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Bigger pipe = lower resistance and better flow rates. I'd go for 32mm in a heartbeat, and the additional pipe cost is so low it's not worth worrying about. If it's over any reasonable distance then I'd actively avoid 25mm. This is an important consideration if the network mains is less than the aforementioned 'hydrant' .

The night ours were delivered, I couldn't sleep due to completely irrational visions of someone backing a truck up and stealing them all from the driveway. I therefore drove over and slept in the freezing cold car. Seemed like a reasonable solution at the time!

My experience of Scottish water is the local surveyor is "GOD" and what he says goes, or does not go. He would not accept a pipe buried that HE had not inspected the track for. They tried to refuse to connect a neighbour because they had not put the toby in exactly the right place. In any case, the pipe across the field will be theirs ans they will choose the size. Your pipe does not start until after the toby which will be on your land. On the good point, SW were the cheapest of all the people we approached for the road crossing. If any of your other services have to cross the road, install appropriate ducts ready for them while the road is up. I laid ducts for telephone and electricity while SW had the road up. If you need that, insist on a cut trench, SW were mooting the idea of molling under the road until I mentioned I wanted to lay other ducts at the same time. Also, knowing now how fussy SW were, I would recommend ALL you have on your site when they come for your track inspection is a standpipe very close to where the toby is going, nothing else, and you must have an in line double check valve connected to your stand pipe or they will refuse connection. Regardless of farmers good will or not, SW will get a proper wayleave to lay the pipe and that might delay the process. In my case they dug up a bit of the field while in crop to make the connection.

Ah yes - something I hope never to have to do again! 60year old concrete with copious amounts of rebar!

I think @Declan52 makes a valid point and it's also in line with my thinking - get the spec right and it's going to be the air infiltration rate that causes the issues not the spec on the glazing. Tapes and sealant fitted properly will pay dividends.

Pressure often rolls off to nearly nothing with dynamic / flow. Having a 32mm pipe is favourable over 25mm afaic to keep that flow at its highest rate vs distance. Upsizing the pipework is commonplace for mitigating against such resistance, but I wouldn't bother going bigger than 32mm for a domestic supply unless you can prove it's worthwhile and will actually ever consume that volume of water. Its down to surveying the supply, as I've always maintained when designing / spec'ing anything.

