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Another tip someone posted on here, or was it ebuild? Before having an important discussion with SWMBO, have a discussion about something trivial. If that reveals her to be in "the wrong mood", postpone the important discussion for another time.

Fair play to her. You should go away more often! Maybe if I fecked off for a bit the bathroom would get done...

I suppose I'm lucky to be spared this one. The wee house isn't going to be 'ours' and I almost have the opposite problem in that it's hard to get SWMBO interested in helping with making decisions. And seeing as I possibly one of the most indecisive people I know, that's a bit frustrating...

I have a petrol Evo. Is it rubbish? Well it depends on what you are comparing it against: Is it as good as a hired heavy duty plate vibrator? No. Not even close. Is it capable of being lifted by one man? Yes. Is it much, much more efficient than hand wacking? Yes and more yes. Would I use it to prep a very large area? No. Is it good enough for shed bases, paths etc? Yes. Mine lives in the shed shed with a variety of other "stuff" and I find it useful. If buying again gain I think I'd look out for a second hand Belle unit. As @ProDave said it will likely get its money back again when you come to sell it.

I say I want, she says I don't /it's too expensive. Eventually it comes up cheap on eBay by which time it's taken so long she'll accept anything. You need to out stare them. Blinking is fatal.

Ask somebody else's wife how she deals with such and act accordingly. Or try this.

Hmmmmmmm ! some good advice and some dangerous advice ! if a suggestion fails and I comment then I am criticising- which is asking for trouble ! SHMBO may agree with me ( !!!!! ) but changes her mind months later ? The path through this is full of traps . I see no man has mastered this journey ?

I'm not getting the recipe am I?

Hey guys, Just had a look at the post today. I am blown away by the number of responses I have received (in a good way ). I have replied to the first question because I knew that one off the top of my head but I will start to work through them in earnest tomorrow. Hopefully I will be able to answer all questions but obviously as a small to medium enterprise Sunamp will be careful about releasing technical information regarding research and development. An example of this would be a question asked by @Dudda who asked if Sunamp were going to expand the feed from the SunampPV from 15mm to 22mm. As such, anything I post will need to be reviewed by the powers that be which might take me a bit longer to reply. This may also mean that I won't answer everything in order but I will endeavour to answer all questions. Thanks again

Pick and choose your battles wisely. Let her win a few in the weeks before you get to the time to choose the one you want then cast up sure you picked the last 3-4 things so it's only fair I get something as well.

You have to learn the art of making SWMBO choose what YOU want and still thinking it was her idea. When you have mastered that, please tell the rest of us how.

Hmmm ..... so I could extend the garage and include the door for that into the "covered walkway"...??? It's an attached garage but no door into the house ..

+1 You really need to make the floor as rigid as possible to minimise the risk. I'd lift the chipboard and install noggins (got any JJI joists left?) then replace the chipboard with two layers of 18mm plywood with staggered joints all screwed down on 200 mm centers. Drill clearance holes for the screws so they don't pry the ply layers apart.

At the absolute bare minimum it should have been sugar soaped and scrubbed clean, then rinsed with clean water. If it was a silk or eggshell then it should have been prepped accordingly eg scratched and or sealed prior to new paint going on. I'd offer to pay for the paint if they remove the u/s coat and reapply it properly for free, that way it's only time and not money for them. It really should be totally free but all depends how good the relationship is.

Under English Law in my opinion you should be able to do a 'Covered Yard' up to 30sqm without a need for either PP or Building Regs approval, subject to the other categories of restriction (height, distance from boundary etc). A covered yard may need PP if it extends beyong the side of the house. http://www.tameside.gov.uk/Planning/Planning-and-Building-Control-Frequently-Asked-Que#_constructacoveredyard_ Attention needs paying to Electrical Installations and Building Regs etc. However, in my case there is an external double IP66 socket there already, which I assume can stay. By my reading above a Covered Yard could be enclosed. To be a Covered Way it would need imo the capability of someone going somewhere through it. TO ME, the definition of Car Port sounds like a bastardisation of the older definition of Covered Yard or Covered Way. But your back door couldn't go into it, or it becomes a Porch and you would need Planning if over 3sqm. So you need to walk at least two feet sideways off the path through the rain wearing a hat to keep dry. That is General Advice only. I have put in a request to find the formal definition of these in Planning Law. Ferdinand

Who was that forum member offering bags of PUR offcuts? We have found a use for them......

How about dig a bit deeper with the auger removing most of the spoil. What's left, compact it in situ at the bottom. Just use a post and a sledge hammer to compact the bottom.

We just tend to dig deeper than necessary and then it's a brick into the bottom to provide a firm base and in goes the post. I hire the petrol post augers as they do the job much quicker than a person can.

Don't go there. She always leaves more questions than she answers. Anyways must go water the thing for an hour before work. Did you hear the joke about the Welshman who knew the secret of guaranteeing nice weather? His wife got a lawn laid at the worst time of year. I'm calling a summer hotter than 1976.

I go away for cub camp and wtf?

Finished!

