Matt60

My gut feeling backed by people I trust bear this out as about right. It's a shame as It takes care of all the plumbing based stuff but it is clearly too expensive.

Hello, I have just received the following quote, initially I thought it was quite high but for a total solution I think on reflection it might be pretty good. The following is for everything heating, hot water and general plumbing and drainage - just not including sanitary wear. What I will say is that I am reasonably handy but I have no interest in fitting any of the system myself, I know I will pay much more for taking this stance. I'm time poor and would prefer just to be a customer and I do really like the idea that this firm will handle it all which means at least I can't get stuck between two plumbers blaming each other. In summary, my question is not can I do it cheaper, it's; Is this a fair deal from a very well regarded local firm who has been recommended to me? Secondly, I notice their is not buffer tank, should I ask for one. Thirdly, I would like to run this backwards from the PV for cooling. The firm have no experience of this but will this system do that okay in the future? NB; I'm working until 10pm so I might be a while replying. Many thanks, Matt. Hi Matt Following on from our telephone conversation last week we have pleasure in providing a quotation for plumbing and heating works to your new home. Quotation covers the supply and installation of the following: • Daikin Monobloc heat pump EDLA 14. • Daikin 300ltr Unvented cylinder. • Magnetic filter, Anti-freeze valve and flexible hoses. • Low loss header inc insulation. • Pumps valves and controls. • Eco Heat underfloor heating ground floor. • 8 Stelrad compact radiators to first floor rooms, including thermostatic radiator valves. • Hot and cold services • Above ground waste systems. • Plumbing of sanitary ware, sinks washing machine, dish washer and external tap. • Testing and commissioning Total Cost for these works £31,768.40 excluding vat. Costing excludes, • Any electrical works. • Sanitary ware, sinks taps and sink wastes. • Towel warmers. • wood burner Radiator positions and sizes will be discussed on site prior to installation. Floor insulation to be supplied and installed by yourselves prior to underfloor heating being installed. Costing excludes accumulator if required for boosting water performance.

I've had these is a couple of houses and contrary to what I have found online, you can get rid of them but you need to be consistent over 2/3 years. Cluster flies are also sometimes referred to as field flies which is many ways is more accurate. They spend the summer on the fields and over-winter inside. They give off quite a distinctive smell and it is this smell that let the new ones know where to bed down. Once you break the cycle and get rid of the smell, you're in business. The following is a result of my own research and trial and error and it's worked for me. I don't claim to be an expert, but the following did work. If you have them in at the moment (you probably do, not quite warm enough yet) then you need to get rid of the ones you do have. You can either use a Henry hoover to hoover them up (this will make it stink and eventually clog the whole tube up with fly guts), do not use your main vacuum cleaner for this. I warn you... I bought a load of copy Henry hoover bags of eBay for this purpose but you'll still need to soak the whole tube section in hot soapy water to get it clean - don't bother while it still works and until you've cured the problem. It's not a nice job. Or Use a "Bug Bomb" - I used to buy mine on eBay. I used to put mine on a baking tray (just in case) light it and leave it in the loft. It will kill any insect and doesn't produce enough smoke that you need to tell the fire brigade or anything like that. This is a good system as it gets the whole lot dead in one hit. However, you still have the smell that attracts the others and so you are going to have to hoover them up and get them binned - see the above issue and advice. Then What I did was got concentrated lavender floor cleaner and diluted it into what was still a very strong solution. My issue both times was a loft and so I loaded this in to a pump pressurised garden sprayer and sprayed it between the roof membrane layers and around the soffits and anywhere else I thought they might be getting in. I also soaked the roof trusses etc. I then burnt fistfuls of lavender josticks, particularly from the autumn onwards as the weather cools and they come off the fields. Once the summer was finished I'd use a small bug bomb and hoover up all the bodies. If you keep doing this and are diligent about it you can pretty much cure it in about 2/3 years. The first time I done it resulted in about a 90% reduction from what must have been 100k flies. Basically; bug bomb, hoover the bodies and dispose, and then kill the smell with lavender based products as they don't like lavender. Don't bother trying to seal up the gaps, you're wasting your time. Oh and don't let them freak you out, they are not normal flies, they don't go for rotting flesh and turds. Their eggs are laid in the grass and hatch out of the ground I believe. Anyway, Good luck!

Yep, same here - very interested in this. From what I understand the cooling benefit is fairly minimal, but if it's not cost prohibitive I'd like to have it with a PV powered, backwards running ASHP cooling the slab and ceramic, near clear window film that reduces solar energy by about 85%. My thinking is that the three combined should make for a comfortable house with nice fresh air during the summer months.

Thanks for the info, much appreciated and is useful to know. I'm trying to (probably) do the impossible and get something meaningfully cheaper than a German kitchen but that is better than Howdens or wicks etc. I'm happy to pay a bit more than a Wickes or Howdens, I'd like to avoid the latter, our last kitchen was Howdens. I wasn't very impressed with it at all and they're difficult to deal with insisting on dealing via your fitters account not to mention all the discount bullshit. The discount nonsense alone is enough to put me off, all the doubling glazing bullshittery should have stopped years ago imo. As above, I'm looking at DIY kitchens but might given John Lewis a look too, any experiences on either gratefully received.

I'm in a similar position to a few other posts on here, I'dlike something better than your average Howdens, but I am not willing to spend 10 of thousands on a kitchen. I've been looking at these; Better Kitchens and like what I see on their site. Is there anyone on here who has experience of fitting a kitchen from them and can give some insight on how it measures up against the competition?

The window manufacturers need to pull their fingers out imo and sort this issue. Catnic have already done it - I'm having these (thermally broken metal lintels) and I don't see why the window manufacturers couldn't do similar. The first to do so won't be able to make them fast enough I expect...

