Bramco

Not a mottled grey - we have porcelain mottled grey polished porcelain tiles bought really cheaply from B&Q and they've been great. Don't show any dirt. Found some similar ones for the new build. Simon

On heat recovery...... Although by a weird coincidence Mark will be starting the install of our MVHR tomorrow!! Simon PS Any chance you could edit the post with the correct link? We'd also be interested.

We got ours through planning easily and we're in the Green Belt. Find some examples to reference in the area and write a short planning statement referencing all the 'green' policies in your council's Local Plan and all the 'green' policies in the NPPF. Simon

Thanks for the reminder, I'd forgotten about them. Did you get a regular plumber and electrician to do the install and then get them to do the MCS sign off? Simon

If you want to collect the £5k grant from the Boiler Upgrade Scheme you'll be on a lot longer than 7 years. We're planning to run our system like yours, immersion heaters in the DHW tank and UFH system on Octopus Go at 7.5p/kWh for the four hours overnight and top up when needed. But on reading that the Gov £5k scheme will now cover self builds, I asked around for some quotes for an ASHP installation. It has to be MCS so you get on the renewables ripoff merry-go-round. You provide them all the details, professional heat loss analysis, the fact that the DHW UVC and UFH buffer tank are already installed. They come back with a daft price - latest was £14k for a 7kW Vaillant ASHP that you can buy on the internet for £3.75k..... they'd estimated 72 hours for installation!! Then they say they have to do a full heat loss analysis themselves and an EPC (the government website says specifically that it isn't needed for self build. I managed to get one company down to £8.3k but even then it's a ripoff. Surely installing an ASHP is as labour intensive as installing a gas boiler. Gas Safe is probably more onerous than MCS. And a new gas boiler is about £2k of which say £750 is the boiler. It's madness!!! The double glazing and conservatory salesmen are making hay again... Sorry - rant over. PS If anyone knows an MCS accredited ASHP installer in the east midlands who won't take the p*** I'd love to get their contact details....

Is that there to isolate the metal plate from the back box? I had to replace some metal fronted switches on older wiring with plastic ones for an electrical certificate because the metal fronts couldn't be attached to an earth wire as there wasn't one on the older wiring. The ones on newer circuits were fine. Simon

Builders/window fitters/groundworkers/you can complete the list.... like cake..... If you can't bake, or didn't marry one that can, get round the local cake shop and provide... Simon PS my other half can - thank goodness PPS no tips for delivery folks though.......

'Garden' is a loose term. 'Curtilage' might be a better term to use. We have an acre plot but the actual curtilage is what was highlighted by the red line on the planning application - which is often, especially in cases like ours made smaller than the actual owned land to reduce the cost of any planning application. We'd say our garden though is all the red line plus the land to both the front and back of the plot, which I don't think would wash with the PD section on outbuildings. A neighbour recently had planning refused for a PD development of a garage which was in the obvious place to put it but it fell partly outside the curtilage in the green belt - he reapplied and called it an agricultural shed and the plan was approved. So also take care with the description of what you are intending to do. Simon

The LED power supply takes AC in one side and provides DC out the other. So you need to connect the red and black (DC) wired to the DC side of the power supply and put a cable with a 3 pin plug on the other side and your light should light up. Simon

No I know we are... Even though it's a family member, you still have to run things through a practice to get the professional indemnity cover - I wouldn't ask a family member to personally take on that risk. Simon

It is! But if it's any consolation to @Adsibob we're on about the same and we're on mates rates for the Architect..... I'm sure there are lots more on here that will have spent similar amounts, especially when using main contractors and/or a PM and trades to do the build, i.e. they aren't hands on themselves. Simon

Yes, a bit more digging and it looks as though the WB wouldn't really have enough surface area on the coil. I found a site somewhere that said 0.2m2 per kWh which might be useful for anyone else thinking about this. Newark have an interesting page on their site -> https://newarkcylinders.co.uk/solar-hp-cylinders.html which says the same as you and specs their HP coil at 3.42m2 which is more like some others we've looked at. They will also do the dual immersion heaters that we need. So we'll investigate prices with them. Simon

Which I guess is fine if you have a large gas boiler. But the ASHP we were looking at installing if the experiment of doing things just on off peak electricity would only be 7kW. This is about the same as the 2 immersions, so wouldn't heat the water up any faster. Also, if I've done the sums right, heating 300l up from 20C to 45C would require about 8.75kWs, so would be done in 1.5 hours with 6kW of immersion heaters (or Willis heaters). Even to get to 65C would only take 2.5 hours. Which given the tank it will normally be at about 45 to 50 means that the recharge time won't be ridiculous. Time will tell though, we'll measure the heck out of things when they are installed and adapt our strategy from there. Having said all that and thinking about things as I type, I wonder what on earth 42kW means in terms of the cylinder coil? I'm assuming it means it can deliver 'up to' 42kW depending on the temperature difference and the ability of any boiler/heat source to deliver that amount of heat. Simon

