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If you are 100% sure of what you want to do, I agree an architect might not be necessary and that an engineer is going to give you more value for money, but I wouldn't skimp on the measured survey. Having really accurate drawings done with precision measuring equipment such as those made by Leica pay for themselves in the end, because otherwise small inaccuracies can lead to multiple revisions of subsequent plans. Having said that, we thought we knew what we wanted, but we consulted a pretty famous architect for an initial ideas package and found his input invaluable. He got us to think exactly about how we used our home, what we liked about it and what we didn't, all the annoyances, warts and all, and he found a solution for everything and came up with an idea we hadn't thought of which involved moving our staircase from the corner of the house to the centre and putting in a big rooflight above it to bring lots of light into the house. It's a bit crazy to spend so much on a new staircase because there was nothing too wrong with our original one, but it did waste a lot of space and this new layout is going to completely revolutionise the space. We couldn't afford to do the whole project with this superstar architect, so after paying him £1k plus VAT for his ideas package, we then commissioned a much younger architect to implement these ideas into an actual workable scheme. He made a few mistakes along the way, but we got there in the end and saved a lot of money.

No, but I did get a quote for it. Very expensive, and not worth it in my opinion. When you say sound transmission, do you mean impact sound or airborne. For impact sound, cheaper options which will work similarly well to the TorFloor RdB, though is more labour, is to lay your structural floor chipboard or ply directly onto the joists, then 6mm rubber matting from a company such as SoundStop.co.uk, then a slim underfloor heating system such as LoPro which is only 15mm thick. If you used something like plywood for your structural floor you could go as thin as 18mm making the whole thickness of your floor 39mm before you add your finished floor material, which can affix directly onto the LoPro. For airborne sound you can fill the void between the joists with failry dense mineral wool, that will help with sound insulation. More costly sound insulation that can be substituted for the 6mm rubber matting is something like Cellecta Screedboard 28 but this is heavy and expensive. It comes in thinner thicknesses as well, check their site. That is mainly for impact sound, but i laid it in a ground floor flat, together with flanking strips, and it muffled airborne sound coming up from the basement flat below us, so it will help a bit with airborne sound.

You can have a maximum of 25 Tado devices in your home, which unless you live in Buckingham Palace should be plenty. There is also a limit of the number of devices per room, but again that is generous, something like 7. More details here: https://support.tado.com/en/articles/3752302-how-many-devices-can-i-add-to-a-room-in-the-tado-app All devices talk to the app on your phone (also accessible on a web browser should you lose your phone). The way it works is you get a bridge which you plug into your wifi router and then all the devices talk to that, therefore only one of the devices needs to 'connected' to the boiler. If the heating is on more than one zone, then unless you have a boiler, such as most of the current Veissman range which can connect to the bridge wirelessly without needing anything plugged in to the boiler, you need to buy a separate dongle called an extension kit and that is plugged into the boiler. If everything is just on one zone, you can hardwire a tado thermostat (very easy to do as the connections are just like a traditional thermostat) to the boiler, and then create pseudo zones on the radiators by using smart tado TRVs on each radiator. As for your question on the interface with the manifold, I think this article answers your question: https://support.tado.com/en/articles/3482224-how-does-tado-control-underfloor-heating-systems but if it doesn't, definitely worth contacting Tado support who are always very proficient and responsive. If you have a UFH system where each zone has a thermostat, you simply replace each thermostat with a tado thermostat and buy the wifi dongle to speak to them and an extension kit so the app can also chat with the boiler.

Following some excellent tips and pointers from @PeterW, @AliG and others on this site, I'm starting to think that I need to reconsider the location of my unvented indirect hot water tank. My question is: in an ideal world, if you have a three storey house, with the boiler on the bottom storey, the two main bathrooms on the middle storey and an extra bathroom that will only get used at weekends on the top storey, on which storey should the unvented indirect hot water tank be sited, or does it not matter? Does gravity have an impact? I guessed gravity wouldn't matter when hot water is going from the boiler to the cylinder, but that gravity would help when water is going from the cylinder to the rest of the house and on that basis, and the fact I wanted to be efficient with use of space, I planned on having the cylinder in the loft. But that is just my guesswork, as my builder is yet to introduce me to his truant heating engineer. Should the cylinder actually be nearer the boiler to reduce heat loss along the journey between the two, or can that just be mitigated with pipe insulation? The boiler could probably go in the loft as well - it doesn't have to go in the ground floor.

