ProDave

My Very rough DIY air tightness test was about 0.8ACH I now find that test was done with a 40mm waste uncapped, so open to the vented stack, so should be better now? Timber frame, wood fibre outside then rendered, average wall roof and floor U values about 0.14 average window UW values about 0.9 So how many KWh will it take to raise 79 sheets of plasterboard by 1 degree? then there is the 2 layers of OSB on the inside of the frame before the heat even reaches the insulation. What is bugging me is okay the house takes a lot of heat to warm it up. Why then do people find 3KWh of input from a WBS overheats the room so it can't be used for days? It would seem to me if my house had been allowed to cool down, it could quite hapilly absorb many hours of input from a WBS before it got too hot. Why is my house so different to those that reported that issue?

So our house is pretty well complete from an insulation and airtightness perspective. There are still a few outstanding items that will improve it later, but it is basically there. With the trees to the south of us in leaf, there is little solar gain, perhaps some in the afternoon through the west facing windows. Consequently it seems to sit pretty much averaging the outside temperature (over many days) and only changing temperature inside slowly. In the spring we had a hot spell and the inside of the house remained cool without overheating, remaining at below outside temperature for many days. I took that as a good sign. Summer has ended abruptly here. It's 10 degrees, cloudy most of the time, wet and windy and has been for some time. the house remains at about 15 degrees inside (still cooling down) Now (and this is where I think it's not performing as expected) I decided to introduce some heat to the house. Before I post any details, I have input the house size, U values etc into Jeremy's spreadsheet and with a 5 degree difference between inside and out, we should have a heating demand of 376W just to maintain the present temperature. The permanent heating (ASHP and UFH) is not ready yet so I have a little plug in fan heater in the house now. With no thermostat on it I only run it when I am in the house. It's only a 1KW heater and from the spreadsheet 376W of that is just replacing the heat lost, so 624W should be heating the internal fabric of the house up. Over the last 24 hours that has been on a total of about 10 hours, so 6.2KWh of heat has been pumped into the house. That has only raised the internal temperature 1 degree. I read on this forum if Jeremy runs his hoover too long the room overheats. If someone lights a 3KW WBS then in an hour (3KWh of input) the room has overheated and can't be used for days. So why has 6KWh of heat input to my house had negligible effect? I am not concerned. Yet. It is the heat required to maintain equilibrium that matters, not how much it takes to heat the fabric of the building when it is cold. but it is not "ringing true" with what I read here about modest amounts of heat input seriously overheating a well insulted house very quickly. For further information. the house is plasterboarded upstairs but no doors are yet on. Downstairs it is not plasterboarded so in effect one big room. The MVHR is on, and appears to be working. Outside air is 10 degrees. Extracted air from the rooms (measured at the plenum box) is 15 degrees, and supply air also measured at the plenum box measures at 15.2 degree so somehow very slightly higher than extracted air. This at least shows the heat recovery is working.

So he sold you the wrong item. I repeat my claim it is not fit for the purpose you specifically asked for so it IS their problem.

I say no, but I don't know the labour rates where you are. All the testing is done, so the "testing" bit of a normal consumer unit swap is done. The replacement CU will cost less than £100. It would only be a couple of hours work to swap it, but let's be generous and allow half a day (the new CU will come with all the stickers) So he's saying £400 for half a days work or £800 per day. I somehow suspect labour rates are not that high where you are?

Perhaps not that simple. searched a bit and found the same issue with a Danfoss controller. Now if this IS some more nanny state dictat about having to enforce a service interval, then is should be made CLEAR that some models have this "feature" and is should still be possible to buy them without, e,g for an electric boiler.

