Russdl

Got mine from Amazon. One big bugger and lots of small ones so when you’ve found a nail/screw you can pop a smaller magnet on it to ‘mark’ it. Probably overkill as a pencil would clearly do just as well! I’ll see if I can find the link...

I use one of those super strong magnets (idea nicked from @Jeremy Harris) it finds the fixings in no time. I wrap it in a wet wipe so it doesn’t scratch the finish and is easier to pull off when it’s found it’s target.

@Conor We have 20mm porcelain tiles on pedestals for our patio, seems to work fine.

It clearly varies quite a bit. Back in 2018 ours was £1093 to disconnect, we then received a £240 rebate as it was ‘cut off’ in the track outside our boundary and no road needed digging up. So, £853 to disconnect (no reconnection).

Yep, good point.

Very similar situation to yours. We cut ours off and it is terminated outside of the property. Would that lead to a standing charge? Not heard that before.

Also no expert and NHBC are just an insurance company (I think?) so they’ll try to dodge anything, but if the building hasn’t been built to the standard specified, which it sounds like it hasn’t, surely they have some responsibility?

@Littlebig I guess the house is still under NHBC warranty? It sounds like it hasn’t been insulated to the levels required by building regulations - if at all - in and around that bedroom. I’d kick up stink if I were you. Do you know anyone with a thermal camera?

Pedestals would definitely do it, and on a concrete slab I wouldn’t have thought it would be too problematic. I’ve used pedestals on a compacted base of type 1 and a bit of sand to level than as we didn’t have the articulated pedestals. Whilst it’s taken me an age, problems haven’t been too many. They’re not cheap, but not massively expensive either, however if you change your mind about any aspect of your patio (which we have) it’s really easy to start over, for example we decided to remove two tiles and put plants there instead, we dug out the type one to make a hole, lined it with some leftover geo textile membrane and planted away. Really easy to do with pedestals and equally easy to reverse. (It’s still a work in progress, but the olive tree has been pruned!)

We’re probably going to use the same microlouvre for our three easterly facing windows that don’t have external blinds. I was under the impression that once fitted, they stayed in place? I imagine that they would be quite vulnerable to accidental damage stored in a garage or do you not think that would be the case?

I would. We have two AAV’s in the loft and before they were properly sealed in place it was pretty obvious that they weren’t. Since being properly sealed, no issues. If one fails I don’t think it will be too long before we notice that it’s failed, replaced it and carry on.

Couldn’t agree more with ToughButterCup. I’m not sure how many of us on here have Sunamps, quite a few I think but Sunamp grumbles seem to be way lower than ASHP grumbles. Maybe it’s a percentage thing?

@Sally you can create your own 3D model with Sketchup, for free.

Yep, the majority of our ground floor is porcelain tiles. Yep, infrequently with wet UFH Overnight between 00:30 and 04:30. Occasionally. Over the winter the house has never felt cold (passive standard) equally the tiles have never felt cold. The house has generally felt ‘just right’ and in bare feet the tiles have felt a bit cooler than ‘just right’ but never felt cold. Socks would probably help but not necessary. Completely unconnected with your questions but the main benefit of having porcelain tiles downstairs is that they are pretty much indestructible so there is no requirement to remove outside shoes/boots etc when you wander in (useful down the end of the muddy lane where we live) and they are very easy to clean.

I wonder if you’d care to elaborate on what you mean by that Nick.

@PeterW off the top off my head, no idea of the power draw but it’s low. As for the “why” the house air quality became pretty unpleasant during the last prolonged outage requiring windows to be opened making the ‘passive house’ just a ‘house’ which started getting cold and we have very limited options to halt that cooling.

My main aim is to keep the MVHR running in the next outage.

@Thorfun I’m with you on this one. For exactly the same reason, with the same requirements and the same lack of interest in any ‘pay back’ time. Reading with interest.

“that each rain drop falling form the sky has a small charge” I guess that might explain why we sometimes get a static shock from our zinc cladding?

Actually, it probably wasn’t, at least not functioning as it should. It had been on non stop for about four days at that point and as @ProDave kindly pointed out on this thread: The flow was very low, but it had been on for days. The house is passive standard. There were numerous individuals in the house. The above combination is enough to overheat the house in winter. In answer to your question, who knows? Maybe they are dispatched from the manufacture like that. Maybe the plumber fitted it and then closed the isolator (almost completely) but that seems pretty unlikely doesn’t it? So I’ll have to go with theory ‘A’ Stilled pissed myself laughing when I found out what the problem was.

@Tadpolewe have a similar set up to you. We went with electric UFH for both bathrooms with their own controllers and used independently timed ‘towel trees’ as space was limited. Bath sheets dry quickly.

@lakelandfolk I would say “yes” you can DIY install. Exceptionally, I bought mine direct from Sunamp and asked that question (I was experiencing major problems with the individual contracted to do my M&E and thought it would come to a DIY install). Sunamp told me that provided it was installed in accordance with the instructions then the warranty would be good if I were to install it myself. The contracted individual did eventually do the plumbing for the Sunamp but refused to connect it to the mains so we got another electrician in to wire it up. Which took a few minutes. A few months later we had need to call on the warranty as our thermistor string failed. That was replaced rapidly by Sunamp, no questions asked. Despite that failure, where our only source of hot water was from the remaining energy stored in the PCM and a Quooker tap, if I were to start all over again I would definitely go for a Sunamp charged by solar PV and off peak electric. No gas/oil boiler, no heat pump just a silent (heavy) white box that produces lots of hot water.

@SteamyTea yep, the numbers sort of add up, the missing bits are the unmonitored towel rails and electric UFH in the bathrooms. I would have thought the same person/computer programmed both Shelly’s.

I’m confused by the data that my Shelly 1PM’s are giving me. Today we have used around 36kWh of electricity, the vast majority on the Octopus 5p rate between 00:30 and 04:30 as you can see from the images below. The bulk of that consumption was the Sunamp: and the Willis heater: According to the Shelly app the Sunamp consumed 13.32kWh but the Willis heater consumed 14Wh. I’m assuming the 14Wh should be 14kWh. Does anyone know why this isn’t showing correctly or is something else afoot?

Good point. I used one of these Hep2o equal ‘T’s a and a short bit of copper pipe.