ProDave

I have the same issue with the bathrooms: "Bathroom is cold" "No it's 20 degrees in there" "The floor is cold" "That's because it has reached it's temperature and the UFH has turned off"

What room thermostats do you have?

Perhaps the corrugated bitumen roof sheets don't like heat and sags in the Kentish heat of summer? (not a problem up here) I first used it on the wood shed at our previous house and 15 years on no sag and no leaks. Supported at 600mm intervals.

SWMBO flatly refused to enter an outside Dunnie while at a restaurant in Queensland, prefrirng to "hold on" until we got to somewhere with indoor facilities.

There is always a gentle slow flow of air from a bedroom to a bathroom so smells should not migrate against that. The normal is to run the MVHR at trickle speed most of the time where is should be silent, but boost it to a much faster speed when showering. Some (us) do that with a manual activated timer, others use a humidity sensor. If you are worried about wc smells, some connect a branch of the bathroom extract to the WC cistern which will extract some air directly from the pan via the flush pipe. this is known as an "odourless WC"

"designer" switches and sockets is a very good way to drastically bump up your materials cost. Personally I prefer a good well respected make of white products like Scholmore Click or Schneider. Some of the very thin "flat plate" designs just serve to show how out of true the wall is, and can look a mess, particularly when someone wants them fitted to an old house with rough plastering.

A joiner I was working for recently fitted a small diesel heater to heat his van, not sure if it was an Eberspacher or which make, but often used as cab heaters and boat heaters.

If the road owners are "organised and present" can you not ask them?

Hi and welcome. My only suggestion is why do you want to join it to the other houses? Given the plot you have I would now be re submitting planning to make the new house detached from the rest of the row. Even if that makes your new build slightly smaller.

The fact that the upstairs rads don't come on often is a good sign that you don't need much heat upstairs. So start progressively reducing the temperature from the ASHP and see how it goes. While it is cold like now is the best time to experiment.

I am not a fan of shed roofing felt, in fact I would never put it on a shed. Lousy stuff with a very short life. I would leave it there as an under felt and over sheet the whole lot with bitumen corrugated roofing sheets, cheap and very water tight. e.g https://www.wickes.co.uk/Onduline-3mm-Black-Corrugated-Bitumen-Sheet-950-x-2000mm/p/240039 Link to show what I mean not a recommendation for that particular product from that particular supplier.

What you need to wait to find out, is whether the existing transformer (big grey box) can support an additional house, or if the transformer needs to be upgraded to a larger one.

Beast From East No 2 been here since Christmas. Cold bitter wind and snow coming from the E right now. Not seen the ASHP defrost today (but then I have not been watching it particularly) but no sign of ice forming on the heat exchanger, even when it briefly got up to 2 degrees today. Now back down below 0.

Why do you need to replace an oil boiler? It can't be that old to be a condensing one so what is so wrong with it that it is end of life?

Thank you a very good write up which I am sure will help many.

For an 8 hour day that would be just over £30 per hour and reasonable. It is the tradesmen that charge silly amounts for a few minutes work that annoy me, I just charge my hourly rate with a minimum of 1 hour if the job is very local. Perhaps I am too soft which is why I am not rich?

I would be interested in a photo of your trace heating. How does the ASHP heat the building? low temperature UFH or high temperature radiators or fan coil units?

The BEST thing you can do with your PV power is self use it. Up to about a 4kW array that is relatively easy. I self use almost all we generate. The key to that is use all the big appliances (washing machine, dishwasher, tumble dryer) one at a time in the daytime close to mid day. If you are not in all day, set them on a timer to come on at the best time. Then the next "must have" is a solar PV diverter. You can buy one or I chose to make one for the fun of it. This measures how much you generate and how much you are using, and if generation exceeds usage, it sends surplus to your immersion heater to heat your domestic hot water rather than send it to the grid. I reckon about 1/3 of what I generate ends up in the immersion heater. In the 2 years my system has been running I have only exported 204kWh. Most of that small export happens on a sunny day, when there are no appliances running to self use it, the panels can generate up to 3.68kW but the immersion heater can only consume a little under 3kW so there could be 700W exported. To help that further I have added a small 700W convector heater that I presently have in the utility room (though it is wireless control so can go anywhere) and that can help reduce export further in the shoulder seasons, but it is not long into the spring when the house gets to warm to use that. I could be stubborn and put it in the garage just to stop export I guess. Given your windy location it is probably worth trying a small turbine, but get a proper horizontal turbine on a pole high enough to be well above head height I doubt it needs to be very high, but in an exposed location it will have to be a sturdy pole probably with guy wires. I have a small burn through my garden. I probably will experement with some hydro generation just as a fun project later, but all the calculations I have done suggest with the small head I have, and small flows that I could divert I would be lucky to generate 50W. You really need access to a watercourse much higher up to capture the water with a much greater fall to get sensible power, I barely have 1 metre fall from one end of my garden to the other. If I do try anything it will probably be an undershot water wheel rather than a turbine. I think battery storage for PV only starts to become viable when you have exhausted all the self use options, so probably only for an array over 4kW

You have just re invented the electric storage heater, with all the same problems making sure the overnight heat input is correct for the daytime heat actually needed. Not far different to what others have done but you want some decent controls to predict the amount of heat needed.

I can't think it took him more than an hour so unless he had to travel a very long way to get there, £60 per hour is way more than I can earn up here. But I would not want to return to the rat race.

No not if you are digging ALL the trenches? Exactly what work are they doing apart from laying the cable in the trench and connecting the end? Can't comment further unless you post the schedule of works they have quoted for.

@Stones fitted a few vertical PV panels at the same time I fitted mine. Perhaps he might come and tell us how they are doing. As well as my main E/W split array I had 2 spare panels so I set those up vertically one on the E and the other the W end of my shed. The hope was to get a little bit extra early and late generation, accepting they won't do much in the middle of the day. They certainly won;t give optimum generation like that, but that was not the point.

@EmB I think you have posted the wrong link, that is the wind turbine you were discussing in your other thread. What has it got to do with stairs?

Unless any wind turbine is mounted up high and clear of buildings and other obstructions, they will be very inefficient. About the only advantage if a vertical axis turbine is they are easy to DIY build if you like tinkering. But generally they need higher wind speeds to generate any useful power. And do your sums on battery storage. Batteries cost, and don;t last forever. Factor in all the costs including end of life battery replacement, and I will be surprised if your "free" stored power is much cheaper than just buying it from the grid.

I am surprised nobody makes a fish key 3 pole isolator, that would do it. I can find a 2 pole fish key switch that would disconnect L and Switched L but if the manufacturer says "3 pole"? No worse that turning off the MCB, that still leaves N connected.