ProDave

Can you post a link? Google just comes up with portable solar panels for me. I tried getting a Puraflow filtration system as a solution for our plot but building control rejected it. We ended up with a perfectly normal air blower type treatment plant discharging to the burn.

Walls first. Leave a gap at the bottom a bit wider than the flooring you expect to lay. Skirting board was invented to cover the gap between the bottom of the wall and the floor.

Look at other threads, Most "installed" prices seem to be inflated to harvest the grant for the benefit of the installer. If you just buy an ASHP and then pay an ordinary plumber and electrician to install it you will get it fitted for under £5K

Just put salt down. Any idea of using electricity to melt the ice when we are trying to reduce our fuel usage is just completely bonkers.

We often criticise the large builders for building cheap shoddy houses (I am not at all saying this happened with this builder) but even with the economy of scale is shows it is hard for a large builder to be profitable.

What is wrong with a convector heater with a simple heating element, a timer and thermostat built in. I took a major dislike to "posh" electric heaters when the wonderful EU introduced "LOT20" intending to make electric heaters more efficient by enforcing electronic controls. The first one I installed, I removed a week later, as the customer just could not understand the controls, and it kept shutting down with a message "window open detected" What a load of rubbish.

Daytime high of -2 today, forecast -8 tonight. Stove burning nicely. I collected a load of firewood in the Landrover last weekend and going back for more this weekend. This will be for next year or more likely the year after. Chainsaw was busy Saturday afternoon.

Are you sure it was not YOU that took a year to get used to the building? I have relatives in an old stone farmhouse and when you first go there you notice the damp smell as you enter and the general damp feeling. After a week or 2 there, you stop noticing both of those things.

But what if it is in a rental property and every time the tenant switches it off the program settings are lost? When there is no need to turn it off because it is remote controlled by some smart device?

Another thought. How many properties does that serve and who owns it? It might be better to do any works needed right at the top and share the costs?

It is my opinion that the market should value houses with a poor EPC lower than those with a good EPC to reflect the higher running costs or the future upgrade costs. Which is why at the moment I don't wish to own such a property as I don't want to be the one suffering the drop in value when the market wakes up to reality.

It does in my opinion. But this is similar to the bathroom fan isolator switch and I am still waiting for someone to show me where it says it needs one. I learned early on NEVER EVER have a fan isolator switch in a rental property.

Don't get me started on that, first hand experience. No I don't want to be a landlord again, EVER.

Well when you compare an un insulated house with about the most expensive heating you can get (bottled LPG) to the same house with internal wall insulation and an ASHP it is going to be cheaper. What this shows is the level of (in their words) very invasive work required to achieve the result. The issue is can the government afford grants to all the old poorly insulated houses, or are the owners expected to pay? This shows what is possible, now someone has to discuss the logistics and finances.

I doubt anyone makes a 22kW single phase charger, so that really tips it in favour of 3 phase. But put all the house just on one phase, makes it easier to self use solar PV generation for example.

Do you have any details? Make and model of the heat pump? What water source? borehole or slinky etc? And what are you using for heat delivery to the house? radiators? UFH etc. Have you had a proper heat loss calculation done on the house?

Since MI's make no mention of a switch I would be happy fitting just a FCU if that is what the customer wants. Ask him to show you where in BS7671 it says you have to have a switch.

^^^ Agreed, why are they still suggesting such a poor air tight target, and not even making a mention of MVHR? surely say air tightness less than 1.5 and MVHR would be reasonable? Mind the mass market builders might have a learning curve to achieve that.

So £5K for 13.5kWh assuming I can install myself for £0 The key to working out the economics is what is the rated number of charge / discharge cycles of the battery? Google suggests 4000 cycles. So assuming you can store the rated capacity and use it each day, that will be 13.5 * 4000 = 54,000 kWh of stored power before end of life. Divide by the cost, £5000, then you get 9.2p per Kwh as the cost of storing your energy. Assuming your off peak is 15p cheaper than peak, then the real world saving is barely 5p per kWh

What is needed is drainage ditches across the driveway. I don't know how to describe what i see often but a 6" wide trench across the drive with a hard edge both sides, a car will drive over it slowly (inverted speed hump) and the water will run into the channel and off to the side. Of course it relies on somewhere for it to run to but onto (note ONTO not under) a field will do. The whole point is keep it on the surface and push it onto adjoining land to soak in or run off. Trying to lose that much muddy water will just clog any underground soakaway. A neighbour here achieves the same thing with a speed bump across his driveway, it pushed the water down hill past his drive to carry on down hill and be someone elses problem.

Have you properly costed the pence per kWh of storing electricity in a battery? It is a while since I have done that, but I previously looked at batteries to store surplus solar PV (i.e free) electricity, and concluded when you properly costed the batteries by allowing for the expected life and replacement at end of life the "free" stored energy was barely much cheaper than grid electricity. I would be interested to see properly costed up to date figures.

Are you seriously going to start a neighbour dispute over the loss of 1" of garden that you don't even use yourself?

Do you really want them moved a few inches, or a lot further? If the supply head is mounted on a board and there is slack in the cable an understanding electrician might move it, you have already sad the gas people would move there's a few inches as well. The problem with moving the whole lot is the DNO have to move the supply head then the energy provider has to move the meter. In between those you are without power. Best of luck coordinating that to happen the same day.

Your present WC is "close coupled" the one you are proposing is "low level". They will NOT join together. Your issue with the flush I suspect is just that your cistern has so little water in it. This modern water saving lark just often means inadequate flush water requiring 2 or 3 flushes. That hardly saves water does it? My pragmatic solution when we had a house like this was use a different toilet for a No 2 and use the one with the poor flush just for a pee.

I was going to ask the same. Post some pictures showing where they are and where you would like them to move to?