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An issue with concentric supply cables, is the outer sheath can get punctured, allowing water in and corroding the outer PEN conductor. This will go completely undetected until the PEN fails. I have seen this on a job where the DNO cut into the cable to make a joint, and water came out. If the landscaper damaged a cable that has to be repaired, what is to say he didn't bruise it in another place that is now allowing water in unseen?

Instead of using underground T connectors I'd bring the blue HDPE mains feed up through into the house using 110mm drain pipe as a conduit. Right next door, perhaps in the same 110mm pipe install another length of HDPE going back down and out again to the static caravan. Connect the two temporarily say 12-18" above FFL. Wrap loads of insulation around it. Later fit suitable valves so you can turn off water to the house or just to the static van. If you replace the static van with a shed it can be handy to have a water supply out there.

Like PVA...but better: https://www.bal-adhesives.com/products/bond-sbr/ I've been using the Cementone one from Screwfix. Dodgy slab edge: Where I had to knock out the slab for some pipes: No water in the mix just SBR, ends up like a resilient stone resin.

It's been a little quiet on site over the last 10 days or so which hasn't been a bad thing as I had a nasty cold last week so it gave me an added incentive to stay at home and get some more forward planning done. One of the downsides, though, is that I only today spotted an issue with the west facing upstairs gable that's only really visible from the top scaffolding lift. When I first saw it, I thought 'oh bugger, another window problem' and promptly got on the phone to the guys at Norrsken to ask what they thought of the photo I'd just sent them with a clear image of the problem. This is what I sent: And this is what it's meant to look like: Can you spot the difference? You're buildhubbers, so of course you can. In the first photo, the apex of the triangular window sitting on the French doors and side panels clearly protrudes by some distance. It's about 3cm. At this point, and as before, what I most need to know is a) is it a problem? and b) how do we fix it, if it is. And at this point, as before, Norrsken were hot to trot and the installations manager, Mark, along with his very bright and shiny new spirit level, did a swift dash up to north Dorset to come and see for himself exactly what the problem is. I should explain that this window consists of 3 elements. There are the central French doors, a glazed panel each side of the doors and then the triangular window that sits on top of all this. When fitting, the installation team set everything up with a laser to make sure it's all dead on, and they took great care to make sure everything was right. Because of this, I wasn't entirely surprised when Mark from Norrsken established quite clearly that the fault isn't with the windows, but with my MBC timber frame. Directly above the triangular window, there is a steel with an apex in it, that is then boarded over. You can see in this picture from a previous entry how these are put into place by MBC, and this is the section that has caused the problem on the west side: So, first off, is this an issue? This was my first question to Mark and, in particular, does the fact that the window frame is so proud of the wall compromise the thermal properties or insulating quality? Thankfully, he assured me not, so I'm happy to accept this. The next issue, is the physical problem of the top of the window protruding by about 3cm from the timber frame exterior wall. It's fairly standard practice to have 25mm counter batten on the exterior, to which is attached whatever outer skin is covering the building. Fortunately for me and MBC, I have planned all along to have 50mm battens on the outside so that a decent sized service cavity is created to run any exterior wires and cables through. It's possible that I could have got away with 25mm but I preferred to spend a bit more on the larger battens and make life a bit easier when installing stuff on the outside. This means that the slate cladding on the upper floor will be able to largely cover the error, but it will quite probably be tricky to get a decent finish between the window and the cladding as I had been planning to use powder coated aluminium to do this job and it won't be the easiest thing to fit with such a variation in the gap. I'll tackle that when I get to it, but any suggestions are welcome. Okay, so all in all, it's not a disaster but a pain. I am, however, annoyed because MBC didn't know that I was planning 50mm battens and, aside from anything else, it's really disappointing that having done a good job on the vast majority of the build, this error slipped through. There were enough spirit levels on site throughout the build that it shouldn't have been so difficult to run one up against this fairly fundamental section of the build, particularly as there was a whopper of a window going into this wall, to make sure that everything is true for the parts of the build that follow on after. In the meantime, a few other things have gone on at the build. A start has been made on putting in the ducting for the MVHR and shoving some of the UFH pipes and manifold towards where it will end up. The UFH manifold for the upstairs is going up into the loft section. In the original plans, the upstairs landing was vaulted, but the decision was taken early on to board this out and create a loft space that could then be used to stash away all the MVHR kit and other ancillary equipment, including the upstairs UFH manifold. There is another bit of kit going in there that is a heat pump but used to cool rather than heat air going through the MVHR system and thus provide active cooling in the summer to complement my shading from the brise soleil and exterior roller blinds on the south facing windows. Here's