Andeh

This is a good approach if you are worried. It is a very low chance of a screeder doing something wrong, which impacts the UFH. Long as the pipes are clipped properly (you can check) and capped properly (you can check)... The screeder will just pour the floor. I don't see what could go wrong from a UFH damage. The UFH pipe is very very robust, we had ours trampled for a few weeks due to delays with screed, then had a week of -5 to - 8 degree temps and no issues at all.

Thanks for the posts all! It's a flat roof new build, so we will go up approx 1 to 1.5m, from roof anyway. Fairly exposed location so will need to look at the chimney pot that goes onto the flu. We will have a clear vertical run of approx 3.5m from the last 45deg bend, which is where my "how much faster/more could the air need to accelerate" query came from. I'll insulate the pipe more just to keep it extra warm though. We have heat alarms in both rooms, and carbon monoxide alarms. Also a dozen fire alarms throughout rest of the property, Inc corridors between bedroom area and where the fire will be.

We are fitting a stove in a bungalow, so are looking at the height & angles required. The stove flu (fitted approx 800mm up the wall) will need to go up 600mm ish then angle 45 degrees to clear a lintel in the wall, then 45 degrees again to go straight....and straight up through the roof. All ok - total internal flue length of around 2m. The problem is we will need to then have about 2.5m of flu above the flat roof to hit the height requirement from the supplier! They have then said for every 45 degree angle you need to add 0.5m to it to compensate for the 'air flow' restriction. They couldn't explain why, just explained 'required for a proper burn'. I (engineer by profession, but not fire related) cant see the reasoning behind a 4.5m need for a chimney, nor the extra metre of height (so 3.5m above roof height!!!) to ensure it works properly. Now, to complicate things.... we designed in a dual sided stove to benefit two rooms, which meant we had to go to 9kw - far more then we will ever truly need in a well insulated house, but 'because ambiance' its what we chose to do. This means rarely will we burn it truly hot (I am aware of deposit build up etc, so we will need to be extra careful on what we burn & the temperatures we use it at.) Stove: Stovax Riva Studio 2 Duplex Cassette Woodburning Stove | Stonewoods Can anyone explain the need for such a big flu? What does the final 2m+ of the flu achieve in air flow dynamics that the first 3m+ doesn't?

I always thought that if an ASHP can modulate down low (ie some Samsung quote down to 10% I think??) then no penalties for a slightly bigger unit. Obviously if it can't modulate down to the lower what demand then there would be effieincy impacts.

Just jumping on this thread, I tried the developer portal myself but it asks for a company that is registered with them? I dont want to use my builders firm without his approval, but I would prefer to start this earlier then later. Any advice on how best to contact them other then their generic contact us page?

We have a very old 3.99kw array we are about to reinstall onto our new build. We cant change the system or we lose the (very good) original tariff...worth £1800 per year for another 15 years. However, if in future we were to replace it & upgrade it I would want to replace the 21 x 210w panels with more modern equivalents. Something that ideally can deal with shade on part of the panels, due to surrounding trees catching some of the panels during spring/autumn. We also have 3-phase being installed. The electrician is going to wire up cables for 8kW...is there anything else we need to get routed to the roof to enable future proofing? thanks in advance

Always prefered plastic. If only because copper transmits heat much better then plastic!

Thanks everyone for the feedback & comments, very helpful indeed! We haven't actually bought any vehicle chargers, but all the cabling has been installed. We have 4 x cabled in for, with 1 x cable future proofing a battery but using same high gauge cable. Certainly wouldn't say builder or electrician are forcing our hands here, but we are guilty of massive scope creep/future proofing which has come back to force our hands. The only other area we got carried away was Insulation (!) but with the electrics. Even without the Car chargers & patio haters I think we are too far gone for single phase. Its a large bungalow with 6 bedrooms, 2 studies then the normal assortment of rooms. We also have an existing single garage & new external garage that are wired in, then 3 x large external AC units. The Electrician gave me a verbal run down of this and we quickly blew through 80amps. Waiting for pricing from DNO which worries me (ben chasing them daily), and also further feedback from Builder/Electrician on what could be done to bring us down to 80 - 100amp loads. Ill keep the thread updated!

Thanks very much all. Electrician on site has grave concerns at single phase, to the point where he is really not willing to certify it. Looks like our hand is being forced. I am annoyed this wasn't pointed out to us until the last minute, but even removing the car chargers he still said with 2 garages (existing/previous and a new one), some 10mm for out building future proofing etc etc we have backed ourselves into a corner into needing one. Wish I'd been told this 12 months ago!!!!!! Just waiting...hoping...praying the DNO isnt unreasonable for the connection. Village edge location, with Neighbour opposite wired for 3 phase, but otherwise not many high power homes in the vicinity. here's hoping!!!

Trocal? Looks the same from ground level but massively cheaper, 30% of the price or something.

It's great, but does require greater depth to be dug out from under the block and beam.... This comes at a cost. We chose not to go down this route as the cost of muck away was going to be too much for our site... Then ended up needing to dig it out anyway after orders had gone in and commitments made!! DOH. Fortunately we got 160mm PIR in at a reasonable cost to compensate.

