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The FMB is a trade association, by subscription. Make of that what you like. This is good you have seen other work, but check that was not for a relative. Check Face book and other social media for suspicious connections. Don't assume all builders are there to rip you off, many are good honest hard working folk. Just browse and if there is a rat you'll likely smell it. A fatal mistake here is to fall under the builders "charm".. you like them but don't want to uncover bad news. Be brave and grasp the nettle. You don't have to tell them you have checked them out! If you struggle on social media then get say your kids , nieces and nephews etc to check this stuff for you, they will do it in a fraction of the time! Do more due dilligence. Check companies house if they are limited. See what other links the directors have. If not limited then this can be an advantage. If something goes horribly wrong then sometimes you can chase the builders own personal assets. Check to see where they live, go to the land registry and see if they own the home (in Scotland this cost me £3.00) and how big their mortgage is. Check to see if they hold it in joint names. You can't chase easily (and nor would you probalby I hope) if the house is in joint names and you end up putting a family out their home. If vat registered then you can check their registration. If not vat registered then you need to ask them why. If their turnover is that low then how do they build houses? Once you have done this kind of due dilligence then you need to sort out a contract that is fair to all parties. To finish on a light note. I have posted this kind of stuff before. Last year a Client engaged me and told me they had followed my advice and done the full due dilligence on myself! I thought... well at least I passed and if you want to dish it out then expect the same in return!

I'm not clear on exactly what you mean - or rather that at a junction of an internal wall and external wall I can't envisage a problem, which probably means I've not understood you question. However any DPM / DPC is likely to be too thick to fold into hospital corners. There are pre-formed DPC corners on the market, for a price, that may help. But the fundamental rules are that all DPM and DPC junctions must overlap by at least 100mm and be to the satisfaction of your BCO.

We are going to demolish a bungalow to replace with a new build. We like a builder we have been in touch with and seen previous work and spoke to owners of new build, which we are more than happy with. My only concern is that his company is not listed on federation of master builders site, which I got advised at a recent building show they should be. Advice please. If not really a requirement, how do I protect myself, the house etc and know we are using the right company. Thank you.

Agree, your statement is however cleverly worded, what you say is generally accepted as correct. But you are making a straw man arguement. Have you explored the potential of the Rosebank oil field? That is because we keep shutting them down. Have a look at what Ineos have been doing for many years in Fife Scotland. One reason it did well in the past was because it used sweet Brent crude oil from the north sea, more plastic and base chemicals, less heavy crud ( the crap) that is expensive to get rid of. No it won't in the grand scheme of things, anyway if we make the tax system attractive it's the oil and gas companies that will fund it. If we give them the same security as we seem to hand out willy nilly to the wind folk this should be welcome. It's accepted that to develop say the Rosebank field will take 10 - 15 years. Again here you are making the straw man argument. Even the development will create well paying jobs in the UK. It has less nasty stuff in it that is bad for the environment. I'm not saying this is not achievable, but it will be very much less achievable over say 30 years if we don't develop and maintain our oil and gas industry and collect taxes to fund it. As an Engineer I think you are economically naive. There is a reason for this. Brent crude is what we call a sweet oil, it has lots more useful and valuable compenents and less rubbish in it. That is why you often see it as the bench mark oil price. We have down the list a bit WTI (West Texas Intermediate) which sells for less. Then you have the stuff the Middle east sell. Again you are making a straw arguement as you are comparing apples with oranges. We have some of the best and most valuable oil off the shores of the UK. Again you just can't see the woods for the trees, mention Reform and some folk just can handle it. Is that the best you can do? But see that gas.. it does not magically come out the sea bed ready for use. It needs processed and use made of the other components. If you really are worried about the environment then we should be spending money developing our own access to sweet crude oils just 80 miles off our shores. We take them and process them responsibly. So please can you dispense with your straw man arguments as while some may fall for that type of deflection I won't.

@Roger440 how much of the gear have you already bought? The only way to guarantee no benefit is to leave it uninstalled. Just because you can't get the optimum use out of it doesn't mean it's pointless. You have to install the panels etc eventually, might as well do it now and you'll offset a bit of energy. And you can feel smug because you're doing your bit to help decarbonise the grid.

When needs must..😉 This one is on 22mm but works just as well on 28mm with full bore lever valve on the primary pipework.

Whilst we have a washing machine, during the day in summer, theres minimal demand and nothing to move to that time. Even my workshop is very light on demand in the summer months. Im going to be putting it into the grid rather than using most of it, then buying it when i need it. Yes, i will be saving at least some cost, so theres logic in your argument, but essentially id be wasting a lot of it. Which seems a shame I think Johnmo has demonstrated even in winter, with panels optimised to suit, (which i would do) useful amounts of energy can be collected. Ultimately my demand is high in winter, especially when its dark, near non existent in summer. Excarbated by high workshop power use in winter also. And i really want simple. I know, you probably think thats weird, but if i cant install and maintain it myself, then im not going to do it.

