ProDave

The tiles are now down and grouted And I have been doing some more CAD work, cutting a template for the first sheet of multipanel which should arrive on Wednesday I have been keeping several large flat sheets of cardboard for literally years, specifically for this purpose.

The "box of tricks" has a flow and a return pipe. That is it for the plumbing. You would normally make it as a pressurised system topped up with a fill loop. Some ASHP's have a built in expansion vessel, most don't. If you get a decent, inverter driven ASHP then you can set the flow temperature for heating to a different flow temperature for DHW. The ASHP only does one at a time, unlike a system boiler than can do both together. I have my ASHP set to deliver the low temperature for the UFH. The flow and return circulate water around a closed loop, either the UFH or the heat input coil to the HW tank. Control of whether the water circulates to UFH or HW tank is controlled by a couple of motorised valves. So when it's doing heating the temperature coming out of the ASHP will be low. When it switched to DHW (and the valves change over) the water coming out of the ASHP will be hotter (and the compressor will work a bit harder to achieve that) Notice all of that relates to an inverter driven ASHP. The old fashioned direct drive sort just run the compressor at full tilt until it gets to set temperature then turns it off. I have just wired one like that for a customer and it does both heating and HW at 55 degrees. In this case it's feeding radiators soo probably okay, but I really would not recommend that sort.

That ceiling is in a poor state. Have you ever seen the mess made when a lath and plaster ceiling comes down? And i suspect there is not a lot holding that one up. Personally I would take it down and replace the lot with new plasterboard. Yes it's going to be a miserable messy job. OR as a very minimum leave it there and over board with plasterboard. At least that will hold it up. Put in more screws (and of course longer screws) than if you were just doing a plasterboard new ceiling.

I am in a phase this week of "buy as much materials as I can" fearing builders merchants might shut shop.

What does it do you your SAP score and EPC rating? I expect for the life of the boiler you will continue to be able to buy fuel for it but who knows at what price? It's rock bottom at the moment so buy a big tank. In 20 years when it needs replacing, you probably won't be able to buy one. so do you want to plan ahead or be prepared for big changes when that day comes (quite probably a new HW tank as a minimum) What have you against something more modern like an ASHP? Have you REALLY costed the difference between an oil boiler and an ASHP? Don't forget to include the cost of the oil tank and installation of the boiler (or at least paying an OFTEC engineer to comission it to validate the warranty, even if you self install it)

Would heating only upstairs work in an upside down house? I am convinced the upstairs gets enough heat by convection up the stairwell and leakage through the ceiling / floor void. So if only upstairs had heating, how would very much heat get to the downstairs rooms? I would love to hear from someone that has an upside down house to let us know how it works if you turn the downstairs heating off completely.

Many of us with passive house or near passive house levels of insulation and air tightness find no upstairs heating is needed, even here in the Highlands. We have UFH in the bathroom and en-suite more so you are not walking in bare feet on "cold tiles" What sort of U values are you having in the walls, floor and roof, and what does your SAP assesment say about the heating input required? Like many others I fitted electrical points in each bedroom to provide for a small panel heater if I had "got it wrong" and we found heating was needed. Those are still sitting there, unused, with a blank plate on them.

I am sure I could find a washer to replace that. 2 alternatives. Take that drain cock to a plumber merchant and see if the "tap" bit from another drain cock will fit into yours. (take a small adjustable spanner) Or re plumb for a single inlet drain cock and a separate tee.

WHY does the drain cock need replacing? there is not much to go wrong. If the drain tap won't seal it just needs a new washer.

Just for anyone else reading this. the important thing is to report it to the emergency number as a "dangerous condition" to ensure they come out immediately. And just to reinforce what has been said, anything before the meter is the responsibility of the DNO and electricians can't touch it. All we would be able to do is turn off your consumer unit to remove the load.

Have you tried Steico instead? https://www.steico.com/en/products/wood-fibre-insulation/

I have accepted that he does not want it. And asked when he has finished his house he report back his real world energy usage figures. Like @Jeremy Harris we run ours "too slow" I have a "normal, practical, proven" ventilation rate and a "building regs compliance" rate that I can switch it to if needed.

