Stones

Glass bricks?

Attached is a plan of my proposed office layout (apologies for poor quality of scan). The room is formed from attic trusses which means the coomb meets the wall at a height of 850mm. Because of this, it's a little challenging to sit a PC monitor on a desk simply run along a wall - it either has to be positioned in a corner, or on a peninsula of desk. I have a velux window recess where I would like to construct my desk area, both for the view and added space, and have come up with the attached as a layout that I could form from two 3m lengths of oak worktop. Alternatively I could use oak veneer MDF, or a ply base with engineered oak flooring glued on top for a finished surface. I have two options in terms of oak worktop - 27mm or 38/40mm. As I would be butting joints together to form the shape indicated in the plan, would 27mm be viable given I'm going to have route and bolt? I've still not discounted the plywood / engineer oak option - just need to look at some flooring samples to find a smooth surface product. Office layout.pdf

@orkenny - Welcome, nice to have someone else from Orkney on the forum. Have you had a look at the local development plan and policies? If it is your ultimate intention to use the cabin as a holiday let / self catering you are going to need planning permission. If memory serves, you are going to need to show justification or requirement (increased visitor numbers predicted with RET [if we ever get it] has not in the past been accepted as justification or need). Even if building within the curtilage of your dwelling house (which may not extend across the entirety of the 0.8 acres you own) PD would not cover that type of 'use'. The easiest and quickest way to get an answer on the planning side would be to email a query into Development management, setting out what you propose and whether policy and development plan would support it. Usually a reasonable turnaround of such enquires. Alternatively, make an appointment or go to School Place between 09:00 and 10:00 or 16:00 and 17:00 and ask to speak to the duty planning officer.

@Home Farm is the flooring bonded down onto screed/slab or a floating floor (laid on an underlay)? If bonded, you could try this https://www.fixafloor.co.uk/ We had a few of our oak boards lift before the adhesive had set. To inject the adhesive you can either drill a larger hole, then plug to get a matching finish, or a smaller hole then finish with filler or furniture wax. Have a look at my blog entry:

They do in some areas, albeit in a small way. The one's I have seen have formed part of a wider development site that includes social housing, something that does put some buyers off / may limit the market.

I've used some of that in our kitchen extractor hood as an extra to the charcoal pellet filters. Certainly soaks up grease / odours.

Can we please keep this topic confined to the impact of no deal on self building and renovating?

I bought a stock of spares / replacements so I can easily swap out a faulty unit if needs be.

We went with the pure white (rather than warm or natural) as we wanted a more clinical light.

I compared various setups when deciding which way to go for our DHW provision. Based on consuming an average of 15kWh worth of DHW per day for a family of four (inc losses), I found the cost difference / saving between solely using an ASHP (assumed annual CoP of 2.2) to heat DHW to 50C, or heating to a lower temp (40C) by ASHP then topping off with immersion was negligible to the point where there was no benefit to doing the latter. We have a 300 litre UVC, and that quite comfortably does us, 50% of consumption in the morning, the 50% balance mostly in the evening. We don't run with E7, but consequently, can heat DHW any time for the same cost. Our ASHP returned a CoP of 2.3 for DHW. If we had gone for a smaller cylinder, then I think we probably would have needed immersion top up to get the volumes we use (without running cold). Certainly for our useage patterns, we would struggle with an E7 only based heating regime and need either a much larger UVC.

To me, the big stand out is the cost of the ASHP and cylinder. £4500 should buy you the Mitsubishi Ecodan and preplumbed cylinder. Fitting (electrician and plumber) no more than £500. The rest is their mark up - assume this will be MCS accredited install (there are costs the installer has to pay, and they have to recoup to become accredited). If RHI payments are going to equal or exceed the cost of the extra over, then you could rationalise the price. If not, you may want to consider buying the ASHP and cylinder package yourself and getting spark and plumber to install (monobloc rather than split ASHP). The remainder doesn't seem too far off to me (taking on board comments above)

£200 last year for heating (21.5C constant 24/7) with our ASHP - 155sqm footprint. We are based in Orkney on a fairly exposed site.

