MikeGrahamT21

Was having a poke around the Vortice website and found this: https://www.vortice.ltd.uk/shop/ca-range-accessories/controllers-sensors-ca-range/c-hcs-humidity-controller/ Found some on ebay, someone who had mispurchased 3 of them, bought one for around £42 ? Doesn't particularly say for install inside ducting, but will have a play, and try and take the sensor out and extend the wires so just that case sit inside the ducting with the rest of the unit outside.

Yeah its a horrible thing, and not covered by normal house insurance. The people who had the house clearly knew about it, as there were sections of timber which had been replaced in the bathroom, but of course nothing was said. Its not the end of the world I suppose, at least I can sort it myself, and having done the loft, those timbers are all OK thankfully! I too have fallen through the floor in the existing kitchen, one of the floorboards was so bad. We never paid for a survey, i've lived on the street all my life, so I know the houses well, and my dad was a builder, so we just had standard valuation, i don't think we would have found anything else out having paid for a survey to be honest, all the bad things have been covered up which i'm now uncovering and fixing.

Wasn't going to post this one, as in the grand scheme of things its fairly regular and a bit boring, but there is a few interesting points which may be of use to others... The photos are panoramic, don't worry the floor isn't bent! ? This was a before photo once all the fitted furniture was removed Everything stripped out, and underfloor fully cleaned and hoovered New timber put in which has been post-delivery treated (bloody builders merchants delivered wrong stuff and then couldn't get hold of them to complain!). All plug sockets also rewired. Majority of insulation in, and foamed with flexible FM330 foam. Airtight membrane and floorboards installed. Perimeter plastered to cover where the skirting board pulled old plaster off during removal. Everything decorated, and curtain rail reinstalled. Job complete! And the reason behind stripped all of this out! A couple of days later I found this crawling up the fridge unit in the kitchen!! Pretty sure its an adult woodworm beetle.

Almost there, just the boarding, and a little bit more insulation to go down!

I'm surprised this house hasn't taken itself down yet!

This looks like a piece of clay drain pipe to me

I have spoken to block manufacturers in the past about this, and none will agree that bare blockwork can be left. 7N concrete blocks will stand up better, but i would advise using some type of brick, engineering brick would be ideal and also cheap. The trouble with blocks is they absorb water very easily, so you need something to stop this from happening.

Makes perfect sense, it did seem very cheap for a chinese product. I support the only other thing I could do is use the sensor from my existing vent axia fan, which is white in colour, may be of better quality? I'll take a look at the ones @joe90 mentioned.

Ahh yeah. That one i posted, the sensor is the small blue bit with 2 connectors, and 5 slits in it (Next to VCC and GND), i recognise it from the existing bathroom extractor fan which has a humidistat in it. My idea was to unsolder it, and solder some wires on, then re-attach to the board.

For the humidistat relay, would this work: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Humidity-Sensitive-Switch-Relay-Humidity-Controller-Humidity-Sensor-Module/274542659582 MVHR has all the required connections, but it doesn't specify voltage in the manual, assuming it will be 5V but would need to check and I don't have a multi meter. Thinking to get a few of these, and then I can experiment by unsoldering the humidistat itself, wiring it up and locating this inside the ducting with silicone to seal the wires in, leaving the electronics outside of the ducting, connected to the MVHR, what do you think??

Also need to mount the control panel, and put the wires in some conduit. I'd not had the heating on long when i took this photo hence 16C. To add the unit is very quiet, at trickle speeds its not noticeable from the cupboard when shut. In the rooms you can just hear a very slight sound akin to air flowing through plastic pipe, (which makes sense lol) but its no more noisy than the air purifiers I had, which were whisper quiet. Got a few more tweaks to do, the pipe for the extract from inside (front right) needs shortening a bit so that the flexi isn't quite as bent, and obviously the drain needs sorting properly, at the moment its sucking air in through the drainage pipe, so that will be my next mission, i've got my core drill at the ready!

I finally got this all connected yesterday, after many months of work getting everything in the loft prepared. Still got a few meters of ducting to insulate in the loft when I reinstate the floor on the loft legs ive got, but the majority is under 200mm of rockwool. I didn't get any photos of the loft side install yesterday as by the time i'd finished crawling round in the eaves, I was just ready for a shower and a lay down! I've still got the drainage to do for the condensate, at the moment i've just stuck a bucket under the unit with the pipe in, but I've got a through the wall fitting which i'm going to have draining both the condensate of the MVHR and the Boiler (in same cupboard) into an external drain. Sat down this morning and worked out what % i needed to set the unit at, at some point I'll borrow the setup tool from here and do it properly, but no point yet until the extension is built, so just using plain floor area and volume, the trickle is set at 43% for both supply and extract. At some point I need to get a humidstat relay to trigger the boost automatically, which I'll install in the extract pipe almost next to the unit. I'll keep my eye on the smoke events and see how they affect the air, and if needs be will get a carbon filter to clean the incoming air. I can definitely tell that the unit is running, you know the smell you get when you open a window and let fresh air in... but obviously its not dropping the temperature anywhere near as much. Total system price, for the unit off ebay, radial pipe and all fittings from BPC came in at just under £1000. The carbon filter is another £300 if I need it, but time will tell. Pretty pleased with that! Photos to follow...

This is probably bed joint reinforcement rather than a wall tie, to prevent cracking.

assuming you mean aircrete? celcon/thermalite type blocks? They will need rendering minimum, otherwise water will penetrate and frost could get to them over the years. Can you not ask neighbour if you can remove fence to sort, and then put it back again at your own cost?

I don't see how repairing your house would devalue it, I think thats likely BS. For one, how would the people buying it know you'd had it repaired multiple times unless someone told them?!

was worried they'd put full fill normal PIR, looks like they've used CT-PIR in places. Its designed to be a full system and should be used all over tho, with differing types you'll have cold spots, especially where theres nothing at all. Speak to them, as it sounds like they fight your corner, which may be useful here

Seen this before... https://www.fairair.eu/en/probiotic-maintenance/

I've done both taping and filling and plaster finish, and I like both. Taping and filling is definitely far more messy though when you sand the filler, if you go down this route, get a box fan and face it out of an open window on full blast, will help a lot.

I have zero affiliation with these, and no idea if they are good/not good but maybe worth some research? https://www.mysnagsure.com/

The insulation... Is that full fill? If so, does it have a High Impact Plastic face to it?

Yeah, I already have a 'fruitful' relationship with this neighbour, we haven't spoken for years and I certainly can't be bothered opening that can of worms again. I'll see what happens when I switch the system on and take it from there.

Perhaps get together with some/all neighbours and force action en-masse against the builder, some sort of group litigation?? It won't be free of course, but you could all share the costs, if the problems are essentially the same?

mine don't come off, they're glued on, bit of gripfill ? First photo ones have been on since 2012

Yeah? How so? I think they really finish them off nicely. You could always get some of the iron on melamine strips and use those if you wanted?