ProDave

20 degrees here. Heating goes off at night, but that is just because I want the house to be silent without the UFH circulating pumps running (the nosiest bit of our heating system) It does not cool down a lot over night. We are getting into a routine where a couple of times a week we "indulge" and fire up the WBS, it's currently 25 degrees downstairs (the stove has gone out now) . I would never pay to heat it that hot, but wood is free. It will probably be late tomorrow before the UFH comes on again so a burst from the stove will save some electricity. Temperature is a funny thing. I have worked in air conditioned offices fixed at 20 degrees, and you can sometimes feel cold and even with a pullover on feel cold, other times you were rolling up your sleeves and loosening your tie you were so hot.

A few general comments in no particular order. The "save water" thing is mostly applicable to highly populated conurbations with huge numbers of people in one place and limited water resources. Up here water is so plentiful and population so sparse, it is never going to be a problem. Modern WC's that are designed to flush with a low volume work very well indeed. I recall fitting a "water hippo" kindly provided free of charge by Thames Water to an old WC in our 1930's house. It was an absolute disaster. "things" just did not clear from the old WC when the amount of flush was limited, so you had to wait for it to fill and flush again and again and again. The only answer is a WC actually designed for a low volume flush. For some reason there was a time when dual flush WC's were discouraged. Why? You don't need much of a flush when you have just had a pee. Showers. A decent flow rate shower lets you shower quickly. I am still amazed at how little time SWMBO now spends under her rainfall shower head compared to how long she spent in the dribble of a shower when we were in the caravan. Apparently it took ages to get the soap out of her hair under the dribble. For some odd reason water Co's and planners seem to think if you have 4 WC;s and 3 showers the same familly of 3 will use more water than if you only had one of each? Much more saving can be done by simple education. Don't leave a tap running when not in use etc. Only put the dishwasher on when it is FULL that may mean it does not go on every day. You don't need a restrictor to limit flow from a tap. A tap is not a binary device, it can be anywhere from full on to full off and anywhere in between. See above, people need to learn when to turn a tap down, rather than be forced to have a tap that will only ever run slow. I am sure a lot of water is wasted waiting for the hot water to reach a tap. I made layout changes and careful pipework choices to minimise that. In areas where water supply is restricted (another way of saying the population has exceeded sustainable levels but still they squeeze more in) there might be merit is catching grey water and using it a second time for flushing the WC. Rainwater harvesting will only in the grand scheme of things limit the water getting to a river and deplete the already available supply, so really it just saves the water Co some treatment cost, it cannot have a big impact in solving a shortage of supply.

Well you already have a floor deck, so you would just add 25 by 50mm battens to contain the UFH pipes and dry screed, then finished flooring on top. So it is a simple matter to add a simple packing piece such that the nosing of the top stair ends at finished floor height. You can do that and fit the stairs later. Doing a wet pour up to the stairs would mean you have to guess exactly where the stairs finish, put some shuttering to contain the pour and no doubt have a bit to finish later. Or don't do the pour until the stairs are in. A dry mix is so much easier to get upstairs and lay.

Any progress on this? It seems we could use a pallet or 2 of these up here if the seller, or someone else is is willing to put them on a pallet and arrange delivery.

It is all down to the local plan. In my case the plot I found was in open countryside and not zoned for housing, so there would be a general presumption against development. However crucially there are 3 defined exceptions in the local plan here that would allow it, and my plot satisfied 2 out of the 3 (it only needs to satisfy one)

For UFH have you considered what we are doing, a dry "biscuit mix" screed between battens then wooden floor over: It would make the interface to the stairs a lot easier.

Have you tried asking your planners to provide a copy of this map for you?

Why are you having a wet screed on timber floor upstairs?

So when it's -18 outside, your house will need 18.6KW of continuous heat input, which your heat pump will not be able to deliver. My house is not as well insulated as @JSHarris but at that temperature will need 2Kw of heat, which my 5Kw ASHP will easily deliver. You would probably do better if you fitted high capacity low temperature radiators, the lower temperature water the ASHP has to heat, the better it's efficiency will be.

That is one reason for the WBS. Once in a while you can crank that up and indulge in a room temperature I would not choose to pay to achieve (wood is free)

The no nonsesne product contains glycol antifreeze as well as inhibitor. I suspect the inhibitor is less of a necessity than say a conventional boiler and radiators. In my case the only ferrous metal in any of the heating system is the circulating pumps so not a lot to corrode really.

