The House Projects Thread

[Jobbo]

Well this would potentially be the fundamental issue, but I don't know how thick a good tiled floor would be? Got to be 40mm or so step into the garage though I reckon.

Thickness of tiles plus thickness of adhesive plus thickness of levelling screed. Half an inch, maybe more?

Any sort of ceramic tile doesn't sound suitable for a trolley jack or dropping a ratchet spanner or whatever, either!

[V8Granite]

Well this would potentially be the fundamental issue, but I don't know how thick a good tiled floor would be? Got to be 40mm or so step into the garage though I reckon.

Thickness of tiles plus thickness of adhesive plus thickness of levelling screed. Half an inch, maybe more?

Any sort of ceramic tile doesn't sound suitable for a trolley jack or dropping a ratchet spanner or whatever, either!

It’s what is used in every test cell I’ve ever worked in, which see 1 Ton engines rolled over them and worked on all the time. It’s how they are laid.

Dave!

[duncs500]

Well this would potentially be the fundamental issue, but I don't know how thick a good tiled floor would be? Got to be 40mm or so step into the garage though I reckon.

Thickness of tiles plus thickness of adhesive plus thickness of levelling screed. Half an inch, maybe more?

Any sort of ceramic tile doesn't sound suitable for a trolley jack or dropping a ratchet spanner or whatever, either!

It’s what is used in every test cell I’ve ever worked in, which see 1 Ton engines rolled over them and worked on all the time. It’s how they are laid.

Dave!

Indeed, I'm working on the same thing on a larger scale at the moment. Granite faced reinforced concrete panels to withstand a 30MN ship impact. They seem fine so far in testing.

[duncs500]

Still, I guessed it would be at least 20-30mm thick, which would be a pretty big step when added to what's already there. Screed then paint would add a bit, but might be a more viable option with what I've got.

Dunno if I CBA to do it myself though, wonder how much it would cost to pay someone.

Other issue is that it's got quite a high pitched roof with bricks going up, so do you just paint a horizontal line at the rafters or carry on up to the higher brickwork which would be a pain?

[Swervin_Mervin]

Still, I guessed it would be at least 20-30mm thick, which would be a pretty big step when added to what's already there. Screed then paint would add a bit, but might be a more viable option with what I've got.

Dunno if I CBA to do it myself though, wonder how much it would cost to pay someone.

Other issue is that it's got quite a high pitched roof with bricks going up, so do you just paint a horizontal line at the rafters or carry on up to the higher brickwork which would be a pain?

Sounds a lot like mine Front half goes high up to the ground floor roof rafters, back half is lower due to 1st flr extension above. Our "ceiling" is boarded, so I'm pondering whether I should bother getting it skimmed so it can be painted, just paint it, or just not bother at all!

[duncs500]

Sometimes I think there's nothing wrong with bare brick 'warehouse chic'.

[Swervin_Mervin]

Big fat thread bump

[mention]Rich B[/mention] I'm interested to know how you've been getting along with your underfloor heating. We've started the planning stage of our kitchen/diner/snug refurb and the intention has always been to go underfloor heating to maximise floorspace.

The main areas are sprung so a wet system isn't too much of an issue, but the dining room extension is, I believe, a poured slab that's been helpfully done at a level that means there's a half inch step or so between it and the main areas. So we're intending to look at various options and the microbore, which IIRC you went with, seems like a potentially logical option when trying to accommodate a single system between the two spaces.

How have you found it?

[Rich B]

No complaints so far - our house doesn’t get particularly cold anyway, but we’ve never had to crank it up or anything.

We had a few issues setting it up plumbing-wise, it’s on a separate thermostat to the rest of the house and we found the Shared valve system they installed was being triggered wrongly from heat bleeding back through the pipes (easier to explain looking at the setup), We got A separate leg and valve fitted and now it works as it should.

[Swervin_Mervin]

That's good to hear, heat wise.

Re: the 'stat and valves - I've tried figuring out my mum and dad's before now (whole house on wet UFH) and it seems like a crazy amount of pipework and kit, some of which we just plain don't know what it does!

Funnily enough, I've also just seen a link for this Danish firm via PH, that are able to rout solid floors. Looks almost perfect for what we need so am going to get in touch soon.

