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Thanks @SteamyTea . yes, it is useful Ian

About 6mm leveller going on the ply, then LVT. Don't want leveller going inside the pocket as no idea what level it might settle at, so need to close the gap to stop leveller running in.

I got stick on fish tank / brewing thermometers. Not the most precise but gives you a good idea of what's going on.

It's best to check with whoever will be completing the EIC as appropriate location of isolators is in the regs and quite subjective. Ours insisted on putting them in the very nearest cupboard, which has resulted in a few getting knocked by large items being shoved into said cupboard Recently I've seen on other projects that electricians seem much less concerned these days, either putting all isolators together next to the CU, perhaps using minigrid switches, or even omitting isolators completely (e.g. for outside blinds). If they're happy signing the EIC then fair game. Pretty sure they had more conventional isolator for anything over 13A.

That is all we used to keep the house cool recently. It was 32.8C outside at the hottest and we closed the curtains on the west facing windows. The walls are mostly shale cob 650mm thick and the temperature inside was 25C. Opening the windows in the evening when the outside temperature was below the inside temperature, cooled it down. It has taken a while for the fabric of the building to return to normal, that's good old 'thermalmass' for you.

EDIT: just realised I should have measured the pressure drop at 15lpm (shower flow rate), not 25lpm (incoming mains). But it still looks to be a chunky drop in pressure even before taking the bends into account and 2 bar isn't a lot to play with. And maybe velocity would become an issue too.

and be careful too with 'big names' - never assume as not always what it seems!

Ours are (and/or will be) hidden away in nearby cupboards. You need access every Julember so why worry about convenient access?

Very important. There are different grades of stainless too. I would only ever buy the big names and after checking the spec. It's not just the steel but the washer incl both the metal and rubber elements. And cedar and anything exotic should be researched.

Thanks. It’s 216m2 over 2 floors.

so reading further need to be cautious - so probably not going to risk it. Not just corrosion to metal but nasty staining - would be a lot of work down the pan! interesting the different thoughts - links below. Looking back we had some black staining around fixings which would have been I am sure tiny specks of ferrous material off drill bits! Sweet chestnut and oak have I understand very similar properties. I have dropped a note to tdca who were very helpful previously - I'll post copy of response. Have to say even finding the right screws for cladding wasn't easy! Once you dig deeper stainless grades are also important and not always obvious. Found some good ones in end which were also not astronomical cost! https://www.englishwoodlandstimber.co.uk/talk-tannin-oak-chestnut-cladding-beam/ https://oakbydesign.co.uk/blog/tannins-in-oak-buildings/ https://hardwoodsgroup.com/understanding-tannin-staining-in-oak-causes-and-effective-treatments/

I could put them in the cupboard below the ovens - the one above would be too high up, would that work? The hob is on the island along with the kitchen ring.

Thank you both for your detailed replies - much appreciated and very useful information. I'll be doing the pipework but getting a g3 qualified installer to connect up the cylinder, so this will help me check he's done it right. @NickfromwalesThe incoming mdpe is connected to the meter by 15mm copper - should this be upgraded to 22mm too or is the meter itself a bigger constraint so it doesn't matter? I don't have an external stopcock, which might complicate upgrades. There's also a basin and toilet before the cylinder - if I understand correctly, I should take the toilet's cold from the raw incoming, but 'double back' for the sink by taking its cold feed from the balanced cold. @JohnMo My thinking for doing the shower run in 22mm was because the pressure drop tables suggest a loss of about 75mbar/m at 15mm, 25lpm. Over 18m this means 1.35 bar loss even in copper. At 2 bar incoming, the shower would be 0.65 bar max. Is your pressure perhaps better than mine?

What appliances are in the island? Hob I assume? Your designer is spot on, in getting rid of the wall-warts, I always hide these under an adjacent cupboard / unit, Fugly on a good day imho. However, where you need to push back is, the location; have the hob isolator under the island / hob, and the oven isolators in the adjacent units.

