Bramco

I've never understood why companies ask £10-£12k for an install when the parts are about half that. What value does an 'MCS install' provide? Simon

We had a room heat loss analysis done by a consultant which checked out very well with Jeremy's spreadsheet. Similar U values to yours. Our peak hat loss is expected to be just over 5kW at -3.6C so roughly in the same ball park I guess. No experience yet as the TF is only just nearing completion. Simon

Is there an equation for working out the size of a soakaway based on the area to be included and the permeability of the soil? At what point can you realistically get BCO to agree to draining the area into the main sewer? Our plans include a HUGE soakaway that will bury loads of plastic in the ground at a v large cost. We'd love not to have to do this (or put more money in the ground, the foundations cost enough!) Simon

So we've just had tender returns and it looks like the renderers have quoted to render the whole building which will be mainly metal clad with some timber cladding and only the rest rendered...... Think they have just measured up the whole house and quoted for that. Our QS has a trade intelligence index after years of experience. To quote, she said: 'Renderers are the most stupid, plumbers not far behind, electricians show a spark of intelligence.' There must be more to the league table and I wonder what the trades think of QS's? Simon

We started about 2 months ago and I'd forgotten they'd said they would put us on the urgent list after my 2nd call. And we'd about given up and had decided to use a 4G/5G router instead. So it was a surprise last week when I was given a date for a surveyor to visit. Well before the date, on a wet morning he called, he lives locally and could pop round. After a bit of discussion he agreed that if we would put the duct in, they would connect from the bottom of the pole outside the property. It's a private lane with a grass verge where the pole is. He asked me to pace out how long the duct would be and to let him know how many corners there would be and he'd get the ducting etc. delivered. They would call before delivery. Of course they didn't, but all the gubbins arrived yesterday. Think I'll ebay it if we go the 4G/5G router although it can't be worth anything given they hand it out willy nilly. Simon

Express in Leeds and Roofmaker in Leicester. Lots of reasons for selecting them rather than any other suppliers. For example we hate the bump at the top of Velux rooflights..... Our build will be roofed and clad in black corrugated metal - so not sure that weight is an issue for us. Also because our sliders are quite wide, MBC have designed steels above all of the openings and we have a guaranteed 2mm deflection on these openings. Sounds like a good plan, I'll talk to the window installers when they start to see if we need to do something similar. Simon

You need them in as soon as possible after the TF erection is completed. Any delay can delay your airtightness test because the build needs to be wind and watertight before that. We ordered from the plans - although having said that, they were the plans from the architect. MBC designed the frame based on the structural openings in the architect's plans and these were what we signed off on. They are then contractually obliged to build to the signed off spec. If they don't, they have to fix it. What this means is that you have to juggle the lead times of the windows people with the information you are getting from MBC about their start date on site and likely completion date. For us the windows had 10 week lead time, so they were ordered as soon as we had the dates from MBC. Unfortunately like some others on here, we received an email from MBC about 10 days before the build start date that unfortunately they had had an issue with wood deliveries and they couldn't start until 4 weeks after the original date. That's when the fun started. The rooflight company wanted a stupid amount of money for storing the rooflights after the agreed delivery date, so we could only delay them by a week. The plan was that MBC would start on the garage and it would be up and completed by the end of the 1st week of the build. Unfortunately the steels didn't arrive, so there was nowhere to store the rooflights safely - we have found a safe spot now. The garage is likely to be the last thing completed... With the windows, it depends on the supplier and whether they are doing the install. If they are doing the install as well - which is our case - then if there is no slack in their overall installation program, then you may find you are at the back of the queue again with a long delay. We were fortunate in that they could delay us by a month. MBC should finish the build this Friday (yee haaaa) and the windows will be delivered and installed on Monday week, so 10 days after MBC finish. To give you some reassurance, I went over all the structural openings with the architect last weekend checking the measurements. They are all within a few mm of the spec and don't forget that the window manufacturers all allow for some tolerance of up to 10mm, these things aren't a friction fit. Simon

A lot of 'intelligent' thermostats are unsuitable unless you've got the right type of system. The Nest thermostat was designed for the US market and I'd be surprised if the intelligence works with our systems. But then, our heating regs make you put a central thermostat AND trvs on radiators. So the radiators will slowly turn themselves down as the room gets up to temperature - but if the room where the central thermostat is gets too hot (sunny day) they might open up to accept more heat but it won't be forthcoming because the central one has turned the system off. Madness. Simon

Kevin hi, Just re-reading this thread and realised that you are also cladding your build in corrugated steel - can I ask who is doing this for you? We've found a couple of companies but are still looking around. Simon

We will - the question was more about sizing. How do you work out what size is the right size? Simon

Hi, now I understand the comment! ? However, I should have added I guess that the UFH is built into an insulated slab and the house is almost PassivHaus levels of insulation, so we'd be following the advice from other members with similar construction to heat the slab once or twice a day and not use thermostats for every room. So there shouldn't be an issue of the ASHP turning on and off. Simon

Not sure I understand that - the ASHP simply circulates heated water through the coil in the buffer tank - so surely it can deal with a v small tank which it would heat quickly, or a v large tank which it would heat slowly? I reckon there will be roughly 140l of water in the UFH pipes. Simon

Hi, We'll be following the advice to fit a buffer store between the ASHP and the UFH in our new build and it occurred to me that the size of the store required might be dependant on the volume of water in the UFH pipes. We have 12 loops, each about 100m in length. Would 50l be enough, too big, or just right? Simon PS apologies if this has been asked before

