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Hi Everyone, What a wealth of knowledge on this site, and all very helpful. We have recently inherited a property which is an amazing gift, and it is an amazing plot, but...... the property is a late 80's barn conversion, and not a good conversion at that, so drastic change is required to make it habitable again. The property is a long lease (74 years remaining) with National Trust the landlord, however the property is eligible for a 999 year long lease (or virtual freehold) under the leasehold reform act due next year but we are not holding our breath that the proposed 2026 target for this reform will be achieved. Our thinking at present is partial demolition and build a new effectively self contained block with a link to the existing and then refurb that post new build. National Trust have been to visit and are open to discussion which is great because the lease terms are quite onerous as they stand now. We would like to get a new element built to enable us to move in and halve our bills and then refurb the existing element of the house. Then we have a small matter of planning within the AONB status and a (rightly) rigorous Local Plan, but a lovely challenge from a sadly departed very good friend. Good fun ahead, apart from the 200% Council Tax bill we have recently received!

Or maybe our primitive brains know where to scratch for water, and the rods make it seem more convincing.

Divining works for me. 2 x welding rods bent as L shapes. Hold loosely. For me they cross about 1m past so I do it both ways and split. If you doubt the efficacy it wong work... seriously. Or hire a drain rod with tracker. That is more accurate but needs outlet access. The vendor would be crazy or hiding something if they declined. Otherwise any sale may fail at discoveries stage.

It's fine as long as you can get in the trench and do a thorough job in bedding and getting the gradient... and joining the pipes. Unlikely. But you could do most of the depth in 400 or more and the bottom in 12".

Seriously, I think we might be helping a few people not to get caught out by these charlatans. If they search for radiant heating 360 graphene infrared and find us here.

Kingspan 150mm for the house. Other brands don't do that thickness or are as expensive. 40mm Colorclad for the garage. There is lots of choice in thinner panels.

Tip No 2. If you have a stud wall that is OSB boarded one side (for racking), BEFORE you fit the plasterboard, cut a hole in the OSB bigger than a socket box. Then cut the correct size hole in the plasterboard once fitted.

Ignoring the unusual behaviour the boiler occasionally has........ I've done some changes to the system configuration it was covered elsewhere but I though it would be handy to document it here as well I've replaced all the Drayton EB4 TRV Bodies (6 position variable orifice) with Danfoss RAS-B2 TRV bodies - these are "Pressure Independant" flow regulators with flow rate settings of between 10 L/Hr and 135 L/Hr (max flow rate) The aim of the changes was to convert to fully open system and stop the Wiser TRV's from intervening on the 4 rads where I couldn't reduce the flow enough with the EB4 bodies (even on the smallest orifice setting) Once I've got stable room temps as a result of the correct flow rates for the WC flow temp the Wiser "Smart" TRV's are being removed and replaced with std Danfoss ones - Hopefully I can recover some on the cost with selling on a well known auction site. I also took the opportunity to re-configure the "Plant Room" (OK Airing Cupboard - picture below) 1. London loop on the HW outlet of the tank (early days but it already seems to have reduced standing tank losses) 2. Re-pipe the bypass so it's after the CH zone valve (it was before so when I restricted the flow thro the HW tank coil it opened the damn bypass and defeated my efforts to slow down the flow thro the coil!!!) 3. Combined 22mm Feed and vent for CH (removing the old 15mm feed) - it's solved all the issues with air ingress and got rid of another pipe in the cold loft 4. Generally remove a load of joints (from previous versions being adjusted) and clean up the lagging 5. Replaced a compression fitting with press fit that was used as an emergency fix years ago!! Outside the Plant room 1. Convert all the panel rads to TBOE from BBOE with Danfoss RAS-B2 flow control TRV bodies 2. Covert the vertical rads and towel rails to Danfoss RAS-B2 flow control TRV bodies and reconfigure the pipework

Plus 1 for the Greenwood fan. I'm pretty sure they can be installed in either a wall or ceiling. Fitted mine in a bathroom ceiling and vented it out through the roof tiles. A reasonably easy job even with the addition of a condensate type drain as the ducting was vertical. Only issue I had with the fan and I'm probably being over cautious was that there are 3 or 4 very thin sensor wires that are taped to the body of the fan that's inserted into your ducting. I found this fit to be quite tight and was concerned these wires would potentially get damaged during fitment / removal despite the insulating tape on them. In the end, I cut a small channel in the ducting where these wires would sit and sealed the channel up. No risk now of wire damage. Fan looks nice on the ceiling too. Not powered it up yet so can't comment on it's performance but will hopefully save me all of the hassle and expense of a MVHR install.

