Bramco

Interesting - everyone we've spoken to says you need the 18mm ply or OSB. From a lay persons perspective we couldn't really see why this was necessary - unless it is a way of trying to prevent 'oil canning'. If so it's an expensive way of doing it! Simon

So doing it right is speccing the right VCL in accordance with the level of humidity and leaving a ventilated gap? Or is there more to it? Is this an issue only with standing seam? We were looking at Prefa standing seam but have gone back to what was on our planning application which is corrugated steel for both the roof and the cladding. Mainly because of the cost of wrapping the whole thing in 18mm ply or OSB to support the standing seam. Our timber frame co will install the VCL and 25x50 counter battening. The plan is to then mount purlins and the corrugated on that - the corrugated would have the inside coated with an anti condensation coating and of course the whole gap behind the roofing and cladding would be vented (and insect and vermin proofed). Has anyone done this? Any advice? Simon

And 1TB of storage is less than £50, so file size really isn't an issue. Anyone wanting to get a handle on their consumption and generation should decide whether they are happy with low resolution data or real time data. I've found it very useful to have the real time data and have data since 2016 and the disk it is saved on is . Simon

There are versions around with and RS 485 interface which give instantaneous power. The issue with a pulse output is that you're only measuring power in chunks, a 1000th or 100th of a kWh (depending on the device) and to see things in real time you need the instantaneous power reading. Simon

If you can put a clamp next to the the one you have in the CU already then you would be fine. Gives instantaneous power consumption. Simon

Which is the issue with the system - as someone who has applied (at least in our area) you are only allowed 3 minutes to state your case. Objectors can also have 3 minutes. But...... The committee then debate things - and in our case, they are seriously not au fait with planning law - it's all 'well I think xyz' etc. and if the chief planning officer has recommended refusal, then he'll egg them on. If on the other hand he's recommended approval then he'll gently teach them a thing or two.... And yes the chairman has generally taken a position in some pre-meeting with the head of planning. In our case it was recommended for refusal but one quite senior councillor pointed out the stupidity of what they were saying, it ended up 5 for and 5 against and the chairman voted against - we resubmitted, our champion was on a skiing trip and the councillor who was sitting in for him was one who had voted against the previous time and someone else was back and it was a draw again - and the chairman voted against AGAIN!!! The appeal inspector was polite but essentially said - I don't know what on earth the council are on about - permission granted. There have been some twists since then - we had outline but on trying to talk to planning about what we wanted to do a contractor was assigned as planning officer who pointed out that the original application wasn't valid because the red line didn't show access from the public highway - it's on a private lane..... the law actually says that the red line 'should' show access to the public highway, not that it 'must' another few months of stress..... DON'T GIVE UP!! simon

If they are contradicting their local design guidelines they'll be toast at an appeal - it's just deeply frustrating that so many applications end up at appeal and often win because of some numpty in planning. Don't let them win!!! As a couple of other posts said - persistence, persistence and keep grinding away at them. Do you get an opportunity to speak at a planning meeting? If so, petition the planning committee members by email - simply point out how contradictory the recommendation is against the policy. And don't worry about the objections - they only have merit if they refer to planning law, i.e. overbearing, green belt issues etc. if not they are simply ignored (or should be). Simon

But modern transformers for charging our phones etc. are generally always on and if they are solid state don't really do anything until they are asked for energy - do they? It's the old style power supplies based on wound transformers that are 'always on' and losing heat. There's precious few of them around these days - silicon being cheaper than copper. Or am I mistaken? Are the transformers for LEDs still wire wound? Simon

There are several other OTS solutions with wireless switches, Philips Hue, IKEA etc. Do the regulations have anything to say about a 24V or 12V circuit? Would this be another possibility for the light switch? Switch after the LED transformer. Or do they say you can't have light switches unless they are switching mains for some reason? Simon

Sounds like the time we went away for Xmas from our terraced house in Sheffield. We only had gas fires in the downstairs rooms in those days - mid '70s. It took a good 3 days or so to get some heat back into the house. Chilly times - dressing in the morning in front of the electric fan heater.... Simon

