ProDave

Scotframe were the ones that refused to quote me, when I started talking of taking one of their standard offerings and adding extra insulation to it. Don't let a frame supplier bully you into a particular make of window. Contact ADW and get a quote for Rationel windows, you may, like some others here find they are the cheapest and almost the best of the quality triple glazed windows. Of the 6 quotes I had they were the cheapest, and only Internorm offered me a slightly better window but at twice the price.

Agree those U values can be improved. What type and thickness of insulation are they proposing? i.e what it the wall roof and floor make up? 4KW of solar panels can be had for £2K that's what I will be starting with and ground mounted as too many trees shading the roof. Triple glazed windows will be comfortably under 1, some of mine as as low as 0.8 From your plans you propose a biodisc treatment plant. I caution you abour using a treatment plant with moving mechanical parts down in the smelly stuff. Trust me you do not want to be the one repairing it WHEN it goes wrong. Instead consider one of the treatment plants that works with an air blower such as the Bio Pure, Conder, Vortex, Graff and probably many others. If you can't go for a pure oil boiler, have a look at the hybrid that Grant make, a combination of oil boiler and ASHP

Obvious thing, is the fan isolator turned on? Tenants are notorious for turning them off, then complaining about the condensation and mould. My rental properties had the fan isolator removed. That's a posh fan that probably runs 24/7 on trickle speed with a humidistat to tell it to boost. It should not really be your problem, just phone the landlord.

What sort of U values are the walls and roof coming in at? It sounds like the basic structure is barely good enough and the computer has spat out that by adding 0.5KW of solar PV you would scrape a pass. ASHP would be my choice, actually got my new house it IS my choice.

Pipes that pass through an un heated part of the house should be insulated. Also the big pipes between the inlet and outlet and the mvhr unit should be insulated even if in a warm space (as they will contain cold air) Some forms of insulation for this have a foil wrap, but not all (mine don't)

On a project like this, I would not go for outline (PIP) planning. I think you would be hit with lots of conditions you may not want. Instead fully detail what you want and go straight for full planning.

That looks an interesting project. Just be warned there may not be much in the way of foundations under that. Someone local to me bought a steading for conversion and when they started scraping away the earth floor to lay a new solid floor, found the walls just to be sat on the earth and unstable. He ended up knocking down and rebuilding. Lets hope yours is better. Making new openings in those walls will be challenging. For upstairs. I would be thinking of dormers, or I much prefer as I have done on my house little "gable ends" gives so much more room upstairs. They are not really gable ends as they don't project outwards, think of them as dormers that don't have sides, instead they continue all the way to the bottom.

I will try that. They already know the house name and deliver post here, I will see if they have the clout to do anything.

You are just getting a normal Highland night. Nothing unusual about -12 had plenty of those this year. Now this "beast from the East" has arrived up here, it's a balmy -5 and 6" of very dry powdery snow.

Just to finish this off by saying I chose the McAlpine in the thread above. They don't do it justice in that description, not only are you buying the bath trap and overflow, you are buying a click clack type waste. The waste mechanism just lifts out (mainly to give top access to clear the trap) but of course in my case it means it can be serviced or replaced from above should the mechanism fail. So hopefully this should achieve my goal of never ever needing to lift the bath out of it's housing. For the same (lack of ) access issue we have chosen a floor mounted bath filler with shower head.

My first delivery from theunderfloorheatingstore.com arrived today, a back to wall toilet and floor standing bath tap. What I find is that they came from bathrooms.com and when you go to www.bathrooms.com they too are owned by TP and somewhat annoyingly are very slightly cheaper.

I intend to if I get the chance. Once the gas is connected I have to go back and earth bond that, so I am hoping I might meet the plumber then. It is not a plumber I know from other jobs.

As it happens I have been watching some contractors laying gas to a house where I have been working for a couple of days. In this case they only have to dig up a pavement, not a road, so just fencing off the trench seems okay, but 1 1/2 days in , they have done about 10 metres, only another 20 to go, then up the side of the house and in the back. I hate to think how much it is costing.

I thought the DHW coil in a thermal store would be too near the top to use as a heat input coil? This buffer tank is going in the plant room, as it's location is not sensitive for heating purposes. Yes I could use the DHW coil as a pre heat to the real hot water tank, but that is going to be nearly 10 metres away, so for much of the hot water used the pre heat would not get to the tank in time. I have finished that job now. I have made it known I am very interested in the tank, but the plumber has given him a price to "remove the old system and fit a new gas system" and he suspects the plumber has factored in some value from selling the cylinder and pellet boiler. So it's now wait and see if I get it or not.

