Is your ufh zoned? presuming you have two zone valves, one for heating one for hot water, a third should be fitted for the ufh with means of control eg seperate timeclock/programmable t/stat or replace existing with 3 channel programmer. its no use having rads and ufh both coming on at the same time as they heat up at different rates. ufh wants to be on a couple of hours before the rads to heat up the slab(presuming ufh is in a slab?). i would have left your system as it was and added a programmer to control the ufh and boiler by itself.
i have no idea why vaillant would say that imo its perfectly fine, even if your boiler was undersized now because you have added more space to your home, if it is done how i would do it you will not really be heating the whole system at the same time.

stoner, im presuming he has a megaflow style cylinder and not a buffer tank as you are thinking?

im in the highlands, was’nt too bad.165 mph wind recorded up cairngorm today.

i was up a ladder at work in the hills south of Inverness (200m ASL) today, was more worried about the branches falling off the trees than being blown off the ladder. the 5 mile drive home was spent dodging fallen trees and branches on a single track road. i have never seen that road so bad with tree debris! i guess the local trails will be covered in it too!

Very calm now though.

i agree with Zedsdead. Microbore is fine. it keeps the system water content marginally lower so less water to heat up too.

Junkyard; plenty of older systems use 8mm pipe. we use 10mm nowadays and occasionally 15mm depending on type of system, but most older systems i come across are 8mm.

do what totalshell suggests, if no joy you may have a blockage.

if you cut worktops with a circular saw make sure you cut it upside down for a clean edge otherwise it will chip to death. a straight edge clamped to the surface and run the saw up it, and measure a few times first allowing for the space between the edge of the baseplate on the saw and the blade.

i would disagree with the expanding pipes theory, why did’nt it do it before? only the rads and some wiring have been changed. IMO its most probably air, thats what causes the clanging noise. i would check all the high points in the pipework for air release valves. usually hidden in a loft or above the boiler if the pipes rise from the top. there may be an air release valve on the flow going to the cylinder coil. there may be an automatic air release valve in the boiler itself which has been closed.

do the pipes from the rads go down through the floors, or do they drop from above?

mounty, what size waist/leg are you? i have a brand new pair of medium montane terra pants for sale, £40 if you are interested, email in profile. i bought a large and medium and never got round to sending the medium back.

a11y, you could fit a trv to the towel rail but would then need to fit an auto by-pass valve upstream from the pump (£12 or so for the auto by-pass plus fitting). as a plumbing & heating engineer this is my preferred method, i dont really see the point in wall stats with radiators tbh.

i doubt you could use the existing flue liner plop_pants, it needs to be a Hetas approved liner which is smooth lining on the inside as opposed to the gas one which usually is the same inside as what you see on the outer.

edit: stoner, what type of flue is that single wall? looks like selkirk il?

insulated flue all the way is fine, i would want a nice looking twin wall like Dinak dw though. i think its available in black too. oh and its 3x the diameter to a COMBUSTIBLE surface, 1.5 to a non-combustible.

Make sure your existing aav has a good supply of air. You would’nt believe the amount of plumbers who think its ok to stick an aav into a partition (that gets sealed up with plaster etc).

do you know what size pipe they are connected to under the floor? basins, bath and shower on one pipe should be connected to a 2″ pipe minimum before going to the stack.

You mean modern Scots English? The Scots spoke Gaelic. But yeah i know what you mean, but i dont think it was meant to appeal to Scottish folk who may know a few Gaelic words. It was created for Visit Scotland & The Outdoor Capital for the Adventure Tourism Trade Association 2011 Summit in Mexico. I just thought it was a nice vid. And most foreigners will get the jist of what its aboot!

i did a 28k route from invergarry a few years back, i think it was from kenny wilsons book. fairly simple route which was quite good, but nothing spectacular. the singletrack coming along the north side of the river garry from west to east was a good blast. theres forest paths and fireroads in the forest over the bridge from the car park near the white bridge, with a few nice bits in it. get a map and go ride.

The cycle path is not suitable for road bikes, im presuming you mean the Great Glen Way, which is on the north side. I would’nt go near the a82 on a bike although plenty do it. The south side is much more scenic, big climb immediately out of ft augustus for about 4 or 5 miles with a flat bit in the middle at loch tarff. once you get just past whitebridge you can either head left down towards Foyers and come along the loch side or you can take the high road and either branch off to come down to Dores or Essich, or carry on and branch off at Inverarnie (b861) which leads on to Culduthel road. The shop and cafe at Foyers will be the only chance of refreshments if needed before Inverness.

keppoch, balblair and golspie are quite small, i would do balblair a few times in the morning and head up to golspie for the afternoon on thursday, leaving a day for somewhere else. maybe do strathpeffer on fri morning, learnie in the afternoon (quick one)and you could go for a quick blatt around abriachan bike trail on your way down the a82 towards glen affric. just a thought?

captainmainwaring, nice pic of the triple butress, and how clear is the water in that wee loch? i was up there a few weeks ago bagging the two munro’s up on beinn eighe. it was a horrible misty day so did’nt get the views that you probably did. on the other side of that loch there is a ww2 lancaster bomber scattered around, bits of fuselage and wheels etc.
also, that track going up to the loch has a branch coming off it heading to torridon, i have’nt done it but it looks like a possible loop?

most likely just needs a new washer in the inlet valve, or could be debris stuck in the valve flow restrictor.

yup dow corning 785, i wont use anything else. i have fitted hundreds of bathrooms and this stuff is best.

argyle obviously only rides the blue trails if he thinks learnie is better than balblair, learnie used to be brilliant before the fc harvested the first part of the black trail. now its pretty poor imo. well compared to balblair it is. they have also removed all the woodwork at learnie.

organic355, i ordered one from here on tuesday. going by their tracking its in transit so hopefully wont be long in arriving. seems like a really good price to me.

yep carbisdale castle looks like a nice place to spend the night. although the trail is’nt the greatest it’s only a short scoot across the bridge to balblair. i would do balblair then head up to golspie (45 minute drive) in the same day, leaving a day to go somewhere else. there are a few fairly unknown trails in the inverness area if you like dh (very steep + techy) and i know of a brilliant wee xc type trail 30 mins from inverness which is well worth exploring just for the scenery alone.

Skye: Sligachan and Quirang
Torridon
Glen Affric – heard the name recommended but no idea on routes
Carbisdale & Balblair
Highland Wildcat, Golspie
Contin & Strathpeffer

sorted that for you, a better week up here you will not get. i dont think moray or learnie are worth the trips mate.

i agree loctite55 is great, however i suggested ptfe as its about £11.50 cheaper and works just as well. dont know if its worth buying a tube for one or two joints.

he has the correct fitting eg 22mm compression to 1″ male boiler connector.

wrap ptfe round the 1″ male thread, put a little joint compound if you want. job done.

davesport – but…i’ve got a standard 100litre(?) hot water cylinder, so a pump will raise things to 1.5bar, shower will run at 15 l/m I guess, which is going to empty the tank in 6 or 7 minutes. That assumes my cold water fill rate is high enough too.

not quite, the pump may be 1.5 bar but that will be affected by a few things eg pipework from pump, shower valve itself,hose and shower head all which can restrict the flow. not only that you will be mixing the hot and cold through the valve therefore you are not going to empty the tank in 6-7 minutes unless you like a VERY hot shower.

as nbt says but i add a small shovel (maybe 1.5kgs worth) of coal before lighting. so newspaper, kindling and coal on top. light a few bits of paper, shut doors and away it should go.as long as lower vent is open. you can open the ashpan door too for even better air flow until its well lit. shouldnt need firelighters with a stove.