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Get a remote reading oil gauge. I only have to glance to the left to find I have 4/10 of a tank full.

Our daughter helping build the garage - she picked it up faster than I did.

A very good example of people not caring in the slightest about running costs of a house is our Solar PV system. Most of you know we have been trying to sell our house. We have solar PV on the original (now >50p per KWH ) rate. the income from that just about pays for all our electricity used (even though it is only a small solar PV system) making the running cost of this house for the next 20 years very low. Not one of the people who have looked at the house have showed the slightest bit of interest in the solar PV and how it makes the running cost of the house so low. Not one.

Outside taps are 'accessories' to the main, UNLESS you have teed into the incoming main mdpe as it comes up the drive to the house, at which point you would indeed be right to fit stopcocks as they would then be spurs off the rising main. For outgoing supplies AFTER the stopcock you deffo should use 1/4 full bore as @TerryE has done. Click on my profile and you'll see the blue handled one I fitted for attic isolation on an UVC multi-block. Near silent in operation too.

I'd just use a ball valve, which is what I've done. Easier to turn on and off and just as reliable. I went a bit OTT and used stainless steel ones to isolate the outside taps, and they seem fine. As an aside, I've found that MDPE for outside taps (we have three, two run of one pipe, one off another) is pretty frost-tolerant. I used it primarily because experience on the farm was that whenever anything froze up solid the MDPE pipe never seemed to come to any harm from it. The same seems true here, I've got a tap fitted to a post with an uninsulated run of MDPE and it's frozen a few times now but seems to just tolerate it without damage.

Yep keep going ..! I would go bolts at 600mm centers with Sabrefix washers and then if you really want to put a cripple stud from the bottom of the rafter to the top of the joist. Nice that someone painted your steel with magnolia paint.....

Ok. My question was aimed at if it was a boiler / fire ( aka deadly ) flue, I should have been clearer. . I was just going to give you chapter and verse TBH, like stop denting / damaging it for one, but if it's just a humble extractor duct then it's not an issue. . Much better pic. If we can see the whole 'picture', the advice will be better .

You can do this, and our ASHP has a DHW setting, via dry contacts or the programmer, so that it can receive a call for DHW and increase the flow temperature to 55 deg C. In practice you're better off using an immersion heater during the cooler, damper, months, though, as the ASHP runs around three or four defrost cycles per hour in cool, damp, weather and the real-world COP (not the highly optimistic dry air COP often quoted) drops to close to unity. I ran a lot of experiments with our ASHP, to try and understand how it worked. Ours has an outside air temperature sensor and a humidity sensor and uses these to determine when there is an icing risk and when to run a defrost cycle. When defrosting it goes into cooling mode, drawing heat from the house or hot water system to warm up the heat exchanger and melt any ice. A typical defrost cycle takes around 10 minutes, so any more than three defrost cycles per hour takes you into the region where the real world COP is at unity or below. The main factor seems to be humidity, rather than just air temperature, so the worst performance isn't in cold weather, it's in cool, wet, weather. Sadly, we seem to get a fair number of days in autumn, winter and spring where the humidity is high enough to cause a problem. The solution was to not use the DHW capability of the ASHP and set it to a maximum flow temperature of 40 deg C. At this flow temperature it never seems to need to defrost when meeting our pretty low heat demand, so always gives a pretty good COP, better than the published data would suggest most of the time, I think. The best solution for heating an DHW from an ASHP seems to be to use a hybrid, like the Daikin Altherma. They use the ASHP part for pre-heating DHW and running the heating system, with a gas combi to boost the DHW. The big advantage is that one of these uses much less gas than a conventional combi system, because most of the "heavy lifting" is down by the heat pump taking the water to within about 15 deg C of the required DHW temperature, so it is a reasonable option for running from LPG.

Tres bien. I'll order that, as roof cuts are the final frontier as far as my skill set goes. Currently mastering the nemesis that is staircases at mo as I'm trying to bag more garage / attic conversion / extension work this year.

It's no different to how a regular heating and hot water system is plumbed. The heat source ( ASHP ) produces heat, and it gets pumped out. That flow goes to a diverter valve which has 3 ports..... 1) heated water in from HP 2) flow to UFH / buffer 3) flow to DHW / uvc When the demand is for Ufh, the unit idles at low temp / max CoP, but when the UVC calls for heat ( cyl stat and / or 'boost' controller ) then flow to the Ufh is completely isolated and the HP ramps up to say 55oC to heat the UVC only. When the UVC is up to target temp, the diverter redirects flow away from the UVC, back to the Ufh, and lowers the temp accordingly. The ashp gets a trigger signal, either from the 3 port valve or cyl stat, so it knows when to alter the temp range.

@Dee for your sanity order this ..! Carpenters ready reckoner and one of these Adjustable Square I did a full cut roof with these and its got dormers and jack rafters and I only made one duff cut after reading this little gem of a book ..!

