Strak

Thanks. I also just found this site which had a video that explains the principles, with some very fancy animation: https://www.paulheatrecovery.co.uk/mvhr-and-ventilation-products/blumartin-freeair100-demand-controlled-cascade-mvhr/ That seems to have intelligent vents in each room to control what is flowing where. The website has a couple of retrofit solutions, but both look to be for smaller properties. I'll keep digging on this. Thanks - that's encouraging. I actually do think it would be possible but architect is skeptical. I have the tenacity, half an engineering brain but two kids so not quite enough time to plan it all out properly! We're about to have a bunch of work done around the property which will involve lifting floorboards everywhere and replacing loft joists which is the ideal time to do it. I'm trying to figure things out before that work starts, and running out of time. Two of the rooms have unused chimney breasts (all to be sealed up) and I'm wondering if they would be suitable for running the ducting down. I think an issue there would be that the temp inside the chimney would be much cooler than the rooms of the house which will be internally insulated. Plus I'm not sure how feasible it is to get ducting down a chimney breast and back out where I want it to go. Does a transfer grille mean this sort of thing https://www.safelincs.co.uk/fire-rated-intumescent-air-transfer-grilles/?sku=PPATGFPS2251&ppcGeneral&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21280659513&gclid=Cj0KCQiAo4TKBhDRARIsAGW29bdZzDnAdMJjg83hpn7cdlyOtgRQ9K3vlmmxJCyJPmaZLv_X3QbmujYaAun1EALw_wcB where I can only get a duct to one room? Duct to that room, then transfer grille into the next room to allow airflow? Sounds like the principle of a cascade system, which I think could suit me well.

I know it's quote old now, but this thread caught my eye, and specifically the idea of cascade with normal MVHR unit. I'm also looking at a retrofit, figuring out if ducting is possible, but there are definitely tricky areas. Do you have any suggested reading material or companies to look at JohnMo? A guess on the name of it - is the idea that I would have MVHR to some locations, and then ventilation between rooms where it's too difficult to get a duct from the MVHR unit?

@Conor @Super_Paulie yes plans are passed. It's actually a fairly typical size extension for the area, just happens that the two houses either side haven't done it. We actually consciously downsized some parts of it as we felt many extensions in the area were too bulky. We even built a little mockup out of lolly sticks and card to check that it didn't look crazy big and it looked pretty nice (in my opinion!). The screenshots I sent make it look bulkier than it is because of the perspective - there's an angled wall that's quite hard to see in this one but it was the best picture to show the wall I'm talking about. Anyway, each to their own and thanks for the 250mm tip 🙂

It's a fair point and yes we would move if we could, but in the area I'm in bigger properties are prohibitively expensive, as we know from having recently missed out on purchasing something else which is why we're continuing down this route as a phased build.

Oops, good spot, thanks - screenshotted the wrong bit. I'll update that later, although wall and foundation structure are the same.

