Marvin

Hi @karl mcilwain Start out with the end in mind. The biggest constraint is usually... money! Considering the state of the economy and your personal circumstances, decide what your budget is. After that, list your "must haves", below this your "prefers", and then "it would be nice" items. If you manage to be within your budget and go further down the list than "must haves" - well done! A rough design is next. with basic information. For example: " a single story extension with a flat roof 2.4 meters by 3 meters with one window" " a double story extension with a pitched roof 4 meters by 6 meters with a new kitchen and French doors out to the garden." " a loft conversion with a bedroom and 2 Velux windows in the roof 4 meters long and 2.5 meters wide" " a loft conversion with 2 bedrooms, a shower room with a loo and sink, 7 meters long and 3 meters wide with 3 dormer windows." Give everybody something to work with..... Good luck Marvin PS. Watch every episode of Grand Designs and learn the mistakes, what puts the price up and what the expensive items are.

A few thoughts How many people in the building? How many bedrooms? Do you have a south facing pitched roof that is not shaded? You have about 1200 hours of sun a year. We have PV, a hot water cylinder and an excess power diverter. And it works very well.

Hi @Fogg It's common to speak of the build cost as the average amount of pounds spent per square meter of floor space constructed. I have heard of figures between £1000 and £2000 per square meter for a build cost. Find the internal floor area and this would be a starting point in my opinion. Other people I'm sure will add about which necessary items are not included in this figure. Watch every episode of grand designs, and learn some of the mistakes to avoid and where the big costs are. Good luck Marvin.

Excellent! We do the same but with our immersion and ASHP.

Hi @canalsiderenovation Yes. As you are not being paid for the power. We do. New ASHP £5k? New immersion £50? Also we have super insulated our tank and loose little heat so heat the water higher than required and it lasts more than a day (a day that could be no sun and we would have to use the ASHP). We use weather compensation mode in the winter and I have adjusted the hot water temp to the lowest practical hot water setting. Basically any time the water drops to the level set the ASHP will heat the hot water, otherwise the solar diverter will take over and raise the temp to 60°C. Good luck Marvin

Hi @four_candles Sounds interesting. In my humble opinion: You should start with client requirements. Before you go looking at what someone else thinks you want, draw up a list of the items you typically find in a 4 bed house and divide between what you do want and what you don't want. If this is your forever home you'd better be thinking about level access from the street, through the house and out into the garden, a little bit wider internal doors and a down stairs loo and shower. If this is your forever home you should spend more money installing insulation than on installing heating. Lots of help on BH. Good luck. Marvin

Rule 2 of Grand designs decide on a building that will cost way too much. Oh and congratulations.

Work scheme designed properly and carried out compentently I would expect there to be no problem. However impossible to determine without detailed information.

COOLENERGY Invertec ASHPs: Fuse for this should be a Type C MCB. See installation manual page 15. Cable for a 10kW could be 4mm, 6mm, 10mm,16mm.... depending on what cable and how your fixing/what your fixing it to or encasing it in. A good example to help: https://www.doncastercables.com/technical-help/ Good luck Marvin

I think they are referring to the length of the screws: https://www.toolstation.com/drywall-black-phosphate-phillips-screw/p39626?utm_source=googleshopping&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=googleshoppingfeed&mkwid=_dc&pcrid=&pkw=&pmt=&gclid=CjwKCAjwoIqhBhAGEiwArXT7K3NK8eSTXD41__TXnzGfqcA8-GCdC5GO91Z2LDTVImlZGmxJDWUjRBoCHmwQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Building regs approved document K https://www.planningportal.co.uk/applications/building-control-applications/building-control/approved-documents/part-k-protection-from-falling-collision-and-impact/approved-document-k

hi @Andehh Not sure a hand rail would be enough. If you remove the stub wall, then I think you would need a banister set. You may need 3 forms of protection: One to stop children's heads going through a barrier. Two 900mm high protection at kitchen level. Three a hand rail to the stairs. In my humble opinion, the blue rails would be an option but not the rails at kitchen level. Good luck Marvin

Hi @WindowNerd MVHR: Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery. How MVHR works. A mechanical ventilation and heat recovery (MVHR) unit will usually contain two fans; one to push fresh air through the heat exchanger and into the building and the other to pull the wet stale air through a separate circuit and out of the building. An MVHR system recovers about 75% of the heat that would otherwise have been expelled outside with the stale air.

+1 having read @Canski's reply.

