Gone West

The twin cylinder softeners like Harvey, etc regenerate when required by switching over to the other cylinder. I had different models in the different houses I lived in, in the SE. They were all ok. Fortunately moving to Cornwall means I don't need one any longer.

Congratulations, and well done for sticking with it.

I can second that. We did, though, get some cash back and a nice hamper for all the hassle they caused us.

I thought you could make ASHPs quieter by making them bigger. I don't know if that is because of larger fans spinning more slowly or thicker sound insulation inside the casing.

We've only lived here for the last four Augusts. Wonder why so many people come to Cornwall for their holidays.

I don't know how much, but when I looked at the display it was reading 60C. I'm going to replumb the place so hopefully will have a better idea in the future.

Three years ago I bought an old bungalow that had a 4kW PV system fitted in 2012. It also has a Genersys 1.4kW solar thermal system.

No it's not. I get over £2k a year for FiTs, but I wasn't really aware of the whole REGO payment scheme.

I'm registered with Good Energy for my FiT payments and hadn't heard of this, so I had a read, very interesting. https://www.goodenergy.co.uk/business/insights/fit-rego-boost/

We didn't have ours fabricated, it came as a kit of a million bits. Is this what you had in mind?

Around here oil is 62.45p/l. One litre of heating oil contains 10.35kWh and allowing for burning inefficiencies will reduce that to 9.32kWh. So 9.32kWh for 62.45p is 6.7p/kWh. My current electricity cost is 23.03p/kWh so an ASHP would need a SCOP of 3.4 to break even, so borderline as to whether it's cheaper than oil to run. For me, in an old house, it would be much cheaper to upgrade the existing oil boiler than to fit an ASHP.

I closest I've ever found to that look is Jacksons Retaining Wall, although 90mm or 140mm, so not brick sized. https://www.jacksons-fencing.co.uk/fencing/landscape-products/jakwall

There isn't much on here that I've posted, just a thread about TS v UVC and a thread about what to do about old stone walls and IWI. I'm not going to go the whole hog on IWI just something to help raise the temperature, a bit, of the surface of the old stone walls.

@lookseehear It's amazing how similar our properties and heating solutions are. Ours started as a pair of 1840s sandstone and cob cottages. In the 1970s they were knocked into one and the cob first storey removed leaving a sandstone/rubble walled bungalow. This was then increased in size with a concrete block, cavity walled, extension. Currently heated with an old oil fired Aga, we will be updating to an external condensing oil boiler heating a thermal store connected directly to the radiator heated central heating. We already have PV and solar thermal to help heat the TS. It will use a plate heat exchanger for DHW. The cavity walls, 70mm, will have EPS beads CWI and the 600mm stone walls will have hempcrete type IWI. The cold loft will have 400mm insulation. Good luck with your project.

Well done on producing a stunning house. I thoroughly enjoyed watching GD for once.

At our last place we wired out heat and smoke alarms, which had battery backup, off the lighting circuits. It was all signed off ok.

Yup, if you get a deeper sill there will be a little less thermal bridging but it depends on whether it's worth it for you.

The sill should overhang by at least 30mm. It doesn't look as though the sills are deep enough.

That's interesting, as I'm in a similar position. Do you have a link to the documentation?

At our previous house the farmers took all the old electricity poles when the whole area was upgraded.

We did full plans. When the BCO queried something I had done on the build he looked back at the plans and said well it has been accepted so it's OK. No arguement.

Would an F clamp work.

If your heating requirement is low enough I wouldn't bother installing UFH. In the last place we built there was a very low heating requirement and the whole house was kept at 23C with no problem. It was heated with three electric towel rails, one in each bathroom, and a Genvex Combi 185 with a built in MVHR, EASHP and DHW tank.

We used a completely different way of cladding our timber frame on the Isoquick. We had to have a 50mm cavity between the rainscreen and external insulation. I think this drawing had a few minor tweaks before the work was done. The DPC was folded up and stapled to the 15mm OSB racking before the external insulation was fitted to ensure water couldn't reach the sole plate. Don't know if that's of any help.

I did all the circuit design, and first and second fix at my last place. My son in law's mate was Part P qualified and checked my work at each stage and signed it off. Cost a few hundred quid.