Gone West

We used Bluclad board with the Wetherby detailing which is for render or brick slips.

We went for pre-app advice, which was free many years ago in our area, and it was a complete waste of time. As has been said on here, and what we were later told by the Planning Dept., is that Planning Officers have different views on applications and therefore there will be different outcomes.

You're going great guns. It took us eight years to do our build. It's taken us over three months to dismantle the old bungalow and we still have the back garden to do.

Welcome to the forum. Sounds like a very interesting project in a stunning part of the country, so lots of pictures please.

When I fitted my WPL Diamond DMS2 over eight years ago it came with a Secoh EL-100C rated at 110-120W. I've noticed that the latest technical information for the DMS2 states that the air pump is now rated at 80W. Whether they have changed anything else I don't know but I could probably fit a lower rated pump without problems.

If it's like mine the whole of the front comes off but it's not heavy. Mine is held on with hex bolts so it can be undone with an allen key or hex head on the screwdriver.

This is a condensate drain isn't it so can't the drain be filled from inside the unit by taking the cover off?

My air pump is in a box under the ground and can only be heard when a couple of metres away.

When doing jobs like that I always put masking tape along the tile edge and then when it squidges out it's easier to peel off and it means using less wipes.

In a word, grim.

We have used fused connection units (FCU) with flex outlet plates for all our kitchen appliances. I don't know of any safety reasons why you shouldn't connect two cables to the flex outlet plate for the fridges, but I'm not an electrician.

@lizzie This is quite common when connecting EU to UK wastes and just needs an EU/UK 40mm waste adapter.

Our neighbours new bungalow has been with the current estate agents for around a month and has now sold subject to contract. There has been a lot of interest in it and we have spoken to some of the prospective buyers. They have not been put off by the ASHP and UFH and have liked it's position with good views and the outside appearance of the building.

Hi, welcome and good luck.

I am considering fitting these to my lift slide next year, don't know if you've seen them before. https://solargaps.com/

Our house has 50mm Rockwool RW6 on the outside of the OSB3 racking on our timber frame. We then had to have a 50mm air gap before the rainscreen cladding.

Hi, welcome to the forum. Whereabouts in Kent are you? We didn't go for ali-clad windows in the end as the price was too high but others on here have fitted them and I'm sure they'll be along soon.

I think the people around here have sussed that our house was built on a budget as they've seen us slaving away for eight years building it and now another three months dismantling the old bungalow by hand. Wendy says having an eleven year old car in the drive also shows we're not in the GD league.

I bought our expanding foam tape from https://www.affixit.co.uk/Expanding-Foam-Tape/ https://www.affixit.co.uk//EXP6-Expanding-Foam-Tape-Compriband-TP600-Alternative.Html?search_in_description=1&keyword=tp600&cPath=182

I guess it won't help with your problem but there are self regulating electric UFH mats that are limited to 28C.

It's bigger than mine .

An alternative to reducing centres or increasing depth is to increase the chord width of the metal web joist. Our maximum span is 5.9m at 254mm depth with 400mm centres but much wider chords.

If we were to fit PVs we would want all black panels with micro inverters which is not the cheapest system. I used PVGIS to estimate output many years ago when we started our build but our electricity usage is lower than we had anticipated hence the doubt about fitting them. If we ever sold the house it would seem that PVs would be expected so we are still wondering.

We also are procrastinating about whether it would be worthwhile fitting PVs on a similar sized area. Our electricity usage during April to September is just over 1kWh a day. If we had an EV we would fit them but is it worth it when most of the electricity would be exported to the grid. Everyone seems to think a PH should have PVs and are surprised we don't.

Our house has a 350mm timber I-beam frame with Icynene insulation.