ProDave

The centre finder I made is the same as @Roys one. I haven't seen my knurling tool for a long time, that might be lost. Watchmakers screwdriver set, including a case for them machined from Tuffnel. Printed circuit board holder, I can't remember if that was engineering at school or apprenticeship.

Must be the standard design, exactly what I made, even the hinges were made from scratch.

The question becomes, who do you complain to if it becomes impossible to get a new meter fitted?

I actually don't think BCO looked in our main bathroom, the size and depth of the bath may have been a concern to them if they did, But the reality is it gets used once in a blue moon, most of us shower normally, so it's size is pretty irrelevant. It was offered to us by another local builder at half price as he had bought it and his SWMBO had "changed her mind"

Have you been up to witness exactly what it is doing during this time? Could it be the water circulating through the system has been up to 56 degrees or more when doing DHW, then it switches back to space heating, and the water in the system is still hot and it takes that half an hour for it to cool down to heating temperature and put any demand on the heat pump. Ours does something similar (different ASHP) but for a while after finishing DHW heating, the water in the system circulates at above heating demand temperature and if say only one UFH zone is actually calling for heat it can take a while for it to cool down before the ASHP next comes on. The obvious way to test this or at least make sure you are getting the most out of the limited cheap rate period, is time the DHW cycle to happen at the end of the cheap period, not the start or the middle.

Not true. For a temporary habitation the building needs to be safe, but not complete. At Temporary habitation we had no internal doors downstairs, one pane of glass missing (window boarded up) and the big one, the sun room was a bare shell. Paperwork needed for that was just electrical certificate and gas safe certificate. For completion we obviously had to complete the building, then the extra paperwork needed was air test and as build SAP / EPC and they wanted to witness yet another drain pressure test.

Did you actually apply for a temporary habitation certificate. So so through this website https://www.ebuildingstandards.scot/eBuildingStandardsClient/default.aspx It's a bit of a clumsy site to get used to but certainly up here Highland Council now insist you use that portal. You want the "Temporary Habitation" proposal form. Councils are very slow, it took us 3 months to get a temporary habitation, and then nearly a year later nearly 2 months to get completion. After out completion inspection I heard nothing for 3 weeks until I got a refusal to issue completion certificate notice due to 2 really trivial issues which I had to correct and apply again for completion which this time was granted. By doing it the official route above, they either have to issue what you asked for, or refuse it with stated reasons for refusal. Perhaps is is just better to pay a few £££ for your architect to do this for you? He might be better at arguing the case if there are any things they are not happy with?

There is no easy answer to this, but a question that comes up frequently. You may struggle to find an ASHP with a large enough output to heat what is a very poorly insulated high heat loss house. And even if you do, while it might be greener, it will not be cheaper to run than heating with oil. The focus on your updating of the building should be to add insulation to walls and floors, improve windows and doors, make everything air tight etc and then see what the heat loss is like when you have made it as good as you can and choose a heat source.

This is just one example of a manifold controller. As above it takes the individual thermostat inputs and conrolls the pumps and actuators on the manifold. this goes right next to the manifold. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/323201244988?epid=1549854398&hash=item4b404b9f3c:g:VBsAAOSwpLNX86pn

Did either of them come back up? Alive? Madness.

If this is at Graven Hill, it is not your problem to make it work. But I would have thought piles might make more sense, it is obviously poor or made up ground.

Are you wanting detail to wire it yourself? Or a baic idea for a competent electrician to do it? I will start with basics. 3 channel timer like the Horstman (under floor heating, radiators and hot water) The UFH needs a simple generic WIRED manifold controller, whoever supplies the manifold should be able to supply that. This takes a heat demand in from one channel of the programmer. The UFH zone thermostats connect to this controller each with 1mm 3 core & earth cable to wired thermostats. The manifold controller gives a "call for heat" output which drives a local 2 port motorised valve. The switch in the motorised valve gives the call for heat to the boiler (as do others) The rest is bread and butter stuff for a plumber and electrician. The other 2 channels of the 3 channel programmer connect to the radiators and HW in a standard S plan configuration each with a 2 port motorised valve. the radiator circuit will usually have one wired room thermostat and the HW will use the cylinder thermostat. The switch in both these 2 motorised valves connects in parallel with the one from the UFH to call for heat from the boiler. If looking for tradesmen to do this, find some that properly understand heating. If they need spoon feeding details like this, then they will be out of their depth if it does not work as expected.

I insured mine through this lot https://gsi-insurance.com/about-us/ Following recommendations on this forum.

Frametherm 35 was self supporting between rafters in my case. It only had to self support long enough to get the OSB sheets on, but one trial piece sat there for 6 months without sagging.

Councils seem to be going that way of defined procedures. I had the similar recently, i had applied for our completion certificate. BCO had inspected and taken a few photos of things he was "not sure about". Since I had been in contact with them by email, I had expected an email to tell me if there was anything I needed to attend to or change. What actually happened was I got an official "refusal to issue completion certificate" because of 2 really trivial items. So I had to correct the 2 items and then apply again for a completion certificate. Absolute nonsense that involved me and no doubt them as well in more work.

How hard it works depends on the temperature difference between flow and return pipes. It tries to maintain the flow temperature at a set target. Usually when heating the house particularly with UFH the return temperature will not be much lower than flow so it does not have to work hard, but heating DHW the flow temperature will usually be a lot lower than flow so it works harder to deliver as much heat as it can.

What is this "witness testing" you mention for the solar PV?

Ours works hardest when doing DHW and then towards the end of the cycle when the HW is nearing it's target temperature so the water temperature from the ASHP is at it's highest. Could your unit have been defrosting this morning, that usually only takes a couple of minutes.

Totally different design to my apprentice hand made centre finder. I will see if I can find it and post a picture. It's stored in a safe place with my other creations like my sleeve needles.

I have used both of these https://www.plasticdrainage.co.uk/ https://www.drainagesuperstore.co.uk/

Hardly. 20 miles north of Inverness in the Highlands.

Indeed it has. Only put the heating on yesterday, most years it is some time in October we feel the need for a little warmth. Temperature has certainly plummeted today.

Several of us made that same conclusion and just bought an ASHP as cheap as possible and installed it ourselves. I have done one no RHI install (just the electrics) for a customer. There is no reason whatsoever that any plumber and any electrician cannot install an ASHP between them at their normal labour rate. They just need to be able to read a manual, so that might rule some out.

Cold air blowing out of a socket is so common. It means there is an air path to somewhere cold bypassing any insulation, usually up into the loft space. Are the walls dry lined or plastered onto the brick / block?

I can't work out from the video if that is water dripping from higher up, or water being blown up through a gap onto the window board. Is it a window fault or a fitting fault?