ProDave

Fire valve springs to mind, I believe they are energise to open. Or were they the stupidly expensive option?

Mine was up for a good year. But I bought my own Kwikstage so no penalty for it being up longer.

I notice my ASHP, if not running and the outside temperature gets low, it starts the pump for about 5 minutes (just the circuulating pump not the heat pump) presumably to mix the water around and get some less cold water into the outside bit.

The "water" that circulates around the primary loop and out to the heat pump, has to contain antifreeze as it's going to encounter sub zero temperatures in winter if the HP is off and you don't want it to freeze. I have just used standard central heating inhibitor / antifreeze that is glycol based at a concentration that will not freeze at -10. I didn't find it that expensive. If you think this is expensive, look at the cost for the ground loops of a Ground Source Heat Pump. I think those surprised by the cost may be using a buffer tank without a heat exchanger, so the volume in the buffer tank also needs to be glycol.

We spent last winter in the caravan. The phrase people use is "character building" I must have a lot of character by now then.

I am not aware of anything in my ASHP to "maintain" or "service" I am sure it's a case of use it until it breaks then repair (or replace) it. You might think the fan bearings might need greasing, but no mention in the manual.

I think commercial buildings are a poor example. Certainly my experience is occupants don't give a flying fig about energy conservation. When was the last time you saw an office worker turn off the lights, even on the brightest sunny day? If it's too hot, open a window, but leave the heating on. I knew plenty of people that kept a fan heater under their desk, if the set 20 degrees was too cold for them, they put their heater on, they are not interested in the bill.

Hello and welcome to the forum. I will just draw your attention to section 6.9 of the Registration terms since you have declared your profession. Please feel free to offer advice and help.

I briefly entered the conversation about what cooker. "You choose the cooker, you do the cooking" I keep quiet now.

I am surprised your quote is as much as £15K for 1 pole, 1 transformer and a spur. Unfortunately there is not a lot of contestable work there, probably the only bit you can do to save money is put your meter box right at the base of (attached to?) the transformer pole, then the cable from there to the house is yours. Alternatively did the trench from there to the meter position and lay a duct ready for them. Useful information on the grant scheme, I assume you will be applying for that.

I too am keeping it simple Standard UFH manifolds, standard room thermostats. Room stats set at 20 degrees, so what if there is 1 degree hysterises, that's well within the comfort zone limits. I am starting out without a buffer tank and will see how the ASHP deals with driving the UFH directly, I will only add a buffer tank if I find something does not work with this simple approach. The bit that irked me is i wanted to use a standard central heating control timer to set the heating and hot water on and off times, a 3 channel one so I can have the upstairs heating on at different times to downstairs if I want to. But the ASHP designers had other ideas and just wanted you to use their fiendishly complicated controller, so it was a challenge finding a way to integrate the two, most notably now to turn hot water on or off externally to the heat pump. Now I have cracked that, the heat pump's controller is just for setting parameters if I want to tweak something, not for day to day use.

Our discharge permit gives it as "unnamed tributary of the River Alness" and gives an 8 digit grid reference.

Definitely consider an ASHP if you have no gas. Any competent plumber can fit one if you are not intending to claim the RHI you only need an over priced MCS install if you want to claim the RHI then you have to weigh up is the inflated cost worth it for the RHI payments you might receive.

He will make it. but won't start until he has finished his bathroom. Don't hold your breath.

Then I would install a full soakaway, possibly with the backstop of a pipe from the very end of it out to the ditch just in case. Definitely install a treatment plant not a septic tank.

VERY true. By digging (and back filling afterwards) the connection pit myself, I saved almost £1000 from the first quote.

Thanks @Ed Davies Not seen that name for it before, but it is exactly what we did, though it was all on our own land and only 10 metres long and we described it as a partial soakaway. There is this really bizarre thing in building regs saying a soakaway must be >10 metres from a watercourse. I argued that since what comes out of the end of the soakaway is being piped directly into the watercourse, it would make more sense to continue the partial soakaway right up to the edge of the burn which would have in our case doubled it's length, but I was told no you can't do that. In our case it was high water table in the winter. The percolation tests (only done in a shallow pit) showed the drainage to be quite reasonable.

Get that certificate NOW. He might have vanished by the time you need it later. What pipe did you use?

"rumbling drain" is a new expression to me? care to explain? SEPA gave permission (eventually) for out Conder plant (very similar to the BipPure) to discharge to the burn, but insisted on a partial soakaway preceding the discharge. That actually works very well, in the dry season (when the burn flow is low) not a lot makes it past the partial soakaway into the burn. But in winter when the water table comes up and the ground is saturated, most of it just goes straight through the partial soakaway, but the burn is at full flow and dilution is high. So the partial soakaway makes sense and seems to work well.

I am still on a self build site policy. Another local self builder told me that once building control issued a certificate of temporary habitation, he was able to get an normal insurance policy. I hope to get to that stage by the next renewal.

Interesting and timely observations. I am about to connect the boost function of my MVHR (a timer switch upstairs and downstairs, nothing complicated) For the upstairs boost, I am going to connect that at the maximum mvhr speed to clear condensation and moisture as quick as possible. Downstairs, we have been cooking in the house for 2 months, without even a recirculating cooker hood and the mvhr just running at normal speed. I can't say we have had any issues or particularly notice cooking smells lingering long. Obviously fitting a recirculating cooker hood with carbon filter is on the "to do" list. but when it comes to the downstairs mvhr boost, I was going to connect that one so it runs the mvhr at a faster speed, but not necessarilly the fastest one.

That is totally different, a guy who should know better bodging it and possibly making it unsafe in the process. The book should be thrown at him.

What will actually probably happen is when I complete the sun room the gas bottles will move to their final location, and he will be presented with a length of pipe connected to the hob and it will be his job to connect the regulator, test and certify. If there is anything wrong with that then the law is an ass. This is one pipe from a changeover regulator to a hob. just 2 connections, one each end. It is is £20 hob from Howdens sale, and I don't give a flying fig about any warranty.

The stove manufacturer will specify a "distance to combustibles" for the back, sides and top. of the stove. That is your guidance. Alternative is cut strips of left over tiles and have a tile skirting in the alcove.

The three of us (me SWMBO and 12 year old daughter) spent 18 months in the static caravan, including last winter. We briefly toyed with the idea of sleeping in the house over last winter, but we would have still had to use the caravan for cooking, eating and showering etc so ruled it out as we would have to be heating both (and the heating in the house was not set up then) We moved in a few weeks ago. Bedrooms, main bathroom, and kitchen / diner are all operational (I won't use the term "finished") and heating and hot water are working. It's a lot more comfortable than the caravan and feels so spacious compared to the cramped quarters in that. We are still very disorganised in terms of furniture etc. We want all new for the new house but making do with the bare essentials of the old stuff. We don't have carpets upstairs, that is an expense that has to wait, as does things like skirting boards etc. So the static caravan is still being used for storage, mainly for clothes as we don't have wardrobes in the house yet. I am just completing my garage now. Up until now I have been using one of the rooms of the house as a work room, and moving around as we go. But now we are living in it, I don't want all the sawdust, and in any case with only 2 rooms to do we would be running out of work space. So getting the garage sorted to use as a work space before we start the push to "finish" the last few rooms.