It stores thermal energy in phase change cells, a bit like thermal batteries. These use a compound very similar to that used in the "jelly bag" hand warmers you can buy, the ones that you charge up in boiling water to make the solid content into a liquid, and that you can then later use to release the stored heat by clicking a small actuator that initiates a phase change, from liquid to solid, so releasing the stored heat. Think of a Sunamp PV as a combi boiler or instant water heater. It doesn't store water, but will instantly heat water that flows through it when a tap is opened, just like a combi boiler, thermal store or instant water heater. It normally runs at mains water pressure, perhaps with a PRedV if the water pressure at the main is too high. No it won't work as a buffer for an UFH system, as it delivers water at typically around 55 deg C (before the supplied TMV), plus it's designed to be a domestic hot water unit, not a central heating unit. If it's not sunny then you can charge a Sunamp PV up from the mains. Our system is set so that the Sunamp PV is boosted by the mains at 4 am, for two hours, using a time switch, so that it is always charged for morning showers. If the Sunamp PV thermal cells are already charged up from the previous days excess PV, then no power is drawn during this boost period. If the thermal cells are discharged, or partially discharged, then they will draw power from the boost system until they are fully charged, then stop drawing power.

Ok I will start, by asking some total noddy things as this is a part of my build I'm really struggling to work out. How the hell does this thing work what does it do? Where do I keep my water? Will it provide water for my ufh? How is it powered? What happens if it's not sunny? There you go some proper numpty questions there. Cheers. Russ.

C'mon folks....let's get started with the meaty questions and get him sweating ? Hi, and welcome aboard Elliot.

He's already been initiated Terry . I'll tag you and Ian into the pm now ? Been a long day sorry ?

Elliot, I am a site admin and also incidentally have 2× SunAmp sitting in my new build. Feel free to use the site as a resource of info and a vehicle to PM members for their experiences. The information here is all provided by its members for general use under a common originator attribution licence. So by all means mine the site for info / experiences for your SunAmp hosted blog. Also feel free to engage in discussions, but leave any hard-sell to general members who have personal experience of using SunAmps. We discourage vendors using this site for hard selling their own product.

Just in case there is any confusion, I don't have one. I have not yet reached the point of installing the heating and HW system in my house, so the jury is still out on whether to use a SunAmp or an unvented HW cylinder. Unless something changes before I reach that point, then the decision will be capital cost, as capital is something I am very short of.

Hi Elliot and welcome. I've always read anything about Sunamp with interest as I'm about to start my own self build. I await with interest your input.

From one content-marketing spod to another, welcome @SunampBlogger! As if it needed saying, tread carefully ;-)

And I personally never do the horizontal and vertical silicone on the same day just cos I want neat corners!

My experience is the same - I listed materials purchased after date of completion certificate and the VAT has been refunded. The notes accompanying the form do not specifically exclude this scenario - they just state a time limit for submitting the claim as 3 months after completion.

Probably better off just giving her a whip ?

I would never silicone the same day as grouting, ever. Anyone doing this ( properly ) for a living would know you can't get silicone to stick to even damp grout. . Coming back to seal up the next day / eve is the norm, and with the sealing around a bath or shower being so fundamentally important, I'd not want that rushed TBH. Not wanting to wait another day is just impatience and we know where that leads to ....... "Darling, what's that damp patch on the living room ceiling?" and more importantly how long has it been leaking before we noticed it Everest fitted a £30k aluminium conservatory / sunroom where I am at the mo, and they listened to the customers request to forget about proper process and just finish the job eg lay the tiles over a non cured liquid screed. Guess what I'm doing the first week of September ? Trades tell customers how it's done properly and customers wait for it to be done accordingly. Anything else is a short cut afaic. Anyone who is advised to wait and doesn't listen is in charge of their own fate.

Just thought I'd resurrect this old thread rather than starting a new one. We received our VAT reclaim in full last week. Our claim included the VAT on materials that we had bought after the date of the Building Regs Completion Certificate. (We rang up the VAT helpline before submitting the claim to ask if we could claim for external drive and path materials as well as fencing & gates and they said it would be okay as long as it wasn't later than 3 months after the date of the Completion Cert.)

Thankyou all SO MUCH! You guys are a mine of information, and we now see lots of possibilities open to us, not just a zillion metric tonnes of earth moving and concrete, as we had been (poorly) advised...we are very grateful, and if any of you want to drop down our very nice local, I owe you a nice cold beer!

Structural engineers are not that expensive, we used one to design a massive, 45m length, 2.5m high, retaining wall, that has tens of tonnes of blocks, steel and concrete in it (see here: http://www.mayfly.eu/2013/07/part-six-there-we-were-digging-this-hole/ and here: http://www.mayfly.eu/2013/07/part-eight-the-wall/ ) and he charged us less than £300, for drawings, concrete and steel specifications etc. A layman can do the calcs, but no insurer will accept them, and the chances are building control may not either. A few hundred pounds spent with a local SE, who knows the ground conditions in your area would be money well spent. The chances are you'd save that if he/she comes up with a design that reduces the amount of concrete by a couple of truckloads.

With respect to the ESBE valves, WUNDA have selected the ones in the 35-600C range, ESBE also do 20-43oC versions of the VTA322 (valve fitted 5 port manifold) so you could just replace the ESBE valve and then run your manifold at the lower temp. I have attached the Wunda data sheet M11 Standard ESBE Pumpset.pdf and ESBE VTA320_520_en_E_LR.pdf for the corresponding valves.