This is a top tip that I followed. And not only for the you say it also saves a lot of cable by not going up and down to the ceiling every time!

It's a personal thing but I like dry lining boxes. Buy the Appleby ones like the picture above, they are good and reliable. Some other makes with different methods of locating them can be dreadful. My top tip. Run socket cables horizontally around the room at socket height all the way round, with a bit of slack in the cable every now and then. Then in the future you can cut an extra hole in the plasterboard anywhere and add an extra socket, you know the one you forgot you might need.

What does the LGBGT stand for here cos I am blowed if I can track its meaning down.

If you don't need to airtest I wouldn't, you end up boxing your self into a corner. Especially if you live in Scotland? I would progress the way you are planning. Tried a couple of dMEV fans in our summer house - Greenwood were head and shoulders better than other fans I tried. And cheap enough on eBay. Remember you need to have all internal door under cut at the bottom for dMEV to work correctly. I would add a co2 sensor to main bedroom as well so you can fine tune your system.

Can't say I know. It was a while ago. Don't think there's any real practical difference. Just kingspan is about 20% more expensive. Because it's a market leading name.

The roof will be able to dry inwards. I would just tape the OSB for airtightness and leave it at that. You could sandwich a VCL between the OSB and PIR but it's unnecessary in my view.

Noob here - please be patient! We are renovating an already-modernised 1949 rendered brick construction bungalow, adding 4 bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. Timber construction first floor. Cold tiled roof. New windows. Major job. We had originally hoped to install MVHR, but I doubt we will be better than 3m3/m2.h - however, I have no idea really and this is purely guesswork. We aren't enveloping in a membrane and don't have PH ambitions (though will be generally attentive to minimising leaks). My latest plan is dMEV with humidity-actuated wall inlets, which will save money and, I imagine, perform adequately given the likely level of air-tightness. Our builder has suggested we can't assess this until the build has got to a point at which it can actually be measured - however, at this point I imagine it would be very difficult/impossible to re-design for MVHR if we found we were better than expected. I suspect dMEV is the best option, but please contribute if you think I've got this wrong! Many thanks

This. Dry lining/plasterboard boxes are not as good as metal knockout boxes and nogs in my opinion. If one side is already boarded it can sometimes make it slightly trickier to wire, so prefer not.

A weed membrane will stop the roots of any weeds getting down into the soil. But, by that point the plants will be big enough to be a nuisance anyway, so not a huge benefit.

I used a Floplast double branched connector for back to back WC connections into a single outlet pipe. The outlet dropped down and the AAV was connected to the top. The BCO was interested in the connector but was quite happy that it was designed for that purpose. We lived there for over three years without any problems. https://www.floplast.co.uk/product/double-branch

Aren't you using this sort of back box with plasterboard, so no additional supports are needed?

Pipe needs to be straight and not pulling, these things leak easily, I've installed 100s of them. Strictly speaking, this is the property of the water company and you shouldnt be touching them, better option is to call them and say their meter box is leaking.

Normal as it is. I'd say it would be unusual to plasterboard 1 side first. They will bang their own noggins in as needed. No stress

Thanks, was that the Kingspan or the other brand?

Hi all We have the electrician on site in a couple of days to start the first-fix. He is a super-polite guy, and I want to make his job as easy as possible. Our stud walls are up, but I don't have any plasterboard fixed (some walls are strengthened with OSB board, but not all). Do electricians usually do first-fix in stud partition walls which already have plasterboard on one side, and maybe noggins to support the back box? Or, is it normal for electricians to lay first-fix with just the partition stud-work in place? Just wondering how much humble pie I will need to eat Thanks

So looking at it yesterday it seems like the thrust ring, at full thrust, doesn't make contact with the o ring I took from new mdpe coupler. The new o ring looks to be 3mm thick (calipers time in the daylight) so I'll try upsizing it. The only other option I can think of is there was some sort of spacer between the thrust and o ring, or an o ring with a weird oval section. Typical plumbers' merchants aren't familiar with the fitting- I have been recommended a 'civils' merchant who stock the Binary box itself