Adsibob

Now I'm confused as @nod is saying to forget C-studs but the Brtish Gypsum link you've linked to gives the option of C studs.

So you are suggesting i line the cavity with furry carpet and invite a 1960s Jane Fonda lookalike round to make me tea?

As much as I used to like watching soaps like Eastenders, my neighbours seem to watch it all day everyday at such a high volume that I can hear it clearly in my own house. We are therefore putting up sound insulation. We were going to build a wall and attach it with genie clips (which are a type of resilient bar sold by soundstop.co.uk) to the existing party wall. The make up of the wall was going to be a combination of SBx (which is a dense honeycomb type board where the honeycomb is filled with sand) and soundproof plasterboard. My builder has pointed out that however good the genie clips might be, it would be even better to have no connection to the party wall whatsoever and have a freestanding stud wall made of metal C studs running between the floor and the ceiling, with a 10mm air gap between the existing party wall and the new wall, keeping that gap empty as opposed to filling it with mineral wool. Is he right? If so, is 10mm enough, or would i get an improvement by making the gap 15mm or 20mm? We are using resilient bars and soundproof plasterboard for our ceiling so not too worried about the ceiling acting as a bridge. As for the floor, we have dropped the FFL by about 38cm and laid an insulated slab underneath, so there is a lot of material for sound to travel through before it could bridge into our house via our floor.

Possibly, I think it depends on the thickness of the material. Would a dense rubber sheet, like one of Cellecta products attached work? It comes in various thicknesses, but I probably only have space for the 4mm thickness if I’m going to do each side of the freezer. Spec Sheet - IMPACT and ULTRATOP.pdf

Hmmm, I’m starting to question my decision to order the AEG instead of the more expensive Liebherr. In end, I got offered a pet good deal on an ex-demo Liebherr (that apparently hasn’t been demo’ed - not sure how that works) which meant it was only £220 more than the AEG, but SWMBO pointed out that the Liebherr has a tiny amount of storage compared to the AEG. The AEG I bought was advertised as 41db, though I see the same model being advertised as 43dB elsewhere. Ultimately it will be going under 30mm of Caesarstone and tucked snug between a pull out unit on its right and a full height integrated (much quieter) larder fridge on its left, so I hope it won’t be audible from the breakfast bar island some 1.5m to 2m away (depending where on the island we are sitting). i also understand that the noise that these machines make is not constant. They are most noticeable after they are opened and closed and need to lower temp. Any thoughts? Should I cancel the order, go for the Liebherr and fight it out with SWMBO?

+1

What's "PHPP"?

I guess. There's nothing like real world experience in my view. That's why apprenticeships are so important. Have trainee HP specifiers and installers working under the tutelage of a seasoned pro for 6 months at least before letting them out on their own. Or separate the industry into specifiers and installers... but apprenticeships still essential in my view.

So maybe this is the issue for me. I don’t really have space for a large buffer tank. I am getting around the short cycling issue with my gas setup by going for a boiler that can modulate down to one seventeenth of its maximal output, so about 1.84kw, and running a towel rad “to infinity”, as @Nickfromwales put it, whenever the UFH is on, as was suggested on this thread. Would the same workaround work with ASHP? I am future proofing here, so Can assume someimprovement in thetechnology. In the same way that the modulation of gas boilers has got broader in range as technology has advanced, I would expect that over the next 12-15 years, ASHP will develop much broader modulation as well.

They should make a government backed installer scheme, with a rigorous training and certification stage, such that to train as a registered government approved installer, you need to pass a difficult exam. If your installer passes the exam but then goes on to make a significant error on the installation, the government reimburses you out of a fund that is contributed to, at least in part, by the installer certification scheme.

So are you saying that as long as I ask my plumber to use 28mm to connect from boiler to UFH system (I think that is what you were referring to when you said “manifolds and valves”) and I keep those 28mm pipes to 10m or less, it should be fairly straightforward to switch to HP? What about hot water requirements - any difference in the way a cylinder is connected when you switch to HP? What’s this I hear about buffers?

Plus 1

I first looked into heat pumps about 12 months ago, then again 6 months ago. Concluded it wasn’t for me, largely due to insufficient government support making it far more expensive to install than a gas boiler. However the recent news has made me think about what I will do when the gas boiler we are about to install dies in 15 or so years’ time. The above discussion on pipe size seems focused on pipe size required for a rad based system. But what about in a house where insulation levels are okay ish and the whole house has been set up with 16mm diameter UFH pipes. On the ground floor these are laid at 180mm centres. Are there any changes I could make to my gas boiler installation now, that will make the switch to HP easier in 15 years’ time? E.g. oversizing the diameter of certain pipes? If so, which ones?

they have got "noticed" so people know their name, but I still bet very very few know what they actually want to happen I know the public is pretty ignorant about these things, but surely the average Joe can work out what Insulate Britain stands for.

Interesting, there appears to be as many views on this as there are days of the week. What I find curious is that particularly in a house such as mine where apart from a couple of towel heaters, there are no radiators, as it’s all UFH; and where the morning hot water requirements for three or four showers could be met by heating the 300L cylinder at 3:30am in the morning, when the UFH will be off, is it likely that the heating in the house will suffer if we give the cylinder priority over the UFH? UFH takes a while to cool down, so surely even in the depths of winter, and even in a house such as mine which only has half decent insulation (nothing close to passive), it can be switched off for an hour a couple of times a day to provide hot water priority to the cylinder. If that is the case, then I don’t see why I would need any extra for the hot water cylinder, but maybe I’m missing something.