They just lay the flooring slightly under, and then your skirting sits on top?

Nope. Needs a building control application first, with support from an architect or architectural technician (the latter will be cheaper and simpler). Then, you reach out to a few 5-6 reputable local builders for estimates / quotes etc and come back here with the results for us to see who's good / bad / ugly. ONLY use a builder who will take you to other jobs, let you meet other customers, and avoid the cheapest quotes!

Ola. From the stopcock to the new UVC you need 22mm pipework, allowing the supply to the cylinder pressure reducing valve (Inlet Control Group) to be unaffected by other cold mains draw off's aka "cold mains priority". Alter the house plumbing to have things like the dishwasher and washing machine fed off the 22mm cold mains, T'd off in 15mm as close to the stopcock as is possible. Do NOT take these off the balanced cold outlet at the UVC!! At the control group you get balanced (3 bar pressure controlled) feeds to the cold input of the UVC, which becomes your 'hot out', and a balanced cold draw of to give you balanced hot & cold supplies to mixer devices; showers / monoblock taps etc. You cannot have the raw cold mains on one side of a mixer / monoblock and then the balanced hot, as you can get cold forcing its way back to the UVC and damaging it (backflow). This is all in the G3 installation guidelines with every UVC sold in the UK. It's at the control group that you can get starved of flow and pressure. Off the top of the UVC you can take a hep2o 15mm pushfit line directly to the shower for hot, and same for cold from the control group, and then you will have long radii bends vs 90's, but then also zero joints on the way there. The hep2o inserts are very thin, stainless liners, so flow doesn't get strangled like it can with other systems using thick plastic inserts. You can put these alongside one another and instantly see the difference. You can convert to copper at the shower, or use hep2o all the way, just let us know what you have / are going to have, and we'll advise accordingly as to how to best terminate it. FYI I use hep2o in every job, and my typical projects run from just under to well over 7 figures. Never had a single issue, other than an odd "Friday" fitting that I changed on the same day. For your cylinder size, go 210-250L if on gas, or 250-300L if on an ASHP. Better for everything to be storing more water at a lower temp for the same performance, imho. With gas you'll be fine for recovery / guest use, plus you'll be able to turn the immersion on for any time you are really under duress.

It's a lot. The sun hits the shutter which , if metal, will be as hot as touching a car's body work. That energy would otherwise be beaming into the room. The Spanish ones I'm familiar with are roller shutters with about 3mm of foam. The inner metal face is still very warm but I'd guess 10°C cooler already. The heat dissipates by convection or wind , I assume. Then there is an air gap to windows as an additional insulater. For a timber shutter I'm guessing somewhat. It still stops the light obviously. Insulation will be much the same. The difference between inside and out on a scorching afternoon can be 8,9,10 degrees. 32 out and 22 in, say. That's with masonry walls and no insulation. That can still be too hot but gives aircon a good start if wanting to go that way. Otherwise it's a case of flushing the cooler air through at night. If a shutter is inside the room it let's lIght in. However I'm surprised how much an internal blind or curtain helps.

Just realised I have a significant gap at the bottom of the plasterboard either side of my pocket door. I need to fill this urgently as the flooring people are coming - how can I do this ? I can actually push an LVT strip right through the wall from one side and out of the other. This is a problem because: 1/ I can't have floor leveller running into the door pocket and potentially causing fouling with the bottom of the door inside an inaccessible pocket 2/ This means sound can go straight under the wall despite it having two layers of p/board on each side. So I need something which will close the gap, have reasonable acoustic value, and can be easily fixed in place without a long drying time. Can't use expanding foam as it will expand into and block the pocket. Cut thin strips of something ? ply, timber, plasterboard ? And how to fix them in place ? Would AC50 be any good to fix something in place ?

