ProDave

I am trying to comission my ASHP and can't get it working, and finding the supplier so far frankly useless. At first I thought it was a controls issue, because the web based diagnostics is not showing the water flow rate, so I thought it was refusing to run because it thought there was no water flow. But now I am coming to the conclusion that is a red herring and the on line diagnostics are not much of a reflection on what is actually happening. So I am trying to do some self diagnostics and wonder if it's a refrigerant problem. Here is the refrigerant pipework diagram from the manual What is happening, you give the heat pump a heating demand. the fan starts up. The compressor starts up and ramps up in speed. After a short while the output pipe from the compressor starts to warm up. Notice the term warm up, it is by no means "hot" just warm. Nothing much seems to flow around the regrigerant circuit, you can just detect slight warmth in the pipe going into the reversing valve, but I can't detect any warmth making it past there out of the reversing valve and certainly no warmth reaching the plate condenser. After a couple of minutes the inverter ramps up a bit faster in speed then it all shuts down. Am I right to be thinking this may be a lack of regrigerant in the system and that might be the problem rather than an electrical fault? I am trying to formulate an understanding of what might be wrong before I go back to the supplier wihich probably won't be until Monday now.

How about getting a local, or even a national paper to run a story. Headline: "If you want to build a house, get planning permission for a stable block and the council will never take enforcement action" Quote the HOP statement above. That should ruffle a few feathers. This would be good in the Daily Wail.

In our case (stick built timber frame) the builders made the window openings 50mm bigger in each dimension. They then lined the window openings with 20mm PIR insulation, fitted the windows, and foamed the remaining very small gap. The air tight membrane taped to the windows on the inside. Outside, cladding in Wood Fibre, Compriband was used to seal the wood fibre to the windows.

Is this the one where the building is being built in the wrong location on the plot and not following the plans? Surely they can enforce THAT issue? When building a house and living in a caravan on site it is normal to get temporary PP to use the caravan as a dwelling so the whole familly can legally live in it.

Most of the compression joints were unavoidable, things like valves, manifolds, the HW tank, pumps, etc. I think I only used 6 compression fittings just to join pipes together, and that was just to use them up.

Well it's all piped up now. As I suspected, it was a struggle getting enough antifreeze in. I filled at 3 points, the 3 highest points and only just got the required antifreeze in before finally topping up with water and bleeding. It's been holding steady at 0.6 bar for 48 hours, I guess 1 bar is a good pressure for final filling? I still have all the UFH pipework to lay and fill, UFH manifolds valved off at the moment. Should start laying the UFH pipe downstairs in a week or 2. 30 soldered joints and 22 compression joints and the only weeps were a couple of compression joints not tight enough

With a timber frame that is being clad (with block) it is usual to use Kwikstage or Cuplock and hang a few Hop Up's on the inside for the frame erection, then remove them as the brickies build up. With my own build and my own scaffold, I didn't have any hop ups. So when it came time to clad it and the scaffold was a little to close, I moved it in place. A gentle tap on each foot with a sledge hammer moves it about half an inch. Just keep moving up and down the run half an inch at a time and it's not long before you have moved a complete scaffold over 6 inches. Probably not official advice "don't do this at home" but if you are as stupid as me and try it, make sure EVERYTHING is removed from the scaffold and you wear a hard hat.

Another difference between England & Scotland? They are very hot on drain tests here, they like to see the drain before it is covered and see the pressure test at the same time. They even wanted to pressure test the drain run to the static caravan that arguably was not permanent. Though when I came to connect the final 3M section when the treatment plant went in, they were not available, and not the slightest bit interested in any of the pipework coming out of the treatment plant.

Best of luck with that. I have seen that on Grand Designs, and on one house up here. Both failed building control. Both inserted tacky looking bits of clear plastic to pass building control. I assume both lots of plastic are now removed and they ended up with what they wanted.