Yes, but do the instructions state this is ONLY to be used for controlling a gas boiler, and ONLY to be installed by gas safe engineer? If not, then Drayton are at fault. What if it was controlling an oil or electric boiler? (which yours in effect is) I like @PeterW idea.It's probably what I would do (get a friend or your wife to buy it and return it from the same supplier that sold you the programmer)

Perhaps the forum needs reset tool in it's loan stock? If the instructions do not make it clear this feature is turned on and you need an expensive tool to turn it off, then I still say it is not fit for purpose. I would be arguing that point very strongly. There is a gas safe plumber in the village, when I next see him I will ask if he has this tool.

Where did you buy it? How long is the guatantee? If >1 year, return it as "faulty" I have never heard of this nonsense before. Thanks for mentioning it, I know now to avoid Drayton programmers. The place for a timer to enforce servicing intervals is INSIDE the boiler, not in a bloody programmer. I would even argue with the supplier if out of guarantee that it is not "fir for purpose" in the condition it is supplied.

It's actually Tescon Vana (made by Pro Clima) tape, in case you have trouble finding it. I got it cheaper from Germany via an ebay seller. Siga Sicrall is another one but even more expensive.

My plumber friend just dug a hole and burried all his offcuts.......

Why do they want the floor boards to be a tight fit up to the wall? what about a small expansion gap? Skirting board will cover any gap so why wanting it so tight?

That looks like a TNS or TNCS supply (subject to confirmation) so the up front rcd is unecessary. The MEM CU. Proper MEM rcbo's are hard to find and expensive. Wylex ones will fit but the mix and match police will tell you that is dangerous. So on balance a new up to date split load CU is probably the best solution and should be a straightforward swap. Sell that one MEM rcbo on ebay.

So before fixing your last sheet of PB, collect all your offcuts and stick them mosaic fashion to the back of the last board using some sticks like s*it or similar. If you want to do this yourself, look out for all my offcuts for sale in the market place soon, only a little bit more than buying a new sheet (my dad once asked a builders merchant why it was that crazy paving cost more than whole paving slabs, the reply was to pay for the time it took to break them up.)

The only thing I can add to this, if using a membrane, is Protect Barriair is a lot cheaper than Intello.

Yes but then a single 30mA rcd for everything raises other issues (hence the compromise of dual rcd split boards that "solve" that issue but are still a compromise.) I would just update the other socket circuits and shower to an rcbo, unless it's a particularly unusual board where the rcbo's are hard to obtain or very expensive. @pocster Still waiting for a piccy of the CU But this guy is going to charge loads of dosh to slap some stickers on. Another thing that "annoyed" me is he noted poor earth on a class 2 fitting, even mentioned "loose terminal" so he must have opened the fitting, seen the loose terminal, and put it back together thinking "that's another job ££££££" FFS If I opened a fitting and saw a loose earth terminal I would just tighten it and put the item back together. Perhaps that's why I am short of money? One could argue if he indeed had found a loose terminal and put it back together knowing it was defective then in the event of someone then getting killed by that item he would be guilty by his negligence? I am not prepared to take that chance and if I find a loose terminal I bloody well tighten it.

No requirement to change CU's to non combustible, bur a LOT of electricians seem to think so and C2 it then charge you for an unecessarry CU change. I was offered the remedials from a landlords EICR and that was one of the things he had put. I challenged the original electrician and he changed it to a C3. I still don't agree a missing sticker is a C2, if it is this industry has gone barmy.

In our last house, we left 2 trap doors to access the under floor void (air tightness was not on my agenda then, there are no trap doors in the new house) Under the floor we put all the spare and even the offcuts of all the floor and wall tiles used. Partly as somewhere to keep them in case a spare was ever needed and partly to save carting a load of heavy stuff to the tip. Spare PB in a wall cavity would be okay as long as it's packed tight. Loose bits may "rattle " if someone bangs the wall? If I were to do something like that, it won't be until the end of the job, and then they would probably go in the garage walls, rather than in any of the internal house walls. On a related subject, another self builder here had loads and loads of offcuts of insulation batts. He was going to take them to the tip in several trips in his car. They are now in my garage. They are all too small to be of any use for wall insulation (to small to wedge them in place) but will make perfect under floor insulation in my sun room, filled from above before the floor goes down. It's good to use someone else waste and save money at the same time. I think what @Nickfromwales was trying to describe was T*****L M**S

