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I always use a sled for cross cutting on the table saw. If you don't then pushing on the wood can cause it to bind on the saw blade. The sled pushes on the wood evenly right upto the blade so the cut doesnt tend to close up.

it seems pretty important in this instance, the trap doesnt have a screw in central funnel from top to bottom but looks more like it relies on the seals. The bottom seal looks like it does the brunt of the work to me? Id ditch the top seal and use CT1 I'd imagine as well, as I'd want it as low as possible in the recess.

Would be good to know. Please report back. Sadly, it sounds like the remedials involved chemical injection to prevent damp. Which it wont.

Thanks Gus! I'll keep you posted 🙂 Embarrassed that I haven't read any Adam Smith (yet).

I will get him to drill such a hole and find out. We know the wall was wet but did the remedials in November last year.

So put up expensive panels that have lower efficiency, facing away from the sun for 9 months of the year. Just offer to pay a quid per kWh for your electricity. There are much easier cash savings to be made.

Ok, but still no DPC? Im not there, but i bet that wall is wet internally.. Now its trapped under the gypsum. Drill a hole into the masonary above the skirting board. I bet what comes out isnt a nice dry dust.

You will find they are used extensively in mezzanine floors.

Yes defo was but has had breather hole cover to be fitted. Here is a bigger image the floor in here is well above outer ground level and the wall is the party with next door.

Good work, but more interested in the camper. Did that come from NSR Leisure? I see you have been sensible to and not fitted it to a double cab. Curious as i just bought one too. Nowhere near as posh as yours though. On the upside i dont need to build a cover for it as there one already there behind it.

Im guessing old house, solid wall no DPC? Dont like to deliver bad news but damp proof injection is snake oil. It doesnt work and never will. Im guessing this wall was damp originally?

I think I was the one napping. When I was asking about the inverter I was told it had two MPPT strings so I could run the north face on the second, not using MIs - that bit was me being dopey.

Hi Mike. Hard to tell without some wider context. Some panoramic photos required, also external ones so we can see the ground levels. It may be something as simple as the plasterer has really soaked the wall first and that has "reactivated" the latent salts in the wall?

Our son had a chunk of the chimney breast replastered and it seems to be effervescent. It feels dry but I don't have my damp meter with me. Any thoughts - can it be cured or does he need to get it redone? I understand the wall beneath has been damp proof injected.

This is what lots of people say.. until they do need to make a claim. As someone who inspects on behalf of Clients (and reports to warranty providers) who find they need to make a claim against the warranty providers. I can tell you this is a mine field and there are few friends in the desert. The rebuild cost can often be above the build cost as for example you may have to demolish, clear the site first.. which can be costly. I've not seen this advice before as it suggests a limit to the cover, maybe I've read this wrong and there is more to it? The basic shell may only comprise 20% of the build cost at times. I would ask your broker to seek two alternate quotes and provide you with the terms and conditions on when you and cannot make a claim. Read these carefully before making your decision. It's going to take a bit of time.. but I can assure you, based on my day job, it's at the very least going to inform you, it may save your skin later if your circumstances change.

It didn't occur to me to try and cast something directly onto the cill I like that, thanks. Torre - Thanks for the drain link. I couldn't find anything that reasonably priced for a shallow depth.

The F gas solution doesn't look cheap, may be wrong. Could be a good system, but I would go A2W and have fan coils (water to air) in bedrooms and normal wet UFH. A pragmatic design could be pretty simple. Design for heating, accept cooling may not be perfect but way better than not having cooling. UFH will make house feel way cooler than the air temperature is. The fan coils in bedrooms will leave rooms for a comfortable sleep. First job is looking at heat loss and sizing an outdoor unit. Then room by room heat loss. Design UFH (not some cut and paste job by UFH suppliers). Size fan coils to provide room heating at under 30 degs. Then run everything as a single zone. Fan coils will modulate fan speed to keep room temperature stable. The above assumes you are talking about a low energy house.