a photo of the MVHR ducting and UFH pipes coming up through a cut-out section in the floor and up into the loft space. The stud wall that you can see divides the landing from the en-suite for the master bedroom; it is planned to be a twin stud wall and so, once done, all the pipework and ducting will be hidden in the cavity of the twin wall. More of the same: The plenums for the MVHR will sit at the far end of the bedrooms, i.e. near the windows. The idea is that this will achieve a proper through put of fresh air through the entire room, rather than just circulating around the door and landing areas. You will see that the plenums are quite a bit lower than the central glulam beam supporting the vault. The plan here is to introduce a central flat section along the ridge, low enough to cover the ducting and the glulam and the plenum will then just pop out of the plasterboard. Whilst this means extra cellulose being required for the increased volume of the roof section, it will make detailing it and covering it in far easier for MBC when the time comes to do that, so there's a decent quid pro quo there. A major benefit of stuffing the MVHR ducting into the ceiling section that will be filled with cellulose is that the pipes up there don't need to be insulated, which would normally be the case. The ones for the ground floor are currently getting their NASA-style coats and I'll show some photos of those in the next post. This also means that it's given a reduction on the cost of all the MVHR kit as the insulation for the ducts isn't particularly cheap. Aside from the window/wonky frame drama, it's currently a time for figuring out and juggling details. My flat roof guys should be back in a couple of weeks and I really need to get the parapets and east balcony finished off as until these are done, the main house won't be watertight. I need to check with the team at County Flat Roofing, however, as I also have my balustrade to go onto the balconies. The balustrade has posts that are fixed onto the parapets by way of a square/rectangular base plate, about 10mm thick. These can go either on top of or underneath the roofing membrane, but I need to check which will give the best finish and then press the button for whoever goes first. I know that if the plates go under the membrane are too thick, it will look bumpy and not very nice but, more importantly, might not give a good seal. I shall check and report back, but I suspect that we will end up putting the plates on top of the membrane and sealing it up again afterwards. Although the balustrade hasn't been installed yet, I've been chatting to the guys at Balustrade UK, including the lovely Trevor, and they've been very understanding with my needs for flexibility on timing, so all is okay there. Moving onto brise soleils, who would have thought it would be so difficult to track down a firm to do these? Certainly neither me nor my architect. We tried a couple of local firms, including one that is on the same industrial estate as me and OH, but it was like tumbleweed blowing down mainstreet in an old cowboy film. Nada. In the end, I contacted another Birmingham firm, Vincent Timber, who mentioned them on their website. In the event, the only supply the timber for them rather than the whole thing, but they passed my enquiry onto a firm in St Albans, Contrasol Ltd, and they came back with a fully specced brise soleil for the stairwell window which is just the thing. Not cheap, mind, but not far off what I thought it would be. The metal supports will be powder coated aluminium (RAL7016, of course, the same as any other bit of metal on the building) and the fins will be red cedar that will be allowed to silver. When OH and I originally discussed this, we were hoping to get something that would retain its colour but this has proven to be tricky and we have no intention of painting anything on the brise soleil fins every 8 years or so to retain its colour. It can go grey with dignity, just like us. I was out on site today getting the trench dug for the re-routing of our electricity supply cable. Currently, it comes in via an overhead wire and a dirty great pole that's right next to the building. We've planned from the outset to have this buried and the SSE guy, Dave, will come along next week to lay the cable and, in due course, run it into the garage. It's a long old trench, mind you. It took just under 4 tons of sand to put the blinding layer down and it won't take much less than that to cover the cable once it goes in, before back filling. Still, another job to tick off the list. I need to get another couple of bits of groundworks done in the coming weeks. First off, I need to get the spec from the Highways Agency as to how they want the new driveway onto the lane to be constructed. My sunamps will live in the garage and it will be very tricky getting them in through the house as they're hefty things, so I may as well crack on and get the driveway done. The only slight hitch is that there is some scaffolding in the way right now, but I'm hoping that by the time we get around to making the new opening, I'll be able to do away with a fair bit of the scaffolding. The other groundwork task is to start digging out the pond. OH has decided on the shape and size and I used a couple of cans and left over EPS to mark out the perimeter this morning. Before anyone asks, these are the answers: no swimming, no fish, no fishing, no duck shooting. It's a wildlife pond and that's it. But it is a bloody big pond and I'd like to get it dug before we get some serious weather in as we can then start to get a feel for just how well or not our clay soil will retain water and start to plant up the margins once we have a better idea of what we're dealing with. It's hard to see the line marking, but this is the view from the top lift of the scaffold. That's all for now, the next post should hopefully have a bit more interior detail and a lot more roof action. Stay tuned.

