SuperJohnG

We had fry last year and loads of young came so some will be there, we started with 100 fish the second time round, around 30 when the otter came....it must have seemed like Christmas to him. We've lots of cover in the shallows to hopefully enough. The Heron has ranout of fish so was catching frogs last week...that was interesting watching it eat those. The circle of life.

This is ours.. Bought fish, two times now. Just Goldfish, the second batch got about 200mm long last year , then one day the otter cam and that was that. We have had ducklings the last few years raised here. Pretty much there's always a Heron comes by, ducks usually there had geese. My son loves it in the summer, wife goes dipping in the winter ( we all done it Xmas day had to break the ice) . It's just a hole dug with diggers inflow from run off and outflow to the burn. The Clay keeps the level from not changing. It's great.

I done the first linked thread. I used stainless steel screws (Wide thread) and screwed the renderboard into the EPS. Worked a treat, just set your drill to a low torque setting.

Always use a duct. A large one then you can add cables as you please later and push that decision down the road.

Changed my meter (to an octopus one) miraculously started working and has never dropped a beat since.

What do you currently have? For longevity and Aestethics...go slate but natural. If you're not bothered and its in the houses adjacent go tile My slates Cupa RH2

You're only closing up one side really. I.e. the dimension of the mesh has to be less than the batten. So horizontally it slips over. Then vertically you just leave a gap between your top central board and the top that's smaller than your mesh dimension.

This is the bit the forum misses I think. Everything is very exacting for the required heat load. My house, with a single zone, 7kW ASHP on WC with a room thermostat performs pretty much perfectly...I don't need a stove...but I'd sure like to add one for those days. We didn't add one as it'd probably bring in more cold then good.

We've 220mm thick roof panels with 50mm PIR internally. Plus most of that building is vaulted it works very well. One regret is that the steel portal frame is badly designed and causes a bridge but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I've a SIPS house with renderboard (Knauff Aquapanel) and K rend TC15 finish. Lovely walls with no expansion beads or unsightly breathers. 20m run on 1 wall...looks mega. Zero brickwork. Noise is a zero issue. Feels solid always, there was a very slight vibration when we had an Uber storm (90+mph winds) but that's all I'd say. You probably wouldn't have that in a block work house. We had no issues with getting a lender, we are with Barclays and house insurance and structural warranty no issue. SIPS is stiffer than purely timber framed so that may be less solid but I'm not sure. Self_build_ayrshire on Instagram if you want a look.

Just an update. I had the third meter installed a few weeks back. All works now, SMS replaced it with an Octopus one (Kaifa brand) same type of comms hub but all fine now and working. Now I can access smart tariffs but need to decide between flux and go as we get an EV soon.

Shelly EM basic clamp units, cloud connected. I've had zero reliability issues...I would highly recommend them. Think it was like 50 or 80 quid for the Shelly meter and two clamps which were 100A and a 20A.

I'd say so. Here's my main consumption and my ASHP for the 20th November. Others skew it up to 23 quid cos of the Lazy spa...

I've not read it all (but I will) We have a 7kW Vailliant arotherm,West of Scotland temps (so mildish). 5.1 CoP on heating (which I was surprised too see the other day) 3.7 on DHW. Which is set to 52 degrees and reheats straight away. On curve 0.6. One zone, no buffer straight off WC. Works like a dream literally not touched since we moved in May 2023.

I've a Scudo throughout the house, valiant aerotherm 7kW ASHP, we store at 52 degrees (baring in mind the tank thermostat is halfway up) works perfect. Don't stress buy what you need and you can always go up a little temp wise it's only a little off you COP.