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Hi everyone, i am am about to start renovating our kitchen so hope you guys won’t mind me pickin your brains i am a very amateur jack of all trades who tries do as much as I can myself as long as it’s safe to do so. at the moment the renovation will involve recycling old carcasses and making new doors and face frames and so drawers and stuff we have taken this decision after some truly eye watering quotes from kitchen companies marital harmony however relies heavily on a good outcome so wish me luck cheers richard

I used to have a lot of stuff fabricated. You can powder coat over galvanised steel. As a pretty good but lesser option powder coat over zinc flame sprayed steel after first shot blasting to Swedish Standard SA2.5. To powder coat straight onto bare steel is madness imho. A lot of lads do it on their car suspension components, subframes etc. One crack or chip and water gets in and under the powder coat.

Guilty! That's one with which I sometimes struggle.

Yes, some modern style guides permit ending a sentence with a "dangling" preposition

Colon is correct, because the second part is as a result of the first. You'd use a semi if you had two sentences to join together, but style guides increasingly suggest eliminating semicolons wherever possible. Some style guides have it that you'd capitalise the W if the phrase after the colon was a complete sentence, which it is. But there's no hard-and-fast rule.

Try saying Kent really fast

Something like this then! Found some hardwood ply offcuts. Just held in by wedges at the mo. Resigned to foaming behind the board but there'll be sweet FA there! Not much going behind here! I suppose I could have used 12mm instead of 18mm ply. It'll project about an inch to the controls:

The report on the fire has been published. A summary here https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/grenfell-tower-report-how-the-fire-began-on-the-fourth-floor-and-spread-throughout-the-block-a3814831.html (and probably many other places as well) The key things for me. Fire started by a fridge / freezer The kitchen window in that flat was open (to let the smoke out?) so it's fire rating was irellevant. Sprinklers would only have helped if in the kitchen where the fire started. The front doors to the flats did not have self closers and at least part pf the spread of fire was doors left open No fire breaks in the cladding (I think we knew that)

My PV array(s) is(are) finally commissioned, they have been on the roof since November last year! Two reasons for the delay: Mains power required in the house (Available Feb), also final second fit electrical, no extensions! Internet required!!! The installers tried setting it up at the end of March but failed! They returned last week when I was there and basically I did the commissioning work!!! (Following the instructions). I have 37 x 280W Monocrystalline panels JAM6(K)-60-280-4BB (Chinese from the supplier) each coupled to an enphase micro-inverter. These are wired via 3-phase cable (house is 3-phase) into their own breaker board, then onto the main board via an import meter. Teh array is split up 10 panels SE and 27 SW, each array has it's own breaker and there is a noise suppressor in the box also. An enphase envoy is wired in next to the breaker box and communicates with micro-inverters via powerline and the world by my Wi-Fi (on an isolated subnet). The problem was that the envoy (brains) could not communicate with the micro-inverters so the system was not coming online. The installers commissioning the system were stumped so after about an hour I went up into the attic to help, First of all connecting the system to my Wi-Fi (not the temporary BT Hub from build), then I downloaded the installer app (iPhone), they logged me on, and following the instruction on my laptop set up the array details (all micro-inverters were serial numbered) and set it to work. Remarkably all micro-inverters were detected but only 2/3 communicating (powerline problems), by this time it was past support hours so they planned to come back the next day. In the meantime my electrician came in to do some odd jobs, I explained the issue to him and he suggested that they take a power feed directly off their breaker board (behind their noise suppressor) for the envoy rather than use the socket that is on the attic ring. When the installers returned the next day, I passed on the advice which they confirmed with the enphase support people and fitted the dedicated socket, unsurprisingly all bar one reported in and that one has since done so. My array is now up and running: It can be viewed here: https://enlighten.enphaseenergy.com/pv/public_systems/yYpm1387793/overview?preview=1 I have managed over 8kW in the current garbage weather and over 40kWh on one day! As an aside I had to have an interim EPC produced before the array was commissioned to enable full FIT rate claim, the EPC will be subsequently re-assessed (with Solar) to give a final realistic figure. It is a quirk of the system (designed for retrofit not new-build) that if you commission a system without a lodged EPC, you get a FIT rate of about 10% of the current puny rate, but you cannot include Solar in your EPC until it is commissioned, so you end up doing it twice!!