@vivienz What's the provision for damp course / wet to dry transition from atmosphere to slab? I'd have thought the window fitters have done this before, but of all the level threshold stuff I've seen there has been a rubber type membrane that the window / door has been sat on which is turned down at the outside threshold and upstood at the inside. Do you have pics of before / during fitting? My concern would be a too wet / runny mix migrating outward under the frame, so maybe the first step would be to inject a high expansion foam to seal, from the outside back through under the frame, and let that cure before back filling the slab from inside. Remember the airtight detail needs to be high integrity and last the test of time at these few junctions and that needs a plan, and a beady eye to execute it effectively. ?

We fitted a glossy finish in the old house, and it looks OK, but is a bit of work to keep looking clean all the time, although far less work than cleaning grotty grout between tiles. I fitted matt, slightly textured, finish panels in a sand coloured shade in the new house and they look lot nicer, and are less hassle to keep looking OK.

Here you go, had to go to the States to find this: https://www.callmendel.com/blog/can-your-air-conditioner-cause-a-power-surge-how-to-protect-your-home/

Thanks @lizzie, all done.

IIRC, the 3 phase models were late to shift to inverter control. This makes sense, as an inverter controlled unit has a three (sometimes more) phase motor. They rectify the incoming AC to DC, then drive the multi-phase motor with the inverter drive, which is really a variable frequency AC drive. For a 3 phase inverter controlled unit, the 3 phase would be rectified to DC, then used to drive the motor variable frequency inverter. From the symptoms described, with a shorted motor phase, it sounds like direct AC drive to me. One "feature" of variable frequency drives is that they rarely, if ever, damage the motor; the electronics in the drive unit tends shut down a hell of a lot faster than a motor under fault conditions, and will usually just instantly fail. I've built a lot of variable frequency motor drives, for things like my electric motorcycle, electric bikes and an electric boat and have yet to damage a motor (and all my motors are three phase machines in essence). I've blown a fair few motor controllers, though, until the current generation, where there is so much protection built in that the controller just shuts down within a µs or two if a problem develops (or if I do lunatic things on the motorcycle - hard not to when you have 100% torque at zero rpm...).

>30V N-E is virtually impossible on TNC-S as N and E are one and the same, in many supply heads the N and E terminals are in fact the same big block of brass, in others they are separate blocks of brass with a link between them. Up front 3 phase RCD just sounds like a recipe for nuisance whole house tripping. An individual 3 phase rcd for the heat pump sounds a good idea and rcbo's for things like single phase sockets circuits etc. It is beginning to sound like this is an old direct drive heat pump, rather than inverter driven? The inverter would likely have tripped in the latter.

