Gone West

@Arnold9801 This gives you a flavour of what to expect with Icynene. We did our our whole house in 2014 and had it sprayed to a depth of 350mm which was more than twice the depth they had ever done before. As already said the walls have to be warm so a job for the summer. Trimming.mp4

I had one of those once. Bloody thing lost the timer when there was a power cut and as a result it regenerated when I didn't want it to and we had a lot of power cuts. The one I had couldn't deliver soft water and regenerate at the same time unlike the twin cylinder Harveys, etc can.

Twin cylinder softeners such as Harveys regenerate when one cylinder is "used up" and it switches to the other cylinder, so can be any time of the day when water is being used. Single cylinder softeners, that I have used, have had a timer that can be set but generally regenerated at night. They are relatively noisy, not something I have measured, but ok with door shut.

In previous houses we did fit the water softeners under the kitchen sink but in the new build we fitted it in the utility room where the mains water entered the house. We found it much easier to access sitting on the floor. It was all a bit tight for space but better than under the sink.

So BC would want me to apply to them to replace my windows myself and then they would issue a certificate.

Ours were around 2.5m above outside ground level. We had to be able to brush insects off and wash them once a year.

That's great, so what's all the FENSA nonsense about then? When I sold my last house the solicitors wanted FENSA certificates, until I pointed out it was a new house.

Just a quick one or three, what are the regulations relating to replacement windows? 1. Am I allowed to replace a window in my own house or should I employ a FENSA window fitter? 2. Do the window and the fitter both have to have a FENSA certificate. 3. Does BC have to be involved. The last time I did this sort of thing was back in the 90s and I just bought some windows and fitted them, but then that was the good olde days.

I used the Vitrex Ultimate blade in my tile cutter. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vitrex-200mm-Ultimate-Diamond-Blade/dp/B001ACRRJE

I removed both copies of the blog when I sold the house. The 13kWh/m2a was for space heating only but I can't remember for sure whether the energy for running the Genvex was included in that. I would have thought the PHPP would have included the Genvex energy used and the heat recovery though because I bought a version upgrade for PHPP from 2007 to 2010 that included built in compact unit data which included the Genvex Combi.

I've always read that COP was P out/P in which is why SCoP is supposedly more accurate. Is that wrong?

I would prefer a stainless steel or copper tank and not have an anode. I had a Genvex Combi 185L unit which had a 585W EASHP which heated the tank. The tank was enamelled steel and had an anode. The warranty for the unit was only two years. COP is P out/P in, so I don't know how Dimplex have done their calculations.

One of the mistakes I made fitting the ducting on my system was to fit an attenuator on the supply circuit and not on the extract circuit. I didn't think it would matter as the extract vents were only in the bathrooms, kitchen and utility. The rooms with supply vents were silent but the bathrooms etc had a slight background hum only audible in the room itself. If I ever design another system for myself I would use two attenuators. https://www.ductstore.co.uk/acatalog/Attenuators.html

Yup, well in a PH. If you're not pumping loads of heat in low down, how is it getting to the ceiling. The heat has to be coming from somewhere. If the UFH is only a degree above room temperature the gradient is shallow. If you have hot radiators there is a steep temperature gradient and the hot air travels upwards quickly, cooling as it goes, until it drops down for the cycle to be repeated continuously.

Well you beat us by a year, well done.

We had a tiled ground floor in our PH without UFH. We heated the house with three towel rails in the bathrooms, supplemented with warm air from an EASHP, and kept the air temperature at 23C. The floor never felt cold and I measured the floor temperature and it was always between 22C and 23C. Warm air only rises to the ceiling because of the temperature gradient. If the house is well insulated and the ducted warm air came in at floor level at a low enough temperature it wouldn't rise straight to the ceiling.

There are small A2W heat pumps that heat just a water tank. There might be more than these. https://www.ariston.com/en-uk/products/air-source-heat-pump-water-heater/air-source-heat-pump-water-heater/ https://www.earthsaveproducts.com/products/ecocent

You're lucky, as I was, to have a very low energy house. I found my house was very comfortable without any conventional heating. Most of the people the government are pushing to have ASHP and hence UFH don't have low energy houses. When you try to fit UFH in an unsuitable house the 8% goes up because the temperature gradient is steeper as a result of needing higher water temperature. That combined with limited under floor insulation means a significant amount of the heat is lost.

I don't understand why people go to the effort of insulating and draughtproofing their houses and then put in a heating system that directly sends a certain proportion of that heat into the ground. IIRC Jeremy calculated that he lost 8% to the ground through his 300mm EPS underfloor insulation. Using radiators is more efficient but even then, heating water to heat a concrete slab or metal radiators to then heat the air seems daft. Why not just heat the air directly, A2A. Over the years I've read on GBF about contributors who use A2A successfully. https://www.aircon247.com/p/9324538/lg-mu5r30u40-88kw-multi-split-outdoor-unit-r32---202122.html Rant over.

The ducting can be bought separately from the MVHR unit and can be metal, rigid plastic or flexible plastic. The ducting design can also be serial or manifold. I designed my own system which was a serial, rigid plastic ducting design connected to an expensive Danish compact unit. You can choose what you want.

The airtightness is only important when it's colder outside than inside. In the summer the windows can be opened any time you want.

Our stairwell came off the central hall room and the landing served three bedrooms and a bathroom. The bathroom had a roof window and in the summer, when it was hot, we opened the entrance door and the roof window, in the evening, to create a passive stack effect. It was amazing how much air movement there was and how effective it was at dumping the hot air. We tended to live with all the internal doors open all the time so air moved around the house.

No, the PH concept is that all rooms are the same temperature. In the PHPP there is one temperature input data which by default is 20C but which is a variable.

We've got views of the upper reaches of the River Tamar from our sitting room and bedroom. Simply fantastic.

I guess it's in preparation for when it's mandatory to build cars with speed sign recognition and speed limiters. Most new cars have speed sign recognition so it's only one more step.