Stones

@Redoctober Looking good! I take it that's a 5kW ASHP you have? IIRC you should be able to access a floor drying out function for UFH on the controller.

Our household 'stuff' usage is similar and averages around 11 kWh per day, less in summer more in winter. That includes the treatment plant and MVHR.

@ProDave Interesting figures. For comparison, over the past week we've used 5.3kWh per day for DHW (delivering just under 13 kWh of DHW) and 5 kWh per day for heating (delivering 21kWh). DHW water use tallies with last year. It's higher than yours, but there are four of us in the house, and our showers deliver 16 litre per minute, which tends to lead to longer more luxurious showers! Heating wise we have used more than the comparable period last year but weather wise, a lot windier and less sun / solar gain (last year it was 14 kWh per day heating) . We heat to 21.5C

For me it was simply the case of working out what it would cost to install vs return, i.e. how many years would it take for the savings made on energy bills to pay off the installation cost. My experience of PV, and others I have known gave me a baseline of likely PV generated consumption. From there I looked at heating DHW. I also factored in the simple fact that in summer, when potentially generated 30 kWh a day, I wouldn't be able to use it all, as daily use and DHW combined requirement (for us) are less than 30kWh per day. With no other means of using the excess it would be exported (without recompense). I costed the saving of heating DHW by means of PV against heating using my primary source (ASHP), i.e. applying the COP of 2.4

Whilst you may be able to buy a Solar PV package for circa £2K, you'll still need to be on or in roof mounts, a diversion device (if using excess to heat DHW), a replacement inverter after 10 years, Labour for fitting(if not doing it yourself) and an electrician. £2K becomes £3500 quite easily. Of the various people I know with PV, they consume about 25% of what they generate. We had a heat pump in our last house and managed to use about 40% of what we generated. To use the rest you need to divert to DHW or other large load (electric car, storage heater). There's only so much you can divert to DHW and you may well find you still have excess in the peak of summer. When I looked at it for our current house, MCS install prices were too high, and a non MCS system as above, factoring in electricity bill savings, and DHW offset (otherwise heated by an ASHP) struggled to pay for itself with a 17 year payback.

@ProDave Roughly speaking between 6 and 7 kWh per day for DHW (varies according to teenager use and time of year). For heating, far more elastic - from 3kWh per day late autumn / spring rising to sometimes 10kWh day in winter depending on storms/ wind etc and all point in between!

@Triassic when calculating what type of system to install, I compiled a table listing the various options, taking into account capital cost, servicing and energy costs (using 500kWh increments from 2500kWh to 5000kWh )then worked out the total cost over both 10 and 20 year timeframes so I had realistic annual figures to compare. It was a pen and paper rather than PC job, so no longer have the actual figures. Below 2500kWh demand for DHW and 2500 kWh for heating, direct electric worked out best overall, above that other types of system became cheaper. Interestingly there wasn't a huge £ difference once all the cost factors were taken into account (maybe a £100 to £200 per annum difference IIRC), which for some may be a price worth paying for the simplicity of an immersion / willis heater vs an ASHP. We went for an off the shelf plug and play system which has worked really well for us - no messing about, no trial and error, it just works and works well.

@Triassic @ProDave I've detailed performance figures for our first 12 months here. Energy input and Heat delivered figures from ASHP on board metering

@Big Neil I looked into retrofitting an ASHP or a GSHP at our last house. The cost of the GSHP was significantly inflated, as the salesmen put it, 'look what you get back in RHI'. When I actually drilled down into the figures, I found that a GSHP was going to cost MORE to run with a heating demand of 5000kWh/yr compared to an ASHP (due to a combination of the energy used to pump around the ground loop, and the cost of changing the fluid in the ground loop). The higher the heating demand, the more the balance tipped to GSHP. DHW was also an issue for the GSHP requiring immersion top up, although the overall delivered cost of DHW was the same as an ASHP. ASHP installations are eligible for RHI (the rate recently increased but maximum annual payment now capped) I keep linking to it but my recent blog entry gives some performance data for our ASHP

Our ASHP based system has performed very well, plenty of DHW for a 'hot steamy bath' and keeps the house toasty warm for pennies. For detail see this blog entry

I suspect grant funding would become available if secondary treatment plants / complete new systems were required (in much the same way as grants are available to upgrade private water supplies)

I was recently in a small flatted development which is destined for social housing. Certainly a fabric first approach in terms of the levels of insulation and airtightness. Room size also very generous. Finish spec however, very very basic which is where they claw back the outlay spent on the fabric.