I was skeptical until my BIL said here, hold these and walk slowly across the yard. When they swung together he said "that's the drain pipe you have just walked over" I have been told, but not tried it, they can detect almost anything. The key I am told is to think about what you are looking for, in your case a drain pipe.

But that would mean the entire thermal store would need to be filled with brine for the outside circuit to the heat pump. My thought was a PHE on the input from the heat pump to the store so only a much smaller circuit needs to be brine and the store can just be standard inhibitor. In this case just take from the tappings to feed the UFH and not use the DHW coil at all. Or is that too much hassle? Fill the tank and heat pump circuit with brine and use the DHW coil to extract heat to the UFH? Assuming this tank is 250 or even 300L is that too big as a heating buffer tank?

4KW stove keeping our caravan warm. I LIKE this "beast from the East" Since it's arrival, it has warmed up, it was only down to -2 last night, and today was a lovely still sunny day and you really could feel some spring like warmth from the sun.

This is where I like outside boilers. You can remove the burner, point it away from the boiler and fire it up with the flame visible and really see what is going on. Do NOT try that with an indoor boiler

If it were a (Telford) Tempest the ports would be labelled and I am sure they would have their name on it I can't see it is any use to me as a hot water tank as I really want an UVC not a thermal store (thermal store needs a hotter temperature to get a decent amount of hot water capacity so not really suitable) I am wondering if it has a future as a heating buffer tank. I had been planning an indirect tank for the heating buffer so I only have a small circuit filled with antifreeze circulating water from the heat pump to the cylinder(s) Any thoughts on using this as a heating buffer and using a plate heat exchanger between the small heat pump circuit and the larger thermal store volume? I guess that would need a circulating pump on the thermal store side of the PHE?

I was also reading on another thread of an Economy 2000 tariff, that gives 18 hours of off peak per day at the times of the suppliers choosing but with a guarantee that there would be no more than 2 hours between off peak periods. Aimed at people using electric storage boilers which could easilly be an air source heat pump and decent buffer tank)

So all the various top and bottom ports just connect to the store volume as simple as that? There is also one immersion heater, and 2 thermostat pockets one near the bottom, one half way up. Any idea from the size what volume it might be?

I had a similar question from BC "How am I going to fireproof the walls of my wood shed" It turned out because I had shown the wood shed right up to a boundary it needed fireproofing. I solved it by moving the wood shed 1M from the boundary. I assume they are concerned with fire proofing of doors and windows?

On a job I am working on. This is the hot water tank used on conjunction with a wood pellet stove. The whole system is about to be ripped out and this tank may be going begging. I am trying to work out exactly what it is, and can I do anything useful with it. First off, I cannot find a manufacturers name anywhere on it. It measures 22" diameter and 65" tall It is clearly unvented. Almost all of the ports are not labelled. To the left connects the wood pellet Boiler. Just 2 pipes one top and one bottom go to the boiler and nowhere else. At the back a top and bottom port connect to what I believe is the flow and return to the radiators (via a pump) An additional top port connects to a 50L expansion vessel, an over pressure relief valve and a fill loop. The only 2 ports that are labelled are "hot" and "cold" that appear to be fed with mains cold water and output via a thermal mixing valve. I believe the black thing is a tiny expansion vessel? it has a Schroeder valve on the top. The ONLY label on the tank is this one so I don't even know it's capacity My thinking is it must be a thermal store (the hot / cold and blending valve looks like an output loop to me) or some kind of tank within a tank arrangement? The thing that puzzles me is if it is a thermal store, then it's the first unvented thermal store I have ever seen.

You would definitely need PP to keep that as a holiday let. We "negotiated" to keep ours after the build. Initially the planners were only going to give temporary PP for the static 'van, which is their standard policy. When I pointed out that on the day of completion, I could remove the 'van from the site, and then immediately replace it with an identical one in an identical location, and it would qualify as a garden outbuilding under permitted development, they then changed the planning permission to "habitational use of the caravan shall cease upon occupation of the house" So while I can lawfully keep my static 'van as a studio and workshop, I cannot let it. That would require PP which would be unlikely to be granted.

The 4KW WBS is keeping our static 'van warm, and keep on chopping wood for it is keeping me warm.