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Sounds as if it is straightforward. The SE will show piers and specify a lintel. Bricklayer forms the window opening which the window supplier measures (don't order by theoretical window dimensions as they can turn out different. , but you can get a quote from it).

A plan showing the house, all manhole and grille covers, & directions of flow. As well as flushing as a test, a piece of toilet paper proves where it is from. There is a product called drain trace. It is brown power that shows as luminous yellow when diluted. With that you can trace from toilet pan through each pontoon it's journey. It's unlikely, as you say, that a mains leak is getting in there, but perhaps an overflowing tank or wc.

Check this asap. Expensive problem if left. If meter is spinning, turn off at meter and see if leak stops. (If you are not on meter isolate at external stop-cock anyway to check flow) If meter not spinning, then likely coming from another house. Report as leak to water provider and let them trace it?

Currently proposed near Inverness. Makes sense as a use for spare wind power. Like pump storage reservoirs it could be utilised only when there is spare power. But more likely a justification for more turbines With Loch Ness proposals for another 2 dams, it would make Inverness a major power centre. The downside being the huge local effect but not a lot of jobs.

So, house > IC1 (picking up house, dry) > IC2 (inspection only, clear flowing water) > off somewhere else? Is the water meter showing any flow? When you flush a WC do you see the flush in both ICs?

Pictures and diagrams? Are you SURE the one with running water serves your property and is indeed foul drainage not rainwater? Do you see more water flow through when you flush a toilet for instance?

^^^ and the above describes why I am so keen to do it all myself, unless there is no choice (gas)

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DOd5v_yiL4E/

If only that were the problem. Unfortunately it is my experience with the plumbers I have had that: 1) they do not always seem able to work out good pipe arrangements. I posted about my understairs piping which everyone laughed at as a botch job. Well to get that fixed I had to work collaboratively with my current plumber (and his dad who happened to come, who was better TBH). They started out wanting to put new pipework in the middle of the cupboard floor and had I just left them to it that is exactly what they would have done. One mess would have been replaced by another. By keeping a weather eye out and talking to them a proper arrangement has been achieved - some ideas from me, some ideas from them. I always ask all the trades I have what they are going to do and try to follow their advice. But as customer I have objectives and the work has to meet them. I am quite prepared to pay for the extra hour or four it might take - the building owner will be using it for 20 years. 2) they look for the quickest easiest option I do get it. Time is money so they want to be in/out/job done/get paid. Most of the public will have no idea what they want or what they have got - as long as it works. So that is how they work. If they haven't got one thing in the van they will use another. 3) they essentially never sketch out anything they are going to do and thereby agree it first I do get it. They are doers, advance planning on paper, then execution is an alien concept. I am a planner type, from their point of view they can have it piped while I am still sketching. Why waste time looking at the details first ? But the flip side of that is sometimes you leave something that turns out not to really work very well, but is going to sit there for 20 years with someone cursing why there is a pipe down the wall, the cupboard won't close flush, or the flow is a bit crap. I think I mentioned before I had a guy come to move my gas meter a couple of years ago now. Got chatting as he had a cuppa. He said he used to be a plumber. He said he didn't make much doing it because he always wanted to give the customer what they wanted. He would be down the merchants listening to others boasting about their new SUV and how they just charged a customer £350 for changing a tap washer. I am not decrying all tradespeople. People have different personalities, different objectives, you have to ask and question. Obviously I have naff all experience, so it can make it tough - sometimes trades spin you a line - you do have to stand some ground sometimes. Clearly I should have drawn it all out myself first (despite having no plumbing experience) and then said that's what I want, just do it. But TBH it is exhausting and I do resent having to do it.

Presumably their house was cheaper on account of the proximity to noisy kids?

I've got two drains, one with branches from the house and the other for inspection. The inspection one has clean mains water running through, while the house one is dry, but can hear the same running water (supply at house turned off). Clealy have a leak, but this is plastic drain pipe and any water supply is also plastic. It's never been distiurbed or drilled into etc. and no trees or roots anywhere near. Can't figure out how mains can get in the soil pipe. Anybody got any ideas? Cheers Ed

5 hours on 1 bug. Claude constantly wants to give up. Lots of horrible maths (well beyond mine and most people's comprehension). A function needs to be computed and the exact same code is done in ALU and in shader. 100% same code. Therefore assume same output. True - mostly..... occasionally a minute fractional variation between the 2 compute functions. In a sane world wouldn't matter; in procedural generation after a zillion iterations big difference. Claude and I were guessing and trying to reason everything between us we could think of. So I got claude to call the 2 functions with the same values accumulating millions of times. Different results proved it. So we engineer everything now that the compute is done only by one thing and a separate method for everything else to read it. Slightly slower method but works! Also means of course that the procedural worlds I look at (always use 42 as my base case) , everyone of the 16 billion are now different LOL!