Oddly you'd think these would be on par, but the radial seems to offer much less of an issue here from my direct experience. I am overly meticulous with my MVHR specifications, as I need to stand by the promises I make to my clients as to how well (and silently) it will perform. One of the biggest problems with MVHR is bean-counting, and not allowing a good bit of headroom resulting in operational fan speeds of well under 50% of the unit capacity. Try lowering the fan speed and work from the bottom > up, and aim for less than 0.5 ACH at trickle. How many m2 is the dwelling?

Don't. We are about 20m as the crow flies and it's 15mm Hep2O. Zero flow issues and gets hot water quick enough. 22mm the delay getting hot water will drive you made. So how are you calculating this? It should be balanced feed either take from the cold outlet on the cylinder combination valve or add an additional pressure regulator valve to the cold inlet to the house. If you do the additional pressure control valve you need to add a check valve to the DHW outlet. Cylinder size upsize and don't heat as hot. Less chance of scalding anyone. There are two of us and we have 210L, we heat to 53 degs and we can get 3x showers out of it if we have guests

An interesting day Took 2 hours to "undo" some of its shitty code. I didn't look at the code but it's so hard coded and engraved that removing it broke everything. But doing it in baby steps worked. Then of course it blew my mind when I defined the structure for our procedural world. Implemented the Skeleton no problem. All good but 6fps!!!. I couldn't work it out. Told it that we are lead SE for Nintendo on a Switch 2 Super Zelda game that destroys Breath of the Wild!!! It now says things like "yes, this would be correct for a AAA title" (expletive deleted)ing idiot! After much work found (christ knows why) for a certain shadow it was sampling the terrain mesh 7 times PER SHADOW!!!). That is a frame rate killer. Now, we are in a new league of brilliance!. But I have to be on the ball big time for optimisations; which is good because thats my domain.

Hello - just wanted to sense check my copper pipework and direct unvented cylinder before I install it. It's a one bedroom bungalow for two people. Incoming pressure and flow rate is 2 bar and about 25lpm. Unfortunately due to space, the cylinder and the shower it will feed will be at opposite ends of the bungalow, so about 18m run with about six 90 degree bends including the one coming out of the cylinder. I'll do them as pulled bends to reduce friction. Having lived in a succession of houses with rubbish (electric) showers, for once I'd like a great shower experience, so I'm thinking 12-15lpm. 1) I'm thinking of doing the run in 22mm rather than 15mm. It'll be a longer wait for the shower to warm up, but it looks like the pressure drop in 15mm would be too great. Does this make sense? 2) If the hot is done in 22mm then should the cold also be done in 22mm? 3) Manufacturer guidance for cylinder sizing seems conservative - 150l for a one bed house with shower. But two 10 minute 15lpm showers with 65 degree water mixed down to 40 would need 175l. And if we had guests... Is there any reason not to oversize the cylinder as much as possible - 250l or beyond? Thank you for any advice you can give.

The 'interior designer' has persuaded me to locate the isolators for the ovens on the kitchen island so they do not break up the aesthetic of the oven wall. These would be 1.4m from the Ovens across the gangway from the wall with the ovens. Each oven has a max draw of 3600W so 7.2kW with both on full power. Each of the two ovens will have there own 32A isolator in the Consumer Unit (CU), To achieve the run it ends up as a lot of 6mm cable: CU - Island (12m) & Island - Oven (15m) I am going to have 27m run (Voltage drop 3.5V approx), none in insulation but in duct and trunking. [I would need only 5m of 6mm cable if the switches were local to the ovens] So for these two ovens I will need just over 50m of cable which in itself is not a problem but I thought I would get a sanity check here to be sure I am not breaking any rules doing this - it looks OK to me regs wise. Any thoughts - should I push back on the interior designer?

@marmic if you are going to do shutters do louvered shutters if the primary aim is to keep the sun out. Louvered shutters will still let the light in and you’ll only need to keep the sun out in the summer plus a month or two either side. If hinges are proving difficult to source, how about a rail system, a bit like out door curtains? The shutters won’t need to fit snugly if it’s just the suns UV you’re trying to defend against, so a louvered shutter each side of the window that you can just slide across when needs must would fit the bill, and be easy to open and close.