Hi @Sailchick If you live in Malta you will have different weather to the UK. With low temperatures typically averaging 9C in December, January I'm surprised you require such a large ASHP. However this could be due to very poor insulation or summer cooling requirement. A buffer tank is usually used to store a volume of water to help the heating system work properly and a Solar collector is usually used to supply water heated by the sun to heat up a tank full for hot water use . In the UK one does not work the same as the other. Malta has between 50 and 100% more sun a year than England, with an average of 5 hours a day in December (something unheard of in England!) I would have thought a solar collector supplying all the heat for your hot water was a given (everyone would have one installed in Malta??) However this has nothing to do with a buffer tank which adds more volume of water to your heating system. A buffer tank is often used when there are several zones of heating pipework individually turned off and on which reduce the available water to heat passing through the ASHP. This can cause the ASHP to heat up and then stop, heat up and stop, and so on, in short succession (called cycling). In tests an ASHP is best run with times of heating up exceeding 10 minutes, ideally about 20 minutes??. If you only have a small amount of water running through the ASHP it could stop heating before reaching optimum efficiency costing you more money to run. The solution to this is to install a buffer tank that will hold more water increasing the amount of water available. the buffer tank heats up (which takes longer because of the volume) and cools down slower for the same reason. As @IanR comments, the decision making about a buffer tank is: Good luck Marvin.

I used to work about 40 hours actual work, plus 5 hours doing quotes, plus 4 hours on material ordering, hours over the year doing paperwork, accounts, sorting out insurance, van alarms, van broken into and materials/ tools stolen, van rear ended and written off meaning no work for 2 weeks. No pension. Paying thousands to qualify to be gas safe (Corgi at the time), unpaid weeks of work to attend courses. At the time I made about £12 an hour for my wages.

Hi @WindowNerd In my humble opinion I think that peoples health should be the first issue. Use a cleaning product that has a small amount of bleach in it and clean all the window frame to kill the spores. There are many types of common mould that can cause serious health issues. Laying in a room for hours breathing in the spore riddled soup can damage a person for the rest of their life. I know this doesn't solve the problem, but please just keep cleaning off any mould you find in the mean time. I'm no expert. I would guess it could be Stachybotrys or Ulocladium. This should give you an indication as to what level of mask you should be wearing: https://www.familyhandyman.com/list/common-types-of-mold-in-the-home/ Typical cleaning material: https://www.screwfix.com/p/no-nonsense-mould-mildew-cleaner-1ltr/31686?kpid=31686&ds_rl=1243318&ds_rl=1241687&ds_rl=1245250&ds_rl=1245250&gclid=Cj0KCQjwlPWgBhDHARIsAH2xdNdLOoG0lhEnvUK81YnbRoCED47isNirvpUt_ZbURA0k9KUB7RXDyDcaAp3iEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds Good luck M

Yes. I've had started producing scripted answers which I hope will be comprehensive enough and yet help. We should employ an AI to sort the basics....

Our water softener softens everything except our water filter tap in the kitchen, the outside tap, and the water supply for the heating system.

We have the same 125 extracts with no grease. However we rarely cook greasy food and we have an extractor hood above the hob which pulls air through a charcoal filter and back out into the room at the top of the kitchen wall units. 4 years no problem with the MVHR. (we have a boost button for the MVHR in the kitchen and a humidity sensor)

I though CO alarms were mandatory, er.., or not in Scotland?

I think Vonjy Rajakoba is right, it doesn't make sense. Yes you can do it, but who would want to pay the energy bill to run it? Does BOSCH have a vested interest in promoting something else? Sure! Does this make the comment invalid? No! Do I have an ASHP in my home? Yes. Would I install one in my home if it was an older home that lacked extensive insulation and was not detached? NO! WHY? Because it would cost too much to run! The report is absolutely right @TW9! However, did you see anywhere that the reports discussed energy costs? I didn't.

Hi @BarumMike The problem here is defining the air entering your existing kitchen now, I'm sure it's plenty, but how much? If you improve the air tightness will what is left be enough? Not that this gives you an answer, it just defines the problem. (hopefully)

Surely your Gassafe engineer will advise you when inspecting the equipment and location! A CO detector is, I think, obligatory, as is an unobstructed air supply (usually an air brick through the external wall). Also the gas AGA instructions for your model of AGA will list installations requirements. Good luck M

Hi @Wil We had about 190kWh's in December 2022. Oh and our hot water tank is super insulated (immersion and cables protected) by the equivalent of about 300mm of fluffy and the original insulation (205 litre tank). ALL pipes super insulated (LOTS of insulation) We basically improved anything we could to reduce heat loss.