I've used two methods. One was with a really old work bench where the surfaces could be angled to 45degrees and the tube would just rest in the pocket. The other was just to screw some 4 x 2 together at right angles and gently hold the pipe against those. Eventually you'll get the feel of very light strokes with the hacksaw and you can hold both the gutter and down pipes by hand on any bench and it works fine. For the holes in the gutter, you need to get yourself some tin snipps and a decent dead blow hammer for the edges. Installation instructions attached. Have fun. It's lovely material to work with. Rainline-Assembly-Guide.pdf

We wanted and got black inside and out, much prefer I the contrast vs white, and how it 'picture frames' the view outside.

If you want batteries/diverter/heating you need the panels in place and connected, so get that first step done. Everything else is secondary and can be added if and when you get round to it. 4.5kw of panels will give a useful contribution to house running costs spring/summer and a bit of autumn. It's never going to heat your house or hot water in the winter. You can load shift anytime you want by scheduling washing machine, tumble drier, slow cooker etc etc to be on during the day when its bright. Do one after the other to minimise grid draw and max your self use...........but you know all this already so no one really needs to be repeating it??? Just put self installed on the G98, that's all my son in law did and all I did on our G99. Rest of the stuff is inverter details and if you've done electrical work you'll understand all that. Apparently the ENA estimates that less than 50% of PV install has been notified to DNOs so they'll probably be quite greatful of your notification

OK he did say But I think you are right.

I did some more investigation and I can find out that the only 2 knob doing something on the flow are the top black in the middle marked as 0/40 and the pump. The other 2 do actually nothing. Being district heating the temperature of the water is always coming in at 60 degrees. Any help?

Both inside the cover of the outdoor unit and elsewhere e.g. at the highest point of any loops, the furthest point of the rad circuit, the top of any buffer tank, near the expansion vessel, all manner of possible places. I even have one in the void where the HW cyl is, at the top of the feed to the coil.

I dont think he mans the screw piles are made of timber. They would be galvanised steel.

Sounds like your warranty company are being dickheads. Is this Protek?

Yes the sun and wind will dry it and that will prolong the life considerably. The concrete pillars will help a lot too. 20 years is very good.

How? That needs batteries, or a big water tank. Water tank was my original idea. Batteries are a non starter based on capital cost and payback. This was the video Johnmo posted up there^^^ https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DkVaxAfXQPDU&ved=2ahUKEwjZ2vnXhcqEAxXkZEEAHfX8DHkQo7QBegQIDhAG&usg=AOvVaw2ys-gKyKBdBX1Ku7fZDZ-M The basic premise was to supplement the oil based heating with the "free" energy from solar. Using stuff i already have. Theres no economic case to move away from oil to electric as i cant, obviously, generate that much power.

Mine are roof mounted and they wanted a design approval from structural engineer - as a new build that was all done at design stage of the building.

You could load shift to when the sun is shining. Better than leaving those panels sat on a pallet. Link?

It doesnt reduce my heating costs. Just gives me lots of electricity. That i cant really use. At least not when its generated Unless i do more stuff. Which costs more money. You dont just fill in your name and address on the G98 form. It asks for lots of other stuff, like who did it, their qualifications etc. If i do it myself, theres going to be a problem, surely? Happy to connect it up. I qualified way back under 16th edition. So i know enough to do that without killing myself. I like the system that Johnmo linked to, ie panels straight to immersion. No controllers, no electronics, no connection to the grid, no DNO bs, no trying to find an electrician, no complicated opaque tarriffs. Thats simple. Everything else just isnt. Accepting that what you say is simplish, but doesnt get me heat.

Yes this is an option, the builder as far as they are concerned have sign off and have completed work, so this is extra required for warranty company and will cost at least £1k to pull up drive, cut membrane and lay concrete. Really don't want to pay for that and also don't want to rip up my new drive for something that building officer says I don't need. @saveasteading we have a 600mm deep trench, so if 300mm is what we need we are already double that. I will call warranty provider in the morning and see if I can talk to someone, they never seem to call me back.

Does this AI-generated summary of different inverters sound about right? Makes the Eddi look the best by far. Especially considering in the future, when the house is no longer rented out, I am hoping to get an EV and charger.

Forget trackers, forget batteries, forget diverters as none of those are needed to get your 4.5kw of panels up and running. You've said the mechanics of mounting them are fine and that's the tricky bit. You can plug and unplug the connectors on a car loom? MC4 connectors are no harder. Fix a 3.68kw inverter to the wall? Get a spark to connect up the mains if you don't want to do that. Fill in your name and address on a G98 and post it to your DNO. What else is stopping you??

Yup, overnight boost on off peak rate (currently pay around 23p/kwh for that) with a boost function that they can use. Most people figure it out, but some manage to drain hundreds of litres of hot water and then phone up to say it's broken. I presume they're used to unlimited hot water courtesy of mains gas combi boilers. Not an option here! All they have to do is wait half an hour after hitting the boost button. Too complex for some people!! The PV+diverter would just supplement the existing setup. It's quite tempting to fit a dual-element immersion, so that the solar one can have its thermostat set higher.

That's all good info. Specifically, what did they want to know about the structural side of things? I looking at a DIY ground mounted approach.