Some do latch for a time, I have a couple feeding my PC etc and they stay on for a time after a surge. Not sure how long, as I've only ever seen them come on a couple of times, but it's long enough for you to notice that the light's on, so of the order of tens of minutes. Given that there would probably have been a lot of spikes, as the motor intermittently shorted and then cleared, over a period of about three hours, then it seems possible that it just kept on being regularly triggered.

These people sell refurbished 1950s English Rose kitchens, which I think are entirely aluminium and stainless steel, and should survive unless there are rocks in the flood. They are powder coated. Very stylish, but I cannot vouch for budget. http://www.source-antiques.co.uk/index.php Made by the people who made Spirtfires iirc.

If the >30V N to PE was recorded by a surge protector some distance from the supply, then it could well have been a false reading, especially if the surge it measured was just a short spike. Cable inductance comes into play when there's a catastrophic failure, as seems to be the case with the ASHP motor, as it's unlikely that an over-voltage event on the supply caused an insulation failure in that motor, much more likely to be the other way around, I think. 3 phase motor insulation is rated at over the maximum phase-to-phase voltage, with a fairly high factor of safety (a normal domestic insulation resistance test would be conducted at 500V), so the motor failure may well have been the cause, rather than an effect, of the problem. Fast, high current, spikes can be generated under insulation breakdown in a high current motor, perhaps as a consequence of over-heating for some reason, that won't trip a breaker, as they typically take around 20ms to operate (the max allowable is usually 30ms). These short duration spikes may well have resulted in high voltage, short duration, voltage surges, that over-stressed some of the equipment in the house and caused it to then fail. This neatly fits the three hour event timeline, with the motor intermittently shorting internally and then clearing, and with every short clearance event the motor inductance would generate a high voltage spike. The interference suppressor almost certainly failed as a consequence of the high dV/dT, which again fits with the pattern of events. An RCD on the 3 phase supply would have almost certainly picked up this failure in the early stages, I think, as it sounds as if there were some high current imbalances in the 3 phase supply, before the catastrophic failure at midnight.

I'd suggest using the Aquamandix unit with the air injection option. I went for ozone injection because we have a very high iron concentration in our water, well over the acceptable limit for drinking water, and also because we have some hydrogen sulphide, and the combination of the two still resulted in the water having a funny taste and smell, even after the aquamandix filter. Injecting ozone into the raw water, and adding a contact tank, completely fixed our water taste and smell problem, and had the advantage of being a pretty good disinfection system. However, finding a supplier of an ozone injection system here in the UK proved challenging and expensive, so I opted to make one. This involved machining up the injection venturi (which itself involved a bit of trial and error) and building a home made ozone generator and air drier. I'd not recommend that anyone goes down the ozone injection route unless they really need to, or they have an interest in making a system themselves. The ozone system does work very well for our water, but we have 480µg/litre of iron, versus your 100µg/litre, with the acceptable maximum for drinking water being 200µg/litre. Given that you don't have an iron problem and you don't have a hydrogen sulphide problem, then I think ozone injection would be over-kill for your needs and an added complication. Best keep it simple, with an off-the-shelf solution that you can easily get spares for, I think.

That was one idea I had when I posted the same thought earlier. The sticking point with it as the possible cause is the low Ze that's just been measured. It's hard, but perhaps not impossible, to see how a damaged PEN in the cable could still give a Ze as low as 0.2 ohms. I guess a cable fault could have somehow fixed itself, or maybe there's a fault condition that changes under load. Most testers don't measure Ze at a high current; IIRC mine does loop impedance testing at either a steady 4.5 A (in non-RCD mode) or pulses the test current faster than the RCD response time when measuring in RCD mode (so as not to cause a trip). I've seen dodgy joints that have acted in some odd ways before now, including one in a low current circuit that acted as a crude diode, so it's certainly possible for cable faults to change their behaviour depending on the load current. Taking this hypothesis one step further, then if there was a phase imbalance at the consumer end, such that a high neutral current was flowing, then maybe a possible PEN fault could only appear when there is a fairly high current. Damned hard to find out whether this may or may not be the cause without digging the cable up, though. Also, I'm pretty sure SSE now specify wavecon for all buried LV supplies, and that has a copper PEN with aluminium phase conductors. Copper shouldn't corrode if water gets through the outer sheath, and I have a feeling that's why wavecon uses copper for the PEN.

