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How does a manifold system work? Now I'm really confused. I now understand why plumbers make so much money. It's such a complex trade! Also had no idea copper was smoother than plastic. I specified copper but plumber persuaded me to use buteline and he has already ordered it. He said the buteline works really well and that being plastic it doesn't conduct heat away like copper does (even though we'll obviously be lagging all pipes). I should add that our three bathrooms are all next to eachother and next to the UVC in that we have the two main bathrooms next to eachother on the first floor, then above one bathroom is a shower room and above the other bathroom is the UVC, so most pipe runs shouldn't really be too long at all. Only long run is to kitchen sink (around 16m) and guest WC (around 12m).

Makes sense. That sounds lovely.

Yes, I knew it was bollox as soon as the telephone salesperson said she could not confirm it to me in writing. We are in N London. If the lowest we can get 30L a minute most of the time, I will be happy. I work irregular hours, so it’s actually quite rare that I shower during peak times. Didn’t really have space for an accumulator without building an outhouse for it in our front drive so this is the next best thing.

I don’t really get the logic of this. Given how precious the sunshine is in this country, don’t you want to make the most of it and have it setting at the end or the side of the garden? Or are the neighbour’s trees so high you won’t really get evening sunshine either way? maybe you aren’t garden people, which is fair enough, but at the moment your garden looks to be North East facing which will decrease its desirability when you come to sell.

Many thanks @PeterW. Re Q2 : any way of mitigating the drop in flow? Re Q3: When I’m inspecting the plumber’s work, how do I check he’s done this. What does that look like?

Cheers guys. Any responses to Q2 and Q3 of my OP please?

Hmmm. Can I remove them? My pressure oscillates between 2.8 and 3.2, depending on time of day.

Thanks @joe90. the Grohe taps I’ve bought come with the narrow flexi hosing attached to the pipe already. I assumed there was a reason Grohe were supplying them that; why don’t you like them?

I suggest you send her an email saying that you had a quick look at the Solicitor’s Regulation Authority’s website, and found the Code of Conduct. Rule 3.2 says: “You ensure that the service you provide to clients is competent and delivered in a timely manner.“ Point out that the service she is providing you is not timely, and ask her to re rectify that. I wouldn’t threaten a complaint to the SRA… yet. It’s implied in the fact you are making yourself aware of the rules. If she doesn’timprove the timeliness of her service after you make this initial complaint, you can always escalate it. Communicate with her in writing. Creates a paper trail. Harder to ignore, as after this email she will know that you can use that paper trail in a complaint to her regulator.

What is that nuts? The UK doesn’t manufacture very much.

Also, your sliding doors to your en-suite are not going to seal in the sounds and smells as well as a regular door. I would give the en-suite a regular door.

Plus 1. When I was house hunting, I looked at orientation and location, as those are the only things I wouldn’t be able to change. If I had the ability to self build, I would make my garden South or South West facing.

I've learnt a hell of a lot from this forum over the last year or so and I'm so grateful to everyone for their help. On pipe diameters, I THINK, the following is best practice for selecting HW pipe diameters to come off a secondary loop, but just wanted to double check before I go ahead with it: showers 15mm hand basins 10mm baths, can be 15mm unless bath tub is super big and you have a high flow bath filler in which case case 22mm till fill the super bath more quickly My remaining questions are set out below (for context, we will have a UVC with about 3 bar of pressure and relatively good flow rate, although don't know what yet as Thames Water haven't done the upgrade yet; we currently have about 18L/min and they promised me something silly like 70 litres a minute, but I asked them to put it in writing and they refused, so I'm guessing it will be less than that): Does the same rule about hand basins apply to kitchen sinks? Any reason why 10mm might not be enough in the kitchen. Looking at my kitchen tap, it has very narrow 9mm hoses, so I can't see why anything bigger than 10mm would be worthwhile. It would just increase the dead leg that needs to be cleared each time it's used, but thought I'd better double check. what happens to an outlet further down the secondary loop when one opens the bath filler (which is rated at 33L/min) that is served by the 22mm secondary loop? Would the majority of the water in the secondary loop go to the bath meaning another outlet further along the secondary loop (i.e. further away from the UVC) that is trying to compete with the bath filler would really struggle, or would a fairly decent flow rate of say 25L/per minute, together with the 3 bar pressure from the UVC ensure that dynamic pressure is sufficient that the other outlet is still usable. should cold water pipes feeding each of these outlets always match the diameter of the HW pipe feeding them?

