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Are we doing Physics? Definitions of relativity, then. My favourite two: 1 - If you run fast enough into a 6 foot shed with a 7 foot ladder, it will fit. 2 - Essex. F

Thanks for all the advise ive squeezed a 6 mil in the conduit I’ve had to hack a bit of screed up to remove the bend against the wall and have used the down light holes to fish the cable to the un skimed wall by the mains Only taken me five hours Lesson learned

Well, it's up, fixed and bolted in place. At last. At long last. Very long last. Photo taken while we were cutting the slot for the steels.... Just two of us hoicked it into place. 160 kilos, balanced between two walls and the steels, so not too bad to handle. A few beers tonight maybee, what do you think?

I've run out of 2"x2".....

the rage series are what they are, what do you expect for something 1/3 of their competitor's price, cutting studwork, firewood, metal, fingers they are fine and will easily be within a mil unless you start forcing the arm about. but don't expect to be able to just stick it on opposite 45's and end up with a perfect 90, it'll do it but you will probably need to adjust the fences first and be conscious when tightening up the selector, makita make good chop saws but all the ones iv seen always seem to lack something that a similarly priced competitor has, (AFAIC dewlt are still leading the pack on big chop saws) also plus a few for skill saws on big timbers, the major factor is being able to cut the timber on the pile, to use a chop saw you will have to move and place accurately every single length at least one extra time.

Yep, that's what I've observed. Firing on 24kw then straight back to standby. I am more than happy with what you achieved here. And the turd is looking pretty shiny from where I'm sitting. I've called it much worse in the past, and who wants to be on the parish council anyway ....

I think overheating in the NE of Scotland will be a nice novelty initially....

Maybe a small or irrelevant note, but is there value in protecting this from the cooker end? eg by fitting an MCB or trip of some sort for if it risks going over the cable limit. Then you just turn one off and continue. If it only happens at Christmas or a couple of times a year, that may be viable. Fixing the cable is the better way, but if that is very difficult...

kW, or kilowatt, is the power of the unit. So if your 24 kW boiler is on for 1 hour, it has used 24 kWh of energy. A watt (not a wot, or a Watt, he was the man it is named after) is a unit of power. We use a capital W when abbreviating it but lower case w when writing it in full, watt. Power is energy use with respect to time. Often described as the rate of energy use. Energy is measured in joule (not jewels, Joules was the man it is named after). Like watts, we use a capital J when abbreviated and lower case when written in full. A joule is the force needed to move 1 kg, 1 metre. If we move that 1 kg, 1 metre in 1 second, then we have a watt. So you could imagine starting with a large box of stones, each stone has a mass of 1 kg, and you have to move them 1 metre. If you move 1 stone every second, you are delivering power at 1W, if you get some friends involved and move 24 thousand stones 1 metre every second, you are delivering at a rate of 24kW. Sweaty work and shows just how amazing electricity is. So to recap, starting with energy, joules, delivered at a rate, we get watts. J.s-1 = W Just to throw a bit more sums into it, there are 3600 seconds in 1 hour, so if you see energy use refereed to a MJ that is mega joules or million joules. So 3.6 MJ is 1 kWh. We really should sell energy by the MJ not the kWh as it would be a lot neater and easier to visualise.

Just standard plated steel wood screws. Mine is screwed to a wooden back board. The advantage being if I had drilled my wet wall and got the measurements wrong then after the trial fit I could have moved the valve. As it was, it was spot on.

best bit of physics i learned today on radio 4, bananas create antimatter

Thanks for explaining, not something I'd considered but makes total sense.

OK because I know Ian will like this lets summarise, in the end, I bought the DTD154z bare for £112 delivered inc vat from eBay https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Makita-DTD154Z-18v-Brushless-Impact-Driver-Bare-Unit/132530920423?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649 while researching we found out: DtD 154z and 170 are both 117mm long (120mm in the real world) the 170 is a lot more expensive but has 3 more speed/torque settings, (total 6) the DtD 152z is 137mm (real world 135mm) Dtd 146 is 132mm in the real world dtd 141 is 130mm in the real world or you can get the Dtl 061 if you wanted a real "angle driver" but i still havent found the measurement on that. prices are what they are and you can all type product codes into amazon as well as i can note all model numbers are refering to 18v makita and the measurements are taken from the back of the body to the front of the socket without a bit in it.

If you buy a flip over like elu or dewalt you will also have a table saw, I sold my elu recently and it’s like I’ve had an arm removed. If you buy a second hand one you will sell it after at more or less what you pay for it. And just cut your i joist with a standard circular saw.

I would assess how much work you have to do with the larger size timber. I have a large mitre saw but I also used to have a cheapie £40 type one for cutting stud and general carcassing work. You could use a jigsaw/circular saw to cut the I-beams and just buy a smaller mitre saw if you do not need a larger cutting range.

Hi, bought them through the roofer - staff blue hawkins are common where we are (Midlands) - plenty of web sites show them. Pretty sure you will get hold of them down there.

But then your short length wouldn't be an issue then I remain, as always, ungracious in defeat

Never mind the quality, feel the width

Speak for yourself! My string is just the right length.

