ProDave

Check the unused boxed in soil pipe, is it properly capped possibly with an AAV?

It might be more severe that you think, floor up, dry out properly etc

The only thing I question is do you have a 3 channel programmer? (if not that is an upgrade you should do) That would allow the UFH to turn on earlier as it takes longer to warm up, and the radiators to turn on a bit later. It is already plumbed with 3 motorised valves so should be an easy upgrade if not already a 3 channel programmer.

In our case there was no advantage in the top hung, not needed as a means of escape, just made it harder to install, more to go wrong and cost more.

I chose standard centre pivot Velux windows with the trickle vent. I seriously objected to paying more NOT to have something fitted. The standard Velux trickle vent is part of the opening mechanism, and when shut seems a whole lot more air tight than a normal window with a flimsy trickle vent above the window pane. Air testing did not show any particular air leak around the vent mechanism when shut. House is meeting the predicted heat loss so no major problems.

There you go, don't enlarge the loft hatch, choose a smaller unit. Job done.

Yes that works better for me and is the sort of thing we were considering when looking at a north facing plot.

Is there a stop bead around the hatch (like a door stop?) You only need an extra 20mm. Otherwise I would be removing the loft hatch surround and while doing it, probably enlarging the hole and enlarging at least one dimension.

These are typical room terminals, the pipe(s) come out parallel to the ceiling Our MVHR unit has 4 speeds available. Slowest speed is used for normal, second fastest is used for a gentle boost while cooking, and fastest speed is used for maximum ventilation rate when showering. The yellow sheet on the wall is the air tight membrane, everything is kept inside that, battens form a 25mm void for pipes and cables then plasterboard so no draughts through your light seitches. How far into the build are you, if you get the chance I really really recommend making your whole roof a warm roof with insulation and air tightness following the roof line. It is SO much easier to detail. If instead you go for a cold loft with the insulation on the ceiling you will have a LOT of detailing as much of your MVHR pipework and the MVHR unit itself will be outside the air tight envelope of the building.

Was this an individual build for you, or part of a development and you just bought it? Did you see any parts part way through build to estimate build quality? How is the house ventilated and heated?

Who built the house? (assuming not a self build by you) Is that room thermostat by a door or a window? Is that room a "room in roof"?

Add one of these to your existing trap https://www.screwfix.com/p/mcalpine-v33s-compression-domestic-appliance-tee-piece-connector-white-40mm/4167p

Stupid idea. There is enough space on land for solar panels and wind turbines for all our needs.

Pretty standard I am afraid. If it were single storey, the hiab on the delivery lorry might reach and you could suggest to the driver a few £££ for him to lift them and stack them at one end of the roof, but I doubt the hiab will reach a 2 storey house. A crane will lift them one at a time and spend the time to get them right, braced then lift the next one. A delivery driver would never take that much time so the best you just might get is all the trusses at one end of the roof still to be handballed into place and braced.

The two bits in bold seem to contradict each other. either these are load bearing or they are not.

Jewson closed several branches a few months back at very short notice (the letter telling me it was going to close, arrived a few days after it had actually closed) Just TP and the independant one left, or a 25 mile (50 mile round trip) drive.

I believe in England, it is indeed the highest ground point that counts so on sloping ground it could be higher and still comply.

Retired people can run their washing machine or hoover at any time of day and could if not stuck to convention cook and eat outside of the evening peak time. The problem is all those working people. They might set the washing machine on a timer to get it at a cheaper rate but can't do that with much else. Now tell them they are going to be penalised if they are to want to cook a meal when they have just got home from work and try telling them they should really either leave work earlier to cook earlier, or sit at home hungry until later in the evening before turning the oven on. We need to look at what else contributes to that big evening peak that is the problem. Is it really just everyone cooking? are there industrial users that could more easily shift their loads out of that time? I just don't see that trying to get domestic customers to change is going to do enough. I suspect this "pay not to use" experiment is possibly flawed by those who choose to deliberately use their big loads in the peak time to gain their "normal" use and then not use them on the experiment days. I wonder if anyone has compared their "normal" use with a similar time frame before the experiment was announced to see if that is happening or not?

Easy enough to learn to drive a digger, several of us on here have bought our own, used it for the build and then sold it. I would not want to contemplate renting out one you own, too much risk and red tape. Though one guy in our village does rent his for not much per day. I have never heard of an electric one, I guess they do exist but like EV's at a premium price I expect.

I generally like that, certainly good for buildability. But the kitchen / dining / family has no south facing aspect. I provisionally sketched some ideas when we might have bought a north facing plot like that, and it would basically have been the kitchen / dining / living occupying the left half of the house from tv corner to study where it would have had north, west and south windows, lounge where you have it having east and south windows, and all the utility stuff in the NE corner. Even better would be to mirror that down the centre, so the east side of the house front to back is the kitchen / dining family getting east, south and north windows, you are more likely to use that in the morning to benefit from the early sun. and the living room to the front bottom so south and west windows, you are more likely to use that in the evening to benefit from the west sun. And utility stuff to north west corner.

I allocated a 5M by 3M space (roof space above garage) as "plant room" In reality very little endued up in there (now used as a workshop) The only thing of any size in there is the MVHR unit and the distribution plenums. Other than that it's just a pump and some small control gear for the heating system. The ASHP is outside (apart from the controls mentioned above) The DHW tank made no sense there as it would be too far from points of use, so that is not in an airing cupboard off the spare bedroom. Following on from that the distribution manifold is in the ceiling void above the utility room accessed from a hatch, again to keep all the pipe runs as short as possible. So how much plant room you actually need depends where it is and if it is suitable for everything together, or if the layout of the house favours a distributed layout of "plant"

We have a burn through our garden that on occasions gets close to over topping. My strategy was raise the ground level on the house side (and the house is already higher than the ground level) but leave the ground level on the other side as it was. So it will first over top onto the other side of the burn which in effect massively increases the capacity of the burn long before it over tops on the house side. Our own mini flood plain.

Perhaps a bit off topic as you don't want to change supplier, but Rationel had no problem making us a pair of outward opening French doors.

Been there and done that twice. It's normally a formality to get temporary PP for the caravan as almost a footnote to your planning application and the council will usually charge you band A council tax while you live in it. A very cheap way of getting temporary accommodation.

I doubt the lack of insulation in the sloping ceiling bit is responsible for all the heat loss. You need to look at every bit of the structure and work out what you can realistically do. With care you can get some insulation down there as long as you don't block all eaves ventilation to the loft, and improve the loft insulation as much as you can for a start. Thermal paint will probably do next to nothing, there is not thin paint on miracle cure.