PeterW

Cost-wise I would say yes. A plenum is £7.85 plus a pipe offcut, and the vent itself is £6.98. I also made sure these all got bought with “offers” so total is around £12.50 per room.

So the room terminals are made from a solvent end cap, and a solvent boss fitting with a variable length of solvent weld pipe to make up the depth needed. Some need about 150mm to fit between the ceiling and the floor above, others are just about 90mm as they are only secured to the ceiling joists. You can see the boss here - the middle branch is pre-drilled and I did consider using strap bosses but the caps would have then not fitted. The flanges do rattle a little in the 110mm soil however a liberal use of solvent free adhesive means that they are then held into the board and the plenum. The plasterer then skims over the flange and they are going nowhere ..! Flanges are about 0.8mm steel and well made. I looked at duct costs and from memory I think it’s come to about the same as a single roll of standard duct from any of the usual suspects. Prior to finishing I’ll be pulling a pompom sprayed liberally with Mr Sheen (other sprays are available) through each duct to clean out any dust.

Or an FCK....

135m of duct as the original plan was to have the unit above the bathroom ceiling but tbh it just didn’t fit properly and would have been a bugger to replace. As everything has moved it’s added 40m of duct in total. Longest run is 23m which is the full length of both legs of the “L” shape of the house. Thanks Jeremy !! It came about from a partial cost and partial “it can’t be that hard” sort of discussion ..! It was by chance we found that the electric duct is a tight interference fit into a solvent boss - we tried a couple of things including rainwater fittings but they soon added up ..! The duct tape is just there to ensure nothing comes loose in the future although given how hard it was to get it to fit, I don’t think it’s coming out any time soon ..!! The most expensive part believe it or not was the solvent end caps - in all the downstairs rooms these are “bonded” onto the floor above with a decent high strength adhesive and then the bracket just keeps the lower pipe in place. The nice thing about the Toolstation vents is the two piece design means the soil pipe can be slightly above the plasterboard ceiling and then a hole is cut and the flange covers the small gap between the bottom of the pipe and the ceiling itself so no difficult cutting needed to get them flush. It will also give a lip for a drum of carbon foam to sit on in the kitchen.

That’s what worries me though ..!! So for warranty purposes, who is inspecting and who is saying it is ok..? And if you choose say an ICF or timber frame build route, do you get to say what the founds look like or the tolerances that are required ..?? I may be wrong and doing them a disservice but I can’t see the contractors putting the founds in for the golden brick sites doing it to a specification, more likely to the lowest price bid ...

I’m doing a “hybrid” install as like @joe90 I picked up a decent Mitsubishi/Kingspan unit for less than £60 in an auction and it was brand new. So far I have the terminals and the ducts in back to the location the unit will be placed - I will most likely build a silencer as part of the distribution system. I used a spreadsheet to work out the duct velocities and found that I could drop to 55/63 standard electrical duct for the distribution with no real issues. Terminal plenum are made of off the shelf uPVC solvent weld fittings and the terminals themselves are from Toolstation ..! Very nice white steel two part terminal with a galvanised steel flange that has been glued / plastered into the wall or ceiling as they fit with about 2mm tolerance into a piece of soil pipe. You can just see this one in the top corner. They have a foam gasket on the outer part and are a 1/6th turn to fit them - you can see the coarse thread in the image on the website. There are no sharp edges to the valve itself and they seem well made. There are two where we have them wall mounted, the remainder are ceiling mounted. I may also fit carbon foam filters into the extracts in the kitchen - there are two - so that it keeps grease out of the ducts. Total spend so far is £150 on ducts, £150 on 12 terminals and parts (that’s a solvent cap, solvent stub branch, bracket and offcuts of pipe) £60 on the unit and the most expensive was £80 on the proper Mitsubishi controller ..! Another £100 should see me done including filters and externals.

Is this just an internal airtight layer ..? If so, it’s nothing to worry about ...

Keep the TripleX cleaner- will be good to clean the solar system with ... And the other @Nickfromwales can have in his pot noodle ...

If it’s going to be on show is there any way you can get it swapped for a glulam beam ..??

There is more nutrition in the packaging than the contents ....

We need to talk about his diet .... McDonalds is for teenagers and hangovers..!

Depends where the steel is going - what is it supporting ..? Most of the steel cost is in the shipping so get it as close as you can as it’s pointless paying to ship it 200 miles.

Oh yessss...!!! Tunnocks tea cakes and Caramel wafers .... Oh, and haggis for breakfast ....

Errr ... have you got an iPhone ..? FaceTime may be worth it ..!!

Steel stockholder will be cheaper but you will need 3 or 4 strong lads to get it unloaded as it will be 115kg and unwieldy. Benefit of a merchant is that they will have a hiab to unload it. You may also find if you shop around that they can pretty much match any price anyway.

@Nickfromwales I’ve had a look and there’s two pairs connected bottom right from each of the UH1 boards ... one to valve and one to pump ...! Wonder if there is a ZV lurking behind that TS somewhere ..? I can’t see one on any picture ...! Good news is that it means there are two pairs running everywhere / somewhere ... deffo need a lot of dymo tape, some cable ties and a few Wagos... Oh, and dark chocolate digestives ....

Get one with a microswitch and we can put the pump through it. Kinder to the UH controllers too.

So that’s the remote switching of my MVHR sorted .... and monitoring to boot ..!! Is that really the price though @AndyT as it seems “too cheap”...

I was up there a couple of weeks ago - took a fair few photos of their cabinets etc and they are good quality. They have 8mm solid backs and seem very rigid. Some of the larger units are flat pack due to size and weight but the rest are fully built. Showroom is very good and worth a trip, even if it’s just for the free coffee and cake ....

TBH I would just leave the solar as it is currently as it needs a proper flush and then refilling along with the crud draining out of it ... it’s not a 10 minute job ..! What is useful though is you’ve got the filling loops and kit to refill it when the time comes (or the Welshman and his sidekick...)

It’s using the UFH Pump connection in a sort of round robin approach by the looks of it. @Nickfromwales and me were discussing it this morning - that’s only used when you have a direct connection for the boiler to fire rather than the TS...

Replacing the PHE isn’t complex and they can be had for £100 or so I reckon you are more likely to get crud from the tank, the UFH and the system into the boiler without it - boiler has a Y strainer that needs updating to a Magnaclean or similar.

Would also be useful to get your roof deck boards up too, and your first floor Weyroc as they are not light ... Hire for a week and get your use out of it ..?

TS is 450 litres - it’s required to be large to act as a storage buffer for the E2000 boiler tariff

It’s more to see what is and isn’t connected ...