I often hear the range thing from people at work. In fairness one of them has family in France and sometimes drives there during the school holidays so does do longer journeys. I am currently considering a Tesla Model X. You can have a 75D with 237 miles range and a 100D with 295. These are the EPA ranges which are a lot closer to real life range than the longer NEDC ranges in Europe. The EPA partly take into account using AC. The hit from AC is driven by the difference between the outside temperature and in care temperature. In the UK it is likely to be around 5%, in Texas it might be over 10%. If you drive at a steady 40 the car would actually beat the EPA range handily, driving at a steady 75, a UK type speed, the range would be 10-15% less than the rated range. 65 seems to give around the rated range. Like any car lots of accelerating hard will hit the range. The worst case scenario is winter driving. The heater uses a lot of power and you may be running lights, windscreen wipers and AC as well. Also wet roads have 30-40% higher rolling resistance. In this scenario you might lose 30% of the rated range. What range you need becomes a very personal decision. The people most vociferous about it are understandably the people who drive the most. The last time I drove 200 miles in a single day was the last time I drove from Edinburgh to Aberdeen which was close to 10 years ago, so that was a round trip with plenty of time to recharge. My parents would have similar use. Ex that I never drive over 100 miles in a day which takes me to Glasgow and back. I found this from a piece of academic research n the US where trip lengths tend to be longer than in the UK. 95% of all trips are under 30 miles and 98% are under 70 miles. thus for the majority of people, the majority of time around 200 miles of range is plenty. 100 miles a workday is 25,000 a year, hardly any cars do over that mileage. By the way, I often hear people talk about battery degradation. Batteries now degrade at around 1% a year. Frankly the car will be junk long before the battery gives out. Actually I often hear people on Tesla forums talk about how they will run a Tesla for 10+ years as without an engine it will last much longer than a normal car. They are kidding themselves. I doubt many cars are scrapped due to the engines giving out, instead it is the electronics and this will be just the same. 10+ year old cars have very little value compared to new cars. The new cheaper Tesla Model S (£35-50000ish), so not cheep but in the range of a 3 series, has 220 miles of range in the base version and 310 in the long range version for an extra $9000(£9000ish). Looking at falling battery costs, within 5 years I would expect the extra price of 300 mile range to be around $3-4000. Actually the cost will be around $2000 versus $5000 now but the car maker needs to charge for options like this to make money. It will take longer for smaller cheaper cars to become electric as they have relatively cheaper drivetrains. It will work its way down from the top of the market. Tesla have been pretty clear that they don't intend going much over 300 miles for range. As batteries get more efficient a better idea is to make them smaller. Thus the car gets more efficient and the battery weight penalty reduces. We might see range drift up toward 350 miles, but as that covers well over 99% of journeys then that is it and long journeys will require charging. Tesla's next generation of chargers should take a 200 mile charge time down to around 15 minutes. This is similar to what companies such as VW are aiming for. There are two limits to charging time, the batteries and the actual power available at the charger. Current Tesla batteries are limited to around 30 minutes for a 200 mile charge. Newer batteries will be faster. At the 15 minute point, stopping to charge will only take 10 minutes longer than filling up with petrol and the charging/range issue should really start to go away. There will also be chargers everywhere. Even today there are circa 5000 EV chargers in the UK and 8500 petrol stations. There are expected to be more chargers than petrol stations by 2020. One issue will be if they plan to make electric trucks these should be quite buildable but they would require a massive electricity supply at a single point for charging. I think people have to consider how fast things change both in technology and use cases. Battery prices are falling all the time and energy density is rising. They should reach cost parity with combustion engines in around 5 years (part of this is driven by the big tax saving in electricity versus petrol which is artificial and will go away eventually). People will get very used to the charging times etc. Frankly I am looking forward to never having to go to a petrol station which is a waste of my time if I forget to fill up.

Why does it have to be the most stressful part?? At the end of the day if the spec/contract is done correctly, the supplier does exactly whats agreed in black & white, the installer does his part what could possibly go wrong..... I cant even decide on who to go with, i really need to sit down and make the final decision. Then its plane sailing, I wish !

Errr, no, they are not included in the 2040 ban. https://www.autoblog.com/2017/07/26/uk-hybrid-internal-combustion-engine-ban/

Can I recommend to all you EV users the "XLR8" app! If you dab a bit of unleaded around the inside of the car you'll enhance the experience.

To be fair, that you havn't run out of charge is no surprise. But you are not "mr normal" and i mean that in the nicest possible way. Mr normals manage to run out of petrol never mind battery charge. Hear what you say about it being suitable for 90% of journeys. True, But what about the other 10%. They still need to be made. Clearly having 2 cars is a solution, but i dont think a good chunk of the population having 2 cars is any kind of answer. Dont buy a french car. It cant end well!!!! Why is the Leaf so ugly. Same reason that so many "eco house type projects" such as a new or innovative build system seem to insist on looking like they landed from another planet, when really, the bulk of he buying public want a house that looks like a house is expected to look like. I dont see driving 200 miles as undesirable. Though actual time spent would be a better measure. Accepted. Indeed, bizarre as it might seem, i sometimes find myself trying to imagine the consequences of so much of the developing technology. Stuff will happen that we cant even imagine. In the meantime with cars, i'll wait until a truly viable system exists that meets my needs. Sadly, i have to agree with most of that! Yep! Better put than i did up there ^^^^ Its about the 10% for me.

That's brilliant!

Roofers have turned round today and said they are on for another 3-4 days next week... and it's a priced job with a few extras so they make nothing more. The reason ..? Because they want it to look right..!! If they manage that then I will be happy to chuck an extra couple of hundred their way as so far they have been pretty good ..! You have to pick and choose carefully - my joiner who is day rate does 8-6 some days (today it was nearly 7 as we wanted to finish a floor ....) but my labourer barely makes 8:30-4 with an hour or so of breaks ... guess who's getting all the work ..??

