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I’ll have to check the legal cover, we do on home but this is a rental property. And yes, the second plumber has taken photographs and has done a report in his quote.

I wasn’t that happy with the work as it progressed but everything I queried or questioned or even said “this is a problem” he simply fobbed me off or just refused to alter anything.…[Read more]

Def attempt to get reimbursed by plumber A for every penny its costing to get put right by Plumber B.
It will help if Plumber B has done a written report with photos of all the work to be put right, then you wont get into a he said, she said scenario.
If possible, you could push for damages. Have you legal cover on house insurance?

Yes, I was thinking this. It makes more sense doesn’t it? It is a new situation for me though. I haven’t sent the letter yet, but I ran it past the Citizens Advice bureau and I asked but they didn’t pick it up.

I have nothing to base this on but it doesn’t feel right that you ask for money off his bill AND be refunded for the 2nd plumbers bill. You’d essentially be getting a free bathroom then.
I’d say don’t ask for a refund of his bill but ask for 100% of the 2nd plumbers cost because you would not have incurred any of that if he’d done it right in the…[Read more]

Are you sure about the £60 / day for the electric heaters? Running 5 2000 watt electric heater 24 hours per day at 14p per kWh comes to £33.60 per day. (Be careful running 5 x 2000watts appliance – it could overload the ring main)

bottled lpg is worth considering with a gas boiler and radiator system.

I live in a 3 bedroom listed building and h…[Read more]

Have you thought about getting a burner with a back boiler? After all you’re already burning wood to keep the place warm, might as well make the most out of it…

We have a large 24kw (or something!) burner with a back boiler that heaters up a thermal store. The thermal store provides hot water at a temperature suitable for radiators (the…[Read more]

There’s something in this, and we bought the house knowing it would be hard to heat. At present, we have a room we can retreat to and get warm with a log burner, and at a basic level that’s all we need. Bedrooms are chilly, but actually that’s fine as long as you have a decent duvet.

Have spoken to a local renewable energy consultancy/installer…[Read more]

Heat pumps work best with / can only provide a low output temperature (50degrees max?). There’s no reason why you can’t use them with radiators, you just need bigger radiators to compensate for the lower temperature they’re running at. If you have the wallspace and the listing allows, then this may be the way forward. Same goes for condenser…[Read more]

I live in a similar house. I think it is worth considering whether attempting to heat large, stone Victorian houses is sensible at all . Personally I think aiming to heat the whole place is either unrealistic cost-wise, or requires destroying the period interior (which I like) and possibly exterior for GSHP. It is however fairly easy to stay…[Read more]

My only experience of ground source is through neighbours who installed one in their stone, un-insulated farm worker’s cottage. They had to dig two huge trenches in the paddock, they regretted placing the pump in the utility room because the throbbing keeps them awake, they had to dig up all the floors and lay insulation then the pipework then…[Read more]

In the short term if you have a tent you could put it up in the children’s room over the coldest weeks. Gives them some cosy space. Or bunk beds with curtains.

I’ve no idea about efficency, but all the people I’ve met who live in houses like that have an aga or similar and mostly live in the kitchen in the winter rather than trying to heat the…[Read more]

One thing I wouldn’t consider if you are over 50 is a wood chip burner. Their hoppers need filling every few days with heavy bags of biomass. If you get one aged 50 and are tied to it for 20 years by the RHI, you’ll be lifting bags weekly aged 70 – and more frequently in the coldest, most horrid weather. I sometimes wonder how many retirees are…

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If the listing of the building allows I would certainly look at some good insulation on the insides of the external walls.

As you say it will make the window reveals even larger and there might be room features (eg coving) that would make it hard to achieve but I think it would make a big difference. Something like 100mm Kingspan or to be more…[Read more]

I have ASHP – get some proper advice. You need an up to date energy cert, and then ideally a thermal model of the house (our installer did all this) to size the rads and the ASHP. Ours is paying for itself in no time thanks to RHI and saving vs oil.

If their seasonal CoP is to be believed they seem really impressive. Can you install underfloor heating. If you have underfloor you can normally have a lower flow and return temp and thus a higher COP.

What is the DHW provided by?

I think there might be noise issues as well from the condenser.

Have considered them, and happy to continue to. Marks against them are being visually obtrusive and lower efficiencies in winter due to colder ambient temperature.

Have you considered air source heat pumps.

Mitsubishi are claiming to have a new range of co2 refrigerant based ones offering CoPs of up to 4 whilst producing DHW.

They sound too good to be true and they might be. I’ve not checked to deeply yet.

https://www.ecodan.de/en/heat-pumps/co2-hot-water-heat-pumps/

biggest problem would be that the window reveals are already deep and this would make them even deeper.

That’s exactly our situation. It makes it awkward to open/close them but the extra-deep window sills are a great place to put Stuff. We used plywood for the sills in the end – gives a nice look.

This is the kind of imaginative solution I w…

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