I should clarify that the team of 5 will extend to 7 when plumbing/boiler and electrics eventually happens, in that there is a separate gas engineer/plumber and a separate sparky. But the core team of 5 have done everything so far including tiling the roof, building a loft conversion and two story extension, GRP and some stud work and v. basic plumbing. E.g. they laid the UFH and installed and pressurised the UFH pipes on the ground floor, and did a very nice job of it: as for guttering - some bespoke gutters, like for the back extension - have gone in. And the soil pipes do lead to the correct manholes, but all the drainage passages are still exposed and lots of gutters and drainpipes still to be done.

It’s been a while since I posted, so thought I’d update you/seek more advice/empathy: in my last post I mentioned that in the second week of September my builder gave me a new end date of 18 Dec, but that he advertised it was actually doubtful whether he would make it. When I asked why, he said “lead times”. Note he did not mention labour supply shortages, and as far as I can see this has not been an issue for him; with the exception of September when one of his guys returned about 10 dates late from his summer break, all of his time have pretty much been on site since January and at the beginning they even had a few extra guys doing demolition work. I am actually responsible for supplying almost all supplies to site. I did it this way because on my last build our builder went bust mid way through - this way I have title to the goods and can also pay by credit card. As I have been really organised, apart from a slight shortage of wood fibre which we experienced and a long delay in getting roof tiles, lead times haven’t held us back. Also, when he told me in Sept that he wasn’t confident about making the new end date because of lead times, I was a little confused because he isn’t really responsible for ordering that much more. The only thing he still has to buy was the UFH gear, including Cellecta XFLO boards, some 6mm rubber matting, plasterboards and plaster and some soundproofing stuff and insulation. I appreciate that many of those things are in short supply but that aspect of the spec hasn’t changed since the outset of the job, the contract for which we signed in December. The property is large, we have been water tight for a month now, and there are three floors. Although screed had to go down on the ground floor a couple of weeks ago, plenty of space on the upper floors to store stuff if necessary. Anyway, 5.5 weeks after the 18 December finish date and the new schedule was given to me, I can see we are already 2-3 weeks behind on this new date. The original date was 28 Aug. The second date was end of September. The 18 December date is clearly PIR in the sky. Although the structural work, loft and subfloors are very much done now, and UKPN and Octopus have moved our supply to where we needed it, we still have to: - install UFH on two upper floors - install boiler, UVC and commission UFH heating and boiler - plasterboard and skim all the stud wall and ceilings - do ALL the electrics - do ALL the plumbing - install and tile 3.5 bathrooms - install rather large kitchen - finish the patio - lay new hard standing and pave driveway - finish external drainage which is only partly done - lay floor finishes - paint walls (though about half will be left nude as we are using decorative plaster on those). That is about 12 items. How long can it take for a team of 5 fairly hardworking guys to finish all that? Is 12 weeks realistic? Allowing two weeks off for XMAS would take us to around 26th Jan, which is about 5 weeks later than his dubious 18 Dec date. There are a few things he is not doing and which other third party contractors are doing, like the floor finish in most of the ground floor, the staircase installation, the kitchen cupboard doors, various other joinery items and the kitchen worktops, which takes some pressure off him, but I’m seriously concerned this project is going to spillover into the spring. We were recently told by our landlords (who also happen to be my inlaws) that we need to vacate the property we are living in at the moment before the end of November, so it’s all getting rather ridiculous. oh and did I mention we are £70k over budget, which is £40k over our £30k contingency? What a mess…

+1

I would increase insulation by 20% or even 25%. May save you a bit of heating costs in the long term.

Not sure I follow. Is your logic that if there was a fire there would be an investigation and you could get in trouble for not having building regs? If you are the landlord of the property, but not the occupier, I agree that is a legitimate concern. Otherwise, I’m less sure.

So in that case it would make sense to pay off my credit cards in full and then max them out again. I just haven't been bothering because they are 0% cards. My credit score is 743/999 according to Experian, which gets an amber colour on their scale below. No idea what "fair" means.

We are probably going to be about £40k over budget. Have tried to accommodate this by getting more and more credit cards. I currently have four with about £20k of debt on them, all at 0% (although on two that rate will expire in a few months a handling fee of 3% will apply to tart the balance to another credit card lender). My question is whether I can continue to take out new credit cards until I have £60k of debt on them? Is that feasible or does there come a point when the credit checks on these credit card applications just flags me as too risky. I think I have a good credit score, owning three properties (including my self build/renovation project) and have substantial mortgages on all of them. The mortgages are all sufficiently affordable that I could borrow the £40k on one of the properties when I remortgage, but I can't do that for a while else I will get stung by early repayment charges as all three mortages are fixed for the foreseeable future. A second charge loan is not really worth it because much more expensive than even the credit card route.

The chipboard floor has gone down in our loft conversion. There is an 5.5m2 area which has restricted height which we are going to use as a storage space. Is it worth putting something over the chipboard to protect it, or should I just leave it as bare chipboard. The only reason I can think of putting something down is that if the roof were ever to leak or if something spilled internally the chipboard would get wet. If I were to cover it with something, what's the cheapest thing to use? Linoleum?

But you would probably get away with not notifying them. It would be a breach, but how would they know? If this is something you are considering buying, make your offer conditional on the seller getting the LDC. Much easier for them to do than for you to do as they will have receipts and other paperwork to prove how old the building works are.

That is basically what’s happening. It might have been easier to knock it down and build a new build, but as we were semi detached and there wasn’t too much wrong with the walls, we thought knocking it down would be difficult to get permission for and might be overkill.