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As @carlos21 says, just crack the compression nut off the tap, add a compression coupler, add pipe, make back off into the OS tap. Simples. Don't bother with isolators, just knock off the mains in the street and crack on.

The designer will follow the law, the BCO will enforce it. You would need to support this with written evidence to the contrary, do you have such reference material? I find it difficult to accept that a practicing BCO would make such a bold statement, post Grenfell, if it wasn't valid. I can accept this in principle, because at the point where these would become effective, circa 55-57 degrees C of flames licking around them, the sad reality is that the occupants (remaining inside) would have likely already expired due to smoke inhalation. Almost nobody dies from being 'burned alive'; they would have already succumbed to the toxic smoke. At that point, your external cavity fire prevention would be doing absolutely feck all for these lost souls. So, that being my personal opinion, the above BCO makes a valid statement in actuality, but I cannot say that it was lawful for them to say so, as I am not completely fluent with these regs personally. Common sense should prevail here; for my current and subsequent 2 self-build clients, I raised the subject of "automatic fire suppression". It wasn't "needed", but the client chose to adopt this anyways, at reasonable cost, to safeguard his family. In addition, I routinely add 2 - 3x the required number of smoke / heat / multi-sensor detectors for the best line of defence, aka 'early warning', as this is hands-down the one thing that saves lives. External cavity measures are borderline irrelevant for a regular domestic dwelling of 1 or 2 stories, in my own opinion.

Fire protection in timber frames is very tricky. But I have to say that for a BCO to make a statement such as this is astounding, given that you have timber frame construction. To make such a statement is not in alignment with current design understanding and the law. I suspect that the person that made this statement is less experienced and has just made a mistake in the way they have written. Just say they have. The bottom line, if you look at the fine print, you’ll find that they have little or no liability. The real liability rests with either you or you designer.

Waterproof PVA 🤣 A smear of silicone Lick of varnish Used all three from time to time and all good options. Waterproof PVA would be my choice if it's MDF, silicone if it's chipboard.

Fab.

I think it’s first and foremost the responsibility of the self builder (in our cases at least) to design stuff that looks right in its place. Some peeps seem to feel it’s an exercise in getting as much over on the planners/neighbours as possible, which I think is a shame. I know it’s an ‘only rain at night’ type of notion but trying one’s best to build in harmony has got to be the best starting point. But I recognise that we need planners to limit the unharmonious.

The electrical industry raised some concerns about this but turns out it isn't a bit deal. The devices work two way they just aren't tested/certified for it. Exception might be if the mains power is down and the panel is feeding power to the grid (but that can't happen due to the mandatory safety checks built in).

I’d have assumed even a couple of amps pushed the wrong way through old and/or one way RCBOs/RCD would have given them a problem. Nicely inclusive though. I can imagine the real payback being in change of attitude from apathy/impotence to yes, we can do a bit.

Gen 2 Starlink is their own proprietary plug. Gen 3 is basically an RJ45. Just come off of my flat roof with my lad final fitting the new Gen 3 dish. We have TWO Gen 2 Starlink cables sitting here doing nothing. Gen 2: Gen 3, basically standard RJ45 connectors:

No sure if you were referring to our comment, but just for completeness (in case helpful to others) we are bound by B4, so the relevant walls have cement board over our timber frame and fire treated cladding, in addition to the appropriate cavity closures and intumescent strip.

I rubbed in clear Sika EBT into my raw edges, seems to have worked.

We have delved further into this. Did I mention this extension was build by Bodgit and Scarper (very) Limited. I could not repeat a single word said of them on this forum. As far as I can tell the whole extension is plumbed with this type of pipe and fittings. Delving deeper. That elbow disappears through the wall, half of it foamed in part buried in the wall. Looking inside it gets worse. It comes out in a small boxed in section behind the downstairs wc. Looking into that the whole lot of the boxed in section is filled with expanding foam. If there is an isolator, it would be very hard to reach and would need the expanding foam digging out. Best to assume no isolator for that outside tap. B&S Ltd living up to their reputation. Having discussed all this with the home owner I think we have decided this is a can of worms that is not worth opening. Will get some pipe insulation for that exposed length of pipe.

