JohnMo

Practical exercise in what can go wrong with ladders, if you don't listen to your head telling you it's stupid to do something. Yesterday my wife was out and it was raining, so decided to clean the inside of the upper windows of our lounge, approx 6m high. Our flooring is down and it's a waxed finished oak. So moved chairs and nest of glass side tables out of the way of the ladder. The glass table were still under the ladder. Cleaned the upper part of the windows ok and reduced the ladder height to approx 2.0m, proceeded to climb ladder no problems, when at the top, the feet of the ladder slipped on the wooden floor, me and the ladder came crashing down one the glass side tables. The tables broke in thousand pieces, but many large shards of glass remained. Lucky for me I only had small cuts all over my legs and quite a few bruises, it could have been a lot worse if I had landed differently. Back to working today, so can't be too bad. Learning of the story 1. Think, if it all goes wrong where will I land. 2. Ladders and waxed surfaces do not mix. 3. If your head says it's not a good idea - it may not be. 4. It maybe a good idea to have someone around when you are up a ladder, in case it all goes badly and they can call for help. 5. Think can I use an extension pole and not a ladder.

For reference, our panels were on the roof for about 7 months, before being connected to inverter. We had them wired to the DC isolation switch, which was switched off.

No idea what they are called, but all the Slater's here use them (NE Scotland). The support for the scaffold board in knocked into the sarking board under a removed (or not installed) slate. It think they would only work with sarking boards

Go 4G, £35 a month all the data and calls you want, you can even connect a landline with right hub, although you get a mobile number. Doing all via mail order, took a couple of days, and about 30mins walking about the house to find the best signal.

Never seen why radiators were under windows, all the heat got trapped behind the curtains and not in the room. When we renovated our last house I put all the radiators on the walls the other side of the room from the window. It work well. But maybe best to plan it around the furniture, if that's an option

Double post

It should be pretty good, the only thing that lets it down is the bridging caused by the metal ties of the posi joists. The spray foam is expensive, but they were in and out in 2 days, we have approx 240m2 of roof. It would have taken me weeks by hand and not achieved any better. The good thing about the spray foam is its gap free. The additional PHS Hi-Thermia Reflective Membrane (air tight and vapour tight), when installed with 25mm air gap adds an additional 0.78 to your R value.

I was on my roof this afternoon, sticking the rubbish corrugated flashing back on as it was starting to lift at one end. The lead flashing looks very tidy.

My electrical contractors are signing off as part of the overall electrical cert. They don't have a solar person so to speak.

When we had gas meter installed (June this year) the Scottish Gas installer spoke about a transition to mixed gas and our medium pressure gas main, which is due replacement, would be lined to cope with the mixed gas. So likely to have a transition period across the country. Reading between the lines "gas" boilers may be banned, but a "mixed gas" may not. To run on mixed gas may just be a burner change and some bits.

Welcome. We are just getting to the end of our self build, like you I wanted to do as much as possible myself. I used Durisol blocks for the walls, easy to work with and good insulation values without additional insulation. Our house has a 70m perimeter and wall height at rear is 2.5m and front around 4m. Took two of us 4 weeks to complete the walls, having never used them before. Plan as much as possible before you start. Will make your life easier when it come to construction time.

This is what I did I needed an additional 100mm, so I cut short pieces of 47x50, fixed these at 600mm centers, then further 47x50 were attached to the short pieces. In my case the whole lot was filled with spray foam. Then a reflective Air tightness vapour control layer and then a further set of counter battons.

I did generally go to one BM, for all my wood, plasterboard, internal doors, except cladding. Mainly because they were good to deal with, friendly and reasonably competitive. But what I found interesting in the buying process, was I would go around getting prices locally, get stupid quotes (sound proofing) or be told they could not supply Thermolite or similar. Buy from the internet from London with free delivery (600 miles away). But it was delivered by the same local merchants. Big ticket items like glazing, I went zero risk and used a local manufacturer, so they came and measured, manufactured and installed. The gladding is Scottish Larch, it does have a nice colour. It came from a mill in Nairn, which is local to us. Having another batch delivered next week, so hope it's the same colour. Borehole and treatment came from GRC Aquatech, Aberdeenshire. They sent a water deviner to find the best place to drill. He hold us the depth water was at and what was feeding it. He said water was at 32m the borehole ended up at 36m. There are a couple of good write ups on here worth finding and reading. Low yield, my be worth running the pump long periods low flow rates into a large accumulator, so you have plenty of water when you need it.

So in effect tops up the TS via DHW side of the combi in the process I have written that incorrectly. Should have said boiler runs for about 10mins per hour. That is the central heating runs for about 10 mins per hour. The secondary return, will pick up heat from the store if it's available, the boiler will fire the DHW as required. I only run the secondary return for an hour in the morning and the same at night.

