Andeh

I'm afraid it feels like the ship has sailed, you are where you are! I have everything you could want in theory, full filled cavities, cavity closures which I then sealed to the brick work, expanding foam I think in the bottom under window, MVHR, long since dried out house etc etc etc.... And we still get condensation in some areas. If I were you, buy a dehumidifier, enjoy the added benefits it gives you in an even dryer house, bit of added warmth, and run it through the winter. You can't win everything!

Not sure about how to remove the tile... Multi cutter or angle grinder then a chisel from the inside out? not all showers are on tanked walls IIRC, albeit it not exactly best practise. I've stipulated it on our bathrooms before, but if you have moisture rates PB I'm sure some shrug it off? I've also always used grout spray to seal the ggrout for belt and braces. The above being me not being an expert!!

We have two bedroom windows that both suffer bad condensation when low single figures and colder, bottom 25% of all frame. Both North facing! Only two windows that do other then shower room. The ally sliders we have get light condensation along the bottom (cold bridged), but nothing to worth about. We're 18 months in and have MVHR. Ally windows are great for slim premium and metal.... But they will never be as thermally good as PVC etc. For the dozen times a year the condensation is at risk of trickling into the wood window cill I'll mop it up... But just one of those 'not ideal, can't fix it.... Learnt to live with it'

Never noticed any smell, even when we have heated it hard. I think we have a substantial draft coming down the area though, so come the summer I'm going to remove the rain shield and have a look at the flue and our warm roof interface, and look to use some fire rated rope and adhesive or equivalent to block the gaps.

Thanks Temp, I've kept a close eye on the pressure gauge and occasionally it gets up to 3 bar when the system is doing its thing heating and DHW, but generally hover around 2bar in operation. The fill loop has two valves which you can just see in the picture dead centre, but it doesn't seem to be leaking through. The pressure release valves feel like they are mimicking your comments on #1 point. There definitely still feels like a slow leak and then this random gush/water dump off at random that really kills the pressure!

It's such personal preference, I prefer cooler bedrooms, warmer kitchen lounge and warm bathrooms. We also designed a really special home, but it's a bastard for efficiency. Kitchen has huge glazing so needs extra heat, children's bedrooms have 4.5m ceilings with Mezzanines so don't heat up like the rest of the house. Other 1/3 of the house is normal. Thermostats per room and hammering cheap periods using tomato lifestyle / cosy type means it all works well enough, and is still only £150 a month to run including daily dishwasher, washing drying machines etc. Also a large background usage due to so much IT and server etc.

What's underneath the floor? How much insulation? If you are only able to achieve 0.5l/min flow rate with the pump then that's an issue in my mind. I would expect to see a pump per manifold there if your loops are anything other then incredibly short... But I'm not an expert! Your boiler has water out at 39 degrees, but returning at 38 degrees?

Can you record the sound? Hardwood will naturally have a degree of movement (thereby potentially some sound?) by the nature of floating and expanding with temperatures & humidity changes, albeit it over time/the seasons. Solid hardwood is very authentic, but engineered wood is generally done to reduce the woods expansion, contraction and generally regulate it all better.. With a thin veneer of actual wood on the top . Could be a slight low point with the timber bowed slightly and as you stand on it, it's making contact with what's underneath. Did they lay an underlay? A thin membrane type?

OP basically wants to prioritise cheap rate power, which is erratic when you look at the spot rates only! So when the sun shines and wind blows on a winter day and the spot rate falls he wants to hammer the usage as much as possible.... But the following day when it's cloudy, still and cold and prices jump up.... The house coasts through without the ASHP Running. OP is just pushing it as far as he can through design, and whilst complicated if he pulls it off he will average cheap rates then anyone. It's the future of smart homes and IOT (heating, fridges, EV etc) , with every appliances tracking prices and hammering cheap rates then coasting through peak rates as much as they can. Much smarter, more complicated but long term leverages renewable very well.... Everyone benefits (except OPEC....!!) I can't advise OP, but we use tomato lifestyle and/or Octopus Cosy to sort of middle ground it. Their cheap periods will be aligned to statistical expectations of energy pricing and passing that in to customers. I then bias our energy usage to those cheap periods. That's why our house, and every room being a thermostat controlled zone, is biased to hammer the ASHP and DHW during those cheap periods... And with my weather comp turned up, heating temps turned up and hotter DHW I lose efficiency/Cop, but I benefit more on the cheap rates.

We got planning for an extension, then converted to a new build and resubmitted a new application. We actually started before the full planning came in, knowing that even if it got rejected we could rebuild 'as per' original property and extension. Fortunately we had a good work relationship eith our planning officer and he was pragmatic about it all. We got the full planning approval as we started the 4th course of bricks on the new build!!

