Andeh

I think (!) distance to road is governed by not blocking traffic whilst waiting for it to open. Ours is about 5m from memory.

Yeah, I do agree. Context is important.... Last house the boiler was under the master bedroom, and we had a faulty zone valve which triggered it randomly, plumber miss diagnosed it so I lost a lot of sleep with it firing randomly and me being twitched about it. I accept zone valves can do the same to ASHP, but I still carry frustrations over that period of home ownership!

Was a tricky decision, as I knew nothing about them and have always had gas in the past. I love my technology, but worried about earlier adopting, and shortage of skilled people on them. Had gas available and on site already.. So seemed mad not too just keep it simple. Even with UFH and the Grant... I still wasn't sure. Architect and builder both looked at me as if I was mad when I hesitated over ASHP, and explained the above.... I generally declined but said I'd think about it. The builder went ahead and costed and put it into the plans anyway. oooooooh were they correct. I love the ASHP, it works well, is cheaper then gas, with smart tariffs it's just brilliant. No gas standing charge , no big noisy boiler inside the house, no stupidly high flow temp to then try and reduce for the UFH.

There is a massive law of diminishing returns! I figure U values of high teens is the point at which it becomes futile to pour more money into it, as ROI becomes many many decades. The irony we find, the house is so well Insulated the floor feels cold during mild periods when the UFH doesn't come on as house hasn't dropped below 21 degrees.... So we end up artificially boosting the heating to cancel our the cool floor feeling. Cool floor and warm ambient = feel chilly. We also have a huge amount of average glazing, so that probably doesn't help. All that, and we still spent several £grands increasing all the insulation to mid teen U values.

Got more pics? Layout, tell us more. Congratulations, our moving in anniversary will be this July, amazing how much you look back as if it was all a dream.

We ran out of monies building the house, so the single garage that existed with the original bungalow was left as is. 3.5m x 6m low 30 degree ish pitch. Recently we now want to tidy it up. I got a quote for £6500 to strip the roof back, and replace with a warm roof single sikflex membrane to match the house. Same company who did the house, and they were brilliant. I like the idea of a warm roof as it visually ties in with the existing house, and gives some insulation to the garage, which will eventually become my workshop. I'm pretty handy with most DIY job, so I can't help but think I could give it a go... However the sheer price of what they're charging has me concerned I'm underestimating it. I figure it's just a matter of stripping off tiles, felt back to A frames. 18mm ply the roof, 50mm PIR, ply wood again, prime and apply membrane. Soffit and fascias screwed in. A long weeks worth of work for me, but I don't want to stitch myself up! Any thoughts from the group? (ignore the odd roof coverings, it's me checking water ingress)

Thank you! Any benefits to adding the SBR to the self leveller?

Thanks, that'll be the plan! Is there anything more I can do for belt and braces, as it will be driven over daily? Additives to the SLC, priming with more then water etc?

We had a pressure drop similar to that, and it was a failed expansion vessel. Some damage had allowed it to rust through.

Thanks Conor! That is what I was hoping to hear. Track sits slightly higher, but I'll mask and dam it off slightly and level either side of it.

That's what I'm leaning towards, building a small dam with foam tape or equiv and fill the void? Any ultra high strength ones? Should I prime the floor first?

We have had to have our garage door track replaced due to issue with the sliding door sticking. Hormann & garage door company have been brilliant over the years, but I do now need to try and tidy up the 'final solution' which was grind the floor flat and relay the track. I now need to tidy up this small trench, with the track installed... It is entirely no removable. I just want to improve it visually, and will then repaint with epoxy floor paint. Any tips? Thin concrete mix? Reinforced? Any other clever ideas? Thanks....

Pretty sure the two drain thing is to ensure that if there is ever a blockage or excessive flow, it cant back up into the over flow. We have it going into two drains, that then combine into the same as it exist the building into an external drain. No issues in 2.5 years of operation.

I found easy listening podcasts and a sleep earphones/sleep masks with built in headphones helped a lot. Waking in the night, instead of digging into my own thoughts, the podcast would be playing, and I'd be able to focus listening on that to help me go back to sleep. talk radio etc means you're not missing anything by sleeping through it, but is playing for when you stir. Made a revolution to my sleep.