We had a major issue with the electrics just after we occupied our house. The electrics would trip at random times of the day for no reason. All tests in the house came back as normal and all external tests by SSE came back as normal, this went in for 3-4 weeks, they re cabled our pole, checked out the electrics in all the local barns and farms to try and resolve. . It turned out it was the neighbours sewerage pink was going to earth or something whenever it switched on and trippping our electrics when it happened which was why it was happening at random times. Just thought I would mention as it could be something completely random and un thought of causing this.

Is this for flood resilience? If the flood risk is that severe you should look at locating the kitchen upstairs. If not, just go with normal units, where you will get a huge choice at sensible cost. Kitchens only last 15 years before they look dated, so if you get flooded, just chuck out the damaged units and buy new ones. If you have stone type worktop this can be reused if you stick with exactly the same layout. Other flood resilient measures would be where practical, to site all electrics above EA suggested flood level, build ground floor internal walls in concrete block finished in render, have ground bearing concrete ground floor, install a sewer non return valve in a 1200 diameter chamber.

Is he going for a full on passiv build or as close as to it as the budget will allow?? Cavity width will be a big decision. You are looking at a min of 200mm for this. What's is he filling the cavity with?? Beads is the easiest option, let the brickies build and then it's easy to keep the cavity clear so it will be fully filled with beads when the time comes. If he isn't sure on his cavity width you can build the founds 450mm wide to buy him some time. Then he can make it up to a max of 250mm wide. It will be a trade of between how much extra insulation beyond 200mm will cost Vs the real world benefit. The wider you go the more expensive wall ties become. Then you have extra work closing the cavity around doors and windows. He could have a play around with Jeremys spreadsheet to see what difference extending the cavity will mean. After that then it's using good quality windows and doors. No trickle vents or letter boxes. Using tape around these to sort out the airtightness. Making sure no trades rock up and start putting holes in the walls. Big no no. All your services need a lot of planning put in so this doesn't happen. Ducts in the floor all need put in when doing the founds. All the junctions in the house, floor to wall, wall to ceiling all need specific detailing to stop air leakage. Depending on the type of house you might need some sort of membrane for the roof. Wet plaster on the walls to seal them up. All the conduits all sealed up. Anything that penetrates the plasterboard like cables for lights all need sealed up. Loads more but these will get you started!!

We have the same ducting and air cooling and there's no condensation at all on the internal fresh air feed ducts. I did look for it the first few times we turned the cooling on, just in case there was a problem with condensation on the outside of the ducts, but in practice the outside surface doesn't seem to get cool, probably because the design of twin wall ducting inherently provides a degree of insulation. In cooling mode our system usually runs with the fresh air feed air to the rooms at around 12 deg C, and the outside of the ducts, where they are exposed, don't seem to get more than a degree or two below room temperature, so well above dew point for a typical day when cooling would be needed. Might be different if we lived in the tropics, but here it seems that we rarely, if ever, get the combination of high temperatures with high humidity that might pose an external condensation risk on that ducting.

We used Multipanel (https://www.multipanel.co.uk/products/walls ) in our old house to finish all the walls in the bathroom, and we've were so impressed with it after around 5 years of use that we chose to do the bathroom and shower room in the new house with it as well. I fitted a plain sandy coloured panel in the shower room, and we're every bit as pleased with it as we were with the stuff in the old house. One thing I particularly like with Multipanel is that it has a 9mm hardwood ply core, rather than the MDF that some other types of panel use. As a system it's very good, with the exception of the truly awful bottom seal system they offer, for going around baths and showers. That is one of the most stupid designs I've seen, and was the only thing we had problems with in the old house. In the new house I opted to not use their sealing system for the bottom edges at all, but left a small gap where the panel met the shower tray (having tanked under the try and up the walls). I then went around and filled this gap with sealant, then when that had cured I went around again with another bead of sealant and whilst that was still wet used it to bond a PVC trim in place, cleaning up the squeezed out sealant.