More than likely.... On the 300l tank it is 0.86 surface area, capacity 4.75l and 21kW Not sure what an ASHP one would be. But the WB solar cylinder which has 2 coils, has an identical coil for solar. Simon

Thanks @ProDave@dpmiller I think I've found one as standard though - Worcester Bosch indirect - but only on the larger tanks - 250l and 300l. See image below. The only issue might be the coil - does the coil need to be longer/have a greater surface area for ASHPs over standard boilers? Simon

Hi, I'm sure I read a post some time ago about companies that do bespoke DHW tanks. I think we might need one... We will have solar PV with diversion and need a tank with 2 immersions, so that we can divert into the middle immersion first and then when that has taken all it can to an immersion in the bottom of the tank. If I look at the direct tanks with 2 immersions, they are all configured like this. We intend to try and manage with Solar PV diversion and cheap rate electricity for the UFH and DHW but may need to install an ASHP in the future. The ASHP tanks all seem to have the bottom immersion above the coil for the ASHP and some have them at least halfway up the tank which would be useless for the diversion scenario above. None of the cylinder suppliers seem to cater for what we need. I'm sure I've read somewhere on here about a companies that can do bespoke cylinders but I can't find the thread. Any help/pointers, much appreciated. Simon

NEST is a good system but it's an 'intelligent' one. So can 'learn' what it thinks you need in terms of control. The way it learns is pre-programmed, so if the learning algorithm doesn't suit your heating setup then it will work against what you are trying to achieve. I don't think they work well with ASHPs for example. Having said that, your system is much like a system based on a gas boiler - you can turn the heating element on and off as much as you like/need, so it should be OK. We're going to use a couple of simple thermostats on our system to control 2 zones. Simon

We're more of a 'damn I wish I knew then what I know now'. We'd handle things very differently from the start if we did it again. With the current build there's lots that we could have done better. But at our time of life, we're not starting another one..... Simon

If they agree a fixed price then OK. But I'd still ask for the shipping etc. cost breakdown and check it. We've bought sanitary ware, taps etc. from Reuter in Germany in the past. MUCH cheaper even when we were in the EU. But of course they no longer ship here. We were planning to have all the stuff for the new house sent to our son in Holland and pick it up when we're across there in a month or so. But we've chickened out.... don't fancy the hassle of a customs strip search. However the taps we wanted won't be in stock in the UK until late May which would be too late, so we have ordered the taps from Reuter for delivery in Holland. This will be below the £350 each of goods you are allowed to bring in as a traveller on the Eurostar. Think we'll still hide them though.... Simon

Ours found that there might be bats around because there were a couple of clefts at the end of branches lopped off a tree - which must be a pretty poor home for a bat.... This was for a new build, not a demolition or renovation job. Planning set 2 conditions - there needs to be a couple of bat boxes. Also, 'Prior to the installation of security lighting details of any such lighting shall be submitted to and approved in writing by the Borough Council, together with a lux plot of the estimated illuminance.' When we put in the application to discharge the conditions, we simply said we wouldn't be installing security lighting - result, condition discharged! ? So don't worry about a condition like that because it can be circumvented.... ;-D Simon

We had this on a rental property - the only solution we came up with was to sack off the door and fix a larger surface mounted door over the box. Seemed to work and looks like a proper box. I'd send a link but we had someone do it for us. But the new door surround is bevelled so the door stands off the surface a bit. I guess it's screwed through the new frame into the surrounding brickwork. Simon

is very slippy in icy conditions....

Local resin bound guy near us told me the other day that the price of resin has doubled in the last year.... If you go this route, make sure the pebbles have zero iron in them. Any iron content can rust which causes the pebbles to swell and the whole thing to break up. There's been a few round here that have had to be ripped up under warranty and replaced. Simon

Same here re speed - although 'apparently' we're too far away in the new build for them to be 'arsed' to run a cable through the duct we've installed ? But on the reset time - if you've switched off wifi as @PeterW said, we find it reboots in no time. So it seems the wifi functionality is what takes the time to reboot. In the current house we run 3 Google mesh routers which happily hops through two 9 inch brick walls into the extension. Simon

Just lifted the upper floor and ridge. But don't tell anyone ? ? Simon