Hello to everybody. My girlfriend is having built her own home she designed. 230m2 of living space plus large double garage etc. 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, wc, kitchen, living room, office, utility room, cinema/activity room. The house is in France and is on a plot of 1300m2. The house is going to be complete in September. She is using individual trades and she manages the project. There have been no problems and it will be on or just under budget. She is using a brick construction ( lots of holes in it but don't know the name in English) with wood fibre insulation. Under Floor heating by town gas. All German materials for kitchen, bathrooms, boiler, windows etc Estimated energy (hard and electricty) costs per annum €500 Land cost €45,000 including fees. Build cost: €300,000 I joined the forum to ask a few questions and read up on theories and practise. Feel free to chat. Mark

I didn't get to read your post @Hecateh but I'm sorry to hear you are still having issues. I can't give you any really useful advice but there are people on this forum with amazing skills who will help you see things clearly and practically without judging you. It's so easy to give advice retrospectively and tell people they should have done something differently but that's never helpful. The only helpful comments are those that you can use to help you move forward and there are bundles of people to help with that on here. My circumstances were different but there were times when I wanted to walk out of this house, shut the door behind me and never look back. I did get through that dark stage however and you will too. You just have to hang on in there. All I can do is sent you a virtual hug xx

@Hecateh, I can only sympathise. Due to bad pension choices I dread retirement and have to think something will happen to mitigate the shortfall. If not then what will be will be is how I look at it.

SPONS Updates are a bit hit and miss to be honest - it’s more about using it to get a feel for the extras you may have missed, or whether a trade is taking the Mick ... I wouldn’t want to craft an estimate by hand from SPONS without some sort of framework as I would miss a lot ..! Even our estimator missed stuff such as the loft hatch and so on - all things you “forget” you need yet are never really marked on plans.

f

@Hecateh Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success. C. S. Lewis And… Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do. Isaac Asimov Brighter days lie ahead. Chin up!

Go chap their door and take a box of Roses...smile and be nice Works every time Seriously, if they are soo busy. Impress the booking clerk or make yourself stand out to get them moving

My girlfriend is having her new home built for her - individual trades. See photo. House is in France. All is going well. Over size is 230m2 plus a large garage. It has 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, wc, utility room, upstairs and downstairs living room, kitchen and large play room/cinema. On a plot of 1300m2 Joined the forum to ask a couple of questions.

looks fabulous

I can’t see the plot being worth more than £70k so I take it no stamp duty?

We have not finally decided yet. I am buying from a vendor who has the original house and remaining garden. There is an existing design that was used for planning but I intend to vary it to make it into a (near or certified) passive house and will probably use a timber-frame construction of I-beams filled with blown cellulose for insulation. This has the benefit of making the house relatively lighter which is an advantage on my plot as there are tree roots that need to be protected beneath and which will necessitate a complicated foundation structure with piles.

i have that one...well another version...its a right pain to use... i actually got the UP after which was much easier. The problem is levelling the floor and every thing else. I would not bother with duel extrusion unless you have a lot of spare time. If you want to take up 3d printing as a hobby then got for it..but if you want to just print a few things i would recommend the online professionals. results are in whole new ball game. ryan

No, thankfully not. Its great draining ground its 6-12 inches of loam / dark soil ...grading to a gravelly stony soil below ...pretty much all the way from what I have dug. Its the same with all the ground around here ...zero clay, zero sand but plenty of BIG bloody stones to bend a shovel on

I don't see any problems with balancing system with manifold upstairs, only major downside to one manifold is being restricted to one temp for both floors. You may/probably need two different temps in spreader plates and screed. As for heating controls doesn't make any difference one thermostat controlling everything or 9 thermostats controlling 9 zones. Not 100% on cooling side haven't considered it. One word of caution on bigger spaces you may need 2 or 3 loops per room ie bigger manifolds.

I don't. I may be some time away

A singularly appropriate exclamation ! (Runs and hides behind pile of hackneyed quips.)