@Barney12, heres a recipe , or alternatively pop into Aldi and buy some. They come 'flat' or 'bullet' shape, hence the German name 'Buletten'. Any savoury herb added late in the cooking process adds zip. Half the secret moreishness is the small size. The bite size always encourages me to eat one too many.

Om the basis my last Subaru cost me £3500 to buy, and I sold it 9 years later for £500 my answer would be £27.77per month

Tooth sucking. I've never had the guts to do that, except when taking the proverbial out of builders in the pub. But when they do that to me (us) I find it's an excellent filter - a sort of audible warning: of bullshooshoo.

That's my issue with this whole idea that we save the planet by changing from buying 1.3m new petrol cars a year in the UK to buying 1.3m electric ones. Of course it helps in one respect assuming generation from fossil fuel stops. But Until we address our greed for goods and treating even high value items like cars as disposable, we are not taking the issue seriously enough. As much as I like old cars I do feel that running them until they are truly dead is better than trading in after 3 years and scrapping after 10. My cars have 188k,193k and 234k. I feel no guilt that they are theoretically worse for the planet. Too much corporate opportunism in 'saving the planet' for my liking. Thi k about it - if manufacturers can sell over a million cars a year basically replacing like for like, imagine the bonanza they are in for to when electric really takes off!

I trust you've saved and varnished some of those cores for use as decorative paperweights / doorstops / keepsakes?

I reckon that a market will spring up, refurbishing EV batteries. EVs are mechanically a great deal simpler than conventional cars (which is one reason why some have a two year service interval) and so if they don't rust away, or suffer accident damage, the life of the vehicle itself could be pretty long. That life won't be blighted by things like emission law changes, either, as an old EV won't be any more polluting than a new one.

Fwiw, BPC initially specced two MhRV units but we ended up going for a single Hi Flo unit. Aside from cost saving, this was significantly easier to install - I dread to think what sort of space wasting spaghetti junction might have been required otherwise!

Mine were made in Norway and Lithuania according to the stickers. Faulty lacquer, wrong colour, wrong spacer bars, warped frame, burst spacer bars and incorrectly fixed glass. Don't for a minute think it's just a UK thing...

https://www.hss.com/hire/p/light-duty-dry-diamond-drill-110v and buy a https://www.tool-net.co.uk/p-347664/tool-net-91mm-x-150mm.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIz7O8ldG41QIVbLXtCh0qrgstEAQYAiABEgJpOvD_BwE Job done! The hire one comes with a 107mm core. If you do hire that makita keep the core drill dry.

.... and no your honour I was nowhere near Hatton Garden and my name isn't Boris.....

Hire a core cutter and you'll have it done in a day. If you can do it from the outside the have an assistant pour water on it to make it much more pleasant. If no rebar then around 15-30mins each? I'll dig out some pics for you - we had to do 5 through heavily reinforced concrete, one wall being 500mm thick... Goggles and ear defenders an absolute must.

They call this 'Range Anxiety' according to a friend of mine at FORD. There was some research in the states a while back that said people look for a range about twice their round trip commute / typical journey - which is daft but that was the range anxiety effect at work! They have a special training pack for the sales teams to help them get across the message about how people actually drive and that you only use the fuel when you are actually moving (other than the ancillary gear EG headlights!) Also I am with you @jack my Micra has now done 184000 miles and I wont get rid of it until it falls apart, which it is showing no signs of. (touch wood) When I do it will be time to get an electric replacement.

If you don't want a screen what about a groovy curtain on a rail you just pull across you can get some great looking ones. We use such a system in our downstairs wet room to keep the splashes off the loo. Works great, looks great (arty), easy to install and very cost efficient. When it gets grubby we just wash it an hang it back up to dry!

Don't get to hung up on the fact your Windows have to be up to passiv standard unless you are going for the full on certified route. You can quite easily blow a massive hole in your budget with Windows and leave you skimping else where. Set yourself a budget and stick to it. Even 2g Windows now are of a pretty high standard. Not much point in having passiv standard Windows and the rest of the house just meeting building regs.

