SimonD

Thanks, yes that wi be handy. As we moved to this area to do the project, we didn't know any trades which is such a risk. I think that's part of why I just did it mysef in the end. I wish I knew a short cut to this, although I'm starting to find the suppliers who make my life easy with good ordering facilities and local delivery. They might cost a few quid extra but the convenience factor is so good. There were a couple of merchants I tried to begin with where everytime I went in either to order something or pick something up, there were a couple of plumbers leaning on the counter talking crap and asking the most ridiculous questions while other staff members come and go without even acknowledging my existence. 45 minutes later I escape wondering whether those plumbers haven't actually got work to do.... it's like walking into a hell like dimension!

I've installed the Honeywell T6R now a couple of times and really like it. Good for Opentherm too, if your boiler supports it. You can by it single channel for heating only or with heating and hot water. Honeywell technical support is excellent too, at the end of a phone line with a video link facility too if needed. App used to be quite clunky but I think they've recently updated it. It's Homekit compatible if you're in the Apple ecosystem. The only downside for some is that it needs to be plugged in and won't run on batteries. https://www.resideo.com/gb/en/products/comfort/thermostats/programmable-thermostats/y6h920rw5031-smart-thermostat-wall-mount-kit-with-hot-water-uk-am-pm-y6h920rw5031/ Probably overkill, but if you want to go full on then the Honeywell Evohome is great and is openthern and heatpump compatible with the right receiver, but it takes a bit to navigate the settings and get it set up right - well, that's what I've found with a priority hot water set up, which it sensibly supports. Mine's on a simple 2 zone heating setup now with PDHW. https://www.resideo.com/gb/en/products/comfort/thermostats/smart-thermostats/atp921r3100-en-nl-fr-thermostat-pack-atp921r3100/

What seems to be aeons ago I started my self build - a bungaloid conversation which pretty much ended up as a full newbuild with a few remaining old walls because we couldn't change the planning for newbuild when we found out how bad things really were. We're weather and water tight and this summer finally moved out of the caravan into the house which still needs lots of work. We're still on temp electrics with extension leads everywhere! Athough we've had hot water for a while, I'm installing rads this weekend to give us some heating. The last couple of days has just brought the house down to a little chilly and my wifes wants some comfort. Anyway, to the moral of the story.. I had no building experience before taking this project on and I've done everything myself so far. When it came to the heating system I applied what I've now learned is a common self-builder trades scepticism and decided to do that myself, especially when I saw the prices involved. Our budget had already been hit because it was set for a 126m2 conversion and then had to now cover 196m2 so the truth is we ran out of money especially due to recent material price inflation. Mid Covid lockdown I decided to embark on a Gas Safe training course and after 18 months passed my ACS and installed our gas boiler, following which I've registered with Gas Safe and started up a small one man band to earn money to complete the build. I'd never even dreamed of going in this direction in my life so it's all down to doing the self-build. Surprisingly I've been run ragged by work, almost from the off and I've recently done 2 fairly major installation jobs, at least for a newbie. Doing this work has meant I've had to learn a completely different mentality which has beena bit of struggle. For example, trying to source materials and products at the best price is just too time consuming. Trying to make everything up myself instead of buying packaged/complete products has gone out the window because when customers are paying for my time, it actually ends up more expensive, both for them and for me - for example, making up my own ch or water distribution manifolds versus buying ready made manifolds. Buying for convenience has become so much more the order of the day. It's also incredibly difficult to balance quality and cost for the customer - I'm torn between trying to be perfect in the work I do and the associated costs to the customer. It's difficult not to drop standards in the rush to finish a job when the customer wants it done and when seeing the poor standards of so much work out there, even in such a regulated area like gas.. This has given me such a different perspective which is also changing the way I continue to build my house. Maybe I won't try to get everything so perfect and actually appreciate more convenience even if there's a minor financial cost to it. I might even get some trades in to help me finally finish the house off!

Yes, he's very good. Hope he doesn't go the consulting route, too good on the tools and it seems like he enjoys it.