Here it is -> From what I understand it's a lot easier than it used to be - ASHPs have been improving over the last few years as manufacturers add new features and the rest have to catch up. So they are all quite similar in terms of features (someone will no doubt be along in a while and say the opposite!). From reading the forum though some are apparently easier to program than others - although once programmed, you probably won't have to use the interface again in years, so maybe even that isn't really an issue. Simon

The digger driver doing our culvert snapped the BT line to next door - Openreach have a 24 hour service to fix things like this. I bought him a fridge pack of Magners cider and he seemed OK.... Our roofs and the cladding on the 2 storey section are black corrugated steel - one contractor has mentioned up to 16 weeks lead time..... We used an M+E consultant to do heat loss calcs - there is a spreadsheet on the forum which you can download and dial in your U values for roofs, walls and floors etc. - I had used this earlier and it confirmed what the consultant's report said. Gas would be an arm and a leg as there isn't any down our lane. Even so, I think we'd be having an ASHP installed. We're having PV installed and when our car packs in, will replace it with an EV which by that time, we should be able to use as a house battery - so should be relatively self sufficient. There's lots on ASHPs and RHI etc. on the forum. If you can't find the heat loss spreadsheet, let me know and I'll find a pointer to it. I'll PM you about where we are in case you want to cycle or drive over to see our build. Simon

Hi Kevin, We're very local to you. Our timber frame is going up at the moment - the first lorry load arrived on Tuesday. Hope you had an easier ride from Rushcliffe than we did with your planning. If only they'd done their job properly, we'd have been in the new house before Covid and missed all the current shenanigans around shortages of materials and labour and the cost increases... Are you doing the rest of the build yourselves, or have you contracted a builder? Simon

Couldn't agree more - the thought of having to program everything from scratch isn't just daunting, it would be crackers... And thanks for the clarification on Loxone wiring. Simon

Hi Dan, I didn't want to say it's complex. My understanding is that it requires special cabling - so adding to the cost. The industrial shields (link above) is Pi based - but then you'd need to be installing HA or something similar and then of course you have to manage that over time. And there are alternatives to Shelly, like Moes and Sonoff. I've used quite a bit of Sonoff kit and it seems to work fine although if you don't want things to go through their service, you need to reflash with ESPHome, Tasmota or similar. There's an interesting Kickstarter just started from Sonoff which I saw today -> https://bit.ly/3BDX7eM. It's a wifi panel with a lot of functionality built in. Sonoff NSPanel Smart Scene Wall Switch. I've backed it as they looks as if it might be something I could use. About £50 with shipping.

I've also found -> https://www.industrialshields.com/ As far as I can tell systems like Loxone and Control4 etc. are pretty expensive but then they do cover all of the functionality a person might need, including audio and video etc. and they are very flexible. PLCs are much cheaper for the hardware, a 4 input, 4 output LOGO PLC is just over £100. So if all you want is the ability to manage blinds, rooflights etc then they would be much more cost effective. The tools for programming PLCs are much better these days. We want a relatively simple system without any special wiring, like the Loxone wiring, so I'm leaning towards a PLC based system. Simon

Thanks @BMcN Thinking things through, I guess it comes down to the price you'd need to pay for a PLC with enough inputs from the switches against any other system. I've got 20 inputs from switches for the rooflights (up, down for all, some switched together etc.) and then the outputs, in our case 12 (6 rooflights, up and down). Easy enough to program but does the cost start to build up. Simon

Not actually programmed any in anger but understand the principles and have programmed lots of other things. I may be able to make it simpler still with just some relays connected between the blind and rooflight controllers so that we can mainly do it with rocker switches. Need to really sit down and work out how we want things to work and what we might want to control automatically. Thanks for the link to plcs.net Simon

Just looking for alternatives to Loxone etc. for simple automation of blinds, rooflights, heating etc. and realised that PLCs may offer an easy and relatively cheap solution. For example the Siemens LOGO PLCs have analog and digital I/O, ethernet and a web interface. Simon

You can spend a lot of spondulies on this stuff and then have SWMBO ask, with a quizzical look if it was all worth it. And in most cases the more you've spent the harder that justification goes. Being able to turn on the heating when you are an hour or so away from home is one good and justifiable use case - unless you live in a well insulated almost passivHaus house in which case it's nonsense. In our current house it's a good thing to have, in the new build not so good. In an old house it's easy and relatively cheap to achieve with for example a Honeywell Evohome system - there are other suppliers. When you are away, having lights come on as if you are home is also useful. Again easy to achieve with some plug in wifi sockets and table or standard lamps - we have some sonos jobbies and use a 'scene' in Google home to turn them on at dusk and off at 10:30. Again simple and easy and cheap to do. In the new build though...... Actually, we're really struggling to find good solutions where we use normal wiring and can have both at the wall switch control as well as some programmed stuff. And we also will have to manage rooflights and outdoor blinds.... The main thing is it has to be usable from a simple wall panel or it gets too faffy. Hmmm need to turn the angle of the blinds a bit - 'shit, where's my phone...' 'can someone call me, I can't find my phone?' 5 minutes later and the cloud has moved on... Simon

Not sure why you would want to withdraw the application because of the construction method. Unless an aspect of the design would be prohibitively expensive in your chosen method. As your architect had advised timber frame, they must have considered the design as easily done in TF. I believe that you get your fees back if you withdraw an application, you also get a 'free' resubmit if if fails first time round. There's always a further option which is to put in a 'non material amendment' once planning is approved - although this can only be on non material aspects, e.g. position and size of windows etc. I think there's even the option to put in for material changes.

indeed - ours are filled with old bricks, set so they are interlaced as much as possible and therefore very stable - and a lot cheaper than filling the backs of the gambions (as they are known in our house) with expansive stone. Mind you, you need a source of cheap old bricks.... Simon