In a similar install I went with 32mm. Any larger (in England) and you have to pressure test and chlorine flush the pipe work prior to connection. I chose not to go any smaller as, until the connection was made, I didn't know what pressure and flow rate I would have, so didn't take any chances. In England there is a minimum 1100mm depth requirement (IIRC) across a ploughed field. But, a deeper depth requirement for a "deep ploughed field". As the field is out of your control you should go the deeper depth. Can't remember the actual figure but it was only a little bit deeper, something like 1250mm In England, this isn't something you can do ahead of the water company as they have to witness the trench before it is back filled.

I would go 900-1000mm down and keep to a fence line if possible. That way a subsoiler won't drag the pipe upwards at any point in the future.

Don't forget that across agricultural land, i.e. land that's likely to be disturbed you'll need to trench deeper than normal for services. What's the case with your electrical supply, do you have to run that too?

Is this Scottish Water document any use? wfsv3may2015.pdf

Yes, sorry @soapstar I should have been more clearer - I downloaded the form WC1, filled it in and then e-mailed it to them as a scanned in document. As for the pipe sizes, I too would welcome some guidance . PW

Known ones would be the obvious. Depth of trench Fines in the bottom and immediately over the pipe to protect it from stones / sharps etc Warning / Marker tape to identify the location of the pipe from future damage Terminating the run accordingly, stopcock - NRV - drain off cock etc ( differing by location with Scotland being as fussy as they are in Wales according to @ProDave ).

I think it us likely to spray through a opening if it is facing it. So reconsider which direction your shower head is mounted facing. Consider putting it on the long side or in a corner. Or swap the screen if they will allow and leave your gap in the long side. Delighted to see that the Ferdinand Fixed Screens campaign (FFS) is winning .

I've yet to have any formal reply from Internorm. However, the supplier has sat up.

I can dig out the invoice tomorrow, but have a feeling it was around £300 or so more than the base unit, but we bought ours over three years ago now.

A week after the call regarding the site datum (see the above post) I received his quote for the insulated foundations and reinforced basement walls, £135,000, in comparison the other quote I have is for £50,500 and I thought that was a lot! I've sent Trish the drawings and she's said they will happily quote for the work, I eargerly await her reply!

Look at the government track record on stuff like this. We had the Code for Sustainable Homes - scrapped We had the Zero Carbon Homes target - scrapped We has big VED incentives for low emissions vehicles, with zero rates for a lot of very low emissions vehicles - scrapped and replaced by a far less incentivising scheme We were supposed to have fuel duty escalation, to increase the price of fule year on year to above the rate of inflation, to reduce emissions - effectively scrapped as it keeps being reset to zero every budget. We had the Green Deal, supposedly to incentivise the fitting of more efficient heating systems etc - Unworkable because it was far too costly and complex. We have seen how daft the RHI and MCS schemes are - neither incentivise reducing energy use, they just add cost to the consumer. I've probably missed a few out, but frankly there are so many dire government intitatives related to reducing emissions that I can't believe this one will be any different. Industry and the market have driven change, not government. Companies like Toyota, with their disruptive technology, in the form of the first very successful hybrid cars, have had a far greater impact than our government.

I spotted this a few months ago:

We got ours through this company T: 01205 591982 F: 01205 367158 Burgess Thompson & Richardson Ltd 11 High Street Boston PE21 8SH Bought the land land with two derelict properties on it, to cover our own back in case of trespassers injuring themselves, or worse I phone around and found the above and got liability insurance for £180. The two conditions were haras fencing around the property and a lifesaving buoy on a post near the pond (which is dry at the moment). Hope this helps @oldcoop or is what you were looking for

Just act like whoever you're talking to at BT. I don't think I've ever spoken to a single person there who understood anything they were reading from the flowchart. Me: "Hi, our broadband isn't working. I've tried resetting the router but I'm standing beside it and the red light is still on." BT: "Thank you for calling BT. First, could you please check that the router is plugged in." Me: "AAAaaaaarrrghh!!"