ProDave

The big thing to remember with UFH it takes a lot longer to heat up (and then later to cool down) than radiators. So what I found worked for me was to set the heating to come on 2 hours before you wanted it warm, so in my case that was 5:30AM. Then set it to go off at 9PM If you find as the room warms up, that it overshoots the set temperature, then you probably have the flow temperature at the manifold set too high, so turn that down until it no longer overshoots. Hot water stays hot in the tank a while and does not take as long to heat up, so that was set to come on 1 hour before first expected use in the morning, and to go off at 10pm

Can you think outside the box. Having (almost) knocked it down, could you rebuild as a detached house? It would mean pointing / rendering the party wall to leave it as an outside wall for the other house. But think of the advantages of detached, even if it's only detached by 6 inches, no noise from the neighbour, worth more, etc etc. The neighbour would not complain, his would also become detached.

I wired a straw bale house many years ago. There are many ways to use straw bales. In this case is was just as the insulation, not as a structural component. The bales were stacked up and the timber frame built around them, a bit like a larsen truss with a TF wall outside and inside the bales strapped together at intervals. Then the usual racking and air tightness layers. Apart from the thickness of the walls you would not know it was made of straw bales when finished. I recall they firstly had trouble finding a local farmer that still had a baler that made square bales. Then they had trouble finding a suitable weather window to cut dry and bale. Having really dry straw before it is baled is more important for something that is going to sit there for many many years. Then they had to rent a dry barn to store the bales until ready for incorporation into the build. As far as I can see, the only reason for using something like this is because you really really want to use something "natural" I cannot see it possibly being cheaper than using man made insulation.

What heating is in the en-suite and bedroom?

Another vote for wordpress. Look at my blog (in my signature) that's a standard off the peg wordpress blog. I chose the house name, partly because a reasonable domain name to match was available.

I am a bit of an old stick in the mud. I don't see much wrong with conventional controls. I have never felt the need to turn my heating on and off remotely (and even less so in the new house that uses so little heat) I once asked someone exactly why they wanted to do this. The slightly sarcastic reply went something like "It allows someone with the latest phone on an expensive monthly contract, to buy the latest expensive control system, so that when the train home from their long commute to their well paid job is late, they can turn the heating off to save a few pounds of gas."

I was thinking it will encourage people to just stick to conventional controls.

In Scotland, you can get a "certificate of temporary habitation" in a situation like yours and hmrc will accept that for a VAT claim.

I never worked it out. 150 square metre house, 1.5 storey, room in roof upstairs plus garage, all rendered.

OWL, the people that make energy monitors and smart heating controls have anounced they will start charging a subscription for the continued use of their products from 2018 I can't see an official anouncement, just hearsay on a forum at the moment. I wonder who will be next?

Our whole house and garage: Materials £4000 including the mesh and all the corner beads. Labour £4750 That was the Baumit.com render system applied to wood fibre external insulation board.

Hi and welcome to the forum. You could have joined earlier and would have been most welcome and might have got some help with the planning and appeal. Hopefully someone from Essex will be along soon with some local knowledge. There will be plenty of help and suggestions on how to build your house and what construction method etc. Remember there will be may different ways to achieve what you want so it's not as simple as what is right or wrong.

We are both self employed. It can be full on, but it beats being away from the site. For me especially, it means whenever I get time in between paid jobs, I can use even just a few minutes of spare time doing something useful. Perhaps because we are doing so much of the work ourselves makes it better? If you were just employing a builder and sat in your 'van just watching it may not be such an advantage?

I think the depths are a minimum. I have never known a DNO refuse a connection because the trench is too deep. They WILL refuse a connection (as I have seen) if the "duct" you leave for them is a bit of blue water pipe.

Definitely board it, but no need to skim. Just tape and fill the joints below worktop level, and they don't even need to be done neatly.

I battled with the notion of what is a "plant room" and what should go in it. Some people put everything in there, which I think can be a mistake. My plant room houses the mnhr unit and the buffer tank for the UFH but it does NOT house the domestic hot water tank, that would put it too far away from the taps. In my case the mvhr is in the plant room above our garage. The inlet and outlet ductwork is short. These are the only ones that carry outside temperature air and so need to be insulated to prevent condensation, so it makes sense to keep these short. I can't see it matters if the duct runs along a wall or not, it is all inside the insulated building so makes no difference. The plenums and radial ducts then go from the plant room to all other rooms, some in the first floor void, some in the (warm) loft void.

Well the instructions do say the motor is 230V but I must admit if I were trying it, it would be via my variac.

Hi Conor I have split this post into a new thread as it was not really related to the existing thread you posted it in. My gut feeling is since most UFH uses plastic pipes, it is highly likely the pipes may have been heat damaged where they exit the floor slab into the manifold. A careful examination of that area, and if they look okay a pressure test will confirm their integrity.

Do that test on the motor, and if that works, you can connect it straight to the key switch.

I am so sorry to hear of your situation Moira, and people like you that seem to be coping well with it are an inspiration to others. It shows this forum is so much more than a place to ask questions about how to build a house, and I am so glad we managed to get the forum up and running and now going from strength to strength.

Warning. This thread contains serious house porn. Likely to create envy amongst self builders who are a long way from finishing. Looks fantastic and your price per square metre sets a target for the rest of us to aim for.

Yes but it will have that switch inside even if you are not currently using the 5th large terminal. It might be simpler just to fit a timer to turn the bottom heater on in the small hours when it's on the cheap rate, probably cheaper than fitting a dedicated off peak CU.

That tells you how to mechanically assemble it. This one https://www.auto-roll.com/sites/default/files/AR433- plus instructions - updated.pdf mentions the motor colours that I posted earlier and states 230V to the motor And This one https://www.auto-roll.com/sites/default/files/AR433 Standard Remote Control Instructions.pdf mentions that power is supplied to one motor terminal for opening and the other motor terminal for closing. Hence the test I suggested above. As already pointed out, there are limit switches, so I still believe you are missing a control box probably containing some relays that the whole lot connects to.

Throughout my whole build I have been Daving loads of money.

I am not convinced you have all the parts you need. You have the roller door and motor, and you have a key switch. Where is the control box for the safe edge or limit switches to connect to? These two sets of instructions give some information https://www.auto-roll.com/sites/default/files/AR433- plus instructions - updated.pdf and https://www.auto-roll.com/sites/default/files/AR433 Standard Remote Control Instructions.pdf From those it looks like Green / Yellow is earth (no surprise there) Blue is neutral, and the black and brown are L to the motor. The other document tends to suggest one is for up and the other is for down. So if you wanted to try it (without the curtain attached) you could try L to brown and N to blue and see if it turns. Then try L to black and N to blue and see if it turns the other way. Make sure the cable not connected is insulated when trying that. If it does not turn, then disconnect the power immediately Let me know what that does. Can you see anything else with wires, e.g. end of travel limit switches or any other device that may be intended to stop motion if it traps an object?