Hello everyone, I wonder if I could pick the group's brains regarding line of junction notices. I'm struggling a little to get hold of my neighbour who rents out their property in order to discuss and sign party wall consent, and the same for line of junction. I'm in the process of writing an email summarising all they need to know about the two documents. I have it handled for the party wall stuff, but there's something I'm unsure of with the line of junction that I want to double check. We're in a semi detached property, and we're adding a ground floor rear extension which has a wall against the neighbours garden. In the image below from the structural engineer, the wall on the left of the picture butts up against the garden. What it looks like now (ours is the house in the middle with the glass conservatory): (by the way, for those of you following my thread about asbestos removal which turned out not to contain asbestos - it was for the garage you see in this drawing, and it has now gone!) Future: As you can see this carries on the line where our conservatory is now - foundations will need to be replaced obviously, but this is just carrying on an existing line). Engineers drawings: And now, a summary of the things I'm getting myself confused about .... When I read the .gov.uk website, it seems that for a new wall wholly on my land I just need to notify and that's it. As you can see in the engineering drawings, the foundation is wider than the wall (unless I'm reading them incorrectly?), meaning that if I built a wall right up to the boundary but not over it, the foundation would need to go under it - is that still building the wall wholly on my land because the visible wall is on my land? I asked our architect about this and he was of the opinion that consent would not be necessary as we're not building over the boundary, but as you can see in the drawings the fence has been removed, which is maintained by that neighbour, and I don't think we can reasonably take out a fence without any form of consent. If I build right up to the edge of my land but not over it, is it a silly thought to try to leave the fence in place butted right against the wall to avoid complications with the neighbour? (maybe agreeing with the tenants to remove the fence panels to build up the wall, then put them back in) The option requiring consent is to build a wall astride the boundary - similar to the questions above, and to simplify it a bit, is that essentially similar to replacing the middle of my new wall replacing their fence I've also read a few things online about building 50mm from the boundary, but not on any official site - is that just a red herring, or is there some basis to it? Because communication has been difficult (not angry or rude, just very hard to get hold of) with the neighbour until now, I want to be as clear as I can on my options and hopefully find a nice simple way forward. My ideal position would be something like - "we're building right up to the fence as per the planning permission, and if you would like us to remove it so you don't have to maintain that section anymore, we will do that". Any friendly thoughts appreciated!!

Sorry hadn't looked at the site for a while and only just saw this question. It's this one, available from their site or Amazon: Sample Only Kit – Asbestos-Sampling.com. It's the sample only kit without protective clothing, mask, etc. as I already had those. I think the £50 kits come with gloves, suit and probably a mask. I've had one before - the gloves were thin latex gloves, and the suit was one of those paper like ones. They were fine for the job, although I'm sure not worth £20, but I happened to have some anyway so just went for the cheaper one.

Yeah the test was £35, or a bit more if you need to get mask and disposal overalls with it so in my case a worthwhile investment! I'm hoping I can get someone to buy the whole garage on eBay, even if for 1p, and come and take it away for their own use. Maybe wishful thinking though.

Pleasantly surprised to get the test results back today with the result NADIS ... No asbestos detected in sample. So here ends my search for a way to dispose of it! @gaz_moose I haven't had a reply to me request for a quote for disposal only but will update this thread if I do.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'm not sure I have room for another unit outside though - assuming you mean this sort of thing when you mention the external unit? https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/p/iqool24b/tcl-iqool24b-air-conditioner

It's a refurb with an extension and loft conversion, pretty significant changes to the layout of most of the house.

Good tip, thanks. I I have seen that some controllers are able to look at weather forecasts, and wondering if they would help here. From the Vaillant site: Weather compensation is technology that uses environmental data to understand the thermal behaviour in and around a property. The weather compensation feature on Vaillant’s smart controls uses weather forecast data to understand the outside temperature. It then adjusts the heat going to the radiators or underfloor heating system for optimum efficiency. I have no idea how to go about doing that! Is that something I should expect an installer who's designing the system to be able to help with? I've only had a heat loss survey so far. I also visited a family friend recently who's done a full refurb of their house, and was really happy with his choice to install a heat recovery system. I haven't yet posted about that, but wondering if a fan coil for cooling would be something that I add later into that system if needed. The fan coil units I'd want to put in this place would be the units for ducting, so only vents in the actual rooms - I don't know if that makes much difference to the noise level?

Ok - it was just a link to a survey that is publicly available I came across when looking for surveys in this area, but I extracted the important text about the ground makeup anyway and put it in the post so all good 🙂

Ahh I see. I mentioned cooling as the posts I had seen were people using underfloor heating zones for heating, and fan coil as cooling zones only I think. Is efficiency lost in using air rather than ufh, or is that choice likely to be related to noise? If I need a 6kw heat pump to heat my house, should that also be capable of cooling the same space to a useful level? I've also started reading up on heat recovery systems (might end up as another thread on here!) - can they share the same ducting as the fan coil units?

Thanks for that link - useful page, and interesting ideas about using fancoil units for cooling.