Strak

@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.

Any idea of the criteria used to decide if the planning application is approved or not? Agree, I can't put my finger on why this would be. There must be some convoluted logic to explain it, but I don't know what it is!

Based in Cambridge, and the installer is from fairly nearby. From what I read in the manual (quoted somewhere earlier in this thread) some aerotherm models come with that resistor already installed.

Alliance asbestos: Asbestos Removal in Cambridgeshire & UK - Alliance Asbestos Services (alliance-asbestos-services.co.uk) - I have used them before for something else, I know they're genuine and would do a good and safe job. Also got a quote from JS Removals | Asbestos | Rubbish | House Clearances - no experience with them, just the quote was easy to do as via whatsapp. Both came to £695 + VAT (edit: just realised that JS Removals are east midlands so nowhere near me anyway). I have looked at this site: Asbestos Removal Garage | Safe:Environment (safe-environment.co.uk) and their instant quote comes out at £450 ish, but the problem is that I have no idea if they would dispose of the waste safely, and there's no information on their site about that. When I get the quote in for just collection I'll post an update here. Mine is 2 sheets per year 😀 Parents are nearby with a different council and I think it's unlimited but you pay £90 for every 100 kilos, I still have no idea how much a roof sheet weighs though!

Crikey, so even being generous with the upper limit of those, assuming about a week to install it seems like I'm paying about £1k (probably a bit more) per day labour in this quote? ... if that's the case I'm expecting the other quotes to come in a fair bit lower!

Indeed - one of my concerns! Any guide on what would feel like a reasonable figure @MrPotts? That pump unit seems to be around £3.5k + VAT based on a quick search.

Nice, thanks - looks like the ASHP they proposed does do cooling. From the manual: Depending on the country, the product has the heating mode or heating and cooling mode function. Products that are delivered at the factory with no cooling mode are labelled with "S2" in the nomenclature. For these units, an optional accessory can be used to subsequently activate the cooling mode. It is activated and operated via the indoor unit's control and the optional system control

Indeed, I am researching 🙂 The main installer I'm in contact with is in favour of ASHP (clearly the cheaper option), I have no worries about being misled by them on the technology. Experience with them so far talking through options is actually very positive compared to several other installers I've spoken with who don't seem to be as knowledgeable. That said, I don't know whether the quotes I'm getting through are a reasonable cost, so I'm also waiting to get a couple of other ASHP ones. The following is their indicative proposal, coming out at £15290 (£7790 after boiler upgrade scheme discount). Does it seem like it's in the right ballpark? I've seen some much lower prices advertised by Octopus I think, so wondering if the other quotes are going to come in a fair bit lower. Vaillant aroTHERM Plus 7kW Inverter driven ASHP Heat pump controller Heat Pump hot water cylinder as required Buffer tank as required Electrical connections as required Full installation pipe lagged with superior Armaflex insulation MCS Electrical meter MCS Certificate Building control notification Internal and external pipe runs are not included at this stage, the price for this will be assessed during a survey @JohnMo what would need to be added to that proposal to provide cooling? On the GSHP proposal a Nibe PCM S40 passive cooling kit was added, is there something similar for ASHP? Any idea if could setting it up for cooling impact eligibility for the BUS discount? (I read somewhere that it could, but think that might have been part of the anti heat pump fake news).

Nope ... Good point - I'll do that!

Thanks - useful to see those figures, looks pretty good really. If your ASHP is behind the shed, how far away is that from the house? I could potentially locate it a bit further down the garden I suppose, although may have problems doing that and keeping away from the boundary.

I'm unsure on the consistent bills bit, that's why I was asking really - I find that there is a lot of conflicting information online about any form of heat pump, so it's hard to know what is factual. Regarding passive cooling - I'm referring to circulating the liquid underground to cool it to the ambient 15 ish degrees with no energy used other than to pump the liquid, then supply at 17-20 degrees inside the house, essentially for free. I (perhaps mistakenly) thought that air source wasn't capable of this because the ambient temperature is warmer, so cooling would be active - using energy. It's good to know your experience is good with the noise level - it's not a huge concern - I think the likely installation point for an ASHP in our side alley would be far enough away from any windows and doors to be noticed. May I ask why you made this decision even with a borehole already available?

I have no experience with this type of thing to know how much it is likely to vary in a small area, but the closest deep BGS hole I can find is about half a mile from me. The hole is 102 metres with this makeup: Built up ground: 1 metre Grey/white soft chalk: 14 metres Green clay: 37 metres Green sands: 2 metres Gritty black/grey mudstone: 19 metres Gritty clay some hard horizons: 29 metres Survey scan link: (removed as it shares personal information) There are some 50m holes in the opposite direction but they are much older and the scans are harder to read, but they also mention clay, chalk and green sands.

Mainly for the more consistent energy bill, and passive cooling in the summer. I am looking at ASHP as an option too though. Did you notice a significant drop in efficiency at -10, and did it get noisy at all?