Can you not turn the standpipe into a permanent garden tap ..?? Standard 25mm MDPE doesn’t tend to stagnate that much - you can blow it through fairly easily when you connect the main house. A pair of tees won’t restrict the flow either as long as the branches come off the main run. Other option is to put put your own bundy box after the static pipe and then isolate there with an underground stop valve - just turn it on when you connect the house.

I'd not worry about a short dead leg, as the incoming supply will have some residual disinfection capability (as long as it remains sealed) and there are often longer dead legs within a system anyway, like runs to outside taps that may stay unused for months. I'd be inclined to find a way to disconnect things like your disused temporary supply, though, if you can. To put the stagnation issue into perspective, though, it's worth also thinking about all the dead legs in the incoming supply, from things like communication pipes fed from the main (usually without a NRV or stop cock) to houses where occupants might be away, or where the house is empty, or even all the communication pipes that will be laid and may sit for months without being used on a new development. One of the reasons the water supply companies still use chlorine treatment is because of the residual disinfection effect it provides to deal with areas where water may sit in pipes for a long time. Some countries are switching to using ozone disinfection (which is what we have on our private supply) because it doesn't leave chlorine, and perhaps more importantly, the breakdown products of chlorine, in the water. This goes down well with consumers, as the water tastes and smells better, but has the disadvantage that there is no residual disinfection from ozone; it breaks down far too quickly to have any effect beyond an hour or two of being injected into the supply. Provided that the system doesn't develop problems such that contamination can get into the water, then the lack of residual disinfection isn't a problem, but our water infrastructure still has lots of pretty old pipes and tends to suffer from a lot of leaks as a result, with the potential that contamination could enter the system.

A common arrangement for an underground pot joint would be to add an additional intermediate earth at the time that the joint is made. This is usually a length of copper strap that's connected to the outer PEN conductor inside the pot joint and then trailed along the trench to provide an additional intermediate earth. I doubt that the earth conductivity would be good enough, if the PEN wasn't connected properly through the joint, to explain the low loop impedances measured, though. I'd not rule it out, but without digging up the incoming cable to physically inspect it and maybe flex it to see if there is a problem, either at the joint or somewhere else where it may have been damaged, it may well be really hard to be certain that this isn't the cause. I wonder if anyone else fed from the same local transformer has experienced any supply problem symptoms? Might be worth asking around some of the neighbours, as they may not have experienced anything as serious, but may have noticed something like the lights flickering, and that may possibly give some clues for the DNO to follow up.

Normally, yes, given the cable is relatively new it would almost certainly be wavecon three core concentric, with the outer copper being the combined PE and N.

Can't quite picture this but it is not advisable to leave a long capped off dead leg as water can stagnate in the pipe. Also, if you do a below ground connection, try to locate it so that if required in future it can be exposed and replaced.

Or the opposite, intermittently dry? Dunno about SE England but September had the ground unusually dry here in the NE of the island.

Wouldn't neutral and earth be the same thing there, combined as PEN in the outer conductor? But, yes, the possibility of an intermittent break there does need to be considered.

Sounds like a hell of a puzzle. If the ASHP was the cause, then I doubt it can have been a start up current surge or shut down voltage spike, as, from the description of the damage, it sounds like there was an over-voltage event that lasted for some time, perhaps a few tens of minutes or more, from the description of 3 hours of flickering etc. If the neutral is OK (and the loop impedance tests imply that it's fine now) then even if there was a phase imbalance problem, perhaps originating from the ASHP, then the phase to neutral voltages would all have stayed within limits; all that would have happened is that the neutral current would have increased, which isn't going to cause a problem if the incoming PEN is OK. The joint in the garden sounds suspicious, especially given the cause. Makes me wonder if there may be other damage to the cable somewhere, but it seems a bit improbable for this to have somehow fixed itself. I'd agree with your chap's view, that there should be some evidence of a fault in the incoming cable, most likely a high Ze, and yet the measured impedances seem spot on to me. Fitting an RCD in the 3 phase supply will be a very good move, but it must be worrying to not know the cause. Let's hope that they find something later that suggests a probable cause, if they don't, then I'd be suspicious of the incoming cable that was damaged and repaired. I'm assuming the cable is the DNO's incoming supply, is that right?