@Ferdinand, in case you have not seen it https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/travel/2018/04/avios-rewards-programme-to-close---customers-to-be-transferred-to-the-ba-executive-club-

Get them galvanized. I've had powder coated steel rust on a project. Admittedly it's on the edge of Ireland facing the Atlantic but it is rusting where galvanized beside it isn't. I haven't specified powder coated structural steel since anywhere.

Some people might want to be spanked. (That sentence technically starts with "so".)

How about spanking anyone who begins their answer to a question with, "So..."?

Yes, punctuation does differ across the pond, and most of my editorial clients are Over There, so those are usually the style guides I defer to. But I shan't be taking any lessons from Grammarly: https://techbeacon.com/grammarly-leaks-everything-youve-ever-typed-your-browser-everything

If you want see lots of semi-colons, read any book dealing with grammar; authors of such things seem to love semi-colons. I gave up reading "Eats shoots and leaves"; for me, the writer over-punctuated to the point of distraction. Mostly it's US style guides that say that - from grammarly: "In British English, the first letter after a colon is capitalized only if it's a proper noun or an acronym". Snap.

I love 16 . Could of, would of, should of drive me nuts!

I think we all need to go and read "Eats shoots and leaves"

The one to whack the hardcore under your bathroom floor?

Re linear thermal bridges. The difference between the default y-value (0.15) and the calculated value from a more detailed analysis using ACDs may only about 3 SAP points. However it will make a massive difference in CO2 emissions (DER) and the fabric energy efficiency (DFEE). Probably enough to result in an overall Building Reg failure on these 2 criteria.

I'll set 'em up, you knock 'em down!

Thats you perfectly safe for the foreseeable.

Keep a bucket of clean gravel on hand and get your mixer spotless every time you use it... Then stuff won't stick to the drum and you won't have to stick shovels inside it! Mind you I am guilty of using a stick to prod pockets of unmixed cement.

Because it's fairly easy to 'suck' a new one through with a vacuum cleaner.

The proper old ones with starting handles that often stick are deadly. By the time you get it started your arm is dead and then you have to pull the handle of before it starts flying round like a propeller. Never stick a shovel in the front of the mixer. Best case it goes round and sweeps you of your feet. Worst case is an arm of if your even that lucky.

Woman without her man is lost Place the missing comma(s)!

Yup. Tonnes of torque. I always turn it off before sticking anything inside. Never poke a shovel or stick a hand inside. I may be an amateur, but I don't mess with moving machinery

Where's your Grammar. She's out with me grandad.

She did, did she?

I'll vent my pet hate at miss used grammar. If I had £1 for every time I have heard someone say "you could of done that....." FFS OF is not the same word as HAVE. It should be "you could have done that....." There. I can sleep easy tonight now that is off my chest.

I should add a lot of the frustration comes from how it is worded, (youtube comments) "could you not have........" ill give you an answer explaining why "i'd have just.........." GFY

How much water is actually going to pool on top of the batten if it wasn't angled? I would just use normal square batten and have done in the past for exactly the same build up. Angled could be argued as being better but I think it's very marginal with overlapped boards. More importantly is to lay the top boards so that they 'cup' inwards and clamp on to the base board for a snug fit, with sawn wet boards at least.

I think if I had all my junctions done properly for thermal bridging I would have been a bit higher, not sure how much, they said cost and time not worth it just take what is being offered so I did. I have lost the will to live with it, it has been a tortuous week trying to sort it all out. I just wanted an end, the stress of it all has made me ill. If doing again I would make sure I saw the sap info at design stage and that it was right and related to my build then at least when you get to 'as built' it is just a simple exercise not the marathon of confusion I have waded through to get an end and a certificate. There are lessons for people in my tale. You did brilliantly well @PeterStarck you should be very proud of your achievement. I am disappointed with the B, I had hopes of better after all the effort with the build but I am relieved to get an end that is passable after everything the last few days.

Sorry @Onoff never read your link. I also believe they make fridges for John Lewis own brand. Probably already covered that in link ? I would check your avios account and switch any balance over to your BA avios account to be safe. I think 5 months left of the avios before stopped.

From what I've read (and it's a subject that really makes my brain hurt!) your chosen path is the best option. Along that is with keeping the temp at an optimum for the COP.