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It does not have to be complicated. I just bought the most basic UFH manifold control box I could find. Each room has an ordinary mechanical room stat. And it is all controlled by an ordinary boiler time clock. When it is all connected together, if any room calls for heat (when it is on) then a relay contact closes that instructs the heat pump to deliver heat, in exactly the same way as it would instruct a boiler to deliver heat. The secret to a simple system is choosing simple controls and connecting them correctly.

No they are to stop you smacking your leg on the threads and filling them with plaster and tile adhesive ... they go in the bin when you fit the pan.

0 - Black - Bad 1 - Brown - Boys 2 - Red - R*** 3 - Orange - Our 4 - Yellow - Young 5 - Green - Girls 6 - Blue - But 7 - Violet - Virgins 8 - Grey - Go 9 - White - Without

Shaping the eps will be simple, after playing with mine for a week you can chop it, cut it, screw it glue it, and if you cock it up just stick the cock up bit back in. Why don’t you come over and play with mine for an hour to get a feel for it. Now thats an an offer you don’t get every day.

Looks like I needn't have allowed for clearance around those plastic sleeves then! Where 4 tiles meet: So a little jig: Fire up the Starretts: A few 50mm clearance around flush & poo pipes. A bit more round the studs! Just got to transfer to the 4 tiles now!

One of my roofer’s wanted to buy a 3m roll of 900mm code 4 just to finish an apex that was 200mm short in one corner... 10 minutes and one blowtorch later with my dads old lead soldering iron I’d put the corner on and you can’t see the join ... it’s not difficult to do, you just need to take your time - which is why most won’t do it as it gets put in the too hard box ...

