ProDave

The BG stuff from SF is probably as good as any other ordinary brand. The one I avoid at all costs is MK, and they are on my blacklist because they have history of changing the exact sizing of their mcb's so a current MK mcb will be a very poor fit in an old MK board. My favourite and what I have in my house is Hager, because it does not matter how new or how old your Hager board is, the mcbs are exactly the same size and a perfect fit. but you won't get Hager from screweys.

Not so, I believe ASHP's are a good choice for well insulated low energy houses and particularly when used with UFH. But I think they can be a very bad choice for an old leaky draughty house with a high heat requirement and even more so when you try and deliver the heat through radiators and run them at a higher temperature than the heat pump can properly deliver. With the proposed banning of fossil fuel boilers we are going to see a LOT of very poorly performing ASHP's installed as "boiler replacements" and they are going to get a very bad press. That is not the fault of an ASHP but rather whoever "designed" and installed such bad installations.

Last weeks one was just an example of the ludicrous planning system we have. A valley in Cumbria with the ruins of some old mill. They got PP to conserve and add a building to it, but then the building was declared beyond hope by the heritage guy, so they knocked it all down, built the new building and then rebuild something a bit similar to the derelect stone work around it to look as though they had kept the old ruins. Am I the only one that thinks it would have been better just to build a completely new building and face it in the old stone, once it was apparent the old building was completely beyond saving?

It might be better just to pay the extra for a flooring type that already has a coating on it that can withstand a certain exposure to the weather. I would not just be using standard P5 in that situation. Does the floor have to go in now? I have never worked on a TF house that has the floor deck put in at that stage but I know some specify it as the floor forms part of the racking structure of the building. In our case just a few sheets of OSB were loosely fitted just to make a working platform, but not part of the final floor so it did not matter if they got a but wet.

And often, just removing them, rotating them 180 degrees and putting them back will make enough contact to get it running again,. at least for a short time, thus proving it is just new brushes needed.

Starting to plan the next job, developing the mezanine floor. This is the mezanine floor accessed from my daughters bedroom and the floor extends above the adjacent spare bedroom. That's very much an early under construction picture I will take a current one and post it shortly. At the moment there is no fixed access, it has just been used as a storage platform putting a ladder up to it whenever needed. There is currently no handrail. Daughter wants wooden "spindles" that go floor to ceiling. In this case "ceiling" is the apex of the room and is 1.8 metres from the mezanine floor. She wants floor to ceiling spindles rather than ending with a handrail at handrail height. So I wonder do any of the stair parts suppliers sell long spindles like this, or is it a case of trying to buy say 1" square planed timber and making your own (no doubt with a lot of waste)?

I wish this thread had just stayed on the topic of wait and see how the replacement heat pump they are going to fit works and whether is solves the noise problem. But it is just going over the same old ground that was done to death in the old thread, so that's me out of the thread.

Don't under estimate the cost of removing that downstairs corner wall to form the new kitchen and it will need a pillar to support the corner. Bi fold doors are like marmite on here, you love them or hate them. Many will tell you they are draughty and leak heat out like it is going out of fashion. Consider good quality sliders instead.

I am another one that shunned the ASHPs programmer as WAY too complicated. So that is set to 24/7 and just used for setting and reading parameters. I use a bog standard 3 channel central heating programmer, something that just about anybody knows and understands and feels comfortable with. 3 channels heating downstairs, heating upstairs (bathrooms only) and Hot water. Below that is simple room thermostats so 3 downstairs and one in each bathroom.

Well we have both Granite (Italian I think) and Oak, treated with 3 coats of 2 pack varnish. BOTH do not stain (well I have not found anything that has stained them yet, certainly not curry or red wine) and certainly not plain water. The granite I am sure would crack if I dropped a sledge hammer on it, but has not chipped or cracked or scratched in normal use, but drop a plate on it and the plate definitely breaks. The Granite is not bothered by hot pans or boiling water. We take care (use a trivet) not to "test" the oak with a hot pan. The oak won't crack but drop a heavy pointed object and it will dent very slightly.

An external air kit is available for the little 3kW burley stove and I have one on my 5kW Mendip stove.

I assume this is an old house so not in any way built as "air tight" and it doesn't have mvhr or anything like that? So a simple air from room stove would do it but provide an air intake ducted to behind the stove so it does not draw cold air in and across the floor to get to the stove.