I know, I was being slightly facetious because as per usual the elephant in the room is being avoided - it's all about consumption. Yes and yes. I'm still completely bemused by the continued circular rhetoric. The problem isn't technology, it's the political, cultural, economic, social and behavioural systems we've constructed and they seem to have more inertia than anything else we've come across. I agree. I also knew a farmer who harvested a lot of heat by burying pipework within the mounds of manure - used to get a reliable 60C all year round coming out of those pipes.

Indeed, it's all relative, isn't it. A little bit of insulation can go a long way, but we mustn't forget that this is a once in a lifetime purchase that also insulates you from the energy market. There's a big difference between passive and active energy saving measures.

I'm afraid the guy must be deluded and it's a shame if the programme could not challenge this. I've noticed it happenng quite a lot in the media where people, some of them claiming to be experts, are making false claims about techologies and unfortunately the interviewers simply don't have the technical understanding to question or challenge it. But yes, also pretty impossible to do with a gas boiler, unless you use the green gas model being proposed by Ecotricity which involve growing and using local grass in otherwise useless farmers fields, then the growth at least sinks some of the carbon.

I believe they looked at the retrofit upgrade measures required to reduce heating demand to below a certain figure, which in effect means the reductions were achieved through retrofit insulation alone, in order to make sure the heatpump would be as efficient as possible once installed. From the papere: "Significant improvements are seen with the addition of SWI, with heating demand and system input power to 1 kW reduced by 50–54% and 60–66% respectively. " "Adopting a higher specification U-value for all measures is shown to reduce energy demand by almost 80%. This highlights possible scope for improvement in current building regulations." Would you care to share your actual data and calculations?

The question is: who told you? There's a lot more research now about the vulnerabilities of thin coat render ewi systems. Norway, for example, now has a specific chart to indicate when exposure to wind driven rain makes it unsuitable for thin coat render and ewi. This is due to premature failures of this system which highlights a weakness of the testing regime. Its recommendation is the include a cavity in the buildup. Likewise, Finland has developed its own testing system because its climate has resulted in significant premature failures due to freeze-thaw cycles not sufficiently tested for in the wider European technical assessments. Like @Radian says about retrofit cavity wall insulation, buyer beware and choose your supplier/installer carefully. It would be interesting to ask K-Rend technical department whether they have any information on suitability for exposed locations.

And I think that is where this debate falls flat. I agree with @PeterW in that unless you consider the whole life-cycle of a product, your calculations about the overall carbon impact of a certain technology are incomplete at best. In addition, you've added 'once insulated' which also supports the assertion that the biggest impact is on reducing energy demand rather than finding a more efficient way to produce heat (and of course you haven't controlled for uninsulated context). As for the wider consideration, just like that ignored with EVs, is the wider environmental impact of large scale deployment of technology. As @SteamyTea alludes to this impact is rarely linear. Considering the installation of one heat pump, it may look simple, but take into considering the additional resources required to build and distribute heatpumps all over the world, just deploying, lets say 1.2 million per year in replacement for gas boilers in the UK, you're look at about 100-120kg per unit extra in steel, about 40kg extra in copper per unit etc. The wider environmental impact of this additional demand, including mining operations and so forth, and you have a significant problem, which will also affect costs where people incorrectly assume they will go down as a result of scaling - with demand on resources likely to increase, they will inevitably go up. Unfortunately, the arguments for/against heatpumps are not simple, nor are they merely at the final user end of the supply chain but it still seems to be a discussion that circles around and around.

I think that's what we all do but @pocster is one of the few to openly admit it! 😁 I always find those bits around soil pipes and other services to need some extra thought for plasterboard fixings. I find one of my most common questions to self is: how the hell am I going to make that work? Lots of spare battens come in handy, or some cls ripped in half. It's interesting that the carpentry/framing books all miss out the difficult bits too. Framing looks very nice...btw

It's just like UFH but in the ceiling. Not a new thing either, just new over here in backward blighty. Been around in continental Europe for some time and big companies like Uponor do similar systems. For a minute I feared we were going to be back on some debate about the electrical infrared heating and their efficiency rather than the wet systems. I made some efforts to source some for my project a few years ago but hit a bit of a wall in getting both information and supply. Some research has suggested that ceiling installed systems are slightly less comfortable than floor ones due to the way our bodies perceive the warmth in our feet etc. However, I really don't like UFH as it makes my feet really uncomfortable and I prefer the warmth from above. Maybe I'm weird.