I went to them first. They were the ones that told me there were none in the whole of the UK until mid December. It's a Vitodens 200-W System boiler 32kw

Currently no pipework in my house whatsover, just the new stopcock that was installed a couple of weeks ago in preparatio for the Thames water connection survey. The plumber/gas engineer is starting work this week, fitting: new pipework; UVC cylinder; three showers; 4 hand basin taps 3 other sinks two baths a couple of external taps secondary loop for hot water four UFH manifolds new boiler low loss header water softener Even though my contract says my builder is responsible for buying the boiler, for some reason he asked me to get it. I didn't really mind at the time because it will actually help me with financing if i can put it on a credit card. This was a couple of months ago, but I delayed purchasing because I needed to finalise heat loss calcs etc. and also wanted to see the plumber's approval certificate as a certified installer so i could get the 10 year guarantee. Finally placed my order on Thursday from a website that was advertising 3-5 business days. They called me this morning to say none of these boilers in the UK at the moment and I'm not going to get it until mid December "at the earliest". I'm keen to stick to this boiler because of various reasons including its 1:17 modulation range and the fact that I've already purchased a "pre-plumbing jig" that is designed for this specific boiler. When I met the plumber/engineer who is installing it last week, the builder was already in a flap about the boiler not being on site, but the plumber was less concerned, saying he usually commissions the boiler at the end of jobs like this. Having scoured the internet, I have found a plumbers merchant some 85 miles away that has one in stock. Not sure why, makes me suspicious it is one that somebody returned because there was something wrong with it. The pre-plumbing jig is already on site, so not really sure why builder is in such a flap as presumably all the pipes can be run to the various connections on that jig, ready for the boiler to be mounted on to it when it's ready. The jig is described as having Fixings Valves/Fittings Gas shut-off Valve R3/4 with integral, thermally activated safety shut-off valve. Should I just tell my builder that he has to wait till mid December and the plumber has plenty to get on with in the meantime? Or should I really consider driving a 170 mile round trip? There is no gurantee that the company I've purchased from will actually deliver mid December. Or does one need hot water to be able to test the installation of shower valves etc.?

Be careful. I once made a gesture to my neighbour and offered “to contribute” to the costs of removing some ivy that was entirely on his land but growing onto ours. He had a gardener and a couple of labourer working on it for a couple of days, though they were a pretty lazy bunch and the labourers were barely over 16. I recon it was no more than 25 man hours (or boy hours) in total. Little did I know that my neighbour was so gullible he had agreed to spend £2700 on this job and expected me to pay at least £900 of it! It led to a great deal of awkwardness. I honestly thought at most it would cost £400 and he would be happy with a £100 token contribution. I was so naïve.

+1 i suggest you refer your neighbour (and her so called lawyer) to the Court of Appeal’s judgment in the Network Rail case, summarised here: https://www.walkermorris.co.uk/publications/knotweed-nuisance-court-of-appeal-confirms-liability-for-landowners/ whoever owns the land from which the knotweed emanated is liable for nuisance it causes to neighbouring properties. The legal analysis is simple. Of course, proving the facts is not always simple. Have you got a time stamped log of photos, correspondence, emails etc.? By time stamped, i mean meta data dating the photos, which hopefully show the knotweed developing over time and staying in your neighbour’s property.