I'm afraid it's like how long is a piece of string! Direction of solar panels, type of panel, and angle of mounting, etc. We have a large flat panel, facing SSE, at about 45 degrees. On a full sunny day in summer, it can get our 300 litre tank up to around 60 degrees, but usually it heats up the bottom third by about 25 degrees. That's in Perthshire, so I'm sure others further south will do better. The system is set up so that the solar panel has to be more than 7 degrees hotter than the bottom part of the thermal store before pumping begins.

Nope - telling building control will be a last resort. Just wanted to know before I bring it up.

This is one for the new PM to demonstrate authority in a manner which will be gentle but firm and resolute !!!

Have you got access to a copy of SPONS, ask around and I am sure others have. Will give you an idea of what to expect and if builders see you have a copy, they should know to be wary.

Most of Cornwall is a polished turd, why the outer edge looks so good in postcards. Old mate of mine is on the local parish council. He is from 'Up North' somewhere, and I don't mean North Country (look it up on a map).

Quantum uncertainty? Emergent complexity of biological systems?

3.5 decades... So if a warm, draught free, airtight, MVHR equipped place is "passive"...my place must be Aggressive...

Its a TS so there is no variable load. The boiler has one of two targets to attain. In DHW 'summer mode' we've set it to heat the top of the TS to 65 iirc so the boiler ( which is now a dumb box on the wall set to do as its told and nothing more ( practice differs slightly from the theory as its logic tells it to modulate as it hits the drop off point )) and therefore should just go at full wallop until that stat clicks to satisfied, where it should go into overrun and then standby. Likewise with the lower stat, just it takes longer to get there., but its set to a lower temp as its all UFH eg lower grade heat, plus we wanted the solar to have some input as soon as possible. A big kick in the C@@k is the DHW pump, when running, fires the spillover heat from the DHW PHE directly into the lower 1/4 of the TS ( even when in summer mode ) so lovely roasting hot water is forced into the TS and causes the swirling that gave us the previously posted temp readings of hotter in the middle than the top. Go fecking figure that design I was half tempted to redirect that return back into the midriff but there weren't enough days in the window we both had. TBH we could have stayed there another 3-4 days yanking and tweaking, but it wasn't worth the "investment" as it will never be right without some serious 'material' alterations. Without picking this apart for its failings, it works, so a result afaic. But its still in the back of my head that we walked away without hitting 100% ( instead we left more than reasonably happy that we did what we could with what was there ). In a PM I called it "polishing a turd", guess ill never make it to the parish council "More tea, Vicar?"

Deffo the best outcome or you would always have wondered if you should have done it. Induction is great - enjoy. And be sure to put those 4 pans on at full whack, just because you can .

But you can sleep easy and cook a better breakfast now.

You lucky thing, I left 4 decades ago, and Jack, who knows, 16:55, just in time for Crackerjack!

DTS 141 is about 130mm.

I colleague used to have a fein drill driver set, seemed ok, or at least on par with Makita, But its too late for me to start swapping brands now unless I get robbed again, but even then I would be looking at Hilti or flexvolt, but realistically I would probably just stick with Makita, apart from the battery issues they are very good tools for the price.

If heating is called for, even for one room, the TS will take instruction from the lowest of the two cylinder thermostats eg 'winter mode'. The boiler will fire and go straight to max output as its trying to now heat the whole TS whilst heat is also being drawn out of it simultaneously. The reason the boiler sometimes lights and modulates quite quickly is that its in 'summer mode' ( DHW only ) and taking instruction from the upper cylinder stat, therefore the return temp gets up much much quicker and allows the boiler to drop its output accordingly, exactly how it should operate for the months of the year where space heating isn't required plus ST is generating too. If your drawing heat then the boiler is doing exactly what its been told to do eg replace it as quickly as it can, and as its not a gas boiler we don't need to worry about the temps of the return ( no need to maximise condensing efficiency therefore ). Another reason we've purposefully set the boiler to come on at full wallop at the first hint of duress is that the boiler is only 24kW and is, in my estimate, at least 50% undersized, so it needs to stay ahead of the curve to stand a chance of allowing the TS to do what its been asked to. In reality it should have had a ~35kW gas or oil boiler instead, or possibly the same electric boiler but its big brother ( 40KW iirc ) as the boiler thats there is definitely going to struggle if it gets dialled back from max.

PHPP also very useful to model overheating which can be as big a challenge as reducing energy consumption if the building is heavily insulated and has a lot of glazing.

My makita DtD154 is 120mm

That's pretty much what we do. Our house is near to passiv haus, and does retain any heat well. During the warmer months when the heating is not coming on, just before taking a bath or shower, I turn off the boiler ( oil fired ) to allow the solar thermal to heat up the water in the thermal store. That usually lasts for two to three days, then I turn the boiler back on to top up the thermal store. Works really well.

In a place that size from cold it will take some time to heat the walls and foundations and so on before stabilising. It could easily be a couple of weeks or more. F

I think this is a case of do it again. Who knows what will happen in the future when you come to replace the hob.

that was back when you used a glass

wonder how it will look in 3 years time.....

