Gone West

As they say time is a great healer and you do forget all the crap times during your build. Having done a complete renovation and a self build I definitely enjoyed doing the renovation a lot more than the new build. Everybody is different and you have to consider whether building a new house is really what you want to be doing for the next however long.

I fitted a silencer on my supply circuit which is silent, but didn't bother fitting one on the extract side and it is possible to hear a hum in the bathrooms from the vents. Fitting a silencer will affect the airflow but to what degree I don't know. I commissioned my system after everything had been installed. My guess is that the concrete sleeve is probably ducting. If the ducting isn't insulated then condensation will form much further back in the ducting and mould is more likely to form.

Hi and welcome to the forum. I considered Sunamp in my build but am glad I changed my mind as there seem to have been quite a few problems with them. There is an alternative coming to market next year called Tepeo which looks to me like a big storage heater with water pipes. https://tepeo.com/technology

I'm not sure I understand completely. What part of the building has got the large thickness of concrete that the extract duct is in. My house is all timber and the ducting is insulated right up to the vent and doesn't have any mould inside. My total wall thickness is 500mm. I don't think replacing the square vents with smaller round ones will affect the condensation but it may reduce air flow.

I get condensation dripping from my MVHR external extract vent for certain weather conditions. It is normal, which is why the ducting leading to the external extract vent should always be angled downwards slightly to allow the water to drain away.

That's what we did, so it was at least half British. Rehau Geneo profiles with windows manufactured in UK.

I used gel PU adhesive to stick some brick slips to the EPS upstand on my insulated foundations. They are still there many years later. https://www.axminstertools.com/titebond-greenchoicetm-premium-polyurethane-construction-adhesive-ax836048

We used NuLok. We did all the membrane and battening and I tiled the single storey area. There wasn't time to us to do the whole roof so that was done by a team of NuLok roofers.

Is there any reason why the PIR can't be glued to the racking with a few screws from the inside to hold it in place.

Similar construction to yours but I fixed 100x50mm battens to the outside of the racking, drilling from the outside and screwing from the inside. Friction fit 50mm Rockwool RW6 batts between the battens leaving 50m cavity then cladding.

Hi Andy, welcome to the forum. Sounds interesting, any details.

It doesn't look like the Chrysotile sheets I had removed from my bungalow but there are other types of asbestos and I'm no expert.

I wouldn't disturb it anymore and would get it tested. I used one of these:- https://www.amazon.co.uk/Asbestos-Sample-Testing-Instructions-Postage/dp/B0862B9JZB/

Quite possibly. The new bungalow next to us has a half hipped wall facing us which had the walls bricked up to eaves height by one set of brickies and the bit above was done much later by different brickies. The bit above has different coloured mortar which hasn't been cleaned off the bricks as well as lower down. Does not look tidy.

We lived in our old bungalow whilst building the new house in the garden. The advantages being that we were on site all the time and all the services were on site. Removal of telephone line was £0, connecting water £0 and electricity was £476 for removal and £636 to connect.

Our thermostat is set at 23C. Anything below that is just unpleasant.

Excellent! Wendy particularly likes your console table .

Sounds interesting, I'll keep my eyes open for future pictures.

No, it's just a picture I've got showing open cladding.

Ideally the windows would be set back into the wall behind or in line with the insulation.

It's only the sewage treatment plant that causes a problem when there's a long power cut and I'm not worried about other things. We do get cuts lasting from one to three hours occasionally but I guess it's part of living out in the sticks. With the current gales we'll probably get one this weekend.

We shouldn't get power cuts very often because they've replaced all the poles, transformers and cables recently in our area, but we had one the other day for an hour or so. I guess it's just one of those things that isn't a serious problem.

My sewage treatment plant runs off it's own supply from the shed. When there's a power cut we have to limit the amount of waste water used because it's pumped up to the soakaway. I would like an automatic system the keeps powering the sewage treatment plant for around two hours when there is a power cut. The airpump uses 80W continuously and the submersible pump uses 240W, when it runs, which is around half a dozen times a day. I've looked at UPS systems which seem to be mainly for computer type systems and automatic transfer switch generators which seem over the top for a total of 320W. Has anyone got a backup system like this and what type is it?

Just the opposite of Wendy, who hates draughts and likes the whole house to be 23C/24C all day, every day, all year round.

I thought the point of MVHR is that fresh air is being brought in continuously so you wouldn't want to open the windows. If you have MVHR and feel the need to open windows then the MVHR isn't set up correctly.