I used them because it would be near impossible to bolt mine down directly. I think it was designed by a previous car designer with the mounting bolt holes as inaccessible as possible. Using the feet you could tip the ASHP over, fit the feet, then stand it back up, drill and bolt down the feet. SWMBO insisted I bolt it down otherwise the wind would blow it over. I know it gets windy here but......

I have just mounted my ASHP (different make) and I used 4 of these anti vibration feet http://cpc.farnell.com/sip/02357a/anti-vibration-mounts-sold-as/dp/TL19203?st=anti vibration mount No problem bolting them down to the base. And cheaper from CPC than I could find on ebay

With my test kit, the bulb you squeeze to pump it up leaks air, solved by bending it's pipe double to "crimp" it while testing. When BC came to witness my drain test, they got bored and said "that will do" after watching a stationary manometer for a minute.

If you want cheap but quality, Click Mode are my choice http://www.discount-electrical.co.uk/product.php/389086884/click-cma036-mode-white-moulded-2-gang-double-pole-switchsocket-13a

Our last house we went for 200mm, that was nothing special in terms of insulation or air tightness. So I am going for 200 again on out new much better insulated and much ore air tight house, expecting to run the UFH at a very low temperature. 200mm is the obvious spacing with 400mm joist centres, anything else would be complicated.

I saw a simple arrangement that I am planning to replicate on my balcony. Substantial (5" square?) timber posts with a groove routed in opposite sides into which a plain square sheet of toughened glass is inserted.

If it's "agricultural" re name it a "tractor shed"

How long had it been used as "garden"? sounds like it might be a candidate for a certificate of lawful development if they can prove they have used it like that for long enough.

The moveable bit certainly exempts you from building control, so that's one less worry. That might also be the case with my static caravan, it might be that a fixed garden outbuilding of that size, while permitted development, might need building control, but not because it's moveable.

Isn't it about "use" rather than position? We persuaded the planners to remove the "caravan must be removed..." clause by pointing out that on the day of completion I could remove the caravan, and immediately replace it with an identical caravan in an identical position and it would be a a permitted development garden outbuilding. As long as we are not living in it after completion, it would not ned planning permission. I suspect this shepherds hut would be the same. If you do start sleeping in it, you are into the 28 day rule, so you could spend 28 nights in it per year without needing planning permission.

Your drainage details are usually a building control matter. Up here you cannot start until a building warrant has been issued, and sorting out a suitable acceptable drainage plan delayed us several weeks before building control were finally happy and issued the warrant.

We negotiated the planning permission to keep the static caravan permanently. You might ask why? Well not for accommodation. For more work / storage space. The one we bought (partly because of how well it lends itself to other uses) basically has 3 rooms. the larger one will get used as an artist studio and a music room. One bedroom will get put to use as my ham radio "shack" and the third at the moment is just going to be a store room. As such it represents tremendous value per square metre, and to add that much extra space to the house itself would have stretched our bedget too far, not to mention extra council tax etc (which does not apply to a "garden outbuilding")

You could get away with the "caravan" (portable building) exemption and thus be building regs exempt if you did not use the "upstairs" The caravan exemption has a maximum ceiling height and must be single storey, but it doesn't say you can't have a loft space. Just don't use it for sleeping in!!! Whether you can use it all year or 11 months depends on planning, if it has planning as holiday accommodation, then the 11 months may apply. If it has planning as residential then it should be all year. i.e you could probably put one of these on a holiday park that has planning for "holiday caravans" (as long as you don't use the upstairs) but would probably be subject to seasonal use only.

Tread carefully and wear a snorkel.

In case it didn't prove good enough there, I have installed a phone and cat5 cable from the stair cupboard to where the coat and shoe cupboard will be in the entrance hall. That will give an alternative location for the router on a shelf high up by the ground floor ceiling. On the subject of hiding stuff, a filing cabinet will be going in this cupboard. By raising one of the dwangs a bit higher, the filing cabinet will recess into the thickness of the wall so it doesn't stick out too far which would otherwise make the coat and shoe cupboard too deep.

So why not use a chrome compression elbow, that should grip the chrome pipe okay and look better than a brass nut being seen.