If there's one thing that really gets my back up, it's someone trying to bully or intimidate me. It rarely works, it just makes me angry. If you've been following this blog, you may recall a post some time back in August concerning the high voltage power lines that oversail my plot, sadly very close to our new house. They do, in fact, just about cross directly over the very furthest corner of the garage. Now whilst these lines do not supply my new house and there is no equipment actually on my land, their proximity to the garage means that they are below a safe working distance, according to the regulations of the DNO, who is SSEPD in my area. I had a meeting with the local wayleave officer, let's call him AJ, on 14th August to discuss the situation and how to resolve matters. From the outset, I have stated that I have no issue with the oversailing lines and I'm not asking the DNO to remove them or do anything drastic, I would just like them to be made safe. AJ had a long look around the plot and came up with a rather complex proposal to bury the cables, via a somewhat convoluted route, digging up the lane and digging on the land of 3 different owners. The local linesman came out and had a look a few days later and suggested that the existing poles could simply be replaced by taller ones that would lift the cables up high enough to give safe clearance underneath them. The DNO has issued me with quotes for both sets of work, both expensive, one slightly less so. The lesser of the two evils, raising the poles up, comes to the princely sum of £7,600 + VAT, so not much change out of £9k when all's said and done. If I accept, the raising of the pole height will take some time: the new poles would be more than 10% greater in height than the old ones and so the DNO requires planning approval for this. Then, it seems, they have to put some other sort of submission to another official body that will take another few months, so all told, it will be well into next year before anything happens, if it does. This is the basic outline of what passed. What I haven't mentioned yet is the attitude and approach of AJ in all of this, which is what provoked my opening statement. From the very first telephone conversation that we had back at the beginning of August, he has been highly combative in a passive aggressive kind of way. So, no raising of voices, but very much a 'we're bigger than you and you will do as we say' style. This came to a head on Tuesday evening when AJ rang me at 5.10pm to discuss the quotes that had been sent through. In fact, what he actually wanted to do was rattle my cage because 30 minutes before his call, the local linesman had rung me to discuss the dates for burying my supply cable and had clearly been in the same office, chatting to AJ and saying that the garage had already been constructed. AJ laid it on pretty thick. He said that SSEPD would 'make a contribution' towards the cost of increasing the height of the oversailing lines, and he clearly expected me to be grateful. They were offering to pay 25% of the cost (no VAT to charge to themselves), i.e. in the region of £1,500, but in exchange for this, they wanted an easement. Just as a refresher, the wayleave on my property currently is a voluntary one which I can serve notice on. An easement is a right in perpetuity, well beyond my lifetime, lodged against the deeds of the property. As with all AJ's conversations, there were lots of long and deliberate pauses of the type that some idiots use when they think they are masters of manipulation and want to make the other party feel uncomfortable and force them into filling the silence. I shan't quote chapter and verse on it because it's far too tedious but suffice it to say, he really pissed me off and to the extent that I sent a forthright email to him later that night summarising what he had said and how he had said it. I also requested that he no longer contacted me by phone, but put everything in writing (email) so that I would have an audit trail. Now, it may be that this gets me no further, but I have received a request from AJ's boss this afternoon, requesting a meeting to discuss the points I have raised. I have said that I will meet her, but I want to know in advance exactly what points she wants to discuss and how this will move things on. We shall see. In the meantime, for the record, here's the email I sent that gives more detail on what annoyed me so much. "Dear AJ Further to our telephone conversation late this afternoon, I feel that I need to email with my comments regarding this and my planned actions as a consequence, since I have been left very troubled by both your comments and your tone. When we first met on site on 14th August, I explained to you that throughout the entire process of building my new house, I have used and relied upon professionals and have sought to do everything correctly and legally, as far as I have been able. To this end, the house was designed by a qualified architect who chose the location of the building on the site according to a topographical survey that was produced by a firm of chartered surveyors. Once the build was ready to commence, setting out of the building on site was again carried out by a chartered surveyor and there was no change from the original plans as detailed in the approved planning permission. Unfortunately, it later became evident that the north east corner of the garage of the new house is directly under the power lines that oversail but which do not supply my property . However, I did not realise that these were high tension lines until my scaffolder contacted SSE to establish what type of lines these were and their nature then became clear. As a result, I have made all contractors who have come on site aware of these power lines. The builder who constructed my house and garage was completely aware of the high tension lines and proceeded with the construction of the garage on a day when I wasn’t on site. I am told, however, that this was all done from floor level and inside the garage. Indeed, it is clear that it could not have been achieved in any other way, since there is no scaffolding around the garage to facilitate its construction from the outside. I can confirm that the timber frame of the garage has been completed, but the flat roof surface has not been put on it and I have advised my flat roofer that this is not to be done until such time as it can be completed safely. I have no desire to see anyone injured as a result of working on my site, whether it is due to ignorance or carelessness, and I deeply resent any assertion to the contrary. If I wish to take a risk with my own safety, I am free to do so, but I would not deliberately endanger others. As evidenced by my approach to this build, at no point have I tried to cut corners or take any risks. I have also engaged with you in a co-operative, straight forward and positive manner during our meeting and our conversations. Regrettably, I cannot say the same for you or your approach. I understand that you are paid to represent the interests of your company and, thus, your company’s shareholders. I also understand that a DNO has a public duty to ensure continuing and safe supply of electricity to its customers and have never disputed this, but I find your assertion that my seeking adequate financial compensation for SSE to have permanent rights over my property in the form of an easement will somehow increase everyone’s electricity bill to be an insulting one. Any charges paid by me to SSE are taken into the business as a whole which pays profits to its shareholders by way of distributing electricity and each DNO has an effective monopoly over its distribution area, so I have no choice in whom I deal with. The wayleave that exists over my property is a very old one, dating back to the 1950s, and it is a voluntary wayleave agreement. My husband and I have owned this property since February 2017 and have never received any compensation due through this wayleave, although this would be an insignificant sum, in any event. I understand from the previous owner of the property that no payments have been received in respect of the wayleave as far as they are aware. The wayleave grants permission to the DNO to place its equipment on or over my land and I have no desire to have SSE remove its equipment from my property and have stated this since the outset of our discussions. I have also stated my willingness to offer SSE a far more secure tenure in the form of an easement which gives rights in perpetuity rather than on a voluntary basis as is the current situation. Given the longevity of an easement, its nature is very different from a wayleave, as you know, and despite your assertions to the contrary, it is a valuable difference to the property owner. You kept referring back to the fact that the original wayleave is very old and that the equipment has been in situ for a long time, thus the financial impact on my property is negligible. I do not agree with this statement. It may have been true when the wayleave was first set up but that was over 60 years ago and property values have increased considerably in that time, particularly residential ones. The direct consequence of the oversailing wires is my inability to fully use and enjoy my property, as is my legal right; were the wires not oversailing my property, this would not be the case and I would be free to develop it as I choose. Therefore, there is a direct financial loss to me as a result of your company’s equipment passing over my land. One solution that has been put forward to remove the danger posed by your equipment passing over my land is to increase the height of the existing poles so that the clearance between a person standing on my garage and the overhead lines is greater than the required safe distance. This seems like a very sensible solution and one with which I am in agreement. On 22 August SSE quoted a cost of £7,231.45 + VAT, a total of £8,677.74. I have researched the amount of compensation a property owner might reasonably expect to receive for granting permanent rights to their property by way of an easement to a DNO and I am advised that these are typically between 1% and 2% of the property value, when negotiated by parties familiar with this process. Based on a reasonable estimate, my property is conservatively valued at in the region of £800,000, thus giving a minimum expectation of £8,000 of compensation for granting an easement. You today stated that SSE are prepared to contribute 25% of the cost of increasing the pole height for the overhead lines, i.e. £1,807.86 since SSE will not need to charge themselves VAT on the cost of any works. I also doubt whether the quote provided to me is at cost to SSE and there will be a margin of profit in that so, in effect, the true cost to SSE of this contribution is far below 25% of the cost to me. I believe that this valuation of permanent rights over my property is an extremely poor offer and not one that I am prepared to accept. In the interests of overcoming the issue of SSE’s equipment over my land, I have not sought to profit from the matter in any way; I have only sought to reach a fair and equitable solution and have dealt with you in a very transparent and fair manner. Indeed, I have already agreed to pay the charges for re-routing the power supply to my house and have no issue with this, since it is of direct benefit to me. On the other hand, you, on behalf of your employer, have been guarded and done all that you can to avoid straight answers, instead almost treating the process as though it is a game of poker where he who bluffs the best, gets the best deal. This has included difficult telephone conversations where you deliberately insert long, awkward silences presumably in an attempt to make me feel ill at ease or intimidated, and this has been the case in every conversation I have had with you. In addition to this, you constantly allude to issuing notices and starting other processes, without any explanation of what these are or what the outcome of them is, instead leaving these veiled threats hanging until I continually had to press you for answers to them. When you do finally explain what these other actions are, it seemed to be a circular argument that brings us back to where we began in the conversation and no further forward. Your rang me at 5.10pm this evening and our conversation lasted 37 minutes, in which time all your main objective seemed to be to attempt to intimidate me into accepting the above financial offer, otherwise you would serve me with legal notices and generally make things difficult for me to progress my house build. For the record, I do not appreciate attempts to bully me, no matter how passive aggressive they are, and I think that it is disgraceful behaviour. It has also made me re-think my approach to this situation, since being transparent and fair does not seem to have produced any meaningful progress. Towards the end of our conversation, you stated that you want to continue our dialogue and see if we can reach a resolution. This, however, is not a poker game for me nor is it an enjoyable sport of seeing who will blink first and give in to the other’s proposal. As a result, I have no wish to continue any conversations with you since I feel it is a very stressful waste of my time. Therefore, unless you are prepared to deal with matters in a clear and straightforward way, next week I shall issue formal notice to SSE of withdrawal of the wayleave on our property. Once this is done, I shall instruct a firm of chartered surveyors experienced in negotiating financial compensation agreements with DNOs for the grant of wayleaves and easements and I feel confident that will, in due course, more than adequately cover the costs of any work to the oversailing wires. Please contact me via email only from now on as I want to have a permanent record of precisely how you respond to me."