Could be a risk you call him out, force him to get permission/remove it... And you block your own ability to install one in future. Could you wait until you put your plans in, cite his as precedent to ensure yours goes through?

Thanks Dave, this was one that I was looking at before I realised we could just make them full floor to ceiling! They'd be minimum of 1.2m on low side and 1.4 high side but we'd then adjust the frame to compensate for glass that fits.

Hi all, We have 4 x bedroom gallery/mezzanines going in, making use of very high ceilings throughout the bungalow. For the balustrade, we would like 'floor' to ceiling glass panels, but I'm struggling to understand what building control will/wont allow. I will reach out to them to confirm if I have to, but I would rather keep my powder dry for now. Ebay have 1000s of stockists for 10mm toughen glass in dimensions that would work, so ideally I would like to buy a couple of the panels, a dozen of the clamps and get the builder to just put in a wooden frame. Secured to the ceiling and floors, for the glass panels to secure into. Similar to the attached stock images. I have found several lots like the below link, which states: Are glass infill panels secured into place correctly using the appropriate number of fixings? Clipped panels with no bolts through the glass, should be supported on more than just the vertical edges. This will ensure appropriate support to the panel that matches the life of the balustrade. i.e. For clipped infill panels – clips should be positioned around the periphery of the infill panel, at a maximum spacing of 600 mm. Each clip should be not less than 50 mm in length and should give a minimum depth of cover to the glass of 25 mm. Guidance for structural glass and balustrade design | LABC Minimum heights etc etc: bca_guidance_note_16_guarding_to_windows_with_low_cills.pdf (labc.co.uk) Does anyone/has anyone come across a similar designs, any thoughts on building regs for what this would fall under? ie toughened/laminated glass, any other quirky needs? Reason I ask is the bedroom galleries were fine with Building Control...but we nearly got caught out by the need for smoke alarms above AND below in each room...want to prevent a near miss on this one as well Thanks in advance

It would need to be a very big roof. Probably talking 45 odd panels, some are 1.5sqm each ish....big roof required! Also what direction, if all facing 35 degree south unshaded is a big difference vs north facing with a chimney next to them casting shade!

Thanks all, the short version is it is all being wired 'for' but not 'with'. Lots of cable tucked out of sight until the time we choose to use them. Due to a bungalow with warm roof, there is no chance of ever routing future cables!! We don't own an electric car now, but in 10 years time i'm confident we will have a couple of them + visitors traveling from afar. Patio heaters etc were an easy choice with the extra cable on the drum we were having for the car chargers...again few £100 to install for it, whether we chose to use it is up to us long term. Have to admit, the ease of knocking them on for an hour as we sit on the patio is nice to have the option of. It's our forever home & 4 young kids mean we are trying to keep options open going forwards! Welcome any further experience/starters for considering 3 phase. I presume with PV etc you need the correct inverter for 3 phase v single phase? Same as per battery?

Hi all, Slight surprise when builder calculated our electrical load and now recommends we go 3 phase. Seems kind of obvious now that I think about it, but with everything else going on never occurred. Our budget is massively constrained (as per tradition), but having paid for 3 x Car chargers, 12kW ASHP, 2 x hardwired elec patio heaters, 2 x 16amp supplies for garden potentials (long runs, hot tubs, etc etc - long term potentials) and 4kW on roof (but designed to extend to 8kW) it seems a shame to not connect them one day. The house has the 100amp mains cable from meter to fuse box loose installed, and electrician is recommend running 2 more 'positive' cables between meter & fuse box, that could be connected up to a 3 phase meter one day. Then ducitng under the driveway to the incoming supply to enable DNO to make the run if/when we decide to upgrade it. Does this sound sensible? Any experience of going 3 phase from people? The house opposite (30m away) has 3 Phase installed, if that makes any difference? We are with Western Power, village location.

Just be mindful, asking brickies to do anything other then the norm is like swimming up stream...

Just to only agree with comments above, we are 75% the way through construction on a big and complex bungalow with a high spec, and we are at £2300psqm. Midlands located, fully builder managed. Yours should be doable block wise for half your QS stated costs IMO.

Going through this right now. We both (expletive deleted)ed it up due to an emergency change in direction on the project mid way through planning the electrics... And we never went back to it till electrician was on site. It's bloody expensive now....

For a £80 call out fee, I'd do down that route. That's not an unreasonable fee by a long shot.

Please post up more... Flat roof.... 600sqm...25kwh of storage.. Wowee.... Prob need around 16kw of pv to make the most of that! Your DNO needs approaching ASAP on permissions... Some can be several weeks behind on their workload....

Congratulations... Its good to know this eventually comes to an end!! Long. Old. Slog.

No alexa? No energy monitor? No TV screen? No powered external hard drive? No second phone charger? No spare socket for when you need to hoover the room? No mouse charger dock? No contingencies!? Not trying hard enough.

As above, dig out, buy MOT, lay min 150mm, hand tamp it down well, then full mortar base on top.