AliMcLeod

Don't assume it was that person. We once gave some empty boxes to a colleague of my wife's who's sister was moving. A few months later I got a penalty notice from a neighbouring council with photographic "evidence" of my fly tipping. It didn't take too much to get it sorted, but i learned to always remove name/address labels from any boxes i gave to others.

Well, it is literally a proposed material amendment Did you review the policies referenced?

Mice can last 2-4 days without food according to this. But that assuming they have *no* food. https://www.rovepestcontrol.com/can-you-go-without-food-longer-than-these-pests/

What was the reason given for rejection? Have they accepted that the change would be non-material but are blocking it, or are they suggesting it is not non-material (ie. you'd have to resubmit to planning?)

Ah, ok. If I wasn't going to use it as a garage, i'd keep it level. If/when you ever come to sell, i doubt the lack of the slope would be a deal breaker for anyone. We bought a house where the double garage had been converted into 4 "cat-rooms" complete with (electric) UFH and cat-flaps punched through the exterior walls to caged cat pens.

Aren't there regulations for garages with regards to stopping combustible materials entering the "living space" - either a step or slope? And shouldn't your builder be advising you of them?

We were looking at some horizontal balustrades and feedback we were getting is that building control often don't like them as they are a "climb risk" for children. This was for internal "top-of-stair" balcony however and in Scotland. And it was for fixed metal balustrades, not wires.

Did you check whether you're not just paying for the boiler cover under a different guise? The new BG deal is around £240 more per year than the deal I'm currently on - although that's not fixed, it did just go up in price at the start of this month (PurePlanet). I can get BG's boiler plan, with much better cover (boiler, rads, plumbing, drains, electrics) and a lower excess for more a little over £200 a year, and the basic one that i guess matches the "free" one (boiler only) for £130.

Note, however (my bolding):

My setup is rather "interesting" in that their is no ability for my upstairs rads to call for heat - there's only stats in the 4 downstairs UFH zones, and if none of those are calling for heat, the upstairs will never get any hot flow, nomatter what the TRVs are set at. I was considering adding an upstairs stat into the mix but since we hardly use that part of the house, i'm now thinking it best to leave as is. BTW, I'm not the original poster (just a thread-highjacker). I agree @Rob99 should be challenging his plumber to come up with a different solution.

Is it preferable to use more fuel than rather short-cycling? I've a similar setup to what @Rob99 is proposing here - UFH downstairs (3 reception rooms, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms), rads upstairs (2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms) and no thermal store, but we have a Greenstar 42CDi Classic (modulates down to ~10KW). We only really use our upstairs when we have visitors, so i have the rads (and upstairs towel rails) set low, and my boiler does short cycle when heating up the UFH. I'm now wondering whether i should turns the upstairs rads up so as to consume more of the heat and reduce the short cycling. From looking at our gas bills over the past year, we use between around 20-100KW per day (summer/winter) for Gas. This includes DHW. @Rob99, based on my reading here, if I were to move my boiler now, i'd try to make room for a thermal store if at all possible.

+1. Or family. I've seen a few cases where will/inheritance grievances have split families apart.

Similar to others, i'd be wary of future insurance renewals. We moved into a house 10 years or so ago, and a few weeks later we heard a *very* loud gushing water noise when in our en-suite bathroom, but it was very hard to pinpoint where it was coming from. Our home insurance policy document was in a cupboard somewhere so I phoned our insurance company to query what was covered and they confirmed we were covered for water damage but not for any costs related to finding out where the leak was coming from (Trace and Access cover). In the end, we were lucky and a single floor tile lifted found the culprit - a very bad join in a mains pressure MDPE pipe had separated. We got it fixed it and the tile replaced with no permanent damage Our the next home renewal quote was expensive - when i phoned up to ask why, they referred to the call i had made and said that "incident" was contributing to the increased quote. I went elsewhere.

Definitely nothing new here - this system was installed in 2009. This is exactly what we want (my bolding above). For example, in our bedroom, we typically want a lower heat overnight but with the room heating up in the morning ready for us getting up. But I'd say these thermostat is very simple to use - a simple set of 4 set points per day (so no on/of settings, just "I want it to get to this temperature at this time") and ability to override up or down at any time.