What’s a buffer tank? Is that the same as an expansion vessel? I’minstalli g a low loss header as well, as I thought that would make the boiler more efficient. Tado is just a smart thermostat that can be controlled from anywhere in the world and that can use geofencing so that your standard routine is switched off when you leave your house, meaning you never forget to switch the heating on. It then switches back to “home mode” when you return to within x distance of your house - you can set x. so each zone will need its own thermostat. So I will need 9 tados. Expensive, but amazon do good deals on them whenever there is an amazon prime day or Black Friday sale. I will put my existing Tado TRV valves from my old radiator setup onto the towel rads in each bathroom, and then I can add those to the routine. It’s really a wonderful setup. When we installed them in our old house we saved a third on our heating bill. Also really good during winter if you unexpectedly return home, as you can switch your heating in on during the journey home.

Yeah, I see where you are coming from, but I’m pretty fed up of Vaillants - I’ve had problems with two of their combi boilers. I like the Tado thermostats, and they talk directly to Veissmans without needing extra kit. Veissman also rated highly by which magazine. Apart from towel heater rads in the bathrooms, we are planning to have about 9 zones of UFH throughout the ground and first stories and then haven’t decided about the loft. It was going to be rads there, but might get away with no heating in the loft, or just some undersized rads. Why do you ask?

I’m in a very similar situation to @DeanAlan. Except mine is possibly worse, as when we did our trial holes earlier this week to expose the foundations we discovered the water table was about 1m below our finished floor level! (See photo.) It’s been raining in London quite a bit these last couple of weeks, but not crazy amounts. I suppose it’s a result of deforestation and climate change. Water has seeped up the bricks and, yes as the 1930s semi is now 90 years old, there is a lot of damp. I too need to drop my FFL to accommodate a new extension (in my case by about 40cm) and I’m replacing the timber subfloor with a concrete slab. My structural engineer and architect are working on a solution, which I will post here before deciding, but they did say they would include injecting a chemical DPM so curious to hear from people such as @PeterW as to why they think injecting chemicals is a bad idea / scam by the damp treatment industry.

That's an interesting idea @AliG. Is that one mixing valve per outlet, or just one for the whole system? Why doesn't everybody do this and fit a smaller tank? there must be a downside, like increased running costs.

So are you saying that if my maximum pipe run from tank to outlet is about 12M, I shouldn't bother with a secondary loop because the extra heating costs are not worth the time saving? I find that a little bit surprising because the property I'm renting at the moment (not the house I'm re-doing) has pretty good water pressure, with a Megaflo Heatae Saedia CL250 tank about 13M or maximum 15M from the bathroom and the outlets in that bathroom take quite a bit longer to heat up: the first use of the day will take about 30 seconds to get warm and 40 seconds to get hot. That is with turning the tap on full (which results in more water than one would normally need to wash your hands). But the problem isn't just limited to the basin, in that when I'm in the bath, say I want to add more hot water after 20 minutes or so, I need to endure 20-30 secs of cold water first. Obviously I don't know how this was set up, and maybe the pipe runs are not direct, but that would be surprising as everything is on the same floor (it's a ground floor flat) with the tank at one end of the corridor and the bathroom at the other. There is actually a grunfos pump by the side of the heatrae megaflo that is not currently switched on. The landlord said I could switch it on if I wanted to but I've not yet experimented. It's right by our bedroom and the Mrs is sensitive to sound.

Given the price increase to a 35kW is pretty minimal and the Veissman is known to have excellent modulating properties, I think it makes sense to go with the larger output.

Current thinking is to with a Veissman Vitodens 200W gas boiler, though I haven't figured out whether to get 30kw or 35kw model. Any thoughts? I originally wanted a ground source heatpump but our garden isn't big enough for a horizontal layout and to get the bore holes drilled for a vertical set up was apparently impossible because our driveway wasn't big enough for the drilling rig. Mine is about 40 sq metres but apparently that's not big enough, based on enquiries with four different drilling companies. I don't understand why there isn't a company which can liaise with the local council to temporarily annex the pavement so that they can use that together with the driveway space for the rig. I'm very much into renewable energy, but in London where space is cramped ground source just is not realistic unless you can crane the rig over the house into your back garden! For air source, these aren't as efficient as ground source, and given how noisy and unsightly they can be, the need for planning permission (at least in my borough), it didn't seem worth it. One exception was an impressive Austrian made Ochsner air source heat pump which was some sort of table system that also drew heat from rainwater as well as air. It was quiet enough and possible to install in the back garden where it wouldn't need planning permission. But the supply and installation was coming to around £20k and it would have also made our utility room quite a lot smaller because of the rather large sized compressor. They also didn't have as good warranties as the Veismman and the annual service was more expensive too. These prices are just not really realistic and it's frustrating the government has not done more to incentivise advances in this type of technology or make it easier to drill bores in your front drive/yard.

