ProDave

Be careful "making to panel size" for some weird reason OSB is still available in imperial size, but don't build to that or you will curse when you try and plasterboard it as that is only available in metric.

Plastic boxes you just drill your own entry hole where required.

That video just describes how it works and how it is better in some ways and not so good in others compared to an UVC NO mention of reliability which seems to be the largely unspoken problem with them.

Fun university project. In the real world, I bet you could build a good stud wall quicker than that machine "prints" that wall, and the stud wall would be easier to work with, easier for services, and won't need skimming.

All we had for building warrant was a drawing showing where the stairs went, part of the usual construction drawings. We got ours from stairbox. I recall there was a tick box on their design page for English or Scottish regs as there are some differences e.g minimum width. They never specified the grade of wood they were using and building control never asked for it. All they were concerned with was meeting regs regards width rise and going and banisters meeting regs particularly must be vertical and a 100mm sphere must not pass through.

It is a long time now but we had to get the licence before BC would issue our building warrant. I don't remember it taking weeks, once SEPA had verbally agreed to allow is to discharge to the burn, I am sure it only took days.

Whilst I regularly encounter wind coming out of a socket box, it is usually when i have unscrewed the socket for some reason. To blow through like that even with the socket in place is unusual. It might be worth checking if they are all like this or just on one wall? That might pinpoint where the issue is. Is there any permanently operating extract fan anywhere?

I assume that is a window or door reveal before being boarded up? On the face of it, it looks good with gaps sealed up with expanding foam. One can only speculate but somewhere that didn't happen or not happen properly. A thermal imaging camera is about the only thing that may help you track down where.

Pictures? You probably need to cut the tar back a lot more than 4 inches away from the wall, dig out to well below the damp proof course and till with stones. Did the contractor not notice the DPC? did he say it would be okay? What discussions did you have about this?

I had that in a previous house. A 1930s semi. It did not have much heating when I moved in and still had an open fire in the living room. On a still cold ight I lit the fire. Later I went upstairs, only to find smoke everywhere. Being a windless night, the smoke was not being blown away from the chimney and it turned out the easiest way for the air drawn by the fire to be replaced, was by sucking air down a bedroom chimney down the stairs and under the living room door, and that was drawing smoke with it down the bedroom chimney. There was no proper vent anywhere for the fire, only leaks in the building.

My BCO signed off my self installed stove with ducted direct air intake. They were over it like a rash with a tape measure comparing clearance distances to what it said in the installation manual. Once happy with that they signed it off.

If you read this forum you will find the devil is in the detail. What has probably happened, is you have a "plasterboard tent". That is, lack of detailing means the space behind the plasterboard is open somewhere to a cold space probably the loft, allowing cold air to get behind your plasterboard, bypassing all the insulation. I see this regularly with cold air from switches and sockets. The clue is they need cables and the cables have to go somewhere often into a cold loft, and the hole drilled for them is oversized and never sealed. Do you have any pictures of how the plasterboard was fixed to the walls after the final layer of insulation?

That was a bit more polite than I was about to post. Something along the lines of "Oh no kitchen fitter strikes again"

With a decent plumbing install there is also an internal stopcock somewhere inside the house to turn everything off. Start by looking in cupboards etc just the other side of the wall where the outside stopcock is.

To make it easier I have copied one of your pictures and repeated it here in the thread. If you pull out the drawers or open the doors, get inside and look up and take a picture and see if the forum wisdom can work out the fixings of the top panels.

Thread title edited. The only real way to do this properly is remove the existing seating and storage, properly insulate and seal the wall, then put it back again. Can you at least remove the drawers and all the tops of the units to give better access?

Is the thread title as you intended?

If you really want to add a bedroom, then move the kitchen into the living room, and add a new partition wall to divide what was the kitchen from the now smaller kitchen / diner, with the third bedroom accessed from the hall (reinstating the missing door) Moving the plumbing, particularly waste pipes to do that might be a challenge.

So IF the HP saved them £420 per year and the PV saved them £200 per year, that would be £620 per year saved. That brings the £18K payback time to a mere 29 years then. I know it is not all about payback time but "doing the right thing" but you have to be a pretty dedicated eco warrior to pay that.

£70 per month is £840 per year. So if the HP that cost £18K halved their bill it would save £420 per year. So would take 42 years to recoup the outlay. Do people not do a little basic maths before signing up to these schemes?

@HighlandHopeful do you have a watercourse withing reach? That solves all your problems.

I have been out again today in a lull in the wind and rain, experimenting how to mount the pump. The bit of wood on foam did not make the pump much quieter, so I then started to think what have I got to hand that I can try. Simple solution, I have just laid a standard 4" concrete block in the bottom of the pump chamber and stood the pump on that. It is VERY much quieter like that and with the lid on, hardly any noisier than the ET100 pump was. So I will leave it mounted like that. It was also another test, having been running for 24 hours now i wanted to see how hot the pump runs, and it is barely warm to the touch. And still blowing bubbles nicely in the soup. So now begins the long term test to see if this piston pump lasts any longer than the ET100 diaphragm pump.

I think a lot of "I am happy with my standard house, it is not stuffy" is a case of you are used to it. Now we have mvhr, when I visit other houses I immediately notice the stuffy air and smells. Particularly when visiting relatives in their 300 year old cold damp Welsh farm house. You smell the damp as you enter the front door. But stay there a week and you no longer notice it. They will swear their house does not smell damp.

Don't unscrew it too far or you will get wet. If it won't turn, prise the red ring off then it will.

I self installed mvhr for about £1500 so the payback will look a lot better. But good insulation, good airtightness, 3G windows, ASHP and MVHR were the "must have's" so it was not a question of payback.