Where the (bleep) did that come from? Obviously a brainfart on my part. It was Wren Kitchens 🙂

quooker boiling water only tap with Pro3 tank. Plumber mentioned some people cut a hole in the base of the cupboard and install a dish in the hole so the tank can sit lower into the plinth space. Anyone ever seen this, done this, point me at the metal dish people inset etc ? Anyone actually have a shelf in the same side of a cupboard as the tank and cut around it or in front of it ? In fact if anyone has a photo of an installed quooker in a kitchen cabinet it would be helpful. Looking to work out best positioning for tank, and socket etc

@Square Feet "This is the jump I have taken since my previous blog posts (which have in themselves also been an act of ‘starting the conversation’). " This is progress! I enjoyed our telephone conversation. I have lots of different types of Clients. Some are just starting out and have little experience and you need to adjust to give the best advice that puts them on a sound footing at the start of their journey. Some Clients such as yourself have a wealth of experience and technical knowledge. Here we can skip some steps and more quickly go into technical detail, for example what detailed risk the site may pose all the way up to how you are actually going to build it on site. The conversation can quickly move to a position where can test our ideas against each others knowledge and experience in a free, open and enjoyable manner. That is why conversations take time and are invaluable in all cases. At the end of the day building a house should be fun and rewarding. It should be fun for the Client and for me also as the designer. This is achievable if you plan well, get good advice from folk where you may have weak spots in your experience. If that advice is well presented and informs you then it allows you to make evidenced / risk based decisions. The best news is that the seller has made contact and you have met in person. I’d be gutted if I saw the plot reduced to what I would have paid at some point in the future when I had already committed to a compromise plot I don’t like as much. He was generous enough to not reject it right away but instead to say that he would think about it and talk it over with his partner before getting back to me sometime next week. I can ask no more than that. At this stage there is everything to play for. The key here as you know is to keep the negotiation channel open. You want to buy, the seller sell. I think there is reference to this concept in Adam Smith, 1776: The wealth of nations. Rooting for you!

I'd have thought by suitably placing the PIR (e.g. on the side panel) it will be triggered by the movement of the doors themselves without having any visibility through any crack between the doors. A lot of these things just seem simpler using the smart home approach. Then you can move the wireless battery powered sensor around until it reacts as you wish, and choose whatever logic including delays, conditions etc to control the light. Lots of LED strip controllers available with wireless smart home integration. The following sensors readily available... PIR Contact sensors Tilt sensors vibration Sensor presence sensor lux sensor I always wonder why have the LED strip at the back of the shelf rather than the front. Things under a shelf are illuminated by reflected light incident from the front, and can just get silhouetted when lit from the rear. Unless you are going to open the cupboard in a dark room you could use a lux sensor inside the cupboard to detect the increase in light when you open the cupboard doors.

Lots of ifs and buts on this one. There are only really three practical ways of moving the heat into and out of the building: water, air, refrigerant. Air specific heat capacity is poor so you need lots of volume and flow, refrigerant needs its own specific pipework, qualifications etc. with lots of limitations to things like pipework length. Water is definitely the most effective way to move the heat. The aircon units will probably also need condensate drainage so added complexity there. I don't think the solution is that simple, or not as simple as the Samsung marketing department makes it look. Maybe okay for a new build, but for a retrofit? I'm not so sure. Like with all these things, the complexity lies more in the cooling than in the heating, especially if you want aircon type cold.

Thank you for the heads up! I just checked back a realised I'd got a couple of things confused. The MIs had been specced donkeys ago for a system that was also on the main roof and included the south face of the garage to account for the predicted shadowing over the year! This plan never got anywhere because the solar designer couldn't find a roofing contractor that would touch our roof and standing seam. So, yes, scrub the suggestion of MIs into the inverter.

Talking to a plumber tonight. He is F gas certified. He was explaining the difference with these heat pumps to the standard ones to me. It's all a bit beyond my understanding. Anyway I was asking him if I could have wet UFH on GF then air to air units upstairs to do heating if needed and cooling in summer, also probably 1 or 2 air units downstairs to cool. All off 1 outdoor unit. I think he is more in with Daikin and said they are bringing out something soon, however Samsung appear to do the perfect solution with the TDM plus / climate hub. Outdoor pump, pre plumbed cylinder and air to air units. It looks good, no doubt very costly?! Does anyone have any experience with this set up. Seems simpler to a luddite like me. I suppose cost will be the trade off for simplicity i've no doubt others like @JohnMo can knock something up just as good performance wise for a lot less dough, maybe even have 2 seperate outdoor units. It's just beyond my pay grade though. I wonder what cost would be for this and 5 or 6 indoor air con units and the cylinder. https://samsung-climatesolutions.com/gb/b2c/our-solutions/home/heat-pump-solutions/heating-cooling/tdm-plus.html

Reed switches would work nicely, with the magnets rebated into the tops of the doors and the reed switches into the heads, just off centre of each side of the middle of the opening. https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/magnetic-proximity-switches/5308927 Will need to switch the lighting via a small relay as these can only do 0.5a max, but these can be completely hidden and work for the double door arrangement.