JohnMo

You point at building regs, tell them you comply, tell them to put in writing what parts of building regs you don't comply with. Trickle vents doesn't even get mentioned in building regs part F, it just mentions background ventilators. You have to have inlet vents, but they do not have to be in the window. They have to meet minimum mm² requirements.

I ended up looking about locally, as I got the same run around you are getting. A local firm made wooden windows from scratch, about 5 miles from the house. They measured, made, certified and installed. Everything was way easier. Had a couple of alignment issues 2 years after install, they were here to sort, an hour later. But locally made if you can.

But that isn't fully correct and is piss poor advise. The correct wording background ventilators. Which can be through wall or through top of window provided they meet the minimum open volume. Read here, similar rules apply in Scotland. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/approved-document-f-volume-1-dwellings-frequently-asked-questions

The way the humidity control ventilation will work dMEV units are running at minimum speed for room they are installed. The Greenwood CV2 will automatically boost on rising humidity. The inlet vents in different rooms will have a minimum open position (from install manual - "At low levels of relative humidity, the extract never fully closes, providing a low level of background ventilation to ensure continuous ventilation"), so all rooms will have a background ventilation rate. So the ventilation in will wash the room with a small rate at all times. Door under cuts allow air to freely be drawn from the inlet valves. No inlet valves in wet rooms ensures good cross ventilation. When your say in the lounge generating humidity by breathing, drinking tea etc, the ventilation inlet in that room will start opening. More air wash will occur in that area as the ventilation inlet opens, lowering the system resistance compared to other vents in a more closed position. At bedtime your lounge humidity drops and the inlet closes and the bedroom one starts to open etc. No one home all vents are in the minimum position. Take a shower fan in bathroom goes into boost and just pulls harder on the vents in the minimum open position. The inlet vents just provide a variable inlet resistance to give preferential flow in areas of higher humidity.

Why doesn't weather compensation work on all houses? It's just energy in equal to energy out.

They have, haven't they? But do you really need a thermostat? Good observations by @marshian on another recent thread about energy usage and steady house temperatures. Would it better to design your heating system to do away with a thermostat all together - low temperature weather compensation. But the naysayers are determined that heating has to be zoned.

You need something like these, others are available, but this was the first I found, they are humidity controlled and silenced. So they will open and close based on humidity and not transfer noise from outside. https://www.bpdstore.co.uk/glidevale-fresh-99hdb-humidity-sensitive-acoustic-wall-ventilator/p/232

Not really American style, been done in the UK since the 70s, almost all homes in Scotland are done that way - dry lined, or Ames taping is what it's called. Just make sure you use taper edge plasterboard. Discussion here on plasterboard https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/question/gypsum-board-vapor-permeable-or-what

eBay has some bargains for fan coils. Our summer house has one, switched cooling yesterday and running at no lower than 13.5 degs flow temperature the summer house was 8 degs cooler at 5pm the previous day and when solar gain finished dropped to 21 very quickly. You can use UFH for cooling, but not as effective.

How hard is your water, we have quite hard well water, and use a BWT combi care cartridge upstream of the hot water cylinder and it's almost stopped all scale on taps and showers. We still have to descale kettle. It's pretty tiny and just gets replaced annually.

For me, where you are located with cold winter and assume pretty hot summers - I would look at fan coils and not at UFH Add 50mm of floor insulation to take away the cold feeling of the floor. Set heat pump to 35 degs in winter and about 14 in summer. Or 6 with condensation drainage under fan coil.

Not really, just before our build I was set on smart everything, about a month before I started buying things, there were a couple of similar removals of support and web interfaces (can't remember the brands) so I made a positive move away from so called smart systems. I do have home assistant but it's only used for nice to have things, so excess PV being diverted to heat pump or immersion and general monitoring. Did try home assistant battery charge management, but too hit or miss so gave up on that. Don't trust any big company really, they are there, to keep share holders and share holders only happy.

Would be surprised if you couldn't get control from home assistant, if not now very soon.

That definitely works very well. We have that and the nice chilled water it produces.

Or just stop using and paying stupid prices, for so called smart devices. Have a system that is local first and foremost and if really required the ability to get external access. Then who cares if they support or otherwise.

That's the issue, they aren't, and they come and go quickly. At least you can still change settings locally. But you pay an expensive price, for a so called smart device that is as functional as £10 dump one, a few years later.

Just seen this also about nest app. https://www.androidauthority.com/nest-thermostat-scheduling-google-home-3548323/

Yes

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/04/google-ending-support-for-older-nest-thermostats-will-stop-selling-nests-in-europe/

But his design is already way better than a cut and paste job he would get from them. So why would you bother?

Isn't that already in place. Certainly been in place for over a decade offshore, so see no reason why it wouldn't be in place onshore.

Yes, will make balancing way easier.

I am coming to the conclusion that you go one of two routes 1. Fully insulated floor, so 150 to 200mm of PIR or equivalent. 2. Just don't bother with insulation. Clip pipes direct to slab and screed over. Option 2 will only work with a ground bearing slab. Suspended floor will be a money pit. So option 2, you engage the soil below the house to buffer heat. You run WC mode 24/7 with no zones. The heat stored in the ground should help get through the cold snaps. With the above in mind, you need to run the lowest flow temp you can, so close spacing will be better than wide spacing. Use 16mm pert-al-pert pipe, suitable manifold and no pump or mixer and no buffer or volumiser. First sensible person seen, so far with a plan

We have a treatment plant. We use muck munchers once per month. Zero smells, still haven't emptied it, nearly 3.5 years in the house.

Or that PU glue (Gorilla) needs water to activate the expanding and curing process, and then it's water proof.