And you won't need to heat the whole tank from 8 to 50 every day, in fact if you have PV then it may only be half the year and the other half only half the tank on average. So £1 on E7 for maybe a quarter of the time - ~£90. Even if it is £200, there's a lot of £200s in the cost of an ASHP. Obviously if you wanted to also cover UFH with a similar solution then you'd need to add in an estimate for that as well. Now you've got me thinking - do I really need that ASHP or can I manage with a simple UVC with immersion heaters and Willis heaters for the UFH as mentioned on some other threads. Simon

I knew there had to be a technical term for it!! ? Interesting point about things being upside down and the pump just forcing any bubbles back down - off to check how the one in our current house is plumbed in!! Simon

When you say drained out and refilled - is that really the case. UFH can't really be drained as a radiator system can be because you can't get low enough in the circuit. When I installed our solar thermal I had a helluva job getting the air out of the system - in this case because the top of the system was on the roof and there was no way to bleed it at the top. I ended up connecting the system to the mains and running mains pressure water through and out which successfully took all the air out. It was a fiddle to get the antifreeze back in but it worked. So the question is, when you say drained out and refilled, are you sure that any air pockets are actually driven through the system and out before it's recommissioned. Simon

Thanks for the info. Simon

Hi Tom, We'd be very interested to see what your tender looked like - we're about to write ours. Obviously there will be many differences but it would be helpful to see what level of detail you went to, over and above the drawings. Simon

Buyer beware! There are loads of fake and counterfeit DS18B20 probes around and most are sold through ebay or AliExpress etc. If you want to make sure you have a real Dallas/Maxim part, then buy through a reputable outlet RS etc. Issues include 'some of the counterfeit sensors actually do not work in parasitic power mode, have a high noise level, temperature offset outside the advertised ±0.5 °C band, do not contain an EEPROM, have bugs and unspecified failure rates, or differ in another unknown manner from the specifications in the Maxim datasheet.' This is from - 'How to tell original from fake DS18B20 temperature sensors.' at https://github.com/cpetrich/counterfeit_DS18B20 I use software from the open energy monitor crew and there has been a lot of discussion there about failure rates of the fake sensors. You may not have any issues with a fake or counterfeit part - but then again you may... Simon

which would be alright but for the need to show the rainwater design will work - we're in flood risk 1 and the culvert design needs to be done properly and OK'd by the LLFA... So we really need someone to do the proper design work and then contract a groundworks contractor to do the implementation. Simon

Hi, We seem to be having trouble getting civil engineers to engage. We've had a couple of quotes but then the companies don't get back when we have questions.... So we can tender for the groundworks for our new build, we need someone to do the drainage and foul water design, to do a design for a culvert over a small dyke for access and to do the foundation design for the garage (the foundations for the house are being done by MBC). I'm wondering if the culvert is putting people off, or is it simply that there's so much work out there, they aren't worried by a small contract like ours? Anyone used civil engineers in the East Midlands/Nottingham area they could recommend? Simon

Our M+E chap said just say you are putting pressure limiters on the showers etc. Obvs don't fit them ? Simon

Congratulations!!! It's pretty galling that these planning officers don't really know the rules and cause a huge amount of stress for applicants. Even though there's the NPPF and supposedly planning laws, we heard time and again that every application is decided on it's own merits, in other words it's completely up to the planning officers discretion, knowledge or bloody mindedness. Our bloody minded pre-app officer deemed the 'gap' to be too big for infill at 32m - exactly half the plot with a wide bungalow on the other side. She then approved another application with a 100m frontage!!! Difference - one application was from an individual, the other from a local architect. As my wife said about the pre-app advice, it's like those kids I used to teach when they answered an exam question they didn't really know the answer to - they wrote down everything they knew about the subject but failed because they hadn't a clue. That pre-app advice meant the application was refused (at committee by the casting vote of the chairman - twice!!) but we won at appeal. 3 years later we're about to start the build. If she'd done her job properly, we'd have been in the house for a couple of years without the prospective hassle of shortages of materials, additional costs because of Brexit etc. etc. Grrrrrrrrrrr Simon

