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Yes there is always inertia, but in general in well functioning markets, better improved products should naturally replace poorer ones. What I see happening with 'banning' things is that it can mean inferior products get forced in, which in turn then reduces the incentives for product improvement. Had LED lights not been forced in, perhaps manufacturers would have worked harder to get their LED bulbs to match the older ones for brightness. What has been achieved instead is to force consumers to accept living with dimmer bulbs. I think something similar has gone on with EU rules forbidding vaccuums that are powerful enough to suck up dirt well. The same is being done with standby devices where they are planning to limit standby power consumption to less than 2W I think, thereby preventing many devices from being able to maintain a wifi or other connection and wake on command.

All previous houses I've paid about 3 or 400 for gas connection. I wasn't going to get it in new place if ashp but will deffo rethink if standing charge is going. I'll have a gas hob. @JohnMo your tune has changed! You said gas heating should be banned from newbuilds!

Grateful for advice on securing a lean-to pergola ledger board against external brick work. I’m assembling a 6x4m lean-to, cedar pergola against my 2019 modern house. X3 vertical supports at the front. The 6m ledger board needs to be secure noting up and down loads. I think the wall brick outer layer covers a 100mm cavity then blockwork (maybe lightweight blocks). Grateful for any tips on securing the ledger to the house. I’m thinking x16 340mm stainless steel rods inserted through brick into the blocks using resin and sleeve. But I’m not sure how to guarantee sufficient resin gets into the blockwork work noting I can’t see it. I’m also unsure if resin in the blockwork and bricks is enough to meet building regs as some load might remain on the brick layer. First post so thanks in advance.

I had HO7RN-F at the back of my mind, as I think I have used it in the past. The trunking is in the ceiling, but not accessible. One end is curved up into the loft and the other end is curved down into the room. I should have thought ahead a bit more and installed it with the other cables. It may not be required, but if it is, then doing it now will be easier. Is it acceptable to connect a home battery system using HO7RN-F cable.

I've got some 4mm fibre glass rods which I was going to use for the fishing bit. It is 2 x 1 trunking, but the lid won't come off because it's covered with plasterboard. I was hoping to make life as easy as possible for myself because I've always found anything larger than 4mm a sod to pull through conduit. Life would have been easier if I had thought further ahead.

Whoops, I think you are right. I misread my decimal point. An extra penny per unit.

I would lean the same way Nick has here, if you can get a proper gravity run in then it will save you a lot of grief later. That said, with the tiling already done downstairs and a box out spoiling a full height window, I can see why a macerator is tempting. If you do go that way, I would keep the unit somewhere you can actually get at it for cleaning and for a seal change, rather than boxed in tight, and stick closely to the discharge layout in the guide so a slow joint leak does not sit hidden for months.

You sure about that?? Usage 10,000 kWh at £0.08 per kWh is £800 per year Standing charge £0.30for 365 Days is £109.50 per year As a result total cost is £909.50 Divide that by 10,000 and I get a new kWh cost of £0.09 where is the £0.19 per kWh coming from!!!

If you use the mean amount of gas (~10MWh/year) and you unit price is 8p/kWh, with a standing charge of 30p/day, then to keep it cost neutral, the new kWh price will be 19p/kWh. Now most people have no idea what they pay, or how much the use. So I see a problem coming to save pennies.

SWMBA must be kept warm 😃 I forgot, we also have this control unit.

We are about 24 hours from a coke start, tried doing setbacks once, and ended up switching the heat off at lunch time to get a night time set back. But restarting the heating about midnight to catch for the next morning. UFH is very slow, time scheduling is just a waste of time in my experience.

Thank you. More information: So assuming radiators elsewhere all with trvs? Yes. Only upstairs, See photos. How many thermostats do you have? Two, the previous photo for the ufh and the one for the radiators, see photo. How many radiators per thermostat or are they all on TRVs? One thermostat serves our two radiators, they are efficient. What boiler do you have and it's size. Greenstar Heatslave II, see photo (eighteen months old) How big is your house and how old is it. Small 2 bed cottage, roughly 40 sq metres footprint, 200 years old. Renovated with underfloor heating installed downstairs some time after 2009 (no paperwork discovered). Anything else I have missed? When I do the tests I have only run the UFH.

Very similar to the tape I used on our house and I was very impressed. Better than the tyvek I reckon for durability. Airtightness Tapes3100 Black Airtight TapeOur 3100 single sided tape is a 75 micron PE film, then coated with a 200 gsm of clear modified acrylic adhesive system with scrim for dimensional stability. The PE film is UV resistant for 12 months.

I had the circulation pump fail in the heat pump rendering even the backup heater useless. Plugged a couple of fan heaters in and used the immersion for hot water for a few days until fixed. Cost four times as many pennies as the heat pump but still nothing compared to an annual boiler service. Obviously different if you're not counting your labour as a cost but I wouldn't bother with the hassle.