SACK the electrician. Any electrician that puts in a 4mm for a hob lacks experience, very minimum 6mm, 10mm for some. In fact 4mm is such an odd cable size I don't normally use it, there are very few reasons to use it rather than 6mm. Read the manual. Some hobs have the ability to limit maximum power by a sequence of button presses when first powered.

This discussion might be of interest…

Sorry I typed that sounding as i have bought it but I am put together a diy effort from bes and eBay.

Chance meetings, research and no fear of being nosy have stood me in good stead for many years and it's proving no different with getting a house built. The 'dig deep' thing was bothering me, mainly the thought of having to go down 2m over the entire footprint of the build and the cost of all that muckaway, as well as the risk of it all turning into a giant, muddy swimming pool during the process. I will freely admit that up until about 10 days ago, the thought of having to get piling included in the build struck terror into me due to what I perceived as the potential cost and complexity involved, all down to my own ignorance about piling. As a new comer to the world of self building, the only thing I'd really picked up on in the past was hearing about remedial work to houses that were falling down and the huge amounts of cash involved. I'd already had a mooch around this site to see what I could see on the matter of piles and had a look at @recoveringacademic's blog and his comments and rapidly lost my fear but not my trepidation over costs. I also had a visit to the build site of another BH member who has been very helpful and encouraging. It was a spontaneous visit as I was really, truly just passing by his site on the way to my own, but his structural engineer was there at the time so I stood quietly by and ear-wigged, as you do, and then one thing led to another and we started chatting about my site and my clay dilemma. The upshot is that the SEs were really helpful guys and I'm engaging them to design a piling system to support my MBC build and overcome the risk of both lateral and vertical movement that my site is very vulnerable to. I'm also having them design the drainage system while they're at it. They will liaise with the architect, building control and the timber frame company and make sure that my build not only gets out of the ground but stays in the same place once it's done. I've never had an issue with professional fees as long as they are ones that are genuine and add value to a project. In this case, it will be money very well spent and a huge weight off my mind. How best to approach the drainage plan had been vexing me for the last few weeks, particularly as my clay soil means that soakaways don't function. One thing that I think may be worth mentioning is the combination of the passive slab and a piling system. The soil beneath the building is not just highly shrinkable clay, but also very dessicated thanks to the long term presence of a few trees and a super thirsty hawthorn hedge. Although these are all now gone, their long term potential affect on the soil will remain for a long time. In particular, the risk of heave. The piling system will keep the building in place, but does nothing to stop the swelling of the clay directly underneath from pushing up and breaking the floor of the new structure. The SE started to talk about a suspended floor to mitigate against this. However, a few days ago I read a BH discussion where @JSHarris mentioned the issue of an airgap under a passive slab having a detrimental affect on the insulation of a slab so was able to say with some confidence that I wanted the slab to rest on the ground, and my reasons why. The SE was fine with this and all the gubbins under the floor will now include a layer that is a honeycomb structure with the face of the cells resting on the ground so that if it does expand, it has somewhere to expand into without damaging the slab. The helical piles are part of an impressive system - no piling mat, no excavation if you don't need it (I need some to make sure that the floor level of the house is level with the ground), super quick to install and little vibration. This will save a huge amount of time and money compared with digging deep and a far more elegant solution with the dangers of heave solved as well. In all, the cost of the SE and the piling won't cost me any more and it may be somewhat cheaper. The time element is important, too, as the lesser amount of excavation will be much speedier and keep me on track for the main part of the build to take place from end of May onwards, assuming everything else is ready. The cherry on the cake was put in place this morning with full discharge of all the pre-commencement planning conditions. All in all, a good week.

What a great start and an even better solution. Self build seems to be a long list of daunting operations that one has to corral into an orderly list, you then need to read the “for dummies” before deciding if your going to learn to be the expert or if its something you can safely outsource. Reading the posts on this forum really sheds some light on the many mysteries of a self build and often shines a bloody big spotlight at potential problem areas. Thank god for BH ...... learning every day.

That reminds me of the argument my BIL had many years ago. He drove into his local tip and proceeded to drag the 1 ton builders bag of garden waste out of the back of his pick up truck and start emptying it into the skip. At this point the manager came storming over saying he can't tip that here. The argument hinged on the sign saying "garden waste, 1 car, 1 bag" and my BIL:'s insistence that he indeed only had 1 bag. The argument ended when my BIL said I can either empty the contents into the skip, or I will just drive off and leave it on the ground (it was out of the truck by this time) I don't think they hand ANPR cameras then but I suspect he was unwelcome after that. It is absurd that they make it difficult for people to dispose of their waste responsibly. And then they wonder why there is so much fly tipping that will cost them more to clean up than if they just let people take it to the tip. It annoys me as it's my council tax money they are wasting with policies like that. It also makes me feel even more, the "bottom of a wheelie bin" is a damned good place for all sorts of stuff to go.

The library is going to be a whole new chapter...

Well that works...bored now:

you have made such a nice job of that i recon you could turn your hand to almost anything....... have you considered fitting bathrooms?