ProDave

The only place my drawings specified fireline was in the attached garage, as two layers with staggered joints.

I would be questioning why the drawing calls for fireline throughout. That is not normal. But I would want to be sure before I ignored that.

We only once so far have noticed a "bad smell" via the mvhr. It was on a summers morning, you know those mornings when it is absolutely completely dead still and a low mist was hanging over the valley. The house just smelled "stale" I went outside and it smelled even more stale out there. It was that "dirty dishwater smell" The culprit was next doors septic tank not far from our boundary filling the still air with a septic tank smell that just lingered. It's not often we get still air for long enough to cause that sort of problem.

No taping of nail holes. The theory is it is not a problem, unless you pull a nail out and then leave an open hole. The OV10 vents I used are supposed to give a ventilation area equivalent to a continuous 10mm gap. the vents are somewhat thicker than 10mm but I don't know by how much. All my OSB is just nailed. I used a 3mm gap because like you I was not sure.

Yes when heating DHW the HP runs at full tilt most of the time, unlike when heating the house the compressor and fan runs much slower. The HP is just outside a small living room window and that is the only time we can hear it at all inside. The default with mine is to only run in DHW mode for half an hour at a time (you can change that) I speculate that is either to reduce risk of icing, or the designers were worried if the space heating was off for more than half an hour at a time you might notice it (you would not in our house) A typical day when you are only re heating what has been used it will get the tank up to temperature in one half hour cycle, but if the ladies have both had a "hair wash" shower, or a bath, it will take longer. This week, which has been a pretty grey and quite wet week, so poor solar PV generation, we used 15kWh heating DHW with the heat pump.

Ah so the bales are not actually supporting the roof load. The one and only straw bale house I wired had 2 timber frames, one inside and one outside with the bales in between. So the bales were literally just insulation piled up in between. the exterior cladding (timber) was fixed to the outer frame and the interior service void and plasterboard was attached to the inner frame. If yours is being lime plastered inside directly on the bales, I would love to see what you are doing with wiring? All in conduit I assume, but how do you fix a socket back box to a straw bale?

What was ever wrong with the old concept of needing a key in the lock and turning it to start the car? And then the key remained captive unless you turned the key to the "stop" position and only then could you remove it. These modern pushbutton things in cars now are a "solution" that is looking for a "problem" but in the process creates new problems.

The few times I have encountered that, when you "buz" the door, that means it can be pulled to open it. But if you don't pull it and stop buzzing it it remains closed and locked. The daft part of what you have is not only unlocking the door but springing it open.

Design error.

The downstairs layout just does not flow nicely. such a convoluted route from the front door to the stairs. Is that the reason for all the FD's? Reverse the upstairs front to back and the stairs will naturally turn towards the front door at the bottom.

Is there not a "lock front door" command? I bet there will be SOON.

How much did they steal? How much damage did they do. Insurance will pay to repair /replace door like for like. did they steal more than £7-9K worth? Make one door more secure, they will enter through a different one or just heave a brick through a window.

The better way would have been swap the CCU for a 1G unswitched 13A socket.

I thought the overlooking issue was if one set of windows faces another. I doubt that applies in this case.

Very good point. My little 5kW unit does a good job of heating the house. Imagine how over specifiec a 14kW one would have been.

If you question is what type pf electric resistance heater, the answer is it makes no difference, 1kW of electricity in = 1kW of heat out. If you want something cheaper to run how about one of the small split air conditioning units that work as an air to air heat pump and will do heating and cooling. They will be cheaper to run and the cooling might be handy in summer.

You could install a static caravan and move in. No enforecement action would be taken while there is a planning application ongoing. Put it out of the way down by the quarry perhaps. If it goes unnoticed for a few years that opens all sorts of possibilities.

I am running a (different make) 5kW ASHP with a 300L tank.

I think there are 2 issues here. Voids in the floor like that will let cold air in, cause draughts, add to your heating costs and let insects and rodents in. So it needs to be dealt with. the gas meter will have to be moved before you can sort that out properly and a lot of your already butchered built in units will need alteration / repair. BUT before you do all that, the voids in the floor should not be responsible for bad smells. The space under a floor should be well ventilated by air bricks should basically be dry and there should be nothing to smell. So you need to have a good look at what's there, in particular check you don't have a leaking drain pipe under there.

It sounds like it is seriously messed up. Why am I not surprised? The 3 minutes on 2 minutes off sounds awfully like the HP thinks it should be heating the radiators, but something else (like a motorised valve on the heating circuit) is closed so all the HP is doing is heating and re heating a short run of water running round a few pipes. It should not be your problem to sort out, the developer should sort it. If the heating is off (or is above the target temperature) then the HP should not do anything until hot water is needed. Have you got an immersion heater you can use for hot water until it is fixed?

But would you then need a licence to "pilot" it even when tethered?

25mm wood fibre does not have much strength. I would not want to use it on it's own as sarking. If you want to use it as extra insulation, put OSB down first.

That picture was my sun room roof which is clad in box profile steel hence the larger and more wide space "battens" to support the roof. The other difference mine is a full blown "warm roof" I used 100mm wood fibre board as the sarking, which insulates above the rafters. That would be equivalent to you putting your 25mm celotex above the OSB then the membrane then the counter battens etc. I have the over fascia vents and (on all the tiled roofs) a vented dry ridge system. I really don't think omitting the vents would make much difference to heat loss.

I assume there is no heating on at the moment? Remind us which ASHP you have (if it has been mentioned already) Our house uses about 8kWh per day to power "stuff" where "stuff" covers everything except heating and hot water. One day I will measure each individual appliance to see which use what. electricity used to power "stuff" is about twice what we use for heating and hot water. At this time of year my ASHP is using 0kWh per week for heating, and typically 15kWh per week for DHW, less when it is sunny as surplus solar PV is diverted to the hot water tank so on a really sunny day no ASHP input required. So typically at the moment the ASHP will come on at it's set DHW time and run for no more than half an hour continuously until the DHW tank is up to temperature then stop and remain stopped until a significant amount of hot water has been drawn off.

I have a similar arrangement. It is a floor standing back to wall pan so no frame needed. It is just a standard concealed cistern bought before we knew exactly what we were going to do. The flush pipe is shortened as much as possible, to set the cistern as low as it can go. I then set the worktop height as low as it could go still allowing room to lift off the service hatch on the cisterm, which in my case is all front access. And then I chose a thin worktop, just 10mm thick. This gives a counter top height of 80cm and it's 95cm to the rim of the basin. In my case the cistern is set at right angles to the pan and service access is by removing a trap door in the right hand end of the shelf unit.