Yes, that's why I'm wondering whether to turn the feature off or reduce the cycles. With the default 6 cycles per hour, each 10 minute cycle is further split into an on and off period. If the current temperature is more than 2C from the target set point, the call for heat will remain in place for the entire 10 minutes. At 1C difference, the call for heat will be on for 5 minutes, and then off for 5 minutes. At 0.5C, the call for heat will be on for 2.5 minutes, then off for 7.5 minutes. At the next cycle, the delta is recalculated and the next on/off periods are determined. If I changed it to 3 cycles per hour, each cycle would be 20 minutes, meaning potentially less on/off boiler cycles and fewer short cycles. I'm not sure that turning it off will be right though - the post I linked to above with the Danfoss response states that when in in/off mode, the "thermostat controls using on/off control with a 1 DEG C". I suspect this would lead to overshooting, unless I had my set point at 1C less than what I really wanted (and there's no way my family would remember to to that). I could always use the advanced setting to changed the calibration to be -1 ? Thanks for the link to the doc with the anti-cycle details - I'd not found that one.

Its a WB Greenstar 42CDi Classic and does modulate - from the manual HEATING ECONOMICALLY The boiler is designed to provide a level of comfort while keeping gas consumption and the resulting environmental effect as low as possible. The gas supply to the burner is controlled according to the level of demand for heat. The boiler continues to operate with a low flame if the demand of heat reduces. The technical term for this is modulating control. Modulating control reduces temperature fluctuations and provides even distribution of heat throughout the home. This means that the boiler may stay on for relatively long periods but will use less gas than a boiler that continually switches on and off. I can't find anything that might imply some other level of anti-short cycling though. What is not clear is whether the additional on/off commands from the stat will increase the short-cycling. Just wondering if any of the installers here typically turn such features off with UFH. There's a few threads on the web where people debate whether Chrono Proportional Control is a good or a bad thing with condensing boilers, with no real consensus.

A question/scenario for our resident plumbing experts. Doing some reading, I found out that our room stats (Danfoss TP5000si-RF) have a "feauture" called Chrono Proportional Control that cycles the boiler on and off as the room temperature approaches the target set point. Based on the difference, it determines how long to keep the boiler on within each cycle period. Danfoss sell its benefits here: http://danfossheating.ourpressoffice.com/2016/why-fit-chrono-proportional-controls/ Post 22 here is a response from Danfoss with more details on the algorithm they use: https://www.diynot.com/diy/threads/what-exactly-is-chrono-proportional.35622/page-2 I've just checked and our stats have the default set up of 6 cycles per hour. The question is, in my setup with a condensing boiler and no thermal store (UFH downstairs, rads upstairs, not particularly airtight house), would this not result in excessive short-cycling on the boiler? I'm wondering whether to turn this feature off, or reduce the cycles per hour, to reduce boiler cycling. The stat manual is here. Installation Option 34 controls the setting: http://heating.danfoss.com/PCMPDF/40804v02s3-00.pdf Any thoughts?

After you've not passed on the comments, please do let us know what your hypothetical friend does not do.

+1. I'd love to see his face as he walks in facing the people he's scammed. Record it and post it on YouTube How did you end up choosing him - was he recommended? Strong incentive to always get a reference.

But if the PDF does not have the dimensions (layers turned off before saving as PDF), then you're at risk if the drawings are measured from the scale.

So what you're saying is that if these CAD files had been shared earlier, the issue would never had arisen?

Are the architects working on a "percentage of cost" basis? Asking for a friend cynic. As above, I'd be nervous with that as my starting point. Its unlikely that many self-builders come in under their initial m2 target.

Well done on getting people on side, but I'd be a bit wary of assuming that all the people who sounded positive when you spoke to them on the doorstep will stay on side. Some people don't like face-to-face conflict and might say one thing to your face and then something else later, particularly if others raise an objection. It doesn't sound like any have any valid reason for objection, however.

There's your problem right there! Its some of that acoustic stuff you need

Surely both are dependent on the complexity of the covenant, and the inherit risk (as you state)? Can you share what the restriction is and do you want it removed completely or mitigated to some extent? Have you tried getting an initial 15-30 free chat with a solicitor?