ProDave

The way to avoid the need for trickle vents is install MVHR

I doubt it, I signed up to a fix with Octopus at 27p per kWh only slightly cheaper than the new cap, but it will protect me from any rise in October or sooner.

An out of the box suggestion is to suggest to the neighbour you remove and brick up that bodged window and insert a sun tube to illuminate their landing through the roof.

This reminds me of a discussion I had with a customer a while back. He is retired and gets free bus travel so in a cold spell he would get the bus to Glasgow for free, where he got warmth and a change of view on the way. have a bite to heat them come back. All to save putting the heating on in his house.

Hi and welcome. fire away with the questions in the appropriate sub forums.

Still 4 times what it was this time last year.

That's more than you could probably buy the individual parts for, you are paying for them to package up a kit. It does have micro inverters which is good. It should do what you want if you want the easier option than hunting around for separate bits.

You will have to wait and see. And what about regional variations, we have one of the highest "distribution charges" up here so I expect our new cap will be higher than estimated 28p Perhaps someone somewhere will compile a table.

Yes. Easiest way is buy the kit and install it yourself and just get an electrician to connect it if not sure. then you can take it all with you and re install. You have to notify the DNO and would have to notify the DNO at the new house. I assume there might also be a mechanism to notify them that you have decommissioned it at the old address.

It's all here https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/price-cap-increase-ps693-april "From 1 April the equivalent per unit level of the price cap to the nearest pence for a typical customer paying by direct debit will be 28p per kWh for electricity customers and 7p per kWh for gas customers" So about 37% rise in electricity and about 90% rise in gas prices. There is also talk of £200 off each bill as a loan from the government to be repaid later by the energy companies, it will be interesting to see how that works out. And a council tax rebate for band A to D properties averaging £150 . Damn ours is band E

My LG runs an undocumented cycle like that. Once the temperature gets to about 5 degrees outside, it will turn just the water circulating pump on, and open the heating motorised valves to circulate the water. It draws a little heat out of the house to keep the temperature of the water in the outside pipes above 0. The colder it gets, the more frequently it does that. It only turns the water circulating pump on, nothing else, so the noise it makes is small and does not wake us, though I would prefer it did not do it. In theory with the antifreeze fitted in the pipes, it should not need to do this until well below 0. but I guess they don't trust people to fit the correct antifreeze and maintain it so consider just circulating the water from time to time is safer.

Why did you choose Nu Heat if you don't like their thermostats? buy a very much cheaper generic UFH control box and you can use any thermostat that you like.

Use tapered edge plasterboard and just tape and fill the joints (and screw holes) Known up here as "Ames taping"

Pretty much everywhere, walls, floor and roof, 300mm of either Frametherm 35 or Wood Fibre on the outside of the walls and roof. Typical U values of all surfaces 0.14, triple glazed Rationel windows typical Uw 0.9 Air tightness as tested 1.4 (I was hoping for better but the tester nearly wet himself at how good it was) As built EPC with all actual values A94. No vents anywhere, mvhr ventilation and one room sealed stove. Under floor heating downstairs, UFH in bathrooms only upstairs, no heating in bedrooms. 1 1/2 storey 150 square metres total. EPC over estimated energy usage by more than 3 times. Jeremy's simple heat loss spreadsheet gave a very very much more accurate estimate and came close to the real heating load figures. From Jeremy's spreadsheet, total heat loss when +20 inside and -10 outside was about 2.5kW. A 5kW ASHP heats the house and DHW nicely.

Gas will be going up as well in April, quite likely in % terms more than electricity. Apparently we will know the new cap figure tomorrow.

10,000kWh after April will cost you about £3K per year. A LOT of people are going to have a shock at the train wreck that is coming our way. It has never been more important with a new build to insulate, insulate and then insulate a bit more, making it air tight as you go,

By way of comparison, our ASHP uses just over 1000kWh per year of electricity for DHW heating. So your figure sounds high. I wonder how many people they are basing that on? Granted, in the summer surplus PV does a lot of the DHW heating.

That means your heat source must be capable of delivering 7.9kW of heat into the house 24/7 on the coldest day. Assuming you don't want the heating on 24/7 and allowing for DHW heating as well, you will probably be needing a 15kW ASHP at least. What have they specified? -3.4 degrees is not extreme for a Scottish winter, I sized mine on the -10 outside figure. -10 for a week or more is not unusual here, -18 one night is our record so far. I wonder if the KWh figures they have specified are raw heat input into the building, or kWh of electricity into the ASHP to produce the required heat?

Well reap when you can, I have just given the Landy it's first outing this year and come back with a good load of fire wood, plenty more where it came from so I will no doubt be going out again.

A better test would be, when you turn the system on from cold, which of the copper pipes on the left heats up first, the top one or the bottom one?

I see an upside to this. If you could build on the plot furthest away from your neighbour, and sell the other plot and perhaps the paddock at the same financial gain if not more than selling the plot as a plot, then you also benefit from not having a neighbouring property built there. I would be up for having that discussion. An alternative might be to build on the furthest plot and keep the rest and see how much they would pay for a 50 year no build clause on the land?

At the end of our road, someone got PP for a house on what was a paddock. It went on the market as a building plot and building plot prices. the other neighbour bought it just to stop anyone building on it.

On the bright side, good pickings for firewood, though if you don't have a chainsaw I bet you won't find any in the shops now (my chainsaw is broke and I was thinking about buying a new one) The distinct thing about Friday night / Saturday mornings storm here, was how quick the gusts hit, they didn't build up as normal, they just literally hit with a bang Sunday night / Monday mornings storm seemed worse here but I think that was the direction, more from the NW where we have little shelter (Fridays storm was more SW) but although it seemed stronger here, all the weather stations tell me Fridays storm was the strongest.

So you have 2 plots. you are about to build on one (closest to your neighbour by the sounds of things) I have lost track of your plans for the second plot. Your neighbour appears to be offering over the odds to buy the plot closest to them to leave you the plot furthest from them to build on. Is it not at least worth discussing this with them? it could offset some of your build costs?

Yes and no. If you have an ASHP and use it just for UFH he is probably right. If you also heat DHW with the ASHP then no. the ASHP will heat the water to probably 55 degrees for DHW, and when it has done, it will switch back to UFH and the slug of 55 degrees water in the system will promptly enter your UFH. Fit the blending valve, as a precaution.