Kelvin

The product to use to seal the end of the duct is this stuff: https://www.millsltd.com/default/cable-ducting-fttx-products/duct-sealing/filoform-duct-sealing.html It’s not cheap but it’s what I’ve used in all my ducts. Some folk will say just use silicone sealer but it doesn’t work. I had to redo the sealing the ASHP installers did. SEPA have a best practice guide for borehole headworks chambers which I followed. https://www.sepa.org.uk/media/34501/an-applicant-s-guide-to-water-supply-boreholes.pdf We don’t have a high water table so haven’t had any problems. Heavy rainfalls has allowed water to get in but the drain to lower ground deals with it. The only way to stop water getting in would have been to tank it properly.

The Rehau ‘smart’ manifold system standard install is to fit the manifolds in the room where you need the water but that’s a lot of manifolds and all the required fittings plus you need make them accessible. Our plant room is in the middle of the house with relatively short runs to the bathrooms kitchen and utility room so we have two of their 9 outlet manifolds (4 hot 5 cold in each) Very compact so take up little space. Like @JohnMo our showers are hot by the time you’re ready to get into them. 15mm pipe.

The overflow drain is typically taken outside through the wall to drain with suitable protection from freezing. If you can’t do that drain it into a bucket. The overflow will only be a problem if you have a failure. The most common failure is a blockage so the brine tank slowly fills up. It might take two or three brine regenerations before the water reaches the overflow. My tank has some scale marks on it to allow you to keep an eye on the water level in the tank. But it’s important you can see that the overflow has water running out of it (under gravity)

It’s just a small Linux box with HA installed. They do (did) the yellow version which is more powerful/flexible. You can run HA on pretty much anything though including an old laptop if you happen to have one but that’s an involved configuration. I run it on my Synology NAS for example.

My overflow wasn’t even connected. Ask me how I know. It doesn’t mean two separate drains it just means two separate connections (like your dishwasher and washing machine) My softener and nitrite treatment overflows via a pipe into the dog bath.

I just googled typical Control4 costs. Take this with a pinch of salt obviously but bloody hell it looks very dear. https://mwsmarthomes.co.uk/control4-installation-cost/

It’s also used to backfill old boreholes.

I know you’re sure where it’s coming from but have you proved it to yourself by using a hose on the window side to see if water comes in or not?

They can be quite noisy. Like a desk fan. It’s a constant noise obviously rather than on/off. Round a corner and you’ll likely not hear it. Because it’s constant, if you could hear it over time it’ll likely merge in with the background noise. If you can find someone who has MVHR it would be worth seeing if you could go and hear it for yourself.

4 weeks is fast. I was 6 months from request to working electricity. Also Octopus

During lockdown a local high end hifi dealer loaned out his shop stock to his local customers. I was in the market to update my 30 year old Tannoy DC3000 speakers to something new. I had two sets of speakers on loan. Fyne Audio F702 and PMC twenty5 26. There was very little difference between all three pairs of speakers in reality. The PMC sounded marginally better overall. The Fyne Audio had slightly better bass control. Even my son’s 21 year old ears couldn’t really hear a lot of difference. I ended up keeping the Tannoys. However I did add a sub, mostly for the movies but wired it up to the Hi-Fi too. My Hi-Fi amp doesn’t have a dedicated subwoofer output so I had to use the pre-out. The sub (an SVS SB3000) has a lot of control over it though. The Tannoys have a very good bass response but the addition of a sub really made a huge difference. But you do need a sub you can configure properly. The addition of a sub should be subtle rather than obvious.

Spoke with the Scottish Land Registry. Obviously this relates to Scotland so the information might not relate to England. 1. The land registry only particularly cares about the land so it doesn’t matter to them necessarily what subsequently gets built on it. 2. It is possible to change the entry for the title to update it with the new address. You can do this via their online portal link below. You need to provide evidence (council tax bill showing new address) It’s a free service but will take some time. https://scotlis.ros.gov.uk/title-enquiry 3. There’s no guarantee the rectification team will make the change however. Ordinarily any changes are done at the point a title is changing ownership so old title says this new title should that. 4. Title inaccuracies can cause delays when applying for a new mortgage or hold up a sale. It can take weeks to resolve so making a request to rectify before you really need to do so can stop these delays. Clearly depends on your circumstances. No mortgage or plans to sell in the immediate future then no need to change anything. We had exactly this issue with the sale of our previous house. Caused weeks of delay. Eventually only sorted because I phoned the land registry myself, explained the situation and the very helpful lady made the change while I was on the phone.

