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Wrong paint I’m afraid. johnstones perfect matt or tikurila. I’ve never used the Tikurila, but the johnstones is good stuff. I’ve got some serious ceilings with big windows and loads of natural light. The Johnstones hides a lot of stuff.

Apologies, I have just posted incorrectly in a related oider thread and repeat here for your information

It's a double household and very big. Just based on kW/m2 that others have published, it feels right. But the teams are checking it out now.

I have no personal experience of of robotic lawn mowers but today I played golf at my club in Spain and noticed they we commissioning a couple of new devices on the practice ground, when I was warming up before playing. I knew we had been using a robotic ball collection machine for past year or so, and remembered your post, so I went to look at them and talked briefly to the company representative. I took a few photos of the robotic lawn mower and its sister robotic ball collector. together with their mother station, which attach. The golf club is Aloha Golf Club, a well known private members club, which hosted the LEGENDS Tour about a month ago, and has hosted the European Tour (mens and ladies) in the past. The practice is over 250yards long and an average of 100 yards wide. It is also has steep slopes. I went to the 1st Tee and one of the guys I was playing with had notice me taking photos. He lives in Aberdeen and told he has exactly the same robots at home and he showed me the app on his phone that he uses to control it. He also told me he is involved with a local football club and they have installed the same robots for maintenance of their pitches, allowing them to release a groundsmen. He spoke highly of this device.... Finally, he told me that another Aloha member has two of these same robots at his home on Scotland.

Agree, though I think the logic was that A) almost everyone has electricity but not everyone has gas. B) at the time the grid was very co2 heavy and gas was cleaner. I looked into heatpumps back in the late 00's and iirc the grid was. Over 600g/co2 per kwh, so a 3:1 heatpump would be about 200g (assuming you could achive that with heatpumps then) which is about the same as a gas boiler. So there was almost no co2 saving and a very considerable extra install and running cost. Now the grid averages well below 200g, so you are actually greener (but poorer!) using a 3 bar fire than a gas boiler.

I like Dulux Diamond Matt.

Have spent today applying Farrow & Ball Modern Emulsion in 'All White' to a large ceiling. First coat only following mist coating. All seemed fine while applying it with a roller. Now some hours later with some sunlight reflected back into the room (albeit through a polythene cover), the ceiling looks pretty awful. See pics. We were going to put F&B Dead Flat on the ceiling and Modern Emulsion on the walls as the open plan room contains a kitchen. However F&B shop said some customers had done this and had it peel off because Dead Flat is not a suitable paint for rooms where moist air may be present aka Kitchens & Bathrooms. Therefore we were told to use Modern Emulsion. Now it looks like it has a pronounced sheen, and seems to make the ceiling look very poor and uneven. Any advice please ? I thought F&B was supposed to be a premium paint ? Am I going to have to switch to something else which is actually Matt and if so what ? Will a second coat solve the problem ? (PS Mist Coat was applied by rolling away from the window, First coat of F&B by rolling across the window/room on the understanding we would then apply the final coat of F&B by rolling away from the window again.)

Just read this. Would have been happy to help. Use the printer here all the time for practical purposes.

It does sound a huge heat pump based on a new build even to min building regs.

I guess the key to this is exercise the valves regularly. Just as I do with the sea cocks on my boat.

Which is why putting the green levies on electricity prices was the most bonkers policy ever. Should have been on gas prices.

Thinking you’re going to be able to add cables , retrospectively, is a little optimistic; myself, I think it’s practically unachievable. You’d be into breaking in / out of plasterwork, going up / down walls filled with (supposed to be filled with) acoustic insulation, and other services. It’s just way to hard to plan what’ll need to go in, and from where, and to where its “then” needed, to be a realistic approach. You’d need a complete redundant conduit network left in abeyance, throughout the dwelling, to ever attempt to mitigate this sensibly.

>>> I don't really want to have to plan where every device cable goes ... for the next 50 years...yeah, exactly. I figure I have a good chance of using a fish tape or electricians rods to run a new cable assuming the runs are fairly straight and there's access at any corners. Maybe it helps that our room layout is fairly simple & rectangular.

Carbon taxes are paid by consumers. They increase the price of the commodity. If the price is higher due to the carbon tax, people will buy less. That's a demand side measure.

Im not sure how a cable tray helps you run additional cables later. The ties for the cables and all the perferations will present more snag challenges for pulling cables behind plasterboard than bare trunking or similar. I too want to be able to add additional cables later (especially low voltage/data/hdmi/etc) and am curious what other people think is the best way to go but personally don't think cable trays would help. My best guess at the minute for how to do this is to form two parallel cable paths horizontally along the wall behind the sockets with the metal back boxes mounted in front. Depth is a bit of an issue though. 50mm cavity + plasterboard on top is ok. Less seems to get tricky. Main reason for me to want this ability if I get a chance to build I want to get the basics in and done and then come back and be able to fit 'smart' stuff in a suitable way without ripping up the walls. I don't really want to have to plan where every device cable goes (and what type is needed) before being able to crack on with the rest of the property.

It's a std square spigot that you see on older taps and stopcock butterflies. I've packed up for the night, so can't be bothered to get out my micrometer to measure it. As I posted on the referenced topic, I made up a little tool (that sits tightly over the knurled tap) using a 28mm copper pipe offcut. This issue is the the valve are sticky rather that stuck. I can't get a decent closed hand grip on them but rather just a finger grip, so say about 1-2 Nm torque rather than the 10× that you can easily do with finger locked hand grip. The tool can easily take 20 Nm say, so is fine for the job as you only need about a quarter of that. It's easy to hand crank each valve though its full normal range a couple of times to loosen it up before leaving it at full-open (less the ¼ turn-back) as @torre suggests. o

You could take a look at this... https://shellystore.co.uk/product/shelly-2pm-gen4/ This can be used for shutters, blinds etc and it has obstacle detection and can then return the shutter/blind to it's original position. Basically electrically detecting that the shutter/blind is not moving normally because of the obstruction. Depends on the shutter/blind making contact with the obstruction, but if it has flex or a non marking edge then that shouldn't be a problem. So you wouldn't have to detect whether the window was open, and it would also stop the blind/shutter if some other object was in the way.

