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Well after a week of graft by Brendan, Matt and their lads we have a slab. The weather from Tue has been appalling up here. The last two days torrential rain but they've kept going never the less. Now we we just need a break in the weather to pour the concrete. Its pencilled for Wed but all week isn't looking good according to the forecast

Ah but should it actually say:................ "Lifetime of the house, insolvency/collapse of the company/manufacturer or infinity, whichever comes first" Tesla have already lost close to £1b! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/12152605/Tesla-losses-soar-to-889m-but-shares-jump-as-Elon-Musk-forecasts-a-profit.html I personally believe we are due another technology collapse. I know a few people that work in the tech bubble of California and the money being pumped into "one day" projects is staggering. Almost as crazy as their president!! I'm not saying Tesla is bad or are their ideals but can they make it to the shoreline intact? Or did their trunks fall down half way across the river? Yours ever so bright and cheery, ever so slightly dour Barney

just updating as @readiescardsis waiting to see! good warranty though, http://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/companies/tesla-solar-roof-prices-come-in-cheaper-than-some-had-expected/ar-BBAZrw8?OCID=ansmsnnews11

I had an interesting experience a few years ago with a Waitrose (part of John Lewis) product. My other half had bought a sort of art deco style wall-mounted soap dispenser and wall mounted tooth brush glass from them, chrome brackets and top of the pump and frosted glass dispenser and glass. A bit over 2 years later, the soap dispenser failed, with the very sharp (and badly internally corroded) moving part cutting the palm of my hand (badly enough to need a couple of stitches). I took it back to Waitrose, not because I wanted a replacement (it was out of guarantee anyway), but because I was concerned that there was a design failing that could result in more injuries. The problem was that the nice chrome pump was made of mild steel, believe it or not, so that corroded away until all that was holding the thing together was the chrome plate. When this failed it exposed extremely sharp broken edges, so was a safety hazard. They were very concerned, and to my surprise called a manager down to talk to me. Within 5 minutes I realised that his main concern was whether or not I was going to sue them for the injury. My insistence that they had a product design defect, and should look at taking these items off the shelves until they had reviewed the failure I'd experienced fell on deaf ears. As soon as the manager realised I wasn't interested in suing them he just wanted me out of the store, with no acknowledgement that they would ever investigate the item. About a week later we received package from John Lewis, with a replacement soap dispenser etc. The design was identical to the one that had failed..........................

Due to uncertainty over the manifold position, I over ordered on flexible and steel duct. Ended up using almost all of the 350m of flex and have about 6 x 2m lengths of steel 180mm duct, plus insulated flexible duct of the same size and a roll of foil backed insulation. Not entirely sure what to do with it - doesn't seem to come up on eBay or Gumtree much and the postage makes it impractical to return or sell outside of collection. Maybe I'll just strap it to the side of the house in a homage to the Pompidou Centre / Lloyds building.

How much do you value your time at? And do you have time to spare? The stuff from BPC turns up and you can get started right away. As much as I like a saving I've got to balance it with the extra time which we don't have any to spare really. That said, I'll argue with Jewson over an extra £30 but that's out of principle rather than being tight per se.

As long as you aren't in a tearing hurry, and postage isn't too much, order the minimum you can get away with and then do a follow-up order once you've started installing and can see exactly what you need. Tight fisted is good. I reckon we wasted £200+ on bits and pieces we didn't need. I can't even give them away, as it's a bit of an unusual duct format.

Just wait until CrApple buys Tesla. They'll make the tiles the must have product for the masses and charge through the nose for it. You'll only be able to get the spares from them etc: http://fortune.com/2017/05/10/an-apple-analysts-view-of-tesla/

So the saga continues. I wrote to customer services asking for their reason for rejecting my review, and asking for a copy of their policy for posting online reviews. I've just received a reply. The policy question has been ignored. This is their reasoning for not posting the review: "I am concerned to hear of the issues you have experienced with this item and sincerely apologise we were unable to approve your review. As your review made reference to the safety of the item, which is specific to your item caused by a fault, it did not accurately reflect the quality of the item." Just extraordinary. This is Trump-level reasoning. Incidentally, a company I recently bought something from asked me to put a review on Trust Pilot yesterday. While there, I checked how John Lewis fared. Surprisingly, they have an absolutely horrific rating of 1.5 stars. They are close to last in nearly every rating category: Categories John Lewis is ranked 102 out of 103 in the category Activewear John Lewis is ranked 74 out of 75 in the category Bags and Luggage John Lewis is ranked 1564 out of 1578 in the category Clothes & Fashion John Lewis is ranked 1017 out of 1031 in the category Electronics John Lewis is ranked 231 out of 235 in the category Gifts John Lewis is ranked 2536 out of 2550 in the category Home & Garden John Lewis is ranked 204 out of 208 in the category Shoes John Lewis is ranked 586 out of 591 in the category Sport John Lewis is ranked 58 out of 58 in the category Toys & Games Looking at some of the reviews, they have serious issues with deliveries and order management. This actually accords with my own experience. I'd forgotten that when we ordered a dryer from them a couple of years ago, I sat around through their entire 7 hour delivery window, only for it not the arrive. I rang them and was told that traffic had delayed them and they've need to re-attempt the delivery another day. No phone call, no apology, nothing. I'm pretty annoyed about the current situation. Unfortunately, I'm drowning in work at the moment or I'd make a project out of turning the screws on them. On the plus side, they're clearly interested in solving the actual problem of the defective product.

Fascia needs to be around 18-20mm thick overall so.... Either use 11mm OSB with a 9mm capping, or use an 18mm uPVC fascia. How the fascia is done depends on the flat roof finish though - what are you using ..?

Some pointers maybe: https://www.pvccladding.com/guides-and-tips/fascia-installations/installation-and-maintenance/upvc-roofline-installation-pdf/

I would properly model your design using the spreadsheet that @JSHarris put together and play with the numbers. We have more roof than wall, and going from 0.15 to 0.18 in the walls made the square root of naff all difference. What made the big difference was the airtight layer and reducing the number of ACH. It was a huge difference and is where I'm concentrating the detailing on