Because I have not yet finished, NONE of my offcuts have yet been disposed of, you never know where they might come in handy. They are free to dispose of but I won't mention how. I think my key tip to being eficcient is not to be in a hurry. Two examples, when you get an offcut, take a walk around and see if there is somewhere it would fit with only minor trimming, if so put it there for when you get there. Likewise if you come to a small piece needed and don't have one, do NOT cut it from a full sheet. Leave it. Sooner or later an offcut of the right size will tuen up and you then go back and fit the mising piece. The MVHR connects to the input and exhaust ducts, and the plenum boxes with some large semi flexible aluminium insulated duct that was left over from when my plumber friend installed his. Here is a picture The external insulation is 100mm thick Pavatex (other makes are available) wood fibre board and rendered with the Baumit.com render system

Hi and welcome to the forum. My house is clad with wood fibre (Pavatex) and rendered so in due course we can discuss that. There should be some interesting conversations to be had as this project unfolds.

What was good though with all those angles, is how easy it was to find a home for the offcut. Some people talk of filling a whole skip with plasterboard offcuts. I doubt all my offcuts added together equate to more than 1 sheet.

Sorry, you need a different electrician. "C2= Potentially dangerous, Urgent remedial action required." A missing label is NOT dangerous. His coding that as a C2 imho makes everything else he says very dubious and not to be trusted. Some observations may be true, but I no longer trust his judgement. Sorry to say he sounds like the dodgy mot tester looking for trivial faults. What does @Onoff think? Regardless, the missing rcd protection from some circuits can be fixed with a few rcbo's at a LOT less than £500, no need to change that up front 100mA rcd.

A new entry in my blog at http://www.willowburn.net/ documents the plasterboarding of most of the upstairs Look for the entry called "Plasterboarding upstairs" (i'll bet you would never have guessed that) It's actually a very short entry for what has been well over a months (part time) work with just me and Kathy fitting all the boards.

Talk to other electricians. They certainly should be able to do the remedial work. And with a recent test report to work from, their own test should not take so long.

As with all things, you have the option of a different electrician. Are there other rcd's or rcbo's in the consumer unit? (picture of your CU?) A 100mA up front rcd is usually fitted up front on a TT earth install. There might well be others e.g feeding sockets and showers. If not, upgrading by changing to an rcbo for those circuits may be the cheapest option. Hell for £500 I would expect a new consumer unit, not just an rcd change. Making such a fuss over the labels is a bit like an MOT tester saying your seat belt is very slightly worn and needs replacing. I would replace the MOT tester. Do the EM lights need replacing because they are dud (batteries dead) or because there are not enough or in the wrong places?

In the last house, SWMBO tried planting things, fruit bushes, little flower beds surrounded by stones. they were all just a damned nuisance to get the mower round, weeding them to keep them looking nice took way more time than mowing a lawn ever did. They ended up neglected and tatty. I could not be without a front lawn. the garage is alongside the house, so no front lawn would mean the garage opening straight onto the road with nowhere to park in front of it. I would not want that, I doubt the planners would allow it. In a rural plot where you have to install your own drainage, a lot of land is taken up providing for that. most of it ends up covered in soil and you would never know what lurks below, so you can't even build a rural house on a tiny plot with no garden. I did consider garden space when planning. But mainly from a point of view where am I going to park 3 cars, a caravan, a boat on it's trailer, and a small general purpose trailer, where they won't look silly or too ugly, and where they won't block the view from the house. Then there are sheds, at least 3, a general purpose garden tools shed, a wood shed and a bike shed. Oh and not to mention the static caravan that is currently our home but later will become a workshop and studio.