I don't have space for a vertical one. It's beneath some eaves in an alcove which would otherwise be unusable and that alcove is a great location becaise it's very close to two of the baths and not too far to the third - although given I'm plumbing in a secondary loop, maybe distance from tank to the outlets is irrelevant? In that case, a vertical tank could go in some of the loft space, although that does mean making my fifth bedroom (which is in the loft conversion) slightly smaller. But I was pretty happy with the location of the horizontal tank. Maybe the solution is to make one of the showers electric and just plan better if we want baths more regularly. Not ideal really.

Not likely at all. A 250 litre tank at 60°C holds around 330 litres of shower temperature water when blended down. That’s around 14 minutes for a pair of showers running together before the tank is cold. In a 5 bed/ 3 bath I would recommend 400 litres in a UVC. Anything smaller and you will need a bigger system boiler with a higher output to keep up with usage. Thanks @PeterW. I was thinking of having the tank temperature set higher than 60°C, maybe 64°C or even 65°C. My understanding is that anything hotter risks scalding but actually where we're living at the moment the tank temperature is set to 67°C and it only really approximates scalding if you leave your hand there for a bit too long, but that could be because this is an old ground floor Victorian mansion flat with poor/zero insulation. The tank is about 20 years old and doesn't look very well insulated and no idea about the pipes being insulated, so maybe by the time the water gets to the outlet it's dropped to 66°C. My point being, 64°C or 65°C should generate quite a bit more bathing water than the 330litres you suggest I could get from a 250 litre tank. The reason I'm concerned about a 400 litre tank is partly space considerations and partly heat loss, which will be greater than 250 litres. I'm not sure i have space for a 300 it depends whether it needs an air gap around it or whether it can go right up against a wall. The space it is meant to be going into is 1750 wide (assuming the builder's accuracy is good - as this space hasn't been built yet!) and I've just checked the Telford Tempest 300L horiz. indirect unvented cylinder is 1650 wide, so that leaves 100mm to spare, so 5cm either side. Is that enough? According to tradeplumbing.co.uk they recommend: 1 Bedroom Property + Shower & Bath - 75/120 (indirect) or 120/150 (direct) 2 Bedroom Property + Shower & Bath - 150 (indirect) or 180 (direct) 3 Bedroom Property + Shower & 2 x Bath - 180 (indirect) or 210 (direct) 4 Bedroom Property + Shower & 2 x Bath - 210/250 (indirect) or 250/300 (direct) LARGE Properties - 300+ (indirect) or 300+ (direct) So I guess you are right that 250 may not be enough, but 400 really seems excessive. Surely a 300 indirect set at 64°C or 65°C will be enough?

@Temp I also have two fire places and am thinking of installing MVHR. Which unit did you go for?

I’m interested in reviving this thread as I have a similar query, in that I am also gutting and replumbing a 5bed property with three bathrooms. I’m not so worried about an endless supply of hot water, as I think a 250L cylinder will be enough (and I would imagine 300L would be enough for @sendu since bathing water is much cooler than cylinder water so once it’s mixed with cold water, a 300L cylinder of hot water could provide for several baths and even more showers). My concern is more about the long run of pipes making the time it takes for hot water to travel from the cylinder to the outlet as much as a 12m distance for some outlets, most of which is upwards against gravity. A solution that has been suggested to me for this is to have a whati think it’s known as a primary circuit which essentially continuously or intermittently (depends on the setup) circulates hot water to the outlets before the tap is turned on so that the water is waiting for you. There are two ways I’ve been told about how this can be achieved: with PIR motion sensors that activate the circuit when one approaches the outlet, or a less sophisticated solution which continuously runs the water around the circuit with a pump during waking hours. Still investigating which one suits me best: My main concern about the PIR activated system is that it is possibly more likely to go wrong, but I’m not basing that on any evidence. It’s just a gut instinct. It’s more expensive to install, but it should save slightly on running costs/heat loss vs the pump. My main concern about the pump is noise. I hate house sounds, particularly pumps. If anyone could comment about either system and their pros and cons, that would be really helpful.