dpmiller

the loop doesn't "get" any cold. The loop/ loops just circulate, the blending valve opens to let sips of hot in and this pushes the cold out, back into your return pipe...

blending valve?

Things always seem different this side of the pond. Sure, our house was a pretty standard footprint, but my advice was to let the BCO be happy with the works "on the ground". Admittedly we did dig four test pits on the site pre-purchase so maybe that's the de-risking, but also I know that our neighbours went from scraping off topsoil to find stone at one end of their founds, to going down 16' and the BCO telling them to give up at that point and fill it all in with concrete... Now things are a bit different here because we ONLY have Council BCOs, but they do seem to know their own patch. We did a standard blockwork dig- down to firm ground and then pour 12"+ to level, add mesh where the BCO queried the base of the dig. Not terribly excessive and no expense in consultants.

why not use a standard detail for the footings and let the BCO agree to it?

my frame squad had one. The only hangers used were to trim round the roof windows but the PPN came out of the van for it...

for stapling what exactly? A hammer tacker is a very handy bit of kit for the various external membranes.

if there is no need for one currently why would you have to?

Absolutely, Declan. No chance of putting a man-basket on for sure... I've got a copy of the load curve for mine (it's at the back of the manual) so I'm well aware of what she's capable of and testing confirms that if it's too much, it just aint getting off the ground. If that means we're only raising one sill at a time to the top lift, so be it. Still easier than doing it by hand/ cheaper than hiring in a telehandler for the day/ faster than waiting for the tame farmer to arrive with his.

I'd counter that by saying two-speed tracking makes things a lot more rapid and that even on a small-ish machine like mine, pallet forks are a godsend. We had a delivery yesterday of solar panels, and they came upright on a pallet, 6 leaned against 6 and the digger was able to reach right into the side door of the van and ease the pallet out even with only an inch or two of clearance to the door frame above. Quick and easy-ish.

How are the current ones fitted- are they IN the cavity?

Visited the guys up at BPC today to collect a couple of bits of duct that we were in a rush for. Great bunch of fellas, nice to meet them and see round the shop. Heading home after that and the phone rang- delivery from Plugin Solar. Wow, that was pretty fast to get a couple of pallet loads over safely. Panels and tray all look super and thankfully the digger was able to fork them out of the side of the Sprinter they arrived in.

so from the meter board in is more than the DNOs 3m limit and it'll need a type S 100mA on it to protect the cable. No reason then not to bring the cable into a small CU in/ for the garage and then out of it again into the house, I'd think. But let's wait for @ProDave to give his trusted view.

where's the meter?

Dreams are sold as a kinda "boiler replacement" unit so likely just the one temperature.

Other than the chimneys, the blockwork is DONE! Goodies are trickling in- UFH manifolds are here, and a lovely Compact RCBO CU from SBS arrived thismorning. I've chased NIE for a requote on the electric connection and it'll be here imminently. Anybody got a spare 15m of 25mm split concentric kicking around for my submain? No word on a timescale for the insulation squad to descend- the apparent shortage of glass- and mineral- fibre insulation currently is holding things up. Ah well, it'll give us a chance to get some tiles on.