But it's the use of the building that's important...and aircraft wouldn't on the face of it usually be defined as agricultural machinery (accepting they could be used at certain times of the year for crop spraying etc). Have they been challenged at all over their use ?

Fantastic!

Years ago, we were looking for something to clad concrete piers to match the boundary stone dyke. After a lot of searching, I came across https://www.fernhillstone.com who could supply stone slips to match. They had quite a wide range IIRC, and fitting was with a cement based adhesive. If fixing directly to ICF, I would have thought the critical element would be the fixing medium. Might be worth giving them a call?

Appears to be this one: Islington Council reference: P2012/0630/FUL The elevation drawing does show what appears to be brick: http://planning.islington.gov.uk/NorthgatePublicDocs/00126789.pdf Can't find the enforcement notices (or strangely, the enforcement register). No sign of an appeal on the Planning Inspectorate site either...

36mph gusting 56mph Kirkwall. Forecast shows it increasing in the next few hours. Quite a bit of rain here as well.

If you think how your car looks after it's been freshly waxed and it's rained...surface tension does have an effect.

@joe90 Might be worth trying this: https://www.fixafloor.co.uk/ we used it for a few of our oak flooring (bonded to slab) which hadn't adhered during install, and its worked a treat.

At our last house, we initially installed a G83 sized system but subsequently added another the same size so moved onto G59 requirements, the main change being a larger inverter with the relevant safety protocols. Both were MCS installs, so we received FIT payments, the original array at the rate applicable when installed, the additional array at the lower rate applicable for larger installs. Export payments were deemed at 50% of total generation of the two arrays. The first array had been SW orientated, so the second was fitted on a SE roof. What I had hoped was that I would benefit from a much earlier start to useful generation with the SE facing panels. The reality was somewhat different. Whilst we did start generating a little earlier, the amount generated wasn't massive. Roughly speaking we used 40% of what we generated with one array (we had a heat pump) but the % of electricity generated that we used actually reduced with two arrays fitted, albeit our import reduced, but I do think it is a case of diminishing returns. What we did end up with was a massive peak of generation in the summer daytime, some days being 55kWh plus. We couldn't use that amount of electricity, even with diversion to DHW. Having loads that can absorb all the excess is key.

I would say mount it so you can easily work on it - i.e. unscrew the front, remove filters, remove core, clean inside of unit, whilst standing up. I had originally planned this for mine but ended up installing it in loftspace where it sits on the floor. TBH it's a bit of a pain to work on like that, so I may well end up putting it in the services cupboard although I'd have to muster the enthusiasm to do so first!

I bought an old Mondeo for our build for £150, spent £100 on it and ran it for just short of 13 months. Tax was around £20 a month but insurance was only £150. Came with a tow bar fitted so was able to borrow trailers as required. A great load / junk lugger that saved the family car from being ruined. Scrapped it when finished.

@RichS, this is how our ICF build was rendered:

@Tyke2 bearing in mind that building regs require a pretty decent level of insulation anyway, if you pay attention to the airtightness detailing, your heat demand isn't going to be huge, and may well be less than your DHW. We have an ASHP and it works really well via UFH, keeps the house warm and at a very stable and comfortable temp for very little cost. You could achieve the same with a simple direct electric system (Willis heater) at a higher running but lower capital cost. Radiators can work with a low temp system - we had such a system in our last house but radiator sizes are massive and resemble armour plating on a dreadnought. If you just want small high temp radiators you start adding complication to your system (and potentially higher running costs of usung an ASHP as COP drops as output temp rises) Better avoided if you can in my view. Various ways you can deliver DHW, from simple immersion (low capital but higher running cost) to ASHP only or a mix of the two. When I costed it out, I calculated it would cost the same to preheat DHW with an ASHP then top up with immersion vs ASHP only heated to 50C. I went with the latter for simplicity and it works really well (the most recent entry in my blog gives some details on this).

Welcome, a very interesting read. It would be good to hear about your project in more detail.