To put this to bed: I have reached a satisfactory agreement for compensation with the people involved all tiles will be lifted I am sticking with using this tile design (the alternative would be another chunk of change, and the change is running out) spare tiles, new tiles, and any tiles which can be recycled and are in A1 will be used I have clearly specified to what standard they must be laid tiles in key areas will be dry laid so that I can agree appearance As I have said - appreciate all the comments :-)

So why not try the JG Speedfit MDPE PE - Copper Coupler 20 x 15mm and a 15/15 ball valve?

didn't mean it harshly, you said you didn't have a scoobies! i'm happy to go through step by step, but it's easier if you at least have an idea, if you know roughly what you're doing it cuts out a lot of time if i'm telling you something you already know. you need to understand the geometry of the roof and the constituent parts which is explained in the leaflet simon

Pyracantha We had a pyracantha hedge (also known as Fire Thorn) across the middle of the garden when we bought the house, it separated the grass area from an allotment area. Was about 10ft high 3ft wide and EVIL. I cut it every year, and in the 12 months it would grow shots 3ft long, as think as your thumb and covered in 2 inch long spikes. I had to wear about 5 layers with hats and gloves and even then it looked like I had lost a fight with a bunch of cats. but have to say it would be the best intruder proof hedge ever

John: I've sent you via DM a sample spreadsheet for a house design which I sent out for tender responses in July 2015 here in Essex. It only makes sense if you have a set of detailed plans - but you should get an idea of the level of granularity. I was very disappointed with the responses from Tenderers. I sent seven out - the cheapest quote was for £415k and the most expensive £735k !! I put a lot of effort into the design, but in the end we threw it away and started again. Second time around I hired a PM who had their own crew and they are building it. The job's going generally OK. Its running at about £1,500 psm (if you want a guideline). One year old and a month to go. I feel I can now speak from experience. So here's a health warning. Even though we put a lot of effort getting good quality plans drawn up, and providing detailed specifications of materials and fittings, there have still been a huge number of changes we have negotiated with the PM. You might think you can get to a point where you working from a fixed price - but as soon as you start making the decisions that you didnt know you had to, the potential exists for you to get hit with additional charges over and above your contract. Moral of the story? its all about the relationship you have with the builder, and how much effort you can put into specifiying things beforehand. Suggestion? get the builder to give you three reference sites of clients they have constructed custom builds for.

Nice post @Stones and lovely finish.

If your airtight, you'd be better off drilling a hole, putting a 20 or 25mm PVC conduit through and then use airtight tape to seal the inside end of the conduit to the cables. Use something like CT1 or Sikaflex to seal the conduit to the fabric of the house accordingly, squirting just a little in the outside end around the cables to make it weathertight. A bit more tape that end if possible. A cheat here is to fix the conduit last so you can slide it back into the house to make off the inside with ease, then slide it too fat out to make off the outside. When you slide it back in, to its final position, the tape should be almost all inside the walls with next to nothing showing, thus making any exterior fitment of lights / other much easier.

Thanks for the kind words, and sorry if the low energy thing gets a bit much at times! I'm afraid I've always taken the view that you get out of life as much as you're prepared to put in, and that helping others, in turn helps them to help more people, so, with a bit of luck, perhaps it helps to make us all a bit more altruistic, making a sort of virtuous circle. This attitude does backfire from time to time, though, as I've had more than one person exploit my belief that learning, and then sharing what you've learned with others, is something they could exploit for personal gain. What really motivates me are the changes I've seen in my lifetime, from a society where learning how to, and then doing things yourself, sharing that learned experience with others, and taking pride in doing that, change into a society where fixing things, or making things yourself, are seen as weird hobbies, with the "normal" thing being to just chuck stuff away that stops working, go and buy something new, or pay someone to do something you could do yourself, without a thought as to how rewarding it would be to use your own resources and then pass on what you've learned to others.

Well in an attempt to bring my workshop thread back to life from the other forum I'll thought I post an update. Cladding now well underway. As is the rear lean-too extension (I'm never really sure why I didn't want a completely oblong workshop) Rear section of roof is now tiled. Front ready for the 6 panel solar array. Thats been delayed by classic indecision over supplier on my part!

now you just need to get yourself a label maker. and put everything back when you have finished with it, (you might already be that kinda guy, unfortunately i am not ) i bought a smaller red one a while ago and tried mounting it in the back of the van, lets just say that was a bad idea because when they fall over they make a hell of a mess, now its in the workshop somewhere upside down in a mess, maybe ill tidy it all up someday, maybe ill tidy the rest of the workshop while I'm at it...........LOL who am i kidding

I'm slowly reassembling the workshop. So here's today's task. A bit of tool storage porn

I didn't want to say it, but I'll certainly second that tbh. . Hes going to the merchant for advice, which is bad on a good day.