Which element of the build are you hoping to replace with something cheaper?

Thanks, never heard of them. Funny name as they are nowhere near Cromarty? It is certainly worth a call I will ring them on Monday. It's the various merchants in Inverness that have failed to impress.

No I have generally been disappointed with all the timber merchants I have found, in fact I find buying timber a terribly disappointing exercise. So hard to find what you want, and then even harder to find any that's any good. I hate to say it but the last lot of timber I bought for something nice, was from B&Q, and even they have a few sizes of planed oak, but oh the prices. The new independant builders merchant in town had a small selection of planed oak when I was last there, so that is where I will be going on Monday to see in more detail what they have or what they can get.

Thanks. I am going to check on Monday what the local merchant has. I don't need very much.

Could you take it out of the bag and take a better picture?

As it happens I am discussing something else with British Hardwoods. However they don't have what I ideally need 20mm by 80mm. They have 19mm by 70mm which would work IF you could absolutely guarantee it would not be anything less than 70mm wide. Perhaps you could do a size check on the bits you have? I also need some smaller section oak for the door stops, they only do down to 19mm which I feel is too chunky for a door stop, I had in mind more like 10mm. This sort of searching for the right material seems to always take disproportionately way too long.....

It's starting to look like I just need a length of 80mm by 20mm solid planed oak, and cut it to length to make my own blocks. That will probably work out cheapest. They seem to be coming in at about £5 each ready made and that's before I can even find one that's the right size,

Skirtings are plain pencil edge oak veneeered mdf and 15mm thick. So I guess these skirting blocks need to be slightly thicker, sat 20mm, and probably about 80mm by 130mm

Any idea who might sell them? It seems howdens don't

I would be REALLY surprised if your real world energy saving is only £81 per year with the mvhr. Are you taking account of the fact that if you don't fit mvhr you will have to fit trickle vents in EVERY window. You will have to fit an extract fan in the kitchen, utility and every bathroom. Unless you spend a lot of money on those fans, they will be leaking air all the time even when not on. So with all the ventilation you will NEED I suspect your ACH will be a lot more than 0.3 just by fitting all the ventilation that building regs require. Sealing the house up and not fitting mvhr is not an option unless you make other ventilation provision. But do carry on and when it's finished let us know your real life energy bills once you have made all those holes in your house. And let us know if you get any condensation or lingering smells anywhere. For me, mvhr is worth it, not to have anti back draught flaps clattering in the wind, not to have internal doors blow shut when you open an exterior door etc (with a sealed house with mvhr you can open 1 door or 1 window even on a windy day and not have any through draught)

As a background activity, I am getting ready to fit the architrave and skirtings. I have started by buying a couple of lengths of oak veneered architrave and skirting from Howdens. No 1 discovery. Take one Howdens stock length of oak veneered architrace and cut the architrave for one side of a door, and the "offcut" is just a little bit too short to do the other side of the door. This is going to make it very wasteful. Now I sometimes see joiner putting a little square / rectangle joining "block" at the bottom of the architrave to join it to the skirting. As always, trying to search for those, does anyone know the proper name for it? In our case it would need to be a rectangle to join 70mm architrave to 120mm skirting, solid oak, or oak veneer covering ALL edges. If I can find some of those, then that shortens the required length of architrave so you would then get 2 out of each length with very little waste. Next question is finish. I want to pre finish them and then glue them on, I don't want to be finishing in place and cutting in all the edges and I don't want to mess about filling nail holes. So this method means the finish will have to be thoroughly dry as some clamping in place will be needed while the adhesive dries. I have coated two samples. One with Osmo oil which gives a nice finish but takes an age to dry. The other with a clear satin varnish that will dry a lot quicker. So far the clear varnish does not bring out the wood colour as well as the osmo oil.

My only comment is the en-suite to the master bedroom looks woefully small.

Hi and welcome John This is a damned good forum and you will get lots of help here. Perhaps post a little about what your project is and how far in you are?