ProDave

No it's the rather sarcastic name for the cheapest, smallest new house on a housing estate built by a developer. A rather small, poorly built, poorly insulated house on a small plot with a tiny garden on an estate that is far too tightly packed in. I hated it, but at least it was a first step.

I solved that. I bought a second hand old school dual rate electricity meter. The power feed to the ASHP passes through this meter, and the pilot wire (that switches the meter from day to night rate) is switched by the feed to the hot water motorised valve. So one dial on the meter measures it's usage in heating mode, and the other dial measures it's usage in DHW mode. Adding cooling mode to that would be tricky.......

Yep. You need it to plug in the emergency kettle when the boiling tap fails. Good planning.

Thanks for that. The front is north and the rear south. So the living rooms get the sun (and the sun room) Yes no reason why you could not build it without the sun room and garage. We only fitted one stove, in the kitchen / diner and in a different location to shown, about mid way along the west wall next to the door. The single 5kW stove will heat the whole house if you keep both the double doors to the stairwell open. If you shut the kitchen / diner doors then it will overheat just that one room. You really do have to think of it as whole house heating and keep the doors open. I would make the main bathroom slightly deeper than it was but by the time I realises I wanted to do that, the bedroom doors were in place and that would have been a big job to move them (trivial if noticed before that load bearing wall was built). Changes we did make, omit the airing cupboard from the east bedroom, that made the en-suite bigger. The HW tank is now in the small bedroom that puts it much more central to the points of use. We have not yet built the pantry. One thing that is not to everyones taste is the combined utility and WC. It works well for us though. The upstairs roof is built as a cut roof from big ridge beams and a "gable end" extends out at the front centre above the bathroom, and two gable ends extend out the rear one above each bedroom. These mean almost all of the upstairs has standing headroom even though it is room in roof. We built it for about £150K so just under £1000 per square metre, but it took 6 years and a LOT of DIY work to get it that low. You would not do that now with the increased cost of materials so I don't really have a clue what it would cost to build now. I doubt it's much more expensive than any other house design. Elevation plan attached. BW013 - Elevations.pdf

None of those stock designs are floating my boat. I offer up my house plans. My design, detailed professionally for the building warrant, and only a few minor as built changes from the plans. I think it makes a nice simple house very efficient use of space and it works well for us. 992830669_BW005-GFPlan.pdf BW007 - FF Plan.pdf

Mine is a bit different, render onto wood fibre external insulation, and I believe at the time Baumit was the only system approved for that. If (as looks very likely) it fails again then I am into unknown territory of what to replace it with or what alternative way to finish / clad my walls.

Probably a tick box to get the DNO to accept it and nobody cares or will test if it actually works.

I assume with the low current rating, it is used with a current transformer. And the NC contact would hold a contactor energised (wasteful) that would be released and turn off a big load if the max current was exceeded.

The occupant of the room behind will NOT thank you for doing that, with the noise of the thing flushing and refilling every time. Outside wall is a FAR better place for it.

Have a look here https://www.flue-pipes.com/ That is about the cheapest I could find and where I bought all mine from. They have several guides how to do it. Where it goes through the roof, you usually have to cut a hole 50mm larger than the flue (so all combustible materials remain 50mm from the flue) and then cover inside with a stainless steel plate and outside with a flashing kit. Others will have to advise what flashing you need for your shed roof. Yes the flue pipes are expensive. I spent more on flue pipe than I did on the stove.

Even if you were going to control a heat pump via the relay from an eddie I would not do it by turning the power on and off, instead it would be via a thermostat or call for heat input. I just have the timer set so DHW heating only starts at 11AM on the hope the sun will be out by then. A lot simpler.

None at all. The HW cylinder is in the spare bedroom that is the smallest of the three and north facing so gets very little solar gain. There are no issues with the room being too hot, even in summer and arguably the small heat loss is beneficial to an otherwise unheated bedroom in the winter. I am convinced in many installs I see, the vast majority of heat loss is from uninsulated pipes connecting to the cylinder. It was surprising just how far from the cylinder you have to insulate them properly to keep heat loss down.

Hi and welcome. I tried to buy a plot of land 35 years ago to self build my first home and hit a brick wall that it was financially impossible. Instead I bought a developer box as my first home. The issue then was nobody would lend to buy the land, but they would lend to build the house if you could buy the land. I think things have got better since then. The rough location you are looking might help.

Most flue manufacturers will make a special fitting to go on the bottom of the twin wall to convert to single. This is what I did in the caravan. I then had to add two 45 degree bends to make an offset as taking the flue straight up from the stove would have been right in the middle of a roof rafter. You could take the twin / single adaptor straight into the stove, or a short length of single wall flue.

Very similar to the issue I am still trying to resolve. TIP for rendering. ASK HERE FIRST if your chosen system is any good. Certainly don't use the Baumit rubbish that I used.

The upper part, the render, looks okay, terminated with a bell cast bead. It's the lower part that is just wrong, I have never seen it done like that. If it's done properly, the upper render will terminate at the same level as the damp proof course. the lower part is then usually rendered with smooth render. No beads needed, it goes right up to the underside of the bell cast and is a thinner coat so it does not stuck out as far. So I would be wanting that whole bottom section removed and re done properly without that silly gap. You can see from rainwater downpipe, that this bottom render sticks out further than the bellcast of the main render which is totally wrong.

A 300l tank heated to 48 degrees is not enough for 24 hours if 3 people all have a shower plus other uses so it may need topping up later in the day

We are both semi retired so usually one of us is about for part of the day. If we are going to be out, we will set the dishwasher or washing machine on a timer to come on about mid day. something like 1/3 of what the panels generates goes to the immersion heater.

Put 20% cold water in the cup then add boiling.

What happens when you try to upload them? there is a size limit on attached files, if that is the issue can you reduce the size?

No pictures? are you having trouble uploading them? we need the pictures are your terms like "plinth" are not usual terms so we are guessing at the moment what the issue is. But how old is the property? and where?

So the flush plate is about basin height? That seems about normal. A better picture might tell more. but if you have a loo in a vanity unit there is no way it would be any higher than basin height so just how high would you like it?

I find I can self use almost all of what a 4kWp solar PV generates just by self use and the immersion heater diverter, which makes the case for batteries harder to justify. It really only seems to be a benefit if you have a larger PV array so harder to self use it all.

Get your DNO out to identify the cable position for you, they did this for a neighbour building a porch extension. They found the cable was right where they wanted the extension so the neighbour had to pay to have the cable re routed, which involved a pot joint and extending it. They would not allow build over.

Mine is on the first floor, so some go up into the loft for the upstairs rooms, and some go down into the floor void for the downstairs rooms. Every install is individual, there is no right or wrong.