ProDave

Terrace houses are often timber floor downstairs so a vent in the floor as close to the stove as possible to draw air from the under floor void is way better than a cold draught sucked all the way across a room. Why do you have to choose between those 2? If you did I would say the first one.

What sort of house? What do you want to achieve? My must have when we bought ours was a must be room sealed, so combustion air comes in on a duct pipe. Your first one offers that but I could not see mention of that for the Hampton 5, so that would be off my list.

We use a condensing TD that removes the water from the room. As above such a small heat pump would not give much heat, and if you are not splitting the FGAS circuit, you would have to contrive a way to get one part inside and the other part outside. Like mounting it through a door or window. It might be a project to keep say a garage a bit warm without costing a fortune, if you can contrive an inside / outside mounting arrangement. But an old fridge would be much easier for that than a condensing TD.

Is the manhole on your drive or the pavement? It does not look like a sewer manhole cover, that type of concrete cover looks more like an old BT cable duct cover, and having seen inside a few, it would not surprise me in the least to find it is full of water. If it's not on your drive, it is not your problem. A picture of the whole of the slab might help and some context where on the drive or path it is.

Could it be that vertical timber is helping support the ceiling by hanging that binder from the purlin? Removing it may make the ceiling below start to sag?

Build the new house properly insulated and air tight and you won't need heating upstairs.

Yes of course, test the RCD / RCBO, but then you need to buy an RCD tester if you don't have one........

You won't get far with trial and error component substitution. To make any meaningful progress you need an insulation tester. It's likely you have a faulty fitting, damp or damaged wiring. If you fancy a go yourself then you can buy a cheap old uncalibrated tester that will do what you want for not a lot on ebay, otherwise get your electrician to look at it. I guess one thing you could try is remove every single lamp, and see if the tripping stops, then replace one at a time if it does.

Hi and welcome. Don't get too fixed on the build at this stage unless it's already on order? My gut feeling is you want more insulation than that in the walls. Before sizing the heating you need to do a proper heat loss calculation rather than guess. Then you can size the heating accordingly and get a good idea of running costs. Any reason for prefering A2A rather than A2W and UFH? And in any event with a big roof like that why not solar PV?

Of course, me being me and liking a challenge, if that was the nearest available but I didn't want a thread on the right hand part, I would be tempted to put that on my lathe and turn the thread off

Just a point. You kept confusing me with this "ribbed end" It is not ribbed, it is threaded. Perhaps you were thinking of something else?

What is it from? If it's one part of a packaged waste trap, the intermediate parts are often not a standard size that will tit much else.

Section B-B If that flat roofed dormer is only there for headroom for the stairs, then re design the stairs and avoid the dormer. Fewer steps on the first flight to the half landing then more steps on the second flight, until you achieve required headroom on the upper flight without the dormer. That will save you a lot which you can spend elsewhere. And why do you want concrete stairs?

Our public single track road is only 3 metres wide tarmac with a bit of grass either side. Bin lorries and fire engines have no problem. I think you will need to provide turning space for a fire engine on your plot.

With such a hybrid is nobody suggesting a mixing valve on the UFH manifold to regulate the UFH temperature regardless of the boiler flow temperature? And a 3 channel programmer so UFH can turn on and off at different times to radiators.

I once had a lousy supplier. It's all very well reciting the DD rules and what they can and cannot do, but that is no great help when you cannot contact your suppliers customer service and when you can they are somewhere between obstructive and ubhelpful. It is just NOT worth the stress and hassle for save just a few ££ each year on a too cheap to be viable tariff. Much better to be with a supplier that has a good reputation for customer service and rarely makes an error. Someone like Octopus. All you need to do with Octopus is recommend a couple of friends join them for £50 for you and £50 for them. That can give you more off your electricity than any cheap supplier can. Oh and if you want to do that PM me for a referral code for Octopus.

My door bell works perfectly, it has never failed to work, it has never needed a software update, it has never frozen, if does not need any setup or configuring. The bell connects to the button with 2 very fine wires build in at first fix wiring stage. WHY do people choose to make things complicated?

No it does not matter, so check your connections, as one may not be making contact. Likewise check the 2 blue neutrals are actually making contact.

The coupled long houses thing is a local vernacular on Orkney. At the time I questioned @Stones on his design and his reasoning for doing so was sound, and he has ended up with an efficient house built to that principle.

First point, not cheap, noisy and maintenance issues is not typical. What were your problems? Second point, if the floor felt warm to walk on then the IR heating is not performing as IR heating (to warm the person) but is performing as resistance electric floor heating and warming the floor. Yes that will heat your house but at about 3 times the cost of a heat pump. And if an electric under floor system fails, (which they do) it is an expensive rip the floor up and re lay the heating system repair. Your choice and if you decide to go ahead please let us know how it performs.

I have not tried them myself, and personally I don't have an issue with standard good quality dry lining boxes like Appleby (some other inferior makes of dry lining box can be dire) How do these fit into the plasterboard? Do they clip in and then the plaster skims over them to give a flush finish? Or is the plaster skim all that holds them on place?

What remaining problems? Unlike a boiler, there is not much to "service" on a heat pump, so do you really mean resolve remaining issues from the install?

There are many ways to install UFH. My preferred method is 25mm battens UFH pipes between and fill with pug mix. Your finished floor goes over the the top which you would have any way. But it is irrelevant in a new build, you plan for it and design the building according to what method you propose. Not wanting to add to the floor thickness in a new build is a weak excuse for not fitting UFH.

Any form of direct electric heating produces 1kWh of heat for each 1KWh of electricity consumed. Anyone claiming their electric heater is more efficient than a different brand might bot be entirely accurate with that claim. IR heating is intended to heat the person rather than the room, and typically used in a cold building like a church to stop the congregation freezing. Do you really want a cold house? What is wrong with wet under floor heating and an Air Source Heat Pump that will typically give you 3KWh of heat for each 1KWh of electricity consumed? Mot a magic or false claim, the extra heat comes from the air outside that is is cooling and extracting heat from. You can easily DIY install a wet system on a suspended floor that adds about 25mm to the floor height. Just design for that so the finished floor height is where you want it.

Are you saying there are no extract vents, usually on the ceiling, in the bathrooms?