ProDave

Where abouts is this located? It looks like a typical design for a Scottish house in the countryside, if so designing out the dormers might not fit with local planning policy.

Why can't they make ride on mowers with plastic cutting decks? Our present push along mower is all plastic, hoping this time it might be the engine breaking down that kills it not the deck rusting out.

I would compromise, put normal windows on the front, a bifold on the end of the dining room, and run with it, taking it to appeal if necessary. Perhaps later, could you convert windows on the front to doors under permitted development?

IF this has been done properly, there will be a proper under floor heating manifold with a pump and lots of valves hiding away in a cupboard somewhere. Have you seen such a thing? This particular heat pump system does seem very basic, very little in the way of controls, settings or readings, even the instalation manual does not give a lot away. Yes agree the above statement about sound insulation and UFH pipe positioning sounds very strange indeed.

Reduce the DHW temperature to 48 degrees. Most of us find that plenty hot enough.

Me and SWMBO spent many a happy hour scraping the horrible stuff off the ceiling of a previous 1930's house. Awful stuff to remove as while much of it was flaking off (the reason for removing it all) much of it was still stuck solid and took a lot of stripping. Wetting it with the wallpaper steamer helped a bit but just ensured it was a sticky gooey mess that came off.

In a new build flat, the fireproofing and sound proofing required will be under the floor between your floor and the flat belows ceiling. Any floor covering you choose is just that, a floor covering to give the look and feel that you want, not to add sound proofing. I still think the carpet needs to be rolled up to expose almost all the bare floor as a test. Until you have done that, the other guys will keep coming back to that as an excuse for the poor performance. It needs to be ruled out conclusively and beyond doubt before you can move on. I would buy a cheap infra read thermometer, one like this as an example https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/UK-Infrared-Non-Contact-Forehead-Thermometer-Temperature-Measurement-Gun-Baby-IR/184449918836?hash=item2af2126774:g:A6AAAOSwJodfYbFj With that you can measure what floor temperature is actually being achieved, and look at things like wall and ceiling temperatures. Another thought on the carpet. You don't know how much and what type of insulation is under the floor between you and the flat below. Your carpet will have the effect of elevating the temperature of the floor which may have the effect of making more of that heat go down to the flat below.

Yes or the Willis heater heating a concrete slab at cheap rate electricity periods. But the fact is a heat pump will consume less electricity to deliver the same kWh of heat as a storage heater or willis heater.

No 1. Try rolling the carpet away for a week. does it heat up properly then? If not then the carpet is not the issue. That needs establishing to stop the "blame game" If you can establish it still does not heat the property properly without the carpet then you can move forward. Do you have the instructions for the heat pump and understand how to at least read things from it's controller? What was the EPC rating or any information you might have from a SAP report which will have been needed for building control. If you don't have this ask the developer that solf the property to provide this. I see your unit is an "exhaust air heat pump" so it is combined with the ventilation system and extracts heat from the exhausted air to heat the property. It is only a VERY low power system, so only works with a small well insulated property. I only know of one property near me that had a similar unit and found it wanting. He eventually gave up and replaced it with a conventional air source heat pump with an outside unit. Where abouts are you and just how cold is the outside temperature where you are? The immersion heater thing, that is used to supliment the limited heating ability of this unit when it gets too cold for the heat pump on it's own to manage. It is then a stark choice between pay more for the heating or go cold.

My sister was burgled about 15 years ago, they got in through a poor very old patio door they simply lifted off it's rollers. So she got that replaced with a new one. 6 months later another burglary, they simply heaved a paving slab and smashed the glass on the new patio door. At that point I would have moved home but she is still there.

Chances are it is just circulating the water and the compressor is not actually running. When you delve into the settings there are a lot of things you can alter. For instance as well as setting the set temperature on mine you can set the hysteresis so it won't start the compressor until (in my case) the flow temperature has dropped 3 degrees below the set point. This reduces short cycling (starting the compressor for a very short period) Over what time period is your measured consumption above and is that all consumption, heating, hot water or both? It has been particularly cold in the last week. My heating consumption went up by half in the last week, that is understandable as it was extremely cold here, but my hot water consumption also went up, not because we were using more hot water but because it will have been working leff eficciently and defrosting more in the extreme cold. P.S I am talking of night temperature regularly -10, coldest -16 one night, and daytime high -2. It's positively tropical here now at +6

I would not get hung up on flow and return temperatures. The difference will depend on how many floor zones are on and how long it has been on. Turning on from cold in a morning when all floor loops are likely to be calling for heat you will get a big difference between flow and return, and then later in the day when it is all warm and perhaps just 1 or 2 rooms are calling for heat, the difference between flow and return will be small. The other thing often not explained about heat pumps is usually they heat the space heating OR the DHW, never both at the same time. So when the ASHP is heating the DHW it stops heating the floor for that time. In most cases that will allow the ASHP to run at a high temperature to heat the DHW and then run at a lower temperature when it is only heating the floor. Make sure the installer has shown you how to adjust the floor heating temperature. You might need to adjust that to get it to meet your heating needs. Too cold and the house won't get warm in a very cold spell, too hot and it is wasteful and could damage some floor materials. 29 degrees is probably a good starting point but you really need to know how to adjust that should you need to.

