Russdl

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.

You can put a wireless (and battery-less) Quinetic light switch in the room.

@Rog1 you’ll be just down the road from us in sunny (one day, hopefully) Wiltshire. Good luck with your project.

Hello @Gaf whoever told you that this was the place to come for help and advice was spot on. Good luck with your project and ask away, tons of expert advice is waiting in the wings.

There’s certainly no pumps in the UniQ, I shall see if I can find evidence of a ‘Y’ strainer in the documentation or by lifting the lid. (Message received loud and clear about removing any side panels whilst there is warmth in the unit). Likewise. If my UniQ were to stop doing it’s thing I’d go for a Sunamp replacement as a first port of call.

@TerryE mines a UniQ. I don’t recall seeing a ‘Y’ filter in there but the last time I looked I wasn’t looking for one.

Ah, thanks @TerryE, I didn’t think there was one inside my Sunamp. I’m guessing there should be one on my incoming main though, I’d better go looking for it as my Sunamp has been issue free since the thermistor string was replaced and I’d like to keep it that way.

@Cooeyswell that 'Y' strainer you cleaned. Was that within the Sunamp unit?

Whenever I’ve checked, our MVHR is supplying more than it extracts - not 20% though - so the house is always mildly over pressure which I presume is the way it should be* so don’t balance the fans too much. (*standing by to be corrected)

Are you sure they know the ‘form’ when it comes to the airtight detail? If you’re doing the taping yourself make a point of getting in the way of the first fix guys until you are sure they understand exactly what you require from them regarding airtight detail and the need to rectify any errors before they are hidden from view.

@TerryE I hope I never need it but many thanks for that insight. 👍

I saw a great T-shirt yesterday, it read: There is no Plan-et B Which puts a spotlight on the problem humanity may be facing but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that very T-shirt was part of the problem itself. I didn’t wrestle it off the wearer to check but I suspect that T-shirt has traveled thousands of miles, along with tens of thousands of clones of itself, for no planetary benefit whatsoever. I wasn’t wearing that T-shirt but I’m sure I have plenty of stuff that has travelled many thousands of miles for my benefit/convenience that I could have lived without. Life would have been a bit more difficult but I suspect I could have got by. Sent from my phone that I’m pretty sure was made in China.

Take care that if the upstanding is too small (not very high) there may not be enough room to plug in a moulded three pin plug.

I decided to tell the the sparky my unorthodox plan. Delighted to say that he has no problem with it. Also delighted that he/his company came up with a price that seemed very reasonable considering previous quotes I’d received.

We live next to a field. When they are spraying we turn it off, also when they are ploughing, just for the dust. All around us are houses with wood burners/open fires and not far away is a big pig farm that, on occasions stinks to high heaven. We’ve never turned it off for these events and never noticed anything indoors. You’ll be fine.

More importantly, what bike is it? I can probably look after it for you, save you the hassle 😀

As @Gus Potter mentioned we’ve cut many many many meters of firings to go on top of C section steel joist, diminishing in size front to back so that the roof deck for our new garage has the required fall. I shopped around and no one was really interested in doing it for me and ultimately I’m pleased about that, quality control when you’re doing it yourself is so much easier. It took time, but that was mine to give. With the drawings from a certain SE and good old SketchUp I knew exactly how much scuff (or taper) I needed on each firing so that the boards laid flat on the firings instead of just sitting on the high point of each firing. For us it’s was 0.7mm - we settled for 1mm as it was easier to measure! So, for example, say one of our firings needed to be 45mm thick on the uphill side, it needed to be 43mm thick on the downhill side. I measured the 44mm and 43mm on either side of the timber, drew a line and then lined up the skillsaw with the pencil line, did a few test cuts close to the line on the waste side of the timber to confirm the angle of the saw and then set the guide and cut away. The set angle remains the same for all firings. Our joists are equally spaced and each firing was 7mm bigger than the previous so I just moved the skillsaw guide by 7mm for the next firing strip. It worked really well, each sheet of OSB sits squarely on all the firing strips it touches and has the required fall. Hope that helps.