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ProDave

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  1. ProDave
    Our first house was built (to a bare shell) on a fixed price contract. Every time there was a small change the builder sent a "notice of variation" immediately so we knew the extra costs coming. This time round I entered an open ended contract with the builder. We were having trouble selling the old house, so my instructions were basically "carry on until I say stop" and that point happened when the frame was built and the roof was on (but not tiled) and I have carried on alone since then except for rendering and plastering. I did get the same builders to supply and fit the windows later on. We parted on good terms with them fully understanding it was simply a matter of no money in the pot to pay them for any more work.
  2. ProDave
    In my case I did the planning drawings, then paid an architectural engineer and a SE to detail the design, The exorbitant architect fees I referred to was for the previous house, where the two architects wanted to base their fees on a high percentage of the estimated build cost one quoted £25K the other £30K and neither would negotiate. To make matters worse both estimates of the build cost were roughly twice what it actually cost. Had they offered a reasonable fee as in this example I would have used them,. In the end in that case I paid £2K to the timber frame company for all the drawings.
  3. ProDave
    You first do a design SAP for building control approval. At the end that is updated with an "as built" SAP for BC sign off to take account of any changes that might have happened. If I had been quoted those sorts of figures from an architect, I would have bitten their hand off. Some think I don't like architects, that is not true. What I dislike is when I last tried, they wanted to charge me roughly 6 times what you have been quoted for the same scope of work, and they would not even negotiate the fees a little bit, let alone bring them down to the reasonable fee you have been quoted.
  4. ProDave
    When I did the sums based on the design SAP my RHI payment would total £2030 over 7 years. It would actually be lower than that if it was based on the as built SAP as that will be better due to an error on the design SAP that had my roof insulation wrong so a poorer U value for the roof. I concluded it is not worth the bother of claiming the RHI. I am DIY fitting my self sourced heat pump. To get an MCS installer to supply and fit one would add more cost than I would be able to claim. You say you would get £8400 but you would like to make your house worse so you can claim £10,500 You know that would leave you with a poor house with a high running cost long after the 7 year RHI payments have ended? Why would you want to do that?
  5. ProDave
    That reminds me of the argument my BIL had many years ago. He drove into his local tip and proceeded to drag the 1 ton builders bag of garden waste out of the back of his pick up truck and start emptying it into the skip. At this point the manager came storming over saying he can't tip that here. The argument hinged on the sign saying "garden waste, 1 car, 1 bag" and my BIL:'s insistence that he indeed only had 1 bag. The argument ended when my BIL said I can either empty the contents into the skip, or I will just drive off and leave it on the ground (it was out of the truck by this time) I don't think they hand ANPR cameras then but I suspect he was unwelcome after that. It is absurd that they make it difficult for people to dispose of their waste responsibly. And then they wonder why there is so much fly tipping that will cost them more to clean up than if they just let people take it to the tip. It annoys me as it's my council tax money they are wasting with policies like that. It also makes me feel even more, the "bottom of a wheelie bin" is a damned good place for all sorts of stuff to go.
  6. ProDave
    I am convinced some future owner is going to rip this lot apart (when they knock it down to rebuild) and wonder at the sheer number of Fosters cans left behind build into the walls.
  7. ProDave
    ^^ probably a bit late to say this, but the bottom end of your ply is floating. That will flex. I would have put a dwang (noggin) across there t catch the end of the ply and screwed it to that. Then you only have a ply and plasterboard deep gap to fill and it will be one whole lot more solid.
  8. ProDave
    Okay, if this is West coast of Scotland, you won't be allowed 2 storey. 1 3/4 at most, i.e. rooms at least partially in the roof. A 200 square metre footprint on a 750 square metre plot sounds too big, especially when you talk of a detached garage etc. I hope you have mains drainage available otherwise you are going to struggle. Utility and storage is way too thin. The kitchen / diner is too thin as well for its width. If the front faces West, and has the view, then I would make half of that the kitchen (with dining facing the back / east) and then you can have a nice big living room triple aspect east, south and west making the most of the sun and the views. Your location would help then we know which building regs and which local vernacular to follow and a plot layout with respect to neighbours as well etc.
  9. ProDave
    The dump valve needs to open when the thermal store is getting too hot. In this scenario it needs to do it when there is no mains power so a motorised valve is out. It needs something like a capillary operated valve that opens at a set temperature with no electricity. Does such a thing even exist?
  10. ProDave
    As you say, horse's for courses. I don't want to routinely be storing water at 75 degrees. The heat pump won't get it that hot, so it's the immersion heater to get it the final bit. So I want to store it at a lower temperature. I will bu using a TMV on the output to deliver HW at the lowest temperature that the thermal mixer showers will cope with, so on the days when the sun shines and the HW in the tank is a lot higher, you will still get the same temperature water, but on the days when there is no significant PV generation and you have to buy the electricity for the final heat up, it will only heat it to the bare minimum temperature.
