Post and beam

My worry would be what caused the failure and is it likely, or already present, on others.

Kitchen extracts too close together. Why are there supply ducts to Kitchen? and they are too close to the extracts. Are the external vents 2 metres apart? What physical size MVHR unit do you want, will it fit through the loft hatch? A brink 400 will not fit through a standard hatch. Ask me how i know. On the face of it this installation looks like it will be easy from the loft , just string the ducting along the joists and drop 90 degrees into your ceiling outlets. No need for anyone else to do it if you are handy with a screwdriver. What ceiling vents have you chosen and how will you handle the 90 degree turn? I ask because the Ubbink ones need to be mounted on some kind of standoff in the loft to get the correct location at the plasterboard interface. Did that make sense?

As already stated, nothing. I have the 16 port versions of the Ubbink distribution units. But i was also advised, on here, to install the large rectangular inline 'one in one out' silencers as well.

I have 9 supply and 6 extract of 90mm Ubbink, which is what those pictured above seem to be. My MVHR unit is in the loft. To get from the loft to the ground floor ceiling i had a double stud wall designed into the Potton kit with a 100mm gap. This allowed me to hide the vertical drops neatly. Potton said ' oh thats a good idea'. Manipulating the ducts 90 degrees to get them into the Posi joists at the ground floor ceiling was the hardest bit. And remembering to lay them in the correct order such that they weren't needing to cross each other as they distributed away to the ground floor rooms. The trick is ,you need to try to get the twists out as you go because its a total bastard to think ' i'll sort that once its in'. Ask me how i know. Only other real issue was trying to remember and calculate what end pieces and joins you might need to clip it all together. Waiting for the little bits that you forgot to order is painful. I have to say the Ubbink ducting is brilliant. If you ever played with Lego as a kid you will appreciate the way it just works and clicks together 'just so'.

What i saw at the show when i looked inside their unit. Cheap looking bent tin and electronics that looked like a 4th form GCSE project using an Arduino. Untidy & cheap looking. Their summer by-pass was an extra cost add on, dont like that. Rega vents design was a branched idea as well which i expressly did not want.

That was my opinion when i saw inside one. They were at one of the shows and made the mistake of having the side of a unit open on their trade stand for all to see. That was a big mistake.

Our first price for MVHR supply & fit was via the timber frame company. This was £7500. Supplier would have been Rega vent of Biggleswade. Once i had seen the unit in question i decided it was a piece of junk. So i decided that if i could do the install myself for less than £7500 i would be up on the deal. I did achieve this.

No need to spend £10k. I am guessing that you are talking about new build. The ducting can be physically challenging to manipulate. I used 90mm ubbink and installed it all myself. 3 x rolls of 50 metre ducting for a 200 square metre 4 bed house. That should give an idea of cost for that bit. The MVHR unit i bought is a Brink 400 at about £1900. Air-Haus.co.uk as recommended by @NickfromwalesApart from a great price on the unit, they offered to commission and certify for me once i was ready.

No need to spend £10k. I am guessing that you are talking about new build. The ducting can be physically challenging to manipulate. I used 90mm ubbink and installed it all myself. 3 x rolls of 50 metre ducting for a 200 square metre 4 bed house. That should give an idea of cost for that bit. The MVHR unit i bought is a Brink 400 at about £1900. Located in the loft. Make sure it fits through the loft hatch. Ask me how i know.

The picture has not displayed as clearly as i recorded it but close examination shows that some of the hour columns do not have any orange topping to them. Due to the very low number of cycles per day i dont think this is a factor. Its not a problem as the house is nice & cool but it is curious which is why i asked here if anyone had any insight.

No this installation does not short cycle. 2 or 3 cycles per day typically. The colours are as you say and as i described. The curiousity is why it appears to have a small amount of heating recorded on most of the hour divisions when it is in purely cooling mode.

Apologies i thought this would be more familiar. Vaillant app, cooling has been on for about 4 days, no heating of course. There is a small orange section on top of each hour division, not very clear on this image. Orange represents heating normally. I cannot understand why there would be any heating recorded. The RED columns are the DHW. They are not of interest here.

I hope the picture shows the artefact of interest. There is a very small orange bit on the top of the cooling values for each hour. I wonder what this represents, does anyone know?

I need a drive way creating in North hertfordshire # remove 350mm of crush and take it 30 metres to behind the house. no need for muckaway. # install a SUDs compliant surface of about 150 square metres. Either using permeable construction or slope and run off via acco drains to already installed huge soakaway. What would be a reasonable price for this please.

The kinds of issues i saw during our build were not a big deal in the great scheme of things. But its also clear that they were not matters of specific trade skills being deployed that i would/could not be expected to understand. Therefore not details where the tradesman's level of knowledge would trump mine. Example #1 The 2 vertically protruding MVHR vents out of our roof were specified to ( and agreed) to appear 1 metre either side of a central dormer apex. An aesthetic and purely cosmetic issue only i know. They were actually installed with the first one 1 metre to the right of said Apex and the second a further 2 metres to the right of that. Example #2 I asked for the ASHP isolator to be mounted in line vertically down from the centre of the kitchen window that it was below. Again acknowledged and agreed by the ASHP installers sparky. It was installed 3 inches to the right. Yes i can hear some of you now saying i am a pedantic twat. I get it.

My slope path probably only about 5 to 7 metres. So it needs to be no more than 4.8 degrees for 5 metres down to 3.8 degrees if its any more. I could lower the whole of the driveway area to remove this wheelchair friendly path but then i have a steeper exit onto the road.

I may not have explained myself very well. The slope is only for wheelchair access because my driveway will likely be about 300-400mm higher than the level path to the front door.

It looks like i will need to provide a ramp/slope from the driveway to the path in front of the house. This will also need to be SUDs compliant i guess. So what is the recognised and preferred method to do so? All of the articles i can find so far describe the build up of a flat and level surface.

Yep, agree.

Backed it off to 16c for a couple of days. I can now say that even though it only resulted in a few degrees reduction it is noticeable and welcome.

Having just read the advice on DIY resin bound, i cannot imagine that anyone has achieved a satisfactory result without the use of a specialist forced mixer. Who has attempted it and more importantly got a good result without one. And what did you use if so?

Understood

Flow is set for a desired 12 degrees. Currently flowing at 11.5 degrees. Internal house temp has been 27 degrees for days. 30 degrees outside.

Has anyone that is running cooling through their UFH heard any worrying noises from the underfloor slab? I initiated cooling for the first time a couple of hours ago. I just heard a dramatic sound that appears to have come from our floor. Coincidence perhaps and i have no idea what it is. Sounded like a dull crack. Quite loud to be honest.

My pleasure Nick. The HeatXchange Ltd. Email: sales@theheatxchange.co.uk Plug, coding (VAI0020266328) = £8.16 inc VAT £7.80 Delivery This is for my 5kW vaillant by the way. Part number may or may not be universal but they stock loads of variants. keith