ProDave

That all reminds me of a TV program I saw years ago about the "dangers" of living close to overhead power lines. They had picked a bungalow that was built right under a high voltage overhead power line. They were going around the house with an EM field meter that was generally showing a very low reading. Then they found a spot with a much higher reading, and shock, horror, it was by the headboard of a bed where you spend a lot of time. Then they went around the other side of the wall and found that headboard backed onto the consumer unit. What they had done was completely blown their case for the power lines being an issue, because they are so high up. and showed that you get a much larger effect from the normal house witing, that every house has even if not under a power line, simply by being close to it.

Didn't @Jeremy Harris calculate that with his floor U value 0.1 or better, he still lost 8% of his heat to the ground?

I am not sure I would choose UFH for a garage even if it was well insulated. The elephant in the room being the garage door. My "insulated" roller door should fail the trade description act unless you count the 5mm of "insulation". In winter it runs inside with condensation.

I see. As @scottishjohn says, make sure there are no openings into this pipe on your land for rats to get into. On the basis that the far end of it does still go to s stream, does it have any uses for e.g rainwater drainage?

I have never seen a TF with 89mm studs for the outside walls. I would doubt they were strong enough. It used to be common for TF's to be built with 100mm studs but they moved generally to 150mm nearly 20 years ago now. Apart from anything else with such thin frames, where do you get enough insulation? Ours is a 190mm frame.

There are "single room" mvhr units but they tend to be intended for a small room and have just one hole in the wall and input and extract from the same point. I would suspect you would be better looking at the smallest of the normal MVHR units rather than a "single room" unit so you can extract from the kitchen end and fresh air in to the living room end,. You might only end up with 1 or 2 inlet and outlet vents.

I didn't see mention of a pipe? I read it as diverting a (dried up) stream presumably so it is now further from where the house is to be built.

When camping in Scotland, pick an exposed windy camping spot. I like the Western isles, lots of windy places to choose and not so many midges. Having said that the worst I can remember was a still August day on Jura. You could see the clouds of them. That's one reason we live where we do, less rain and less midges and we can hop over to the west coast in just over an hour.

For ours I had to measure the flow rate in a dry spell to confirm there was sufficient dilution.

I have been insured with Build Care via Build Store. I have just renewed it again for another year which does not seem to be a problem with them. Some have reported a refusal to renew some policies more than once or twice.

Hi and welcome. You do know SEPA will not allow drainage discharge to a dry ditch?

I don't think there is a pressure sensor. I have ran mine as low as 0.5 bar and that is not the cause for the CH14 error. I was going to come back to this thread anyway, as my latest relay mod has not cured the problem, the thing had tripped overnight with CH14 so did not come onto heat the DHW this morning. So it rather blows my noise pickup on the thermostat input theory. I really only have 2 more choices. One would be to put the thing on as mains timer to cycle the power off for 5 minutes just before each heating period. Or the other is yet another relay inside the thing to short out the flow switch whenever the pump is running. I got next to no help when I tried to get help from LG to solve it, so I could not honestly recommend this particular heat pump. It works fine when it works, but this stupid CH14 error that stops it working from time to time is just stupid. Without fail, mine trips when the unit is off so does not come on when wanted. I have never known it to trip when asked to run.

To be frank, I would now be going back to planning to get something larger than the existing building, arguing you should be able to enlarge it by at least PD limits. And then be looking at a rebuild which has the VAT benefits and will get you the building you really want. I am sure you can re use a lot like re use the roof tiles, the cladding etc.

Do you have a multimeter? If so you could measure if there is any voltage across either of those pairs.

That sort of doorbell could be used on batteries with just one pair of wires to the pushbutton, or mains powered (as in this case) by connecting a transformer. but not both together.

I would say mains powered. But not directly, there will be a transformer somewhere. One of those pairs of wires will connect to the transformer which is usually about 9V ac, and the other pair will go to the pushbutton. The transformer is often put next to the consumer unit. Find it and discnnect it and then you can remove the doorbell. But why disconnect it? what are you going to put in it's place?

Re the insurance thing. I have been working with a broker for well over a week now, trying to get an insurance quote, working on the basis that we would have the temporary habitation certificate. (I have not applied for it yet) That has proved disappointing a provisional price came back at £688 still with an outstanding question "is there a stove in the house?" so that would probably push it higher still. so I have just renewed the self build policy for another year at £555 there was no problem at all just renewing it. they did ask for an update on progress I just think they like to see it is moving forwards. So there is less of a hurry to get the temporary habitation, though I still want to do it this year and get the VAT claim in. I am presently collating and tabulating my invoices so it will be ready to go without delay.

I am really looking forward to the time we can get the windows in the sun room. Apart from a nice place to sit, part of it's objective is to catch solar gain to help heat the house. It will be nothing more high tech than if it's warmer in the sun room, we open the connecting doors to let the heat into the house. Shut them if it's too hot. We also have the natural filter than as soon as the leaves grow on the trees, we stop getting much sunlight so a natural way to reduce summer overheating. The only time we got too hot and needed some cooling was last years heat wave. That was not excess solar gain but the air temperature got too high for too long and there is only so long good insulation can keep excess heat out from that.

Perhaps you should look for a smallholding? My BIL bought one, in west Wales. It is actually the farmhouse and farm buildings left over from a farm though it only has 8 acres of land now. They don't do much with the land, keep some chickens, grow their own veg, have a couple of donkeys, the rest the rent to a neighbour who takes a cut of hay off the land and grazes cattle on it. His hobby is restoring WWII military vehicles and the barns and other outbuildings provide ample space to house them all and work on them.

You have obviously never tried selling a house in a dead market then? I have the tee shirt for that.

Not here they are not.

Is that the 3 storey Yorkshire one? I feel sorry for them, her house had been on the market for some time, and the program ended at the start of 2019 with her still needing a buyer and hoping to have completed the sale and moved into the new house by the summer. I do hope it sold before March?

Not if you time the sale for one of there regular £1 selling fee offers.

I will tag along as I am in the same boat. I have a quotation from a now disolved company and an email saying it was paid. I will submit that with my VAT claim but it won't surprise me if it is rejected. Not a lot else I can do.

Don't forget you can run cables around a wall horizontally from socket to socket or light switch to light switch in safe zones. Some electricians and a LOT of builders don't realise that is allowed. (the one time I had a stand up finger wagging argument with a joiner who was trying to stop me doing that)