joe90

My merc has probably devalued about a grand and I have run it for 7 years, done nearly 80k and not spent much on it ?

who’s she?? my old Merc is still going, no rust, very comfy, carry loads, 50mpg even on local roads (if I drive carefully) , why would I spend ££££, I could not afford any of these cars being talked about (despite being a boomer!).

not heard that before!!!!, we used a minimal amount of antifreeze anyway as we are in a warmish climate relatively.

jealousy will get you nowhere!

Interesting to hear Jeremy,s still on the ball, just a different subject matter. I hate the thought of “ a computer driving/having final control” even my parking sensors beep all the time driving down Devons rural roads but at least I can press one button to silence them for the rest of the journey.

As you know running an ASHP at higher temps reduces its COP. I have no heating upstairs apart from bathroom towel rads. If you wanted higher temps fir the rads then all heating would be at that temp and just blended down fir the UFH. !,!

As you could get up to COP4 fir an ASHP you might as well use it fir both (like I do).

This is what @TerryE did and it works well for him!

I did this, spoke to one of the councillors who agreed with me it was good for the plot and didn’t see why it should be refused. At the committee meeting everyone voted against us including the councillor i had spoken to, he would not look me in the eye, several “untruths” were mentioned about our plot but I was not allowed to speak. Perhaps I was unlucky but someone “in the know” told me they had all been told to vote it down.?, wish I could meet them now ?.

+1.

Don’t be afraid of going to appeal. After 4 planning applications (the last one was what the council wanted and enabled us to get on with the foundations) I then appealed the first application, what we originally wanted, pointing out several assumptions the council made that simply were not true (with proof) and we won hands down, council even got a rocket fir “not following their own planning guidelines”. I did our appeal myself, not rocket science just attention to detail.

On a cottage I had in Shropshire was an attached barn that the planners wanted halved in size as it was near a road (but been there for a 100 years), I jacked up the roof and rebuilt the walls, then took the roof off and rebuilt that. They tried to accuse me of demolition but I had photos to rebuff that ?.

I agree with @Nickfromwales, I have a 70mm screed with UFH pipes In it over 250mm EPS on a ground slab throughout my whole ground floor, I expected cracks in the doorways but no, no cracks at all anywhere . ? the only thing I would consider is a thin sand layer over your base concrete to give a flat surface fir the insulation to rest on ?.

Frankly that’s typical of houses of that age, if the wall has no major cracks it won’t be a problem. In some terraced houses they didn’t even brick the whole area and neighbours could walk into others lofts!!!

What are you doing for a floor?

Not everyone stocks it, I believe plumbcentre do.

Sounds like that black pipe is the wrong size (too small diameter) or the rubber gland is not the right one. Can you measure the outside diameter of that black pipe?, is it solvent weld , push fit or compression?

I fitted my own windows in check reveals like you propose, not sash but still quite heavy with all the glazing in. I had my windows spray painted at the manufacturers (local) as I HATE painting. Mine was made easy by angled reveals which meant the inner block skin hole was wider than the outer brick skin hole. I don’t see why BC should have a problem but they must have certified locks to meet regs and glass in certain locations.

+1, I did similar, kept things simple, one zone, ASHP, MVHR etc etc and like Pete it all works very well.

BT has gone to the dogs (since I left 18 years ago ?).

They will give the same cost to run but cost of immersion and Willis is as cheap as chips, no idea of electric boiler costs to instal. Once the infrastructure is in you can always change the heat source at a later date .

Those concrete grinding discs work very well (but loads of dust?).

If you don’t have access to mains gas then your alternatives are bottled gas, oil or electricity. Both oil and bottled gas are bad polluters, if going electric then a heat pump will give you up to 4 times the heat from 1 unit of electric. Regarding radiators with a heat pump they need to be bigger to cope with lower water temps. I don’t know about UFH upstairs being noisy, I am sure someone here will confirm/deny that (I have no heating upstairs apart from bathroom towel radiators and the house is warm enough).

adverse possession (IMO).

With our plot the local council tried to tell us that part of our garden was agricultural (along with the field next to it) so I told the council I could get affidavits signed by family members that the area in question had been used as garden for at least 20 years. The council backed off (slightly different from yours but you could do the same to complete adverse possession).