Gone West

Definitely sooner if you're confident he can do a good job with the latex. Unless you're lucky they have a habit of forgetting they said it or not answering their phone. You can always put down floor protectors until you lay the bamboo.

Bit of an aside, but that's very interesting. We're plagued with moles at times and if I knew what the frequency of the vibrations was perhaps I could build a better trap.

That's interesting because I used a small amount of Recticel in my build and that had a reasonably thick aluminium layer. I even went to the bother of sealing all the cut edges with aluminium tape because I thought there was potential for the Pentane or whatever gas it was to leak out. This was several years ago and things may now have changed.

We were very lucky because of the Planning Committee, who here, are a mix of ages and genders. The Planning Inspectorate refused our second application so we submitted our third application taking onto account all the comments the Planning Inspector had made and it was refused again by the Planning Officer. I then took it to the Planning Committee who passed it unanimously. No one had voiced any objections at any stage except the Planning Dept. and it had support from the Parish Council.

Okay, cross posted with Jeremy. So forget about replaceable membranes and nitrogen fill and any air in the vessel will dissolve back into the water. Thanks for your help.

I can understand that it's a waste of money in ordinary car tyres but I'm not sure about expansion vessels.

Hi and welcome. We've built to PH standards without certification and you won't be sorry you did when the heating bills come in. I hope you've seen Ian's build story @recoveringacademic with regard to Durisol.

@JSHarris Thanks for that info. The advertising blurb states that with a nitrogen filled expansion vessel there is less corrosion and the nitrogen permeates through the membrane more slowly than oxygen resulting in the charge pressure staying up. Don't know how true that is. As your vessels are vertical and bottom fed did you find it necessary to bleed air from the water side of the vessel or does it just get absorbed into the water over time?

Never having had an unvented DHW system before I've a couple of questions for the wise and knowledgeable. 1. In practice is there an advantage in having a replaceable membrane or 2. having a nitrogen filled vessel? In the WRAS guidance on EV installation it states the EV should be installed bottom fed and upright so does that mean air going into the vessel with the water isn't a problem or is there a way of bleeding it out?

Welcome to the forum. Interesting plans so looking forward to the blog and good luck with the whole project.

This is an area I looked at when running PHPP. I tried different weather data sets but the effects on the overall results were small. In practice the local semi? microclimate has more of an effect on comfort in the house. Living a few miles from the sea in East Kent produces a very different climate from further inland. In the summer, on sunny days, we have Easterly onshore winds every afternoon which seems to reduce the effect of decrement delay. We also have much lower maximum temperatures. The maximum temperature here this year was 26C when further inland it was reported to be 32C. The humidity is also much higher all year round which should affect MHRV. In winter we have higher night time temperatures. These effects are presumably magnified in Cornwall.

I've dug out the paperwork from March 2010 and my memory of the cost was wrong. The fee was £1874.80 + VAT. This was for Pre Construction Assessment and Final Assessment and did not include drawings, Psi calculations or certificates for airtightness etc.

That was me and was based on the price of £1700 I was quoted by Peter Warm seven years ago for certification. The quote was based on the fact all components were PHI certificated.

On my last house I used lead for the flashing between the brick wall and conservatory polycarbonate roof. No problems with leaks.

Well done, hope the rest of the project goes smoothly.

@recoveringacademic Well done for persevering and getting a good result. Hopefully that's the end of the trials and tribulations for your build.

I have 110mm stub stack in my downstairs wetroom which has a 50mm pipe and 50mm AAV connected. It seems to flush with no problems. I wouldn't have more than one toilet with a 50mm AAV though.

That's a question only you can answer . If you're confident with your calculations and don't need the certificate for selling then no. The only way to know for sure is to pay for certification, if you think it's worth a couple of grand.

You can easily. Make the area a little larger than the plans and mark out with wooden pegs and string lines. Mark out the string lines on the ground with spray paint. Make sure distances to boundaries are correct and corners are square. Ours was a complex shape so took a while double checking everything but was relatively straightforward. We hired a digger with operator for £370 and he dug out around 90 tons of soil which he piled up in the orchard next door.

We were very lucky with our plasterer. We didn't have to touch the plaster anywhere except where it popped on a couple of screw heads. He admits to being OCD about the look of things and isn't happy unless it's perfect.

I use Purdy Elite brushes and Purdy rollers with a very short nap to give a smooth finish, which what we were after. I used Wickes Plaster Sealer which although expensive allowed us to seal without having to sand the plaster. The emulsion we used was Brewers Albany.

We went to committee and I spoke for three minutes. I also asked my local councillor to support my application and he spoke on my behalf as well. I hand delivered a document outlining what I was trying to achieve to each of the Planning Committee a week before the hearing. The only objectors I had were the Planning Dept. My application was passed unanimously much to the annoyance of the Head of Planning. I was not allowed to address the Planning Committee at the site meeting but I had a scale model on show and lots of photographs showing the affect my build would have on the surrounding area. At the site meeting members of the Committee asked me questions which I had to answer concisely.

I have 20mm MDPE from under the road to our water meter and then into the bungalow. I have teed off that in 25mm MDPE to the new house and then used a 25mm MDPE to 22mm adapter.

I used these for my electric towel rails. http://www.timeguard.com/products/time/immersion-and-general-purpose-timeswitches/7-day-fused-spur-timeswitch

Did you spray water water in there before the foam? I've found spraying water first and then foaming slowly allows it to expand fully. Hope I'm not teaching Granny to suck eggs.