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Look in a tiling warehouse and there is a corner dedicated to many options. The upmarket supplier we chose, said we needed it. Contractors suck through their teeth and tell you it's a risk. It's a big market.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wytch_Farm

Never heard of a decoupling layer for tiling until now Tiled our place 18 years ago and other than a hairline crack on a doorway on a 20m stretch it's been perfect without one. This was on a prepared 60mm anhydrite screed and we used a flexible tile adhesive

We did an expensive SUDS compliant block paving drive way, took a fair bit of time and care doing it. Two years in and it's an awful lot less permeable than it was , guess is in 5 years it won’t be permeable at all. Mud from car wheel arches and muddy boots from gardening and walking soon fills the permeable cracks, being in a rural area there is plenty of mud around.. Fortunately it doesn’t matter, to us.

Having trouble finding any first fix plumbers in Cambridgeshire or surrounding areas. Where are they hiding? Any suggestions or recommendations gratefully received. We are running short of time.

He is supplying and including the adhesive and grout. I'm pleased about that because the best tilers in the past have also insisted on this. I once helped one by mixing up the packs, fetching and rotating for him when the pattern was complex. He used very quick setting compound which would have scared me... holding and adjusting a tile with one hand while preparing the next. No spacers or packing. The tile suppliers all seem to want to sell adhesive... but how many tilers are happy with that?

Re: fracking as a solution to UK oil production falls... Quote : "... when we fly over some of these pump jacks and stuff like that, you'll be able to smell it... your eyes may burn just a little bit...."

From the Geya web page: "Modular manual changeover switches are a unique solution that has a three-stable position switch I-0-ll " Hopefully I haven't mis-understood that, if so I am an even bigger idiot than I thought. However I have found a Hager unit which I think ticks UK electricians boxes. It is twice the price but not crazy: https://hager.com/uk/products/h/sf263-2-pole-changeoverswitch-63a-i-0-ii

I think that's a 2 position unit? The I and II show the 2 positions

I have used 20+ time delay on off / relay switches from GEYA and found them all ok. Sometimes the instructions have been a little hard to understand but maybe that's just me.

Yours is borderline unrecognisable as a quim. I attribute this to ‘costal erosion’.

AKA Quim Eroder

I genuinely wish I knew WTF you just said, but it’s way above my pay-grade lol. I will continue to peruse and hope to be unwittingly educated (somehow); a bit like how boiling water has to accept being infused by a teabag. “Continue” ☺️

The BAL adhesive mentioned is probably the rubber crumb AF Max. People think its a new concept but it was around many years ago. Your tiler will love you if you go with that as it's a lot lighter to use and handle.

Not really, just needs someone to bite down and make the 1st fix robust enough to adopt whatever is to be fitted downstream. I have had to do this on the current job; now a few days into being ghosted by one ‘Daikin specialist’….. Quite a few one-trick ponies out there, sadly. Two rounds of being passed from pillar to post after calling Daikin UK design / support, then sent back through the process again by further clueless fcukwits, for someone to lift the phone, say fcuk all, and then hang up on me. Took all my might to not bite the corner off my iPhone, and wrecked my mojo for the rest of the (then more) difficult day. (expletive deleted) Anyhoo. I am currently sailing along on my own compass, and have put pipework in that will suit all scenarios, conduits vs cables (so whatever communications are needed, these can be pulled A-B with ease, downstream of plaster-boarding and plastering), and the world will continue to spin without a sweat being broken. All pipework insulated and joints and seams taped with neoprene self adhesive ‘insulation tape’, and no stone left unturned. I decided to raise the topic of hydronic air handling via a duct heater, and the client is happy to concur; I will just spur off the flow and return from the nearest FCU (22mm F&R), leave a pair of pipes in the MVHR ‘cupboard’ in abeyance, and have the option to integrate this later (if so required (and they’re not too broke to do so 🙃)). Then, on to solving the next problem.

Stairway to Devon

FCU per room much simpler. Have DMd you the contact. But this was through an installer…

This Geya unit seems to be a 3 position switch. They seem very little money. Anyone got anything to say about quality or UK standards? GYHO8 Transfer Switch 1P

I've got 2 of those changeover switches, one in each of the main house consumer units. They let either of the CUs be fed from the grid or the backup output from the inverter. One is normally fed from the grid, the other normally fed from the inverter backup output. I'm not aware of any regs that prevent that configuration but it's such a niche that I'm not sure those producing the regs will have detailed if and how they should be use??

I ran condensate drains but they're always dry because I run it over dew point. I did run it (much) colder for a season, but the condensation on all the plumbing gubbins was too much. Pipes are easy to insulate, but circulation pumps, 3 port valves, magfilter, flow sensor, etc not so much. It quickly started to look a real mess. Adding a second (much larger) FCU greatly reduced the need to run at such low flow temp

Yes. (It already is, not going to be on grid for half a year)

Progress has been interesting . qwen coder is a bit spazzy at writing code from prompts - too many errors . We have a pipeline where automatically the error goes to derpseek that rewrites the prompt for coder again ! But at this stage ChatGPT reins king ; it defines and (expletive deleted) me ! Makes me test every single step . It does the code as it’s small snippets and documents them a bit too much ! But it’s a rock solid implementation. Proper SE stuff ! . So structure / framework at this stage is complete . Added the uma8 multi microphone array . All good . In the next few days expect the engineer dashboard to show wake word recognised , stt . At that point things get interesting . It’s going to be a massive project in complexity and I’m in awe what one person can achieve with llm . Will swap back to deep seek and a better coder model when I get something with more ram - which could be some wait ; though I do smell an m5 ultra flip opportunity…. 😊

I never came across the slightest hint of corruption. But maybe I don't spot any hints, not thinking that way myself. (I'm forever seeing social media comments blaming everything on 'brown envelopes", presumably from people who would if they could.) However, I have come across ignorance and misplaced self- importance esp in LA inspectors.* It surprises me when I occasionally see on here that a BCO has given a self- builder advice, as they do spot checks, not thorough inspections. My guess re the now required registration is that some authorities or businesses were delegating to juniors or other unqualified staff, so that had to stop. If there was any criticism in Grenfell et al, then I've missed it. * one such young LA chap told me he wasn't accepting block paving in an industrial yard. I asked him why and he blustered some nonsense. So I told him I'd get an Engineer's letter to him. He responded that I needn't bother as they'll write anything they are asked for. I did a how dare you rant, but wished I could have got him sacked. Readers , I was that Engineer but was probably dressed other than he expected. So yes, there need to be standards for a BCO, and I hope they have risen.

I would just add your manifold, leave the pipe tails long and mount manifold on a convenient place. Leave pressurised and you can see the pipe integrity via a pressure gauge pressure test with water glycol or air.

Oh and to add - for every non-compliant detail that was missed by a BCO there was an incompetent builder or designer that actually did the work!