do that but you could probably use one of the many streaming services to provide that. Get ‘tilt and turn’ windows that open inwards. When tilted the top is open and it is a perfectly secure way of letting outside air into your home and in my view would be far superior to cutting a hole in a flat roof and plonking an opening window in that with the associated leak risk, rain noise, unwanted solar gain that such a set up could bring. Don’t be afraid of new(ish) ways of doing things. Try and work out exactly what you want and why or else you could end up building a one of home to the same standard that the mass build developer achieves and that would be very disappointing (As per @JohnMo I had to delete and re-write my original response)

Slight modifications to the plan and the MVHR duct and the 6mm2 is in situ, exiting the duct in both rooms via a slot in a short piece of white duct I had left over and inserted into the main duct run. I’ll make the slots airtight once the battery is in situ and the cable doesn’t need to be moved any more. The modification is easily reversible should the need arise by just removing the smaller sections of duct that I inserted into the run. I pulled a small torch through the duct to make highlight the correct one. Smalls sections prepped ready for inserting into the main duct run. I wish I’d had the foresight to make provision for getting cable etc from the utility room to the MVHR room, but I didn’t so out comes the Stanley knife. Utility room MVHR room in the loft. Battery won’t arrive until early in the new year but I’m ready for it now. One bit of good news, the interior of the duct was as clean as the day it was fitted.

Phase 2 complete.

Phase one of operation ‘MVHR as Conduit’ has been a rip roaring success, next stage is to pull a length of rope back through and then attaching the new 6mm2 cable and pulling that through the MVHR duct. Mk1 foam ball was a bit big Smaller Mk2 foam ball.

That’s not a dissimilar shape to the garage I’m building, height restricted in the same way you are as we are using permitted development rights. We’ve used EPDM, 8m x 8m with a big triangle to cut off due to the shape of the garage. (It is a long way from being finished though). Our roof pitch is very shallow and single pitch. Why have you gone for different slopes across the roof?

I would resist the urge to do that until you are pretty much complete and have stopped creating dust etc. Removing the filters would keep them clean but everything else will get contaminated.

If you can isolate the tap from the inside and then open the tap outside I’m pretty sure there will be zero chance of any damage. Any residual water that freezes will expand along the largely empty pipe pushing air out of the outside tap rather than trying to bust its way through the pipe.

@Nic A quick comment on the current design, your low pitched roof is facing northwest so not ideal for solar if you were planning on that. Can you slope it south east, that would be much more favourable for PV production and then you could start looking at Passive Plus or more.

Fill that space with planting (minus path) and it’ll look spotty dog.

I’ve not but I did look in to them and opted for external blinds instead. We have a timber frame house and my concern was fixing to the structure without introducing a significant cold bridge, the alternative as I saw it was fixing them abutting the house but with their own independent structural solution. I decided that was too difficult so went for the external blinds which you can get move out of the way if the conditions dictate but a Brise Soleil is for life. Look nice though, but so do my blinds imho.

3m may be a bit tight but it all depends on the patio furniture. Adding a meter or two would ease that of course but I’d start from what will the patio be made from? Is it slabs/paving of a known size or a timber deck? Ours is constructed from porcelain tiles, each 1200mm long so three of those gives us 3.6 meters and it’s enough to get past the patio furniture when people are sat there and way more than enough to get past when people aren’t sat there - which is most of the time. From your plans it looks like the further you go towards the fence the more ground you’ll have to build up which probably won’t come for free so if I were you I’d work out what your going to use for the patio, work out the size of the furniture and give yourself enough room to get past it when people are sat there but no more.