There’s many reasons why a developer has covenants in the deeds to curtail homeowners builoing things. Such as to stop you building things too close to sewers and stopping them from being adopted. When all the plots are sold and roads and sewers adopted, they have zero interest in being involved. I was the person with the job of issuing such approval. Sometimes I would get a call from the owner of a 20 year old house insisting that we stop a neighbor building a rabbit hutch etc: Definitely not interested!

I know the OH said that he wished he had put rads in upstairs. For the amount of time I need heating on upstairs rads would have been a much better solution. Mind you those probably wouldn't have worked either!

Infinitely more problematic and complex as you’d need floor probes to stop the slab getting too hot as well as a blended manifold and room stat. The problem would be the higher w/m2 that would be required, and that can only be overcome by chucking more heat into the floor. Theres only so hot you can make the floor in a domestic dwelling so your limited. Also you’d need to put much more pipe into the floor to facilitate the higher energy input, eg more loops and bigger manifolds. Plus you’d need VERY accurate room thermostats like @JSHarris has to stop any over / under shoot. I’ve walked away from a LOT of retro fit Ufh jobs where the punter remained unconvinced that Ufh was a very bad idea a) off fossil fuel and b) in a high energy consuming dwelling. Rads are quick and cheap...... and effective too.

last house was just a standard oil boiler, no buffer. New house is ASHP no buffer.

I hate it with a vengeance. Total monotony but a high level of skill needed imo. Really need to labour for someone good to pick up those little extra tips to get good I think. I quite like the holes and complicated cuts...when I get it right!

Where's your spoon, you stirrer .

I knew this house would be huge for 2 people but the OH wouldn’t build a smaller one. God knows why. I have way too much ‘stuff’ for a tiny place though.