Nothing has been mentioned about expansion joints, just movement joints. That said, for reference, the maximum k-rendered external finish is about 12.5 meters long. Thanks for your help.

Good luck with your project. I guess another reason for Dritherm over beads would be that you don't risk losing insulation if you ever need to open the cavity. I dunno, I'm sticking with that as I can do without giving myself another thing to look in to to be quite honest! I expect the brickies prefer the beads though as they don't have to fit regular insulation boards.

Thanks. I'm awaiting the architect to call me back as I think I will change to the same 7.3n block too. I'm sticking to my guns re the render and plaster coat though - no parge coat for me to do, less chance of leaks and easier to fix things to including kitchen units, bathrooms and TV's etc.

I was told that the Dritherm has better thermal efficiency but that also it more or less comes down to personal preference. I gather that Dritherm 32 is just about the best bang for buck you can get. I have also seen some people say that the pressure of the beads being pumped can cause cracks but the professionals I spoke to about that said that it is nonsense. What stage are you at with your build?

Thank you, I will suggest that and see what they say.

Its a mixture of block and brick. The main expanses have a brick bib at the bottom with k-rendered block above, a full fill Dritherm 32 and block on the inside. Apologies if I said expansion, I meant movement joints - I have lots of unrelated issues right now and my brain is fried tbh. The maximum single span wall lenth is 3 meters. Thank you for your input.

Right, I see thanks, that makes sense, I'll do that. So does that mean it would be a separate zone? Sorry, still learning...

Cheers Joe, I called the structural engineer, he did come up with a few other reasons why 200mm will be a pain all of which did make sense. Long story short, I will stick at 150mm as we are very late in the day and I don't want to deal with the issues that the extra 50mm brings. I think he and the architect are more or less finished and therefore I had to make instant decision now without paying them twice. He has changed the lintels though to thermally broken ones that are bonded to polystyrene in the middle. I have also told him I'm sticking with the render and plaster coat and asked him to explore reducing the movement joints and bed reinforcement. My last house was finished on all walls with render/plaster and presumably no movement or bed joint reinforcement. It did suffer with some cracks which I heavily chased out, bonded and patch plastered and they never returned. Thanks again.

Thanks. I don't want to reduce thermal efficiency as I've already been steered away from my 200mm cavity down to 150mm and so I'm now trying to not lose elsewhere. On that basis, is the joints he's talking about going to give the bricklayer much extra hassle and therefore cost?

Many thanks. What blocks would you recommend? It might be useful to go back with this as the Structural engineer and architect have to happy in order for me to get my detailed drawings which are being done right now.

Probably often right, but in this case that quote is the structural engineer, it will be me who sources all of the trades.

Thanks. This is what I was getting at (above), what I mean is running the garage loop without a thermostat or trv's so the main house system doesn't "know" the garage loop exists. Therefore it would just take/get whatever heat is required to hit the house target and therefore not really place much extra cost to run? Does that make sense? Would that work? I don't need the garage to be house warm, just not to hit the dew point and therefore anything above 7 degrees is fine and easy to top up with a fan heater while working in there.

In another threat I mentioned dot and dab and some members pointed out that this can cause drafts because (in basic terms) it will not seal any gaps/cracks in the mortar. Suggestions were to use a slurry coat to seal the walls first or simply render/plaster straight to the block work which is my preferred option. I have told the architect & structural engineer that's what I want and the latter has come back with the bold quote below. It seems reasonable what he's saying but obviously his tone makes it clear this could be a hassle. Can anyone with experience tell me if adding these movement joints would be much of an issue? I have copy/pasted his comments below and need to tell them both to continue specifying this or not. I dare say this is just another example of people doing the same thing they have always done because they've always done it that way. I just need a bit of confidence to continue with this wall finish. We usually recommend dot and dab finishes, especially with houses of this size, due to the tendency for the inner leaf blockwork to suffer from minor thermal shrinkage cracks, which are usually hidden with dot and dab finishes but will show through with wet plaster finishes. If you still wish to use wet finishes, then we may need to introduce additional movement joints or bed joint reinforcement to the inner leaf. Technical literature recommends movement joints in blockwork at every 6 metres and at 3 metres from corners. Practically though this is often difficult to achieve without having joints everywhere!

Thank you for the replies on here, that's really useful as I probably would have wimped out on this otherwise. ?

Thanks, Is a passive slab that sort of thickness then? I just assumed they would be the standard 75mm screed.

Brilliant, thank you. I think it might be the case that I spooked him a little by saying my architect had asked me to ask the question. Your reply is appreciated and helpful as I will just go back and say I'm going for this as originally hoped. thanks again. Just further to this, I don't want to cost me a fortune to run. I'm happy to heat it just so it can't fall below 7 degrees and top up with a fan heater while I'm in there. Would you zone it or just run it as a slave part of the main system just taking whatever as a result of the main house say maintaining 22 degrees?

Thanks, I think his concern was that the heat could make it crack and the stone would not be good against the pipes. I'm not sure to be honest. Have you known people lay under floor heating in this type of situation without issues?

I spoke with the plumber that I will likely use for my self build and he had some reservations about this. He said that the heat up time will be hours (not really an issue) but that he was a bit concerned that the pipes will be contained in concrete which will have a stone content. He also wasn't sure if it might cause cracking. He didn't say he wouldn't do it but I think if he did it would almost certainly be at my risk and I could do without another thing to worry about. I think I might go with a couple of radiators instead, either not zoned (just take whatever passes through them while maintaining the main house target temp. Or zoned but set pretty low to stop the garage/workshop hitting the dew point and just top up with a fan heater. Does that sound like a reasonable solution or does anyone else have an alternative idea? Thanks.