  11. ProDave
    But what IS it? There is not enough detail. Looks to me like a plastic thermal store tank.
  12. ProDave
    I am designing a system that will heat water when it is most efficient to do so, not all the time on demand. So I am not trying to "keep up" with demand and hope the boiler can cope, rather trying to work out the best way to store a certain amount of hot water to be used with probably no heat input during usage. Heat an UVC to 60 degrees and tun the hot tap, you will get water out at 60 degrees with very little drop in temperature until it suddenly goes cold at the end (note no heat input during this time) Do the same with a thermal store, and the temperature will gradually fall as you are extracting heat from a static volume of storage medium So to maintain say 50 degrees HW flow for a set period with no heat input will either require a larger TS than UVC or for the stored temperature to be higher.
  13. ProDave
    At least it's "one person's" problem you paid for supply and fit, so it does not matter to you whether they were damaged in deliver or in installation. Have you paid the final payment? I hope not as that's your position of power to get it sorted.
  14. ProDave
    The longest we were without power was 4 days following a big storm a few years ago. It was the WBS that kept the house habitable for that time. If you are heating water with a stove you need to design the system very carefully so everything flows by gravity including the dump load. So many I see rely on a circulating pump and would be unusable in a prolonged power cut. So WBS heating a thermal store by gravity and over heat dump rad fed by gravity. Work out a valve arangement that does not need electricity to open the flow to the dump rad and you have got it sorted. Such a system can then drive wet UFH when power is available but can safely run with just the stove heating the house in a power cut. Best of both worlds. It's a valve to open the over heat dump without electricity that I have no idea about.
  15. ProDave
    That is so true. I did some upgrades in a house recently that had just changed hands, and the new owner was about to rip out the not very old wood pellet boiler and put a gas boiler back in.
  16. ProDave
    Did you personally see the windows before they were installed? What happens if the installers say they were like that before they fitted them? Are they the window companies own installers?
  17. ProDave
    It would be interesting in this particular case to see a map of where this development would be in relation to other houses. It seems to hinge on whether you consider it's location "isolated" or not. Up here, there is a general presumption against new houses in the countryside unless in an established settlement. Ours got permission because it satisfies at least 2 of the requirements. But I know of one that was refused near here as although close to existing houses the LPA deemed it was "outwith" the area of the existing settlement. I don't know if that ever went to appeal. Some LA's do some ridiculous things. When I was down south I was always looking for a plot (but never found one) but I recall looking at a map in a local plan. This was an existing village. They had outlined the village boundary in red saying there would be no development outside the boundary. But a look at the map showed some ridiculous things like a gap between 2 houses on the edge of the village, where another house would have fitted nicely, was specifically marked as "outside" the village.
  18. ProDave
    That's starting to look nice now you can see it. To make you feel better I did a rewire on a bungalow last year, that when I first saw it looked way tattier than yours, and had rotten collapsed floors, rotten windows, no kitchen etc. In the space of about 2 months the owner had it all repaired, decorated, new kitchen etc and it is now a cosy home once more.
  19. ProDave
    One that worked well in a house I wired a few years back was a stove that put 10KW to water while only putting 2KW into the room. This heated a massive thermal store that provided DHW and UFH. They only needed to light the stove every few days to heat the store. What is it that puts you off wet UFH?
  20. ProDave
    For me UVC because it delivers a near constant temperature water right up to the point it runs out. A thermal store, the DHW temp starts to reduce as you draw water, so to get enough hot water you need a large tank, or store it at a higher temperature. A modulating gas boiler won't need a buffer tank. The expert from Wales will be along shortly to advise more.
  21. ProDave
    It's funny how delivery driver vary. When building our last house I had 2 concrete lintels delivered to go above the garage doors. Before I said a word to him and before his feet had touched the ground he said "!'m not lifting them up there"
  22. ProDave
    The obvious question is are you sure the flow rate is high enough? if it's only just enough to trip the flow switch it could be unreliable. Faster pump speed?
  23. ProDave
    Just use ptfe tape, as it's going to be hidden, twice as much as you think it will need.
  24. ProDave
    The rules do seem confusing and do vary a LOT between Scotland and England. At the end of the day, you can only install what your building control officer will agree to, and it does seem he has some flexibility. So in this case I would approach my BC officer with a proposal to site the treatment plant 5M from the house discharging into a soakaway that starts almost immediately the other side of the treatment plant (allowing room for a sample chamber) and see what he says. You still need that percolation test to determine the size of the soakaway and therefore how close you need to go to the boundary to achieve that area. Up here a treatment plant must be 10 metres from a watercourse, yet my neighbour (of our old house) has installed one just 2 metres from the burn. It has not been completed and signed off, so I still don't know if this has been agreed with BC or if he is going to get a nasty disappointment.
  25. ProDave
    And deeper pockets than you thought you would need.
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