How about invest your money (and mental effort) in buying a wireless charger/battery like this*: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Anker-Magnetic-Wireless-Portable-Skin-Friendly/dp/B0DCNKDS5B?sr=8-4&th=1 Plan to charge overnight, if you forget you can get this out of a drawer and stick your phone on top. No wires. Then when it's done plug the powerbank into recharge somewhere out of the way ready for next time. Job done move on to next one. * Anker is a fairly good brand but I have no personal recommendation, this was just the first search engine result

The current wall is of cavity wall construction. The SE has proposed a to re-construct with a gable window taking up most of the wall and block piers to either side. Like you say, it may just be an apex frame of the piers with a beam to vault the ceiling inside. proposed. 150mm lean to rafters will be used from beam to walls in vaulted areas.

I think the "problem" here is you tried to tell the plumbers how to do it, rather than discussing with them, how they would do it and taking their input.

Fitted by a whelk then……

There are two ratings on an MPPT for current. One is the maximum current it can usefully convert, the other is the max short circuit current. As long as your arrays in parallel stay below the max short circuit current then the effect of having more generation capacity on one MPPT than it can handle just limits the maximum energy you can generate. On an East/West (or North/South) array it's very unlikely both sides will be operating near maximum at the same time and for the few hours per year they do its not necessarily worth the cost of another MPPT. Solar panels are so cheap compared to everything else that it's often worth maxing them out to increase generation outside peak/during winter at the expense of not being able to use all generated energy in peak summer.

You don't need a waste pipe behind the machine. Plumb it into the sink waste and no big plastic pipe to worry about. No upstand pipe needed as it uses the sink trap. Very much a standard way to do this.

@JohnMo Thanks for the suggestion. So this pergola wouldn't actually be connected to the building façade, but be freestanding instead? Would this use only a single post to support the 600mm depth rather than a posts both front and back, along the length?

Yes the worktop will run into the window frame to function as window cill also. Not templated yet. Units/dividers were fitted and now removed (don't ask me why 🙄) and were positioned to provide a worktop 665mm deep, and 640mm deep from the wall. 665 at sink position and at washer position, and then 640 behind the dryer where the wall insulation is. Swapping the washer and dryer around does not work. It would move the washer from a 665 deep under worktop recess to a 640 deep recess. We have also bought both machines with doors opening in opposite directions for easy use. Yes I could increase the depth of the worktop further, but it is a small room and I don't really want to do that. It also increases the reach across to open and close the window. I just need a plumbing layout for behind the washer that doesnt require having a 45mm waste pipe with a 25mm water feed pipe running over it producing a need for 70mm plus the 630mm deep machine. I also need to have it possible to pull the machine out for maintenance, therefore some length (1m+ ish) of slack water feed pipe, and slack washer output hose looped behind the machine. I now already have the two appliance power sockets wired into fused switches on the wall under where the sink unit will go. So power can be cut under the sink. If the water feed hose to the machine were to split I believe the valve built into the end of it should automatically detect the leak and turn off the water, as it would do if the machine itself started leaking. Never-the-less it would be good to be able to turn the water supply to the washer off under the sink. At present there are in line valves on the hot and cold feeds, both at floor level (inaccessible when the sink unit is fitted), and below the temporary taps. See the photo of the sink area. Unfortunately this is the work of 3 different plumbers - builders dodgy plumber, another guy I had to bin, and current plumber that does turn up albeit seems to lack detailed pipe layout planning skills. As they say, a camel is a horse designed by committee. Nobody ever wants to remove anything and start again, just join something onto what is already there and bugger off saying tis all good now sir.

I can lift the screws on the top clamp with my fingernail, so its not doing much

If it's an A rated cylinder the vacuum insulation, any other ratings it's most likely not vacuum insulation

Might be best to open a new incogneto window on your browser and view Octopus's website without being logged in. Then you will see all the new customer rates.

Hi all, After all the work we've done restoring this old place, it's time to do some restoration on the brickwork. We've got a mixture of some different bricks, blown bricks, discoloured bricks, and concrete pointing over lime mortar! Before I start the actual work, I'd like to get some advice and recommendations from anyone who's done this before. Also, can anyone recommend a company that does this kind of work in Essex? Thanks!

Looking again at the picture I assume you are already having a deep worktop cut to fit into the window recess thus forming the window cill as well. So it would be easy to move the sink unit forward a bit now before that worktop gets cut.