If only we could get something other than O2 or vodaphone 2G here........

Okay re glycol I used the cheap No Nonsense Inhibitor / antifreeze from Screwfix mixed to 25% As to "getting it in" I filled the UFH loops with it neat. Conventional wisdom is to fill the UFH loops one at a time with mains water and a hose. Well I did use a hose, but the input side was not fed from the mains, but a length of hose fixed to a stand with a funnel on the end into which I poured the neat antifreeze / inhiibitor until it came out of the other end into a bucket to collect it. I had got all the antifreeze in before all the UFH loops were finished so I then used up what was in the bucket before finishing off with plain water.

Hi @Ballynoes Where in the Highlands are you? I am about 20 miles north of Inverness. My heat pump is working fine. The lowest I have seen so far this winter is -6 and it continues providing 37 degree water for the UFH without issue. It takes heat out of the air by cooling it, so if the air is already -10, it will probably exit the heat pump at -13 or even colder. The only "problem" with an ASHP in cold weather is when you ask a lot of it, e.g for heating hot water. At least 3 times now I have seen mine need to defrost when heating the hot water to 48 degrees, but I have never yet seen it defrost when just keeping the UFH going. If you are building to the insulation level you say, you will find the house only cools down very slowly when the heating goes off, so forget the concept of the house being "cold" in the morning before the heating comes on, it will just be a little less warm. If you are passing by this way you are welcome to call in for a look.

I am more shocked at the plumber or kitchen fitter that hacked half the back of the cabinet out, rather than drill a hole for the waste pipe., or the "plumber" that used that flexi waste because it was quicker than doing a proper job. The right hand waste will need a plug in the unused overflow port and whichever washing machine hose point you do not use will need a blanking plug.

Open up the flow rate for the 2 loops to this room (don't unwind the flow meters more than about 3 turns in total or it all gets very wet!!!) If you can't achieve higher flow to those loops that way, then slow down the flow to the other rooms instead.

What has happened to the installers? Why are they not sorting it for you? Time for a visit from a certain Welsh Plumber?

Those bottom pipe connectors. Using an allen key, turn each one 1 turn anticlockwise. I think they may be the flow adjustment?

Turn off the hot water and make sure the 3 port valve is in heating only mode and concentrate first on just getting it to work on heating only. I think what their engineer i saying is BS. If it is not, I would want it ripped out and replaced with something different. Ask the question directly to Daiken? Mine is on a programmer so I can have it on when I want it. It will start up fine from cold even when well below zero outside, yours should do the same.

I was wondering if there was someone close to him that could do that. It's a big ask to go and make a bulk purchase and then put them on pallets for distribution (palletways for instance about £100 to get a pallet up here) But if someone is willing sign me up for 30. I would be nervous just sending money to a stranger then finding they were completely dud, someone would have to have a look and take an educated guess on the condition, perhaps take a multimeter and check open circuit voltage on a few?

Argh no not face ache. I do not want to sign up to that tosh. Is there any way to contact him any other way? Anyone care to ask him for an ordinary email address and PM it to me?

Normally the slot would be vertical for open, it looks to be horizontal at the moment,. i.e. closed. Can I see a close up picture of how those bottom row of pipes connect, I have not seen that type of manifold before.

In my case the flue came from flue-pipes.com It has to be 60mm from flamables. That sleeve was sold by the flue manufacturer as an insulated wall / ceiling sleeve so made for the job, you cut it to the angle of your roof, 45 degrees in my case. It is a hard sort of rockwool batt type material. Obviously as it is sold for this purpose by the flue manufacturer, it is a non flamable material, and as it's >60mm thick, it is okay for flamable material to touch the outside of the sleeve as that flamable material will be >60mm from the flue.

At £20 a panel I will have about 30. Now where can I find a proper advert and contact details? and what about sticking them on a pallet for delivery?

Can I see a better square on close up view of the manifold, I can't see any flow meters. Also a close up of the actuators to see if they are "on" If in doubt as a test unscrew all the actuators and by default all circuits will be on BUT mark which one is which before removing them so they will go back in the same order (otherwise you will have a whole different problem to solve) Obvious question, can you hear that pump running?