ProDave

So are you saying you HAVE done that and and it is now "working" again? if so tell us what he did please.

Educate the rug rats.

More details of what you are joining to and what you want to connect to when you have found something that will fit your 50mmOD pipe? That is not a standard UK size of pipe

4, 5, 6 are the only ones that need some more details or action plans submitted before commencing.

Radiators? Under floor heating? I can imagine the draughts through the sockets being annoying, but I would be surprised if that is the reason an oil boiler is struggling to keep the house warm.

What heating system?

Who specified and built the frame? What air tightness did they expect to achieve? Having the service void in between insulation layers is just plain wrong. Whoever specified that needs "educating" Every single hole into that space, for cables etc, will be allowing cold air into that service void, virtually negating the insulation of the 120mm if PIR between the frame members. So if you are going to do it that way, then sealing the living daylights out of every single cable penetration is required. I suspect the best you can hope for now to improve it is go into the loft, roll back the insulation all around the edges and seal the living daylights out of every single hole where cables come up into the loft. This will apply to cable drops down into the (probably non load bearing) partition walls between rooms as well. It is probably too late to do anything about the (hopefully fewer) cable penetrations down into the sub floor space downstairs. What about plumbing? Are there also pipes going up into the loft or down under the ground floor?

Until the OP replies I suspect there is no air tightness layer apart from the taped top layer of PIR that has lots of holes in it for cables. Perhaps when the OP answers he can tell is what air tightness details have been used, what about under the floor and in the loft (assuming it is a normal cold loft)?

Looking at that picture, how are the cables getting into the service void? (the gap between the PIR and the plasterboard? It looks like they are coming up from under the floor in that picture. That will be one source of cold draughts. Likewise I bet lighting cables are going up through the ceiling into the cold loft space and that is another source of cold air getting in. As an electrician, I have come to expect this sadly as "normal" when you remove a socket on a windy day, and icy cold draught comes out of the back box. What stage are you at? and who has been advising you? If you read the forum there is a lot talked about attention to detail, and that is what has let you down. EDIT: looking at the picture again, is that a service void I am looking at, or is that the frame with the insulation between studs before the over sheeting insulation went on? If so you have created a cold gap between the insulation layers.

My first question is what are you planning to put on the outside of the wood fibre EWI? I take it the idea is full fill of the frame with insulation? The reason for it being so thick is to get the extra insulation depth. My house frame is all 195 *45.

11KV overhead lines right over the building. I am not sure you are allowed to build under them now so that might scupper the extension plans.

@ToughButterCup Will give you the low down on this.

That does sound like you have helped create your own problem. This is just like our previous house, planners dictated both plots take access from the same service layby. As both plots were under the same ownership when outline planning was granted, when they were sold, the area forming the shared layby was sold as jointly owned by the 2 plots. It never presented any problem.

So did you buy the lay by space from someone else to achieve that requirement?

That is a very unusual boundary line for you to own the layby space? What is your concern as long as the addition to the layby us properly surfaced?

Build a PD shed with PV on the roof. When I did my planning for the house, it was a last minute addition. Just a square outline on the site layout plan "Ground mounted solar PV" NO details at all. Nobody ever checked or asked for any details.

Generally unfenced green verges withing 3 metres of the road are classed as the highway.

That looks like a kitchen design error. There is a reason most people don't put cupboards above a sink. Even without the tap, you would get steam from a bowl of normal hat washing up water.

Please tell me the electrician did not charge you £800 just to connect the electric boiler?

It's good practice to have an obvious local switch to isolate it for maintenance. This will be on it's own circuit so the rcbo is all the "fusing" in needs. Don't try turning it on until he has fitted the correct switch.

The thing that still staggers me, is the housing market takes almost no account of the quality or performance of a house. By that I mean people pay just as much for an old leaky house with a dreadful EPC as they do for a better more modern house, and then when they move in complain at the heating cost. I have said for a long time, I would not want to own a house with an EPC worse than C. But I have no intention of moving from here. Having built our present house it would be almost impossible to move to anything comparable, apart from of course doing another self build.

IF there are 2 cables one would need to be large for the heaters. Post some pictures when you are home.

Show us a picture of what he has done. Some electric boilers want 2 feeds, a high rating one for the heating elements and a lower one for the controls.

I like natural noises. I love having the bedroom windows open in the summer so I can hear the trickle of the water in the burn, the owls hooting and other wildlife etc. But the very low level hum of the central heating water circulating pump really irritates me as does traffic noise. Yes ASHP's make noise. But the noise is outside your house. Most of the time you need the ASHP to work is in the winter when it is cold, and your windows are shut. But the same people that complain about an ASHP being noisy are usually happy to have an oil boiler roaring away INSIDE your house where you can hear it. Or even a gas boiler. I have a relatives house where the gas boiler is close to the living room and all evening you can hear the thing whining away, varying in speed as it modulated it's output. Give me an outside ASHP inaudible from inside the house any day. At one point early in the build I had considered a GSHP. That was until I installed one for a customer. Why would I want a heat pump sized compressor INSIDE my house where I can hear it? much better outside. Same goes for a split ASHP, monoblock with all the noisy bits outside is much better.

My take is we have to do what we reasonably can. That is somewhere between the environmentalists that think we can all stop burning oil tomorrow and we only carry on doing so because we like doing so, and those that think it is all a load of nonsense. If for no other reason than we can't just go on burning oil because it will run out. so lets be sensible and transition to renewable energy as quickly as we reasonably can. What continues to bug me is WHY such high figures keep coming up for fitting heat pumps? Yes if you have to completely change your heating system then costs can add up, but as a self builder building a new house, whatever system I fitted i wanted under floor heating and a hot water tank. So it was literally choose an oil boiler and an oil tank (no gas here) or an ASHP. There really was no additional cost, in fact I think my ASHP cost less than an oil boiler and tank would have done. With the grants for ASHP's at the moment I see exactly what happened with solar PV and the FIT. Installed prices to customers were inflated to it was largely the installers benefiting from grant not the customer. When the FIT was scrapped, solar PV prices fell, and without the MCS cartel being mandatory, anyone could fit them. There should be no ifs no buts, oil and gas boilers should be banned from new builds now. As i have shown, there really is no price penalty to pay for an ASHP in a new build, so there should be no need for any form of grant. Just write it into building regs, no fossil fuel boilers.