It's an aluminium foil which is supposed to "spread" the heat from the pipes across the surface of the insulation boards. The theory is that the boards are highly resistant to heat transfer because they are such good insulators. Foil is the opposite. So buy boards that have a sheet of foil adhered on the top of them and it gives somewhere for the heat to transmit to. This then makes the heat rise in a more uniform way, which should be good for the wood given the manufacturer's main concern was the unevenness of the heat produced by the pipes. Alternatively it may be marketing bull.

Wow, never knew it was so sticky. The other option is to switch out the Cellecta boards for their Tile Backer version, which are identical but instead of foil face they have a membrane that can accept tiles. But then I lose the benefit of the foil.

Thanks @Makeitstop (good name btw) but that would require fixing the plywood to the extruded polystyrene cellecta - how would I do that? With their foil face, I can't glue it.

The other consideration is how to stop the additional plywood layer squeaking. A lot of effort has gone into making a squeak proof subfloor, but will this now be at risk of squeaking from the addition of the plywood? Or does 6mm thick plywood come in T and G that won't squeak? Maybe I should do a biscuit mix instead, but I thought I would get extra performance benefits from the Cellecta? I only mention the biscuit mix because the floor manufacturer sounded more relaxed about installing over UFH that is inbedded in screed. How long does 25mm of biscuit mix take to cure though (if that's the depth one lays for 16mm pipes?

No. We have Egger 22mm chipboard flooring down as our structural floor on top of posi joists. After a lot of rangling with my builder to use the correct glue, he eventually did a great job and it's solid.

Okay, that sounds sensible. What temperature should I run the UFH water at to ensure the 6mm ply doesn't heat up to more than 27C ? We are using 16mm pipes at 150mm pipe centres. (And it's a gas boiler based system on the second and third floors of a well insulated, but not passive standard, semi detached house.)

I have purchased two types of engineered wooden board flooring: planks which are a sandwich of 4mm oak - 6mm birch ply - 4mm oak (total thickness 14.5mm, I guess the adhesive creates that extra 0.5mm). planks are 230mm wide and about 1.8m long herringbone which is not a sandwich construction and has only two layers, a top 3mm layer of oak on a 11mm thick layer of birch ply, this has a much smaller footprint at 85mm x 425mm These are both to be installed over foil faced underfloor heating boards made by Cellecta from extruded polysterene with pre-routed grooves for the pipes. Cellecta say it's fine to do this as that is what their boards are designed for, but they of course caveat that advice with "check with your flooring manufacturer". The flooring manufacturer says that is is "essential" that the subfloor on which the wooden floor is laid does not exceed 27 degrees C and that we should test this with temperature probes in the actual subfloor rather than rely on room stats. His concern about the subfloor suggested above is that where the pipes are exposed, there will be slightly more heat than in the majority part of the boards that don't have exposed pipes, and that this will expose the wooden flooring to uneven heat which could cause problems. His recommendation is to lay an additional "6mm or ideally at least 9mm" plywood deck to "protect the flooring from the UFH". This is all rather annoying as the flooring is marketed as being compatible with UFH. My architect thinks the flooring manufacturer is being unduly cautious because wood shouldn't warp at that temperature, the differential between the part of the UFH boards where the pipe is and the parts where there is no pipe should not be that unhomogenous when there is foil to carry the heat, and the whole point of engineered boards is that they are more stable. 9mm is out of the question as I agree this would be overkill for this situation. Should I lay 6mm ply in between the UFH boards and the wooden flooring both where I have herringbone and where I have planks or is this also overkill? Or should I only lay the 6mm ply under the herringbone on the basis that it is only a 2-layer construction, but skip the ply for the planks which are 3 layer?

Yes, I think you are right. This article suggests that for any rooflight which is less than 5m above the ground, both panes need to be either toughened or laminated: https://www.buildingproducts.co.uk/overhead-glazing-options