There is case law that states that for any exception to the green belt inappropriateness rule, openness is not a consideration in terms of assessing a planning application. Sadly for you your exception PDL has a rider on it that openness should be considered. It's the only exception that still has that openness rider. The case law for the other exceptions is Lee Valley Regional Park Authority, R (on the application of) v Epping Forest District Council & Anor (Rev1) [2016] EWCA Civ 404 (Appendix 2) that clarifies that exceptions for development in the Green Belt are not deemed to harm the Green Belt or openness. It's obvious really - anything meeting one of the exception criteria is not inappropriate development - therefore it can't be harmful. So if there's any way to have it deemed infill then that would help. I found some good examples of backfill that had been allowed at appeal. One which might help you which you can find on the Planning Appeal site was prepared by a planning consultancy firm - I tried to attach the document but it's too big. They had quite a bit of success in that area, they won this case but the NPPF has changed subtly since then. The appeals website -> https://www.gov.uk/appeal-planning-inspectorate. lets you search but then you have to check the files on the local authority website. Takes time to find them but gives lots of ammunition. The one above was appeal APP/P0240/W/17/3185864 (Land adjacent Timber Ridge, Woburn Lane, Aspley Guise). Which was for planning application CB/17/02661/FULL which is in Central Bedfordshire. Their website is truly crap... But here's the link to all the documents -> http://cbstor.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/publicportalviewer/publicViewer.html?caseID=CB/17/02661/FULL. The appeal statement I tried to upload here is at -> https://app.box.com/embed/preview/53orjeqh0k8vwulg35ri68gnz1p83r0o?direction=ASC&theme=dark which might or might not work, if it doesn't, you should be able to get to it by following the previous link. We used this one which is infill -> Appeal Decision at Snitterfield (APP/J3720/W/16/3167715) Simon

You could just use the string to ring a bell near the house - might need a hefty yank to take up the slack! Simon

Agree that £30k seems way over the top. The planning consultants we used for our appeal did it for just under a grand - that was mates rates though, so cost rather than commercial prices. We'd done a lot of legwork though like finding successful appeals for similar projects and had written a draft appeal statement. If you are interested in reading our appeal statement it's here -> http://bit.ly/2DN1YxX. Ours was for infill in the Green Belt and the plot is just outside the village inset line - there are 6 or 7 houses on a lane to the farm that were left out of the Inset line round the village. And I can IM the consultants name and company if you want to talk to someone, I think they've now a few successful GB appeals. Simon

We looked at installing the ASHP away from the plant room but after some thought decided not to do it. If you intend to use the heat pump in reverse for cooling in the summer, then you'd have a bit of a problem. Assuming it's a monobloc ASHP that is. If you are cooling then the pipes from the heat pump to the UFH manifold will be full of cool water. When you switch to wanting to heat the DHW, all that cool water will circulate through the heat exchanger in your DHW tank before any hot water comes through to heat the tank. At least AFAIK! If you have 20M of 50mm pipe that's a LOT of cooling of the DHW tank that's going to happen before it starts heating. I know from experience that using fatter pipe seems like a great idea in pressure terms but can cause issues. When we built our extension, I put a 22mm pipe from the new boiler room to the kitchen sink - it takes twice as long as it should to get the hot water in the sink and of course there's quite a lot of wasted heat after you've turned the tap off. Simon

We decided on the timber frame route and selected the company we wanted to go with which gave us the U vals for the slab, walls and roofs. We're now selecting the window supplier and have a target U value based on making sure that we can achieve an SAP 'A' rating. Turns out to be 1.2. Now the issue is what type of window, Alu-cald, alu, etc. combined with which glazing. I guess this is what the OP is done but the other way round, select the windows and then work out what U value you need for the walls. Simon