I think she secretly wants UFH!

I disagree to an extent, yes I am having problems working out how to wire it all up but I first heard the theory about setting the UFH to one or two degrees above the required room temp on another forum and that it will self manage itself. Jeremy tried weather compensation stuff and floor probes but dumped it in favour of a Simple room stat. (Please correct me Jeremy if I got that wrong). This will work if the house is one zone like I want. I am, I admit, a Luddite, kiss works for me (and it’s a lot less to go wrong).

She is absolutely right. I lost the will to live trying to understand it. ' ... overthinking it again, I suppose ... '

F**k Stoptober, bring on Cantremembernovember!

Yes, it's SELV. These LED panels qualify as the driver is separate and mains powered, but connected by a low voltage cable to the light itself.

Because you have a big tool you can stand to one side when going to the toilet and the grout line will look in the middle anyway!!

Tossa ?

Thanks both. I must keep reminding myself that any negativity on my part is merely the result of observations of what's in front of me and if its wrong it needs calling out. Whilst it is wrong to expect professionals not to make mistakes (we are all human), it is only reasonable to expect them to be rectified once identified.

Superglue works if you want it permanently bonded.

The delay in reduction..... It's opposite is increment delay; the delay in increase.

The easiest to understand description is on this website, I think: http://www.greenspec.co.uk/building-design/decrement-delay/

Trust @pocster to get excited about a hole!

This was the sort of detail I had in mind, but specifically for flashing.... http://www.silvatecdesign.com/Technical Downloads/Silvatec Design Standard Details - September 09.pdf

What's your name, Mrs Onoff?

Rear tile went on first. Then chrome trims ( cut slowly in the chopsaw between two pieces of sacrificial PAR timber to minimise F.O.D. ). Then the left and right tiles. Leave to set. Then the base tile. Leave to set. Then the head. All tiles colour matched siliconed into place so when I pushed them home the excess silicone squeezed out of the trims / mitres / and gaps between tiles and trims. It gets everywhere but the baby wipes clean up in minutes.

Did you say your kit is SIPs? Including the roof? Had my kit from a SIPs company who turned out totally incompetent and unprofessional (you didn't mention them here you will be glad to hear - and the mods will be happy to hear that I won't type their name in BIG CAPS here either!), but they sub-contracted the install out who sub-contracted that out to a couple of installers who actually did a great job. They will travel anywhere if you don't get anywhere. Oh yes, and make 101% sure you get someone decent to pour your floors. I used some prick who was recommended by a local architect, but I'm still rectifying his utter bollox of a job now. I'm sure you can't find anyone worse than that!

Hmm. Yes, food for thought, thanks Ferdinand, and I admit that behind my ire this had popped into my thoughts. The email has gone and can't be withdrawn so that's where the situation lies right now. I actually have no objection to reaching a negotiated settlement with the DNO and I'm still aiming for that. I also suspect that's where it will end up. However, the approach of the wayleave officer has been such that he is not a person who seems able to negotiate in a reasonable manner, which was the essence of my complaint and doesn't change, regardless of anyone's legal position. I plan to give his boss a call today and arrange a meeting as I don't want to waste more time on unnecessary and unproductive arguments over something that can, in principle, be easily agreed.

Hi - yes things are getting messy but in a positive manner! I have been very busy these last few weeks, working a full 8 hours or so and a full weekend. The house has now been plastered except for the sitting room. The reason being the chimney still hasn't been completed. Should be done this week I am told! Once it has been done, the plaster boards can be finished off and the room plastered. Allowing for the rooms which have been plastered to dry thoroughly, I have followed on with my paint roller and whitewashed to walls and ceilings. I am using Johnstone's Trade Contract white emulsion which in turn has been diluted. The first coat I applied was more diluted than the second coat. Having asked a question on the main forum, I am comfortable with painting the walls in a weeks time or so with our favoured colours. I have been giving it my all simply to keep ahead of the joiner, who has started the second fix joinery. The upstairs has been finished but the downstairs will wait until the floor tiles have gone down. Outside I have also been painting the exterior wood. We are using the Dulux range - Weather shield - Firstly, I applied two coats of preservative primer. Then, on went two coats of dark grey undercoat, before finishing off with a top coat of Bowler Hat. Having followed their procedures, I am hopeful this will be good for at least 10 years. The stone work is nigh on complete. It is basically the gable ends that need finishing of together with the chimney. Unfortunately I am struggling to upload some photos - these are the ones I did manage to do. Perhaps I will have better luck when the next post is due. Thanks for reading.