Any decent diy shop will have them. And if you've got a local timber recycling centre they've usually got a good handful of the things knocking around. You'll be shocked that even a couple of scaffold boards from wickes will set you back £60 now - they were less than £14 each when I last bought some!

As you're in an exposed location, I wouldn't be considering ewi with a thin coat render but ewi with a 50mm cavity and then a carrier board which is rendered.

Here's an example of one of their projects with exposed glulams - https://www.bucklandtimber.co.uk/project/bunavoneader-isle-of-harris-scotland/

It depends on the makeup of the glulam - you can order it in various different species of timber, including oak, many of which are perfectly fine and hardy outdoors. Have a chat with Buckland Timber. Their page on species: https://www.bucklandtimber.co.uk/timber-species/ I received an email recently where they were offering good prices on North American Douglas Fir glulam beams.

Interesting to see there's been a bit of a change to the narrative about this, especially in the last few months, but I've been surprised to hear a number of people suggest that people can turn down their dhw cylinders to 'just above 50.' I've even seen a vid from Heat Geek and a couple of others on youtube making this suggestion. Now, I know that over 50 kills the bacteria over a few hours but always seen the plus 60 recommendation from the like of HSE etc. What's the consensus here, if there even is one? Would you be happy to keep your dhw at just above 50 without a regular 60+ cycle?

Glad to hear your order of priority and the most important point to consider and I won't worry about the size of your penis 😉 (I'm going to regret saying that aren't I?)

Plumbing convention seems to suggest that pipework is laid in straight lines, either perpendicular or parallel to joists for example, even when installed under floor joists. I'm installing my pipework at the moment and due to having service voids under my ceiling joists, I'm going to run them all diagonally across the house because it'll save me loads of pipe and fittings - basically all fanning out from a central ch manifold I've made. I'm also going to put nail plates on the battens directly below the pipes to avoid accidental nail and screw holes when fixing the ceilings Will I be forever cursed? Am I missing something about the sacred parallel and square approach?

Rolls Royce will be putting those on the market soon..with some good oomph at about 400MW

Only ever had one 2-stroke. The others were v twin, v4, straight 4, straight triple and a few big single cylinder 4-stroke thumpers - it's the single thumpers that were the worst out of all the lot but most fun to ride and tune, except for how much they went pop!

It would be so handy if it was standard practise to install some test tee in strategic places for connection into the system with a guage, wouldn't it. More common I think on commercial installations. No, I can't. My ears are still ringing from the years of trying to do that on racing motorbikes.... manometer was always better

My friends said the previous plumbers had tried this but it seems to be the biggest question and I'm less inclined to believe it has been done. However given how well set the flow and return temps are, somebody who knows what they're doing has had their hands on the system. My biggest worry about the circulator is that a rough calc of the pressure drop across this problem loop comes to almost 1.5m head. There's another loop of similar length that feeds 2 rads which my estimate comes to about 1.1-1.2m head. Taking into consideration pressure loss through the boiler, there's not going to be a lot left for the rest of the system. the DAB circulator manages less than 6m at 0.5m3/h which is about where it needs to be flow wise I reckon. It's the opposite end of the house, but not as far away as the upstairs rads which work fine. I've open the problem rads up fully and unscrewed the trv mechanism so there's absolutely no pressure on the pins. Haven't restricted the others on the same loop yet as only found that out yesterday when crawling under the floor - before it was assumed they were connected to an entirely different loop. Not that I know of. Some of the newer pumps will display useful data, either energy consumption which can be correlated with the pump chart, or pressure and flow rates. Grundfos pumps allow connection to mobile app for balancing too.

We have a black Schock Cristadur sink which is granite based - very happy with it so far. We're in a hard water area and have to say no problems with limescale, yes it's visible but just wipes away. Not overly expensive either. https://www.schock.de/gbr_en/world-of-materials/cristadur

It had crossed my mind but set it aside due to finding a space to fit the additional pump and then running the control wires across to the other side of the house for the boiler - there are parts of the undercroft I can't get at due to sleeper walls so couldn't just run it all under the floor.