Hiya. You are absolutely right to raise this point, which is valid. I use my own name on BH, a quick search on the internet will show that I run a design business. I was attracted to join BH as I felt it was non commercial. Initially I never mentioned that I do this as a day job, but as time passed I felt I could not bring my knowledge and advice to bear effectively without actually saying I do this as a day job. In light of that I wrote to the moderators and asked for their advice. I definitely don't want to get banned from BH as I enjoy sharing what I know and helping folk. I see your valid comments were possibly prompted by my response to @LnP. I spent some time earlier today just chatting on the phone with him. Once piece of advice I gave him was that he should employ a local Engineer and provided reasons why he should do this. However, occasionally once in a while members chat with me they write to me formally and ask if I will undertake their design. This is arguably a breech of BH rules, which is why I asked for moderator advice. I'll leave it at that for now as the moderators may wish or not add to my response.

Trimmed some end panels and have some non faced edges that I’d like to protect. once upon a time it used to be pva that was used to protect them. But since times have moved on and it’s been shown that pva is no good around moisture could I paint on sbr instead? I’m guessing at this point so please put me straight 👍. ta, marek

Id add a straight connector onto existing pipe as that elbow looks awkward to get too.

Isn't that the planners job though, to visit site and look at how the proposed scheme would fit in?

Don't conflate the requirement for cavity closures as required by Requirement B3 - Internal Fire Spread which says: 5.18 Cavity barriers should be provided at all of the following locations. a.) At the edges of cavities, including around openings (such as windows, doors and exit/entry points for services). with Requirement B4 - External Fire spread which says: External walls on, and within 1000mm of, the relevant boundary Unprotected areas should meet the conditions in Diagram 11.5, and the rest of the wall should be fire resisting from both sides. External surface materials facing the boundary should be class B-s3, d2 or better. You will need to consider both (and both are complex and cannot be explained simply here)

Yes, UFH/cooling in house

I have been tasked by a relative to raise this outside tap to a sensible height (accessible by a wheelchair user) It is connected using some plastic (looking) 15mm pipe. The elbow fitting at the bottom is this The lettering on the top of the fitting reads BS7291/2 2006 Class S PB Q'FIT 15mm The top of the plastic pipe appears to go into a normal 15mm compression fitting with a normal brass nut. I am away from home at the moment, passing through here on my way to other places. My task, on the return trip is to extend this pipe to raise the fitting to a better height. That can either be replace the existing pipe with a new longer length, or leave that alone and couple a new length on with a straight coupler. I am not familliar with these fittings don'd know how to uncouple the pipe from the fitting and if they are even re usable. P.S this is not how I would have done an outside tap and if you mention the builder / plumber that did this the air turns blue with expletives.

Yep well it wasn't for my neighbours, where they and the 'architect' (aka paid planning poacher) got unprecedented approval to build a 4.5m wall along my boundary for a single storey extension if you please - totally unnecessary. And also deliberately contrived to hide, disguise, and not declare an intention to raise the ground level by 0.3m in front of their house. And building a boundary wall in excess of their planning permission and PWA. Sorry, but IMO a drawing in isolation of it's built surroundings is meaningless. Maybe those people with a gigantic Amazon fulfillment centre looming over their houses would agree. Architects are very well practiced in making their clients build look like a vision of nirvana - once built it can look like a vision of hell. How can you possibly assess whether it is sympathetic to the local street scene, if the street scene is never drawn. And it doesn't have to be detailed, an architects package can paste the outline/ridge height of an adjacent building in less time than it took me to write this.

As in you only have FCU in the summer house?

If you know exactly where you want the sockets then you could potentially put metal boxes in now. Don't forget if you are fitting out for a desk, or for a network cabinet then multisocket extensions and/or surge protected power bars are available.

I think the rules are about right. The planning officer can ask for further details of anything relevant if required. Measuring and detailing the height and position of all surrounding buildings, rooflines, eaves, windows, ground levels etc. is pointless for most applications.

A typical 400W panel is around 1134 x 1722mm, so that X2.