I had the first extended Christmas holidays where all I did was normal household maintenance this year! It's so worth it when you make it out the other side, I actually look back through the photos I took and chuckle at the shit shows, and emotional lows I went through, the most frustrating, the small victories, and the moments of dispair. Amazing how much relatively short periods of time soften all wounds! Keep at it team

We have an illuminated mirror with one of those swipe to turn on. During the night there is the slightest of glows that comes from it, only slightly noticable in the dark. I'm sure I read somewhere that power cables running long distance in parallel can allow a tiny "cross contamination" which generates just enough to trigger the LEDs. Sticking it into Copilot AI give other reasons including sharing a neutral etc, might be worth looking through it..... -----—--------------------------- A faint glow from LED lights even when they’re switched off is surprisingly common, and it usually points to one of a few electrical behaviours rather than a fault with the bulb itself. You can think of it as “ghost current” finding its way through the circuit. ⚡ Common Reasons LEDs Glow When Off 1. Residual Current in the Circuit LEDs need very little power to produce light. Even a tiny trickle of electricity—far below what an incandescent bulb would notice—can make them glow. - Happens often in older wiring. - Can be caused by long cable runs acting like an antenna. 2. Backfeed From Other Circuits If your lighting circuit shares a neutral with another circuit, a small amount of current can leak across. - Very common in UK homes with multi‑gang switches. - LEDs are sensitive enough to pick it up. 3. Illuminated or Smart Switches Switches with: - Neon indicators - LED indicators - Smart switch electronics …all allow a tiny current to pass through even when “off”. That tiny current is enough to make LEDs glow faintly. 4. Capacitive Coupling If your switch is on the neutral side instead of the live side (common in older UK wiring), the lamp still has a live feed present. The cable itself can induce a tiny voltage into the LED driver. 5. Poor Quality LED Drivers Some cheaper LED bulbs don’t fully discharge stored energy when switched off, so they “sip” power and glow for a while. --- 🔧 Practical Fixes (Safe, Non‑DIY) I won’t tell you to do electrical work yourself, but these are the usual remedies an electrician would consider: - Ensuring the switch breaks the live, not the neutral. - Adding a load resistor or anti‑flicker capacitor to absorb ghost current. - Replacing the switch if it has an indicator light. - Checking for shared neutrals or wiring faults. - Upgrading to higher‑quality LED bulbs with better drivers. --- If you want, you can tell me: - Whether your switch has a little indicator light - Whether the LEDs are on a dimmer - Whether they glow constantly or only briefly after switching off …and I can narrow it down to the most likely cause for your setup.

How easy are these frogstar type units to install? Is this default job for an electrician, or does it need someone who has specialist knowledge? I'm very tech literate (but entirely new to home energy) , so would research the right combination of inverter to suit my needs... But could my normal sparky install it in a few hours?

Thank you for all that, now that you say it... It makes perfect sense... If a cable can carry electricity in one direction... Spooky that it can do it in reverse!! 🤔😂

Could I locate batteries and inverter in nearby garage (cable length of around 8m) then utilise the existing armoured cable that runs between garage and fuse box (originally there for a 7kw car charger)? Existing 3kw solar and inverter is tied to a very old and lucrative FIT, so happy to leave that seperate . 😎

I presume you then need to buy a seperate inverter, which is wired into the fuse box?

Expanding foam every gap you see where air could get in, but shouldn't enter. Any small gaps use silicone sealant.

Our builder went through the villages main power cable 1 week into our build, several houses on emergancy gennies, half the village without power all day, and about 4 days of 24 hour work to resolve. Architects assured us builder was responsible, and had insurance for this... And when I gently confronted him on the day, he crossly assured me his wife wasn't getting a new car this year... Thank fully he managed to prove the cable wasn't laid to the drawings, and we never heard about it again. Its a shitty situation, but if there is a doubt check before you dig is common sense... And a professional will know there are ways of checking. However.... Disputing and falling out over (say...) £5k bill on a £150k build will come back to bite you one way or another....but if it's £5k off a £15k bill..... So you need to judge the situation pragmatically

Also interested to know! I want the battery in the external garage, but the fuse box and solar inverter is in the utility room. I have 2 x armoured cables, and 2 x Cat6a, running between the two, originally for car chargers, can these be used to connect the battery to the house? I have no comms cables installed, is this an issue? Thanks

Fingers crossed! Let us k ow how you get on

We have a very large recirculation, probably 100m? We're a bungalow with high ceilings, and fairly spread out layout. I thinks it's a 22mm circulation loop outbound, 15mm inbound, with very thick Armaflex pipe insulation wrapped all around it. 30 to 40mm thick maybe? I wanted high flow as much as possible. The circulation is on for about 14 hours of the day, but is timed to come on in the cheap night tariff when DHW comes on, so the whole loop warms up during cheap period. It drops a 49 degree 300L cylinder 3 degrees from DHW being turned off around 5.45 am, and me walking past it now 90 mins later. Some natural cylinder loss as well. I'd say that's totally worth it for what is otherwise a near 1 minute wait at the kitchen tap for hot water. Two core bathrooms on the circulation loop is within 10 inches if the tap.. Instant... The kitchen/other bathrooms is annoying as it's in the ceiling above it, so takes around 5 seconds (!) to get to the tap, I shoulda got them to loop it into the cupboard. Can't win them all!!