Gone West

Bear with me because I haven't read all six pages. The obvious answer to me is to add "4." to the options, which would be to trade your old car for a modern car that doesn't have a conventional handbrake, just a button, and has automatic hill start. That must be easier than redesigning your front garden and changing it all when it seems you are happy with the look of it and you spent so much achieving that look.

I can't find any information on Domino tanks, is that a manufacturer?

We already had PV and solar thermal fitted when we moved in, but our existing vented tank is only 140l and we were going to fit a larger UVC.

@JohnMo & @PeterW Ok thanks. So I have to have fitted the largest coil that can be squeezed in along with the solar coil and two immersions and accept limited condensing. I guess I'll have to fit a larger UVC than I originally intended then. So there's no advantage to restricting the flow through the coil then?

Calling plumbing gurus, @Nickfromwales, @PeterW, @pocster? How do I plumb a UVC heated by a condensing oil boiler to ensure it condenses when heating DHW. I understand that with a flow temperature of say 60C and a temperature drop of 20C through the radiators it should be in condensing mode for space heating. When heating DHW the UVC coil presumably won't be able to extract enough heat to provide a 20C temperature drop so do I have to restrict the flow through the coil? If so what is the best way to do it and set it up for condensing.

That's exactly what we did, great minds and all that.

I found that the easiest bit, Wendy did it!!

Fortunately we finished our build four and a half years ago and now it's just a dim and distant memory. Moved on to the next project now. It took eight years to complete and it's not something I would want to do again. The hardest part was the relentless day in day out slog.

We didn't find any downsides but the house was very highly insulated and was designed not to need a conventional CH system. The air from the MVHR vents was only warm, so the EASHP had a high CoP. The EASHP also heated the DHW tank to 45C. Our electricity bills were very low, but that was pre 2021.

Ours was 320mg/l so we had to have one really.

I had to have one hot water and one cold softened water and one cold hard water. Much easier living with naturally soft water.

I glued down all the groundfloor stud wall sole plates using PU gel adhesive.

Rather than the specific details of a particular borehole it's whether there are several historical shallow wells in the area, less than ten feet deep, that could indicate a high water table. Where I used to live was, hundreds of years ago, the old coastline salt marshes and the geology changed significantly over short distances. Most of the pre 20thC properties in the area had shallow wells. PS It looks like the borehole details you linked to showed that they drilled 180 feet but never finished the well and that it is capped off.

I lived in the area for a long time and only saw the Elham Nailbourne flowing in a few winters. http://www.barham-kent.org.uk/modern_nailbourne.htm

The water table where I used to live could vary by 2.5m over a year from ground level downwards. I had a borehole drilled and it was water bearing all the way down to the chalk which was also water bearing at 47m down.

So you must be in the Barham area. I used to live near Westmarsh so know the area.

We used reedbeds with our treatment plant at our last house and found them quite high maintenance.

A starting point might be local borehole details. https://www.bgs.ac.uk/information-hub/borehole-records/

We built a PH a while back which was heated with electric towel rails in the bathrooms and a MVHR with built in EASHP. The whole house was kept at 23C comfortably. It was very well insulated and according to PHPP required 13kWh/m2a or 9W/m2 for space heating.

Very windy yesterday as well, -1C wind chill. Prefer the Cornish climate.

Calgary.

Haven't a clue. My youngest daughter lives in Canada, which is a huge country, and it was -6.0C and snowing hard yesterday, where she was.

I would have thought it was an ideal use for Icynene and if it's fully encapsulated who knows how it's insulated.

The blown mineral fibre system I looked at thirteen years ago used a semi transparent membrane which I thought was a good idea. As always there are many ways to skin a cat, and several work well, but none are perfect.

The reason I didn't use blown celulose was because I was worried about sagging and thermal bypass. Strangely enough I was talking to a friend a couple of days ago who used Warmcel in her build twelve years ago. She had recently uncovered some internal walls and found large cavities in the Warmcel which she said surprised her because it had been put in under such high pressure. She is going to hire a thermal camera to check the external walls. She had also used Icynene in the external walls of a detached studio in the grounds. One advantage of Icynene is that you can see the coverage before it's covered up. As for blown cellulose:- It certainly doesn't fill every gap in all cases. I doubt it's better for airtightness. I don't know about the cost comparison. Blown cellulose is better for decrement delay, but the importance of decrement delay is dependent on the situation of the property. As the insulation is encapsulated, fire resistance is a bit of a red herring. Off gassing of Icynene is complete in 48 hours. There can be a lot of work involved in trimming Icynene with the associated waste. We also looked at blown mineral fibre which would have been my second choice.