Gone West

Welcome to the forum. Well he would wouldn't he. I would wait until the oil boiler is on it's last legs and then consider changing to an ASHP. The longer you wait the more common they will become and cheaper they will be. I don't know where in the country you are but I can't envisage the running costs of an ASHP being cheaper than an oil boiler for a couple of years at least especially if you are in a cold part of the country.

They were so crap I didn't bother getting a landline fitted in the end.

Yes, very true. When we dismantled our old bungalow we disposed of the bathroom and kitchen fittings, bricks, concrete blocks, floorboards and studwork on Freecycle and Freegle. We never used a skip at all.

We have an EASHP providing warm air heating which only supplements our heating provided by three electric towel rails. I don't use a normal ASHP providing wet heating but I would follow what @Gav_P says as ASHPs can't be used as a direct swap for an oil or gas boiler and they aren't cheap to run when it's cold.

IMO yes. When you need the most heat they are usually the least efficient. I would only fit an ASHP in a well insulated airtight house and I would use gas or oil in an old, poorly insulated house. Whatever source of heating is used, it needs to be sized correctly.

If you're in an old house without the option of gas I would stick with oil. I would fit an external system boiler in place of the combi it would be quieter and more efficient. Try reducing your usage by insulating, draughtproofing etc. https://www.tradeplumbing.co.uk/grant-vortex-blue-external-floor-standing-regular-oil-boiler-erp.html

We are a couple of miles from the sea and we have different types of hedging around the garden. We bought a pallet of Oleaster, one metre high, a couple of years ago and they took well and are easy to trim. They are evergreen and have small very fragrant flowers that the bees like and later berries for the birds. https://www.hedgesdirect.co.uk/acatalog/oleaster-elaeagnus-x-ebbingei.html#aELA

Well done, that's good. I did some runs of the PHPP for my house design with different air airtightness values and once you get down to around 1ach the advantages of going lower are quite small.

Is the position too tight to be able to remove the heat exchanger if required. Your MIs may suggest an annual clean.

Where did the 15% come from? When designing my house I ran the PHPP for a range of internal temperatures and found at 21C it would use 15kWh/m2a and at 23C 20kWh/m2a so around twice the difference that you indicated. My design may have some peculiarities or the site position may cause some differences but it seems a lot. 20C 12kWh/m2/a 21C 15kWh/m2/a 22C 17kWh/m2/a 23C 20kWh/m2/a 24C 23kWh/m2/a

What about something like a 600W ASHP in a 100litre Ecocent.

Don't worry about it. It all fades into distant memory with all the other things to work out.

It wasn't our best moment when we found out that the whole insulated slab had to be cut up and removed .

Strangely I agree with some of the comments from the Sunamp supplier. I wouldn't consider PV as part of my space heating solution. I also have a dry house and I wouldn't choose a wet space heating system in a modern well insulated house. I would separate DHW and space heating systems and use a small dedicated ASHP for DHW and an A2A system for space heating and cooling. There is a member of the GBF who heats their house with A2A and is happy with it.

The AECB are having a free webinar next week about retrofitting doors and windows. https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_1uK7p_5qReKaYEqHhf5tqg

Knew about it but never used it during our build.

That is quite possibly the case with most buyers. Not me though, having UFH would make me think twice about buying.

As you don't know the OP from Adam, that statement seems a little unfair.

Friends of ours built a house in 2011 and used Nu-Lok with their built in PV modules and have been happy with the system especially because they claimed the full FiT payments.

When I connected my metal shed to the house supply I used a TT system, (think that's the correct term), with an earth rod which earthed the metal shed and the supply.

I am not an electrician! but was wondering how it is all earthed.

We have a similar problem. Our sensor is above our front door and out of line of sight of car headlamps. When a tractor goes past with high level lights, which are out of line of sight of the sensor, the lights come on. I traced it in the end to a reflection off a front window and onto the sensor.

@Bartholomew Looking at the link you posted it says:- 'We have seen many people try and save time and money by leaving the frame in when they try to block up an opening but this never works.' I would use concrete blocks, you can still put cladding on.

Welcome to the forum and good luck with your project. Everything is fixable, just might cost a bit. Show us pictures of what you're doing to the bungalow, we like that.

I don't know much about building basements but it would be useful to know whether the water table height varies over the year. If it drops a lot in the summer, as it does around here, then it's much easier doing that type of work in the summer.