ProDave

This is the best value PV panel on City plumbings website https://www.cityplumbing.co.uk/p/longi-solar-hi-mo-5m-410wp-full-black-pv-module-lr5-54hpb-410m/p/787545 (without this thread I would not even have gone looking a a plumbing merchants site for PV) Technical specification Width1134 mmSTC Maximum power Pmax/W410Panel TypeFull BlackNOCT Maximum power Pmax/W410Length1722 mmHeight30 mmCertifications MetMCS: BABT8771-29/00Manufacturer Model NoLR5-54HPB-410MBrand NameLongi So that's £158.14 per kWp I would probably want 10 of those for a second 4kW PV system to that would be £648.40 Getting tempting. Anyone find anything cheaper? These are much larger panels than the ones I used a few years ago on my solar shed.

I have the browser add on "Bypass paywalls Clean" installed Which might be what allows me in.

Ok can everyone start posting links to the cheapest panels they can see on sale? Might be time to buy some more ready to go on my car port when I build it, hopefully later this year. I am more interested in cheapest ££ per watt, £/m2 does not bother me.

The key to the project is the right opportunity, and that may take a while to find. Unfortunately you can't do much actual planning until you know what that is.

On a related point, even passing meter tails through separate holes in a steel cabinet can cause issues. If you have to do that, put a hacksaw cut between the 2 holes.

Recirculating cooker hood with carbon filters and MVHR extract vent nearby but not directly coupled. Boost the MVHR rate while cooking if you want to.

I would never mount a CU on plasterboard fixings. Mark out the exact size of the CU on the wall, cut that shape out of the plasterboard, and extend the cut out sideways to reach the centre of the adjacent studs. Fill your hole now with a sheet of at least 12mm plywood, securely fixed to the adjacent studs. Fix CU to plywood. I would probably even attach a batten to the inside of the plywood in line with the mounting holes so the screws can go through the plywood into the batten. Fill joints and paint plywood.

My house and many others have proved you don't need "thermal mass" to keep a house a constant temperature. It's insulation and air tightness that does that.

Well I did it on mine and on every cylinder I have wired. NOBODY should be using a 3 port mid position valve, the work of the devil. 2 or more 2 port valves for me always. I wired the hi limit stat in mine because that is what you are supposed to do, and one less thing for BC to find to fail it if they are looking hard enough. Just because a lot of people don't bother is not reason to copy them.

WHAT temperature does she need to be comfortable? In a well insulated house, forget the concept of fast heat. A properly well insulated house will keep it's heat for a very long time, so forget the old concept of turn the heating on in the morning (when you might well want it to heat quickly) and turn it off at bed time and let the house cool down overnight. A well insulated house simply does not work like that. It heats up and stays warm. So just choose what temperature she wants and set it. It does not matter if on first heat up it takes a while to get there. It barely cools down any overnight so takes little time in the morning to heat up again. Or just leave the ASHP running 24/7 just controlled by a thermostat.

So it boils down to the definition of a "bend" Certainly 90 or even 45 degrees is a "bend" but 15 degrees?

I don't have that particular stove but I am struggling to see how the airways fill up with soot and ash? They are supplying air into the stove so so no combustion products should be going through them.

Hi and welcome. If the budget it tight, I would have thought the obvious answer was split the plot, that has PP for 2 houses, sell one half and build your house on 0.8 acres? Anything else and you are effectively paying for another building plot, just to get a bigger garden. a 56metre by 6 metre house is an odd form factor, not the most energy efficient, there must be a reason for that?

Yes there should be a duty BC officer available to take queries but his answer will be to the book, only your normal attending officer can "interpret" the rules in a more flexible way.

I don't know if I mentioned, but I used to like when we had an outside boiler in a rental house. If it ever gave problems, you could pull the burner out, point it away from the house and turn it on, and see exactly what it was or was not doing. Don't try that with an inside boiler.

It think the rules just literally say at "change of direction" On my first build, it was not possible to dig the trench right where we wanted it so we had to have a shallow in line bend, and there was much sucking through teeth from the BC inspector who said I really shouldn't allow that, but he did in the end.

Well he definitely won't get paid now.

We used ibeams for the ground floor, no services under there other than services coming up through the floor so no cutting of webs. Posi joists for first floor, plenty of room for all services without having to butcher anything. I only wired one house with first floor ibeams, plenty of work drilling the webs and keeping within approved drilling zones. the plumber seemed more "flexible" about where and what size he drilled. Why make it difficult?

Yes all outside walls and service battens in place before first fix. I have tried once, to first fix before outer walls complete, you just have to leave lots of ends dangling to be completed later when the walls are ready, right PITA, never again. The one thing the electrician can do before then is get all the cables exiting the walls e.g for outside sockets, outside lights, ASHP etc, get all those through the wall so they can be sealed up as the final insulation layer goes on and you should then be able to carry on without making any more holes in the walls.

In my case I have the ASHP probe in the centre thermostat pocket and the mechanical thermostat in the upper pocket. The mechanical thermostat is only there in my case to satisfy the G3 regs of an unvented cylinder, to close the motorised valve feeding the UVC in the event of it over heating. But since it is impossible for an ASHP to heat the water hot enough to worry an UVC it is a theoretical possiblility and I never expect it to operate. But rules are rules, it has to be there. @Cyberfruits that link in your post above asks me to sign into google drive or something like that, I suspect that is not what you wanted to post.

The problem with this "whole roof" PV idea is you need to choose the panels at design time and know the size of them, and then design the roof to be an integer number of panels in each direction. And solar panels don't seem to be made to standard sizes. So you either want to order your panels as soon as you draw your plans based on that size, or hope and prey that the size you want is still available when you actually come to build it. Then because supply of that size of panels is not guaranteed into the future, you might want to buy some spares and store them away safely. The next obstacle is a bug bear of mine, we have a stupid system where anything over 3.6kW may not be allowed by your DNO or may only be allowed if you pay for upgrades. If we are going to have lots of PV on every roof, that limitation is the one big obstacle that needs removing.

That is certainly a water thermostat. It is a bulb on the end of a capilliary tube that slides into a thermostat pocket in the cylinder. the grey plastic cover contains the actual thermostat and the fact it is slightly wonky is of no consequence. That looks quite low down for the normal thermostat position, I assume there is an alternative thermostat pocket nearer the mid height of the ctlinder? If you are heating it with an ASHP there is very often a temperature sensor supplied with the ASHP as well.

In my house heat pump power consumption is only about 1/3 of total power used.

Ask the council. If they don't know then it won't matter what you submit.

Can you see where the green/yellow wire that exits the meter box bottom left goes to?