Ah, that removes the drama from the situation a bit!! Thanks

18 months in and we have had a slowish leak for a while. During the summer I needed to top up the water pressure every few days by 1 bar or so...but during the winter im losing a bar a day. System is sealed, 2 x manifolds of UFH across 250sqm, ASHP with glycol etc in the water. I can't pinpoint the failure mode, but it seems like it is a very slow gradual leak and then once or twice a day a short/sharp gush through the tundish, as I can see the gycol liquid around & outside it but have never witnessed it. Turning up the pressure of the system dumps water down tundish...to the point I have masking tape around the tundish to prevent splashing. Got a really good plumber, but his girlfriend about to give birth so is out until end of January before he can come and have a look. For peace of mind I am trying to work out what could be causing it. He recons a failed/failing safety valve and/or pressure cylinder needing recharge. We have no evidence of leaks anywhere, including round ASHP, with the blue gycol I like to think i'd spot something! Does a pressure cylinder recharge make sense with a slow AND gushing leak? Does a safety valve? Any hazard a guess which to 'go for' first when he does come out? thanks, pic below of the setup!

Well that's good to know Kelvin! Having always relied on the mobile app, I had assumed the schedules would have been halted as well. As I set the schedules on my mobile, into the NeoHub....are these stored in the Neohub (as I assumed) or are they stored locally in the individual thermostats? [We also had an unrelated (i think) error messages on the ASHP this morning (E912...flow issue, which I need to look into separately) which stopped the ASHP which Id forgotten about! ]

Woke up this morning to no heating on, and found myself unable to connect to the heatmiser app. Clicking in our 'home' just brought up a screen asking me to pair a Neohub. Tried every combination of power off, resetting network, router etc but nothing works. The Neohub has the power light green, link light green... But status light. Even trying to re-pair the Neohub to my phone fails to connect after waiting the 2 minutes. Anyone had this before? Could the Neohub have died?

Wouldn't hurt to stick some thin insulation like Armaflex into the pipes behind the fridge!

Could it be with water tracking up the back of the tiles into the woodwork vs into the gutter? I'd tuck some membrane deep under the bottom few rows of tiles into the gutter to really trap the water.

That is a good idea! We have a few timers on things that would benefit from similar.

Yep, all our ceilings are 3.2 to 4.5m due to mono pitch. Adds a real dramatic feature in room, also meant we could design in Mezzanines for the kids bedrooms with mini staircases Does get echo in the kitchen, with hard floor, kitchen and no curtains... More noticable if multiple conversations and they go 'collide' more. We had blinds fitted recently, but forgotten to check if it makes any difference!..either way wouldn't change it for the world!

Ah well done OP, what a horror story of a read! I am so relieved and pleased for you!!!

BUGGER! We've spent an extra £16k between completion and handing in the receipts on final big ticket items (gates, garage door, electric blinds) on the assumption (ass!) that we could.....

I have pretty high expectations, but the reality is a lot of this isn't terrible...a bit sloppy but you're below DPC and most of that will never be seen again... Had the builder been staying on I'd have said totally leave it, the fact he is rotating off gives you wiggle room but for the sakes of half a days worth of a brickie they will get resolved, but the level of stress you'll have put into this.... You're building a house, not a space shuttle. It's outdoors, in all weathers, by multiple people who generally have a low threshold of care and lower skill levels, and they're far more experienced then you are at grinding people down If you have this level of attention to detail and expectations this build will put you in any early grave. You need to prepare to compromise, the art form is in knowing when you need to - vs when your standards mean the work gets redone. You can't win them all though...

Urgh woke up to no heating and E912 error message, once 15mins after the heating should have been in AND again 15mins after the hot water should have ended. Would the same flow rate be impacted on both heating and hot water side of things?

As an update they rang me a few days after I moved to check I was happy and any questions! All went through fine. Definitely looking cheaper then octopus cosy a week on in. They don't have an app, but you can check their non-mobile optimised your usage. It does update quicker then the octopus app.

Could you create a temp seal? Wrap the whole thing in taupalin tied down well and see how it copes with the next few months. Try a few weeks with a dehumidifier, then check in the spring?

We went with a big twin sided Stovax jobbie, that has 45sqm of kitchen on side and 25sqm of lounge on the other, both with 3.5m ceilings. So it actually does a remarkably below par job unless you really fire it up hard.. Which then consumes enough wood to keep Drax's power generation spinning. It was ungodly expensive to install, paid for over 2 years of building the house and making it work (400mm deep into a 140mm thick wall and lintel...) but we wouldn't be without it as a 'wow' factor. We use it when the house has been too warm for the UFH to kick in, but gets chilly later in the day (Ufh runs through the night as default). Also for the ambiance on a Friday and Saturday etc.