170L would be far too small. Bear in mind an ASHP will generally heat the water less hot than a gas or oil boiler. We run our hot water at 48 degrees. So when you draw hot water it will mix less cold with it that you may be used to so will use more out of the hot tank. We have a 300L UVC and find that is adequate for a 3 person 2 bathroom house. and with the water heated to 48 degrees by the ASHP there is plenty of capacity for surplus solar PV to heat it hotter.

There should be an automatic bypass valve for that, but sometimes an ABV can be noisy when passing.

A joiner friend of mine dropped into the conversation last week, he had 2 faulty Makita 18V cordless multitools, do i want to "have a look at them" and if I can fix them one for me one for him. I was astonished at how easy and cheap they were to repair. In both cases it was the front bearing of the motor had failed, the gearbox and everything else seemed fine. Very easy to dismantle the tool. The motors did not appear servicable but replacements were found for just under £20 each. When I took his repaired tool back today, he told me that these were both replaced FOC under warranty by Makita at under 3 years old and they didn't want the faulty ones back which is how he ended up with them. I just thought people might like to know how easy they are to repair, and how cheap and readily available most spares seem to be.

I know this is not what you are asking, but your plot layout does not make sense. You have one HUGE entrance "driveway" that appears to be paved in some form on the south, sunny side of the house, and only a tiny little but of "garden" on the north side of the house. I would be seriously re balancing that. Re the HW tank, how about a mezanine level above the utility room? Agreed with @PeterW master bedroom layout is completely wrong. I would have en-suite where it is, then opening into the bedroom area with the bed taking in the view, and the dressing as a room at the left hand end. I would not want to walk through the dressing to get to the bedroom.

It does seem an odd solution. If there is no valid reason for having a frost protection system in the present setup, then you would think their sollution would be to completely disable any such frost protection. The fact they can't (or won't) must suggest they are not actually in control of the product (i.e. they re badge and sell something made by A N Other and have no access to make engineering changes) that does not bode well if the replacement also has similar issues. The monoblock will have some form of frost protection, but that need be as in my case only the very low level hum from the water circulating pump for a minute or so from time to time.

The point must be to ensure the ventilation is adequate. In the case of a house relying on trickle vents and passive ventilation I can perhaps see the point in that, to make sure the vents are open etc. In the case of mvhr, adequate ventilation is endured when the system is commisioned and balanced to less point perhaps? All I see is jet one more thing for BC to nit pick about and yet another box to tick.

That does seem ridiculous. Mine is a monoblock unit so there is water flowing between the inside and outside, so it is indeed logical for it to turn on the circulating pump to prevent freezing. Even that it is just the circulating pump running at normal circulation speed, so just a very low level hum, no worse than at any other time of operation. Even with mine, where you have antifreeze / inhibitor mixed it, there would be no need for the frost protection to kick in until say -5C?

I recall Jeremy when preparing to sell his old house, presented a record of all the improvements he made to the old house including some photographs and the assessor completely ignored it all and just did the standard RDSAP assesment. Do let us know if you find one that will listen to and look at your evidence, you certainly want to check he will do that before you appoint him. I have even heard of people with a new build, with a proper as built FULL SAP, when later wanting to sell, that original SAP is deemed "out of date" and they are forced to get a new one which is done as RDSAP and comes out very much worse. If that ever happened to us, I would just give buyers a copy of the original full SAP and tell them to ignore the recent one. The system is a joke, particularly as the majority of buyers (except perhaps landlords) ignore it.

Invite an engineer to spend a night, make them a bed in the spare room, and then they might finally hear for themselves what the issue is. I don't see any other option if this odd noise does not occur at any other time of day.

Re living on site in a static. Strictly you should ask for temporary PP to do so as part of your planning for your final house. You pay Council tax and band A and in our case for the council tax list (and also for the electoral roll) they prefix the address with "Caravan"........ How much and what size are the plots? I would me more interested in the proposed drainage arrangements. That is more likely to cause issues than broadband speed. If wired landline broadband won't work, you might be able to get 4G mobile or (at more cost) satellite broadband.

Seconds to remove them. A bit longer to re fit them if someone has moved them from where you carefully placed them correctly oriented, and you have to work out which way round they go once more.

We have a Lamona oven (Howdens own brand, god knows who actually makes it) and SWMBO finds the side grills impossible to remove and re fit so I am always tasked with that job.

And what was left on standby? Televisions, computers, broadband router, set top boxes, Fridge / freezer left on? Or was everything unplugged?