Definitely the way to go if you want to control an outlet from a light switch hard wired. But with todays 'smart' products it seems a somewhat unnecessary complication. Even if you don't want smart stuff anywhere else, wiring it into free standing lamps and a switch on the wall to control them gives you a lot more flexibility. ie, you can move lamps around, add extras, etc, no need to predetermine locations or run special cables. It doesn't even have to be that smart if you just want on/off. Quinetic switches are an option there https://www.quinetic.co.uk/

That's still the modern way of doing it. It's a 5A socket used almost exclusively for lighting (table, floor, beside, etc.) and they're almost always operated from a wall switch. You see them a lot in high-end lighting installations.

I can only confirm it will be the design that is the difficult/time consuming bit. A lot of younger guys do have 3D printers. There are of course 3D scanners which can be used to produce a 3D model by laser scanning the object desired. Unfortunately I think decent ones are well over £10k so only found in engineering companies. As I write I see Terry has solved it, and is now about to launch an enterprise selling lengths of crenellated copper pipe on ebay for £20 a time ;o)

In our present place, built about 30 years ago - in the sitting room we have a bunch of small round pin sockets for wall lights - they're all controlled by a single switch. This kind of thing below. Is there a more modern version? Anyone doing this?

Decided to buy the materials I need to finish the direct surround of my house before Diesel shortages and goodness knows what else takes hold! 50+m2 of paving blocks, 3 tons of paving grit and a full load of type 2 MOT to spread around the house next month!! I plan to get bound resin for the driveway, either do it myself or pay someone (£150 per square meter though and 50 m2 so 7.5K and thats with me doing all the edging and subbase prep!!). Still there's a couple of wheelbarrows in the materials above to do in the meantime and I did the driveway in my old house next door (fully paved) and it's stood up well. Plan on having a step up to the front door but a ramp off to the right as an alternate path. Have been working upstairs getting things finished. Currently have the stairwell, landing and office room completed and kitted out. Just starting the Master bedroom this week. Then it's off to the outside! I bought a pull out sofa bed, extra computer desk and some IKEA PAX wardrobes for the office room. There wasn't space for 4 Ikea units (500m wide each) so I put in 400mm wide shelving instead - I'll paint at some point. I forgot to level the sides of the double wardrobe before tacking on the back so while the sides are parallel, it's more like a parallelogram and one door is offline. Oh well!! That'll teach me to measure twice!! I'm gluing the bamboo floor upstairs also and Iove the look of it. I can now move into it as a full time office and save the space in my bedroom for the first time ever in nearly 30 years (i.e. no computer in my bedroom anymore!). the two skylights at the top of the stairwell work well. I forgot to clean the upper window and take off the Velux protective tape before taking down the temporary platform and finish the sides. I won't tell you what I did with a ladder to fix this on all fours and ended up heading back to the Chiropractor the next day!! The Master bedroom is a bit tighter but I measured it and think I have a bit of room to play around with 2.85m x 3.5m so a double bed and 500mm lockers either side still gives me a meter on one side or the other to add a dresser or something like that, fitted wardrobes over and around the bed and another at the end of the bed. How to fit a locker into an IKEA system? You can build in space with the PLATSA - I did a free design session with an IKEA rep who showed me how. I'll have to move the plug sockets up or they'll get buried but should be ok otherwise. I plan to fit a table above where the soil pipe boxing protrudes. If you spotted a hole in the wall above the light socket, the door lining screw pierced the electrical wire at that location and all the lights upstairs went out!! Wago repair done. Electrician is out later this week so will have a word!! Energy usage (last 2 months) so far is 11pm-8am 3562 kWh, 5pm-7pm 71 kWh and daytime 316 kWh. I've been fine tuning my usage with the SigEnergy system and tried using AI for a few weeks but it kept taking from the grid during peak times which was very annoying even when being told not to so I went back to manual and fixed time schedules so that's helped a bit. I hope to get peak to 0 if possible. My overall usage is up but my bill is €60 down from the last one two months ago which is from PV Export, the one thing the AI system was good at! I'll have to have a talk with it at some point! Each export unit equates to 1/2 a peak unit that should have been avoided!! Ah, technology!! I just figured out today how to send excess PV to my car when it's plugged in. I had Givenergy in my old house which went into Administration this week, glad I'm not with them anymore! I finally got the glazing for the internal window installed. It's double glazed but with a large airgap for sound proofing. I did considered fire rating it but the price would have been crazy. It's comprised of: 6mm Toughened x 20mm black spacer x 6.4 Laminate for safety. The seat worked out well, just need a few cushions!! My Sigenergy Gateway is being upgraded to 100A from 63A this week. I have an uprated mains supply but it wasn't picked up by the Solar supplier - unlikely I'll draw that much but still nice to have the extra room in Amps if I ever needed it! Unexpected but hope all goes well! Anyway, that's it for now, lots of joint filling on the Fermacell to do this week and sanding....!

Why? To give a fighting chance of running a new cable or replacing an old one. The current model when we hide the cables and assume they will be OK for the life of the building seems to me a bit flawed 😉.

Reporting back: Rationel has these as an option, but not, it seems for tilt-and-turn e.g.

Not needed guys. Sitting brooding can work wonders. An offcut of 28mm copper pipe crenellated using pliers works wonders. 🙂 But thanks for the thought, Nick.