Nail hit firmly on the head. So we have to reduce CO2 emissions. That we all understand, but don't let anyone kid you that ripping out a perfectly good working modern mains gas boiler and replacing it with an ASHP is going to reduce your fuel bills. IT IS NOT. I think a lot of companies are going to scare home owners into believing their mains gas is about to be shut off very soon and they have to change for an alternative. There is going to be a lot of grant money sloshing around which the cynic in me says (largely from previous history) that most of that will just end up lining the pockets of the companies offering to rip out your gas boiler and replace it with an ASHP and very little will benefit the end user. An ASHP makes perfect sense for a modern well insulated low energy house in a location where mains gas is not available, and ours is performing well for that application, but I am yet to be convinced they are a viable option for an old poorly insulated house without huge upgrades to the buildings fabric. And a huge percentage of the UK's housing stock falls into that category.

This is in many ways similar to a previous house that we owned, on a similar corner plot also south facing to the front and only with a small north facing garden to the rear. In our case we kept it "traditional" with a new bay window to the side extension to match the existing bay window. I can see your reasons for wanting the doors at the front because you are treating that garden at the front as your main garden. You have a nice outlook there so can do so without feeling overlooked. Personally I would grow the hedge a bit taller. At the moment you just have the opinion of one planning officer. I would be inclined to dismiss their concerns and insist the planning application runs it's course. It might be passed or it might not. If it is rejected you have the option to amend it and re submit or even take it to appeal. The only other option if it does get refused is windows to the front and your bifold doors to the side from the dining room for access to the garden. Are there any other houses in the area that have a similar arrangement with doors to the front garden like you propose? If you can find one it might strengthen your case.

Am I the only one not seeing a picture?

Many heat pumps (mine included) want the immersion heater wired through the HP. This is so it can turn on the immersion periodically for anti legionairs heating. In my case this is achieved by a contactor in a box, and I wired a local override switch should I wish to turn the immersion on at any other time. I also connected my solar PV diverter the same way. Many of us have concluded that with treated mains water and an unvented cylinder there is no legionairs risk so we have disabled that function. If you made the same conclusion you could just rewire your immersion heater in the normal manner with a manual switch. In the short term you could just wire the immersion heater to a flex and a plug to get some hot water until you get the ASHP fixed.

Wow. 3 houses on a 16kVA transformer, less than 6kVA each. And ours limited us to 12kVA for being the 8th house to connect to a 100kVA tx.

I would probably have just bought a complete new burner. Then perhaps refurbish the old one to keep as a spare. @Onoff did you ever pull the flame sensor probe out to look at it?

A guy near here planned on no trickle vents and central extraction only and when BC saw his air test result said it was "too good" he either had to fit trickle vents or full mvhr. He went for full mvhr.

Genious Except now the tenant will try so hard to turn it off that the call will be "the fan isolator is broken" EDIT looks like it can only be locked off, not locked on. I would have to buy one to try that.

That's why I like outside oil boilers. You can take the complete burner out, point it away from the boiler and turn it on to see what is happening. DO NOT try that with an inside boiler.

So the search is on for a bathroom fan make that does not insist on an isolator be fitted. It's not a case of them being horrible, my pet gripe is they are inappropriate for a rental property, the tenants turn them off then complain about the damp and the mould. so i remove them from rental property. I am tempted to fit a fish key isolator, but I have only been able to find a 2 pole fish key switch which would not isolate the neutral. That would be okay if the MI's did not specify that the isolator had to be 3 pole.

Yes BC is wrong to insist on trickle vents if you have mvhr. On my recent inspection by BC they were happy to see the MVHR system and tick the box as we have no trickle vents (other than those in the roof windows)

There are several air blower treatment plants available for under £2K. If you choose to pay an extra £3K for a non electric version, that £3K is more than the electricity cost of the air blower in a lifetime. And I bet the non electric one has some expensive ongoing maintenance requirement?

No trickle vents, air tight house and MVHR. do you have something against mvhr? Your friend might have issues with no trickle vents and no mvhr, BC might not sign that off. My pet gripe is my three roof windows all have trickle vents that are never opened because of the ridiculous situation you have to pay a LOT MORE to get a roof window without a trickle vent. I object to paying more for them to NOT fit something.