[Rich B]

Re: the 'stat and valves - I've tried figuring out my mum and dad's before now (whole house on wet UFH) and it seems like a crazy amount of pipework and kit, some of which we just plain don't know what it does!

It took me a while to work out ours!



This is the manifold For the UFH - it sits behind the washing machine. And that’s just for one room.

[jamcg]

God that plumbing’s making my eye twitch.......

[Rich B]

God that plumbing’s making my eye twitch.......

its a bit mental isn’t it - it took me forever to understand what went where.

We kind of expected to be replacing half of it when we bought the house, but we got it checked out and serviced and it works great, so I’ll keep it going for as long as it can!

[Swervin_Mervin]

You look like you've as much manifold as there is in my mum and dad's place which is a 4-bed bungalow! I can see a few similar bits of kit in the plumbing, some of which I have no idea what it is.

It's also made me think I really need to consider where all that plumbing can go in our place...

[jamcg]

God that plumbing’s making my eye twitch.......

its a bit mental isn’t it - it took me forever to understand what went where.

We kind of expected to be replacing half of it when we bought the house, but we got it checked out and serviced and it works great, so I’ll keep it going for as long as it can!

It’s fairly straightforward when you know what you’re looking at, it just could have been done so much neater. If it works and it’s not in the way there’s no point replacing anything though

[Simon]

God that plumbing’s making my eye twitch.......

its a bit mental isn’t it - it took me forever to understand what went where.

We kind of expected to be replacing half of it when we bought the house, but we got it checked out and serviced and it works great, so I’ll keep it going for as long as it can!

Do what I did - tie on those cardboard tags onto each pipe with a note and arrow for the water flow and what it does. It'll save you having to work it out again in the future.

[DeskJockey]

God that plumbing’s making my eye twitch.......

its a bit mental isn’t it - it took me forever to understand what went where.

We kind of expected to be replacing half of it when we bought the house, but we got it checked out and serviced and it works great, so I’ll keep it going for as long as it can!

Do what I did - tie on those cardboard tags onto each pipe with a note and arrow for the water flow and what it does. It'll save you having to work it out again in the future.

Documenting your work? Pah.

[Swervin_Mervin]

God that plumbing’s making my eye twitch.......

its a bit mental isn’t it - it took me forever to understand what went where.

We kind of expected to be replacing half of it when we bought the house, but we got it checked out and serviced and it works great, so I’ll keep it going for as long as it can!

It’s fairly straightforward when you know what you’re looking at, it just could have been done so much neater. If it works and it’s not in the way there’s no point replacing anything though

[mention]jamcg[/mention] - you seem a bit knowledgeable about heating. I've been looking into the JK floorheating a bit more and it seems to largely get very positive reviews. However, my main concern at this stage is that the manifold/control sude of things seems a bit low-fi. I'd read this morning about someone having some issues and the responses seemed surprised there was a TRV on the setup. I've just been reading up on someone PH thread where they had it installed and it does look incredibly simplistic compared to Rich's setup and that in my parents' place. Any thoughts?

[jamcg]

That setup does look reasonably basic in its operation, without seeing the installation details I’m not certain how it works, as I usually expect to see adjustable flow restrictors with a glass vial to read the actual flow on (the red bits on rich’s set up). This is to balance the various circuits to ensure even distribution of heat around the various coils.

My personal preference would always be the John guest speedfit setup, purely because of the use of barrier pipe. In the past hep2o pipe never had a barrier and was porous to air ingress, which causes a strange type of oxidisation, it creates flakes that can completely block and cripple a heating system- nothing prevents it, even copious amounts of inhibitor- so I have a distrust of non-barrier plastic pipes like in those setups pictured.

Control wise most can be linked up to any type of room thermostat, again not sure on the other systems but the John guest system can have electronic actuator valves on each individual circuit so can give control over which areas get heat or not, as opposed to rich’s which looks like everything comes on together

[Rich B]

Yep, my UFH is one room (it’s a big room) so no need for any controlling areas within it. Control-wise it has the same wireless thermostat as the guys in link Swerves vid use.

[Swervin_Mervin]

Control-wise it has the same wireless thermostat as the guys in link Swerves vid use.

I figured that part of your system out fairly quickly