No its not a multi foil. That's the vapour control airtight layer. There is spray foam insulation inside the roof structure. Thermal losses not accessed, but at 40 degrees in the top half only isn't worth while assessing. The plastic cap on the top of cylinder is cool to touch. The water in the expansion tank, feels warm, but not hot. The room not much hotter than the rest of the house. The top of the room is being extracted to MVHR, so being recycled. The boiler came from Wolseley, it's an A325ECX, cost me £950 (including VAT,) including a standard flue. For one of the highest efficiency boiler you can get pretty good price. The main reason I chose it was it build out of the box to take solar preheated water.

I just heat the top half of the store, thermostat about half up store set to 45 degrees. I am using wood stove connection at top of store as my UFH take off

Just commissioned a system quite similar to you are talking about. Combi boiler - Atag can take pre heated water Thermal store, DHW Coil feeding into combi Combi central heating circuit, heating TS via sealed coil at bottom of TS. Water within store connected to UFH pump and let down to 30 degrees via mixer at manifold. Thermal store temp set at 45 degrees. Boiler central heating flow temp is a 50 degree curve. The only difference is my immersion is connected to PV diverter. So what you want I cannot do, but you can. UFH pump is running when a thermostat has a heat demand, boiler only runs when the thermal store asks for heat. Summer Turn thermostat down in summer so there is always a call for heat, but ensure the central heating demand is switched off in summer, so thermal store is cold. UFH heating will circulate back to store - no need to reverse. Heat at top of store will be consumed by cold water passing through upper coil prior to being heated for DHW. But you need the separation of UFH and boiler, but running through coils within the tank gives you this

Gone west, the floor is engineered oak, thát is finished in grey wax. Close image attached. Things I would have done different 1. The walls from strip foundations to DPC, are done in cement blocks, I would do them in durisol blocks - not reliant on someone else and would have had a easier transition to the main walls. 2. Had the roof structure designed around Pozi rafters from day one. 3. We have electric towel rails, would chosen them, before the electrical contractors arrived, as two sockets ended up in the wrong place. 4. Simplified the front wall as all the corners were a real pain to build as just every block has to be cut. 5. I would get the architect to detail door and window thresholds. As this was a steep learning curve. 6. I changed the build method to Durisol block part way through the warrant process, this gave us a 4 month delay. Things I wouldn't change 1. Shopping around for materials, local building merchants are super expensive. Contractors don't really care how much they pay, as they passing the cost to you, plus a percentage. Most contractors had the material free issued from me. 2. Planning well ahead, purchasing PV, Boiler, thermal store, MVHR, at start of first lockdown in clearance sales Things I learned The house ends bigger than you think. Things take longer to do than you think. Be flexible with material and design choices

The cold water enters the combi via the TS DHW coil. The recirculation pump is on the cold side of the coil. Check valves force the recirculation return flow though the DHW coil and to the combi. The pump is the bit with the shiny plastic top, next to the immersion. Have tried lots of running curves and the 50 degree one is about as low as I can go. The pump runs for about 10mins every hour or so. The combi basically runs until the return flow is just about the same as delivery flow.

Reminded me I need to complete one also. Found this - may be helpful https://www.gov.scot/publications/how-your-low-carbon-home-works/

I think ASHPs are good if you have a low energy home, but even then you at looking £10k install, (more with a high energy home) with grants you could half this. You will need bigger radiators as the temperature developed by heat pumps is lower than oil or gas. Heat pumps when optimised develop approx 3kW heat for each kW of electrical energy, but electricity cost 3 times that of gas, but not sure about oil. Oil boiler nearly produces a kW heat for each kW of energy put in. As everyone has said insulation is king, keep the heat in. Ventilation, part of your heat loss calcs is ventilation heat loss, an old house could have 10 or more uncontrolled air changes an hour, each of these air changes needs to be heated. An airtight house has 1, or less air changes per hour, that require heating. We have solar panels, but they only really produce lots of energy in the summer, if can get some gains in winter via an immersion heater that is good, but don't bank on it in a heating design. My recommendations are Find or build a spreadsheet, work out room heat loss as it is now, then modify spreadsheet with different options also look at costs. The more you move from what you have now, the more the cost, especially if you have someone else to do the work. In NE Scotland there is scheme running to apply external insulation, my wifes sister also in an ex council house has just had done for next to nothing, this included re rendering the external of the house. Insulation and fix drafts. Get a basic diagnostic air test done, this will highlight areas where you are leaking, to see if they expensive to fix or otherwise. There's a guy in Forres that does tests. Find out if you have a condensing oil boiler, if so optimise return temps from heating to a low 40 degree C, so it runs in condensing mode. This may require larger radiators to give the right output in to room, but much cheaper than biomass or ashp Look at your water cylinder check the insulation, my be worth keeping or replacing. Overall keep it simple

View from lounge window, still need decking to be completed

I have 10x Perlite all black 310w panels, GSE in roof trays, growatt inverter, from ITS Technologies. Around £2600 for everything, switches, meters etc except the optimisers, which I purchased separately. Installed myself got the electrical guys to wire as part of electrics install. No MSC cert, but planning to self consume (, immersion heater). Even today its producing 1.8kW, in NE Scotland, sunny but cloudy.

Could just be British weather, check a weather site, and look at local humidity levels, they vary day to day

No just strip foundations, but prity big