And of course, for existing properties, there's now no reason not to keep gas connected...

Agreed. You'd need to have a very simple connection to a gas main running close to the property for the cost of installation to be low enough, but for some, that may be the case.

"Flexible" is only an advantage to go around a very tight bend. But it is harder to push a flexible cable through than a stiff one, so presumably if you are thinking of more flexible cables, you are also thinking of pulling them through so have some kind of fish wire etc already available?

For very low use, in our case the gas hob, we have a pair of 47Kg LPG cylinders on an automatic changeover. Just the cost of a gas connection (even if mains gas was available here) would pay for many years of cylinder refills.

And to add to the above post, are you trying to heat just the UFH while doing these tests, or the radiators as well? If just UFH and radiators are off, then it is indeed very likely the boiler is unhappy and shutting down. Try it with radiators running and UFH on at the same time, the radiator load should keep the boiler happy. Turn up that big white dial on the left of the bottom manifold. That is what sets the temperature going into the UFH loops. UFH does take a long time to warm up. Every year when we turn the heating on, later that same day SWMBO says "the heating's not working in the En-Suite" Next morning it is toasty warm and then stays warm with very little heat input.

Very common in older terraces. A lot of them were built with the party wall stopping at ceiling level, or only every other pair got one. On permission, I'd ring your local building control before anyone starts. A new separating wall in the loft is fire separation work, so they'll usually want a building notice and an inspection, and you then get a completion certificate. That certificate is what the buyer's solicitor will actually want to see, so it's worth the fee rather than just building it and hoping. It also sits on the line of the party wall, so the Party Wall Act applies. Your neighbour will need to be served notice or agree in writing, and in practice the builder will need access to their loft anyway. Worth a friendly chat first, as it protects their house as much as yours. On construction, building control will tell you what they'll accept, but typically it's either blockwork built off the existing party wall below, or a stud wall with two layers of fire rated plasterboard on each face, mineral wool in the void, and the top fire stopped tight to the underside of the roof covering with mineral wool and intumescent sealant. The fire stopping at the top and the ends is where these usually fail inspection, so make sure the builder takes it right up between the rafters. If the sale is under time pressure, ask your solicitor whether the buyer will accept the work booked in with building control sign off to follow.

I'd always imagined that any house we ever get to build would not have a gas connection, but if there was no standing charge, then I'd maybe reconsider that. Not to have a gas boiler installed, but maybe a gas fire, or a specialist gas hob for some types of cooking. If the cost of connection was low enough, it would make sense, and, as @JohnMo notes, it may be a good backup for some. Will it be an unintended consequence that people start to think in a similar way and we see gas connections start to rise, even as people are transitioning to electric for heating?

I bought a few boxes of tyvek off eBay (any of there tape white, metallic or black) paid about £10 a roll. I still have some around and use for all sorts as won't come off.

There are different types of cable that are more flexible, but I'm not aware of a more flexible than normal twin+earth cable. What sort of "trunking" are we talking about? Can you explain the 5m run so we can understand the challenge? You'll get a better response about type of cable and how to pull it (rods, Cobra, etc.) Depending on what the cable is for, what else is in the trunking/duct/conduit, the size of the duct, protection required, etc... 6491X conduit singles might work - ususally 7-cores but you can get even more flexible than that Tri-rated panel cables are quite flexible HO7RN-F Heavy Duty Rubber cable like the type used on quality extension leads might work But I suspect the 6mm2 T+E could be pulled that distance with the right tools and preparation unless there are some major issues.

Yes otherwise known as a fish tape or fish wire. One of my most used and "couldn't do without" tools. But if this is "Trunking" you take the lid off. I think you mean "conduit"?

12 years is good going for LEDs, espescially 'cheap' Ikea ones. When I changed to LED I tried to buy 'quality' brands (Megaman, Osram, Samsung) all costing over double what cheaper brands like GE and more like 4-6 times the cost for own brands like Wilkinsons or Woolworths that I also bought for comparison. The light quality for the more expensive brands was obviously better, but longevity has been exceedingly disapointing. I write the date of install on all lamps I fit; apart from one cheapo Woolworths lamp (that is still going strong 28 years later - albeit with awful light quality - and used in an outdoor sensor light) they all failed within 5 years. I seem to get just over a year out of modern cheapo ones from amazon etc, but I cannot see the point of spending more for 'quality' ones when their life expectancy doesn't seem to be any better. None of the epensive manufactuers honoured their warranties as I didn't keep the original boxes they came from / couldn't prove they were not subject to unusual switching frequency / couldn't prove that the electricity supply was stable volatge/frequency and any number of other bullderdash excuses they came up with. Perhaps if I could get some 'Dubai' quality bulbs it would be worthwhile, if nothing else ithan to reduce the materials being consumed and wasted. I very much doub't these are ever properly recycled, plus I walk every day on one of the local fly-tipping routes - there must be a dozen LED per metre, and god knows what they are leaching.