I agree but worth a call to them. Shall update here what they say.

On ours it has the the house and garage shown fairly accurately. However, on the list of properties the house isn’t listed and the land just has the original name (address) associated with it which is what’s on our title. Therefore, it’s as @ProDavesays the map is the updated OS map but the registration on the land registry is just as it was, land only. I might follow this with the Scottish land registry.

If you’re married it won’t matter but it’s always better to have stuff you jointly own in joint names. My other half has had no end of grief trying to sort her dad’s stuff out after he died because it was in his name only. Further complicated because she has PoA for her mum.

Our land registry entry (the map) has automatically been updated to show the house and garage on it. We didn’t do anything. Not sure when it happened. The land is registered in both our names.

Ours did for the foundation blocks.

Good result. Thanks for the update

I used dehumidifiers mostly and some oil filled rads set to the lowest setting on the coldest nights as they were on extension leads.

Don’t let water sit on the sealant regardless of how good it claims to be. We wipe down and dry the shower every time we use it. Done it for years and never had any mould problems.

Heb Homes and Dualchas are sister companies run by two brothers with one running Dualchas and the other running HH. Dualchas is the architectural practice doing all the bespoke stuff whereas HH are focused on building ‘off the shelf’ designs in three types of houses in the traditional Scottish style of a Longhouse, Steading, and Whitehouse. I don’t know much about Dualchas and how they design and build a bespoke house. I assume they are much the same as HH kits so either a SIP or a CPS. I note that HH have recently changed their CPS system to the Sigma II twin stud system with blown cellulose insulation. That’s a step in the right direction and you’d expect better thermal bridging performance and hopefully air tightness albeit they don’t set themselves a particularly high bar compared to say MBC, I assume because it’s easier to make sure they achieve it. Regards their ability to build to near passive standards. I saw zero evidence in my dealings with HH on any real knowledge or ability in passive or near passive builds. Also the kit erection team they used for our build have no idea what passive is. Dualchas might be more knowledgeable on the subject however. Ultimately I think it would be down to you as the home owner to do all the relevant research and ensure it was built to whatever standard you were aiming for. I couldn’t recommend HH at all. I spoke with someone recently who is currently building a HH and their experience sounds exactly like ours so nothing seems to have changed over the last two years. I can’t comment on Dualchas so it might be better run. Generally though, their houses are very attractive and sit well in the rural landscape. They also make efficient use of the interior space . Our house is performing really well so far but this will be our first winter living in it. That said most of that is down to us rather than them.

My Reolink doorbell stopped displaying a picture at night as if the IR lights had stopped working but they were fine. I marked it on the todo list to sort but it seems to have fixed itself. I have a Reolink Go Plus with a solar panel that isn’t even oriented in the most efficient way and the battery charge rarely drops below 100%.

Frames are flush which made fitting the Nordan cill on the full length windows difficult as it has a crimped edge that needs some force to make fit. The custom made cills were easier to fit but less secure so I glued them in place. Because they are flush it does make sealing around them easier. I used Wigluv tape on the outside and Pro Clima on the inside. Our walls are a space frame system with a 302mm stud depth. From outside face to inside face it’s almost 500mm. Consequently, even with the windows flush, our internal reveal is 245mm. It means we get all the performance benefit of the windows being inside the thermal envelope of the building and the deep reveal look we wanted.

The cill is 170mm deep to give us the recommended drip over the edge of the cladding. These are 3G windows so quite deep themselves. A standard timber kit SIP wall build and 3G windows fitted flush would give you a very shallow internal reveal.

You’ll need to have cills made up. Nordan don’t do them deep enough. Caused us a huge amount of grief. All our windows are flush with the kit. The French doors and sliding door have a few mm overhang but our walls are pretty wide for a timber kit so we have a deep interior and exterior reveal. I can post some pictures if it’ll help.