We have a lot of oak flooring, and likewise this can quickly show up dust 'tumbleweeds'. Vacuuming frequently has solved this - having a cordless Dyson which you can whip out for 5 mins has been a god send in this respect as its made dealing with it so easy ( previous vac was a Henry which was a bit of a faff to get out and use in comparison)

I've always fitted timber (either varnished, stained or oiled) on our builds - a lot my forgiving than white painted skirting IMHO for showing up accumulated dust/dirt.

+1 - we are delighted with our Rationel windows, plus they were £6K less than equivalent Nordan.

I used a local haulier to collect them direct from their depot in Cumbernauld, and deliver to site. £800 IIRC (charged by pallet space). I'm sure there will be a haulier on the IoW who is geared up to do the same.

Our window openings / cavity closers were formed with timber. Yes, a cold bridge, but in the grand scheme of things didn't seem a detail worth obsessing about - provided an easy means for fixing windows. I'm sure it has a bit of an impact on our heating requirement, but at £200 a year for heating in our windswept location, I'm not really that worried.

£10 fan heater? Panel heaters or combination thereof? Heat as you need it, a space that size will not take long to get up to temp, and once activity starts, will stay warm.

We have a Mitsubishi Ecodan and I have just tested the cooling function. Somewhat limited - I can set the flow temp (down to 5C IIRC) but other than that, it's on or off (or timed). Heating function has to be switched off, otherwise it would kick the heating back on to rewarm the slab once you had switched off the cooling.

The saving from diverting excess to DHW is not as great given @ProDave would otherwise just be using an ASHP with CoP of 2.3 ish

I was having a conversation yesterday with a an energy project rep talking about peer to peer trading in electricity - I would be able to buy your (and others) excess PV / wind / stored energy etc. Would need a change in regulations which I guess energy companies wouldn't be that supportive of.

I can't find anything that specifically excludes or prevents the use of a heat pump for cooling, but would certainly agree in not being specifically identified as eligible, you could not get any RHI payment for cooling: https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/system/files/docs/2018/07/essentialguideforapplicants_july_2018.pdf 'The table on the next page shows a summary of the eligibility requirements, eligible purposes and ineligible purposes of heat generation for the different renewable technology types. The eligible and ineligible purpose will usually correspond to a design feature of the renewable technology. Your renewable heating system must not be designed or installed to allow uses that are not considered eligible for the purpose of the Domestic RHI scheme. Note that your heat pump or biomass system may also generate heat that is ‘non eligible’, however you’ll only receive payment for eligible heat produced. Criteria for each type are explained in more detail in the figure on the next page.' If you were to take mine, it was installed as it came from the manufacturer, i.e. cooling function disabled, but there is nothing to stop me activating the cooling mode by flipping the dip switch, and my unit is on the list of accredited equipment.

I just had a read of the RHI eligibility and conditions and could not find anything about cooling not being permitted. By definition, as it does not form part of the calculations you would not be paid for it (so no 'cash for ash') but as far as I can see, it isn't prohibited. Of course depending on the metering set up (for those installed 2018 onwards) then excessive use / renewable heat generated may be flagged up and investigated. Wouldn't seem to be an issue for those whose payments are based on 'deemed' calculations. Anyone reading this, please satisify yourself that this is the correct position. Another warm day here and I've switched on the cooling. Easy to activate the function via a dip switch setting. Control is limited on my system to on / off and specifying the cooling flow temperature, albeit operation can be timed. Seems to be working, in the sense return temperature from the slab slowly dropping. Pipework cool, with a film of condensation on the UFH manifold, so keeping an eye on things - RH higher than normal today. Strange to feel warm air expelling from the outdoor unit rather than the usual cold!

+1 one of the best labour saving investments I've made!

In terms of payback, it really depends on how much of what you generate you can use. Without diverting excess to DHW or car charging, my experience (and others) of a 3.68 kWp system is that you would use around 25% of what you generate and export the rest. If you can change behaviour and only use appliances throught the day you can push this up. Divert excess generation to heating DHW and you will use more / offset other energy use. Whether it's worth paying for an MCS install vs a DIY install is debatable. The only real benefit to the former will be the ability to claim an export payment when the revised payment scheme is rolled out. That will be a simple calculation - is it worth paying an extra £1K - £2K to get back £100 a year. A smaller DIY system, say up to 2 kWp may well be the optimum size. Don't discount buying second hand PV panels. @ProDave and I did this, and for us, has worked well / brought down the cost of our systems quite considerably.