Brick and block. He's not sure on the cavity width etc. Expecting the drawings this week. I mentioned the Passivhaus concept, his initial reaction was "councils are less likely to approve aren't they?" Anyone with a Passive build in the Cambridgeshire area? This will be his "forever" home. Going to send him the link to @PeterStarck's blog to try and convert him! Cheers

Some of you may recall the problems I have with overheating (currently 32 degrees in living room on a late September day with outside temp at 19!). Having been all set to go for an external film an alarm was sounded by some companies I asked to quote - they said no to film on my 3g Internorm windows, the fact they were laminated not toughened was what caused the issue. I also have a low e coating. Meantime I have explored all sorts of avenues for shading and had not settled on anything. One of the window film supply companies decided that if I had this issue others would so they would find the answer. They have been absolute terriers in keeping going until they got there. They talked to Internorm, they talked to film manufacturers , they talked to the glass and glazing federation and St Gobain who manufacture the glass. All these clever heads got together and spent a while ruminating and finally pronounced I could have a film but only one type was suitable and it was not the one everyone had been quoting on it is a much less common film. I have accepted the quote for the film - how could I say no after all the effort that went in to find the solution - and am hoping for a fit date in the next few weeks before they stop installing external films for the winter. Fingers crossed it will do the job. It will be just a little darker than our current clear glass but if we have a useable room again its a small price to pay. I am attaching the guidance sheet for films on laminated windows in case anyone else has this issue. Plus the spec sheet for the film I am having which is manufactured by St Gobain. It is the Sentinel Plus SX 50 OSW. Good news is they also do an extra wide at 1823 (usual width is 1535) so no joins on my biggest window pane which is 1640, joins would have been a deal breaker. I will let you how it looks when its in. My suppliers are www.solartekfilms.com Ben is the man, he and his number 2 David deserve credit for going that extra mile for me on what is not that big a job really its just 3 sliders and one fixed window. Great customer service I hope it carries through on the install. Glass Breakage Risk Triple Pane PDF02343PINT_1016.pdf sentinel plus sx 50 film.pdf

I did think about the sage glass but 4.8k of that cost is the suplly and install of the brise soleil that's been a design feature from the outset and that we would have had anyway, so the addition of the blinds isn't quite so painful. I agree, though, that any of these things need to be thought about as early as possible.

That joint in the garden...is it intermittently "under water" as in periods of heavy rain?

Similar to others, i'd be wary of future insurance renewals. We moved into a house 10 years or so ago, and a few weeks later we heard a *very* loud gushing water noise when in our en-suite bathroom, but it was very hard to pinpoint where it was coming from. Our home insurance policy document was in a cupboard somewhere so I phoned our insurance company to query what was covered and they confirmed we were covered for water damage but not for any costs related to finding out where the leak was coming from (Trace and Access cover). In the end, we were lucky and a single floor tile lifted found the culprit - a very bad join in a mains pressure MDPE pipe had separated. We got it fixed it and the tile replaced with no permanent damage Our the next home renewal quote was expensive - when i phoned up to ask why, they referred to the call i had made and said that "incident" was contributing to the increased quote. I went elsewhere.

I'll cut a new one.

I used to be an insurance broker many years ago and I wouldn't be suprised if the insurers are relucant to cover any losses. I've just looked at an Aviva policy, purely as an example, and without "accidental damage" cover I'd say their policy wouldn't cover these kinds of electrical damage losses and even their accidental damage extension has an exclusion of "electrical or mechanical breakdown". If the original cause of the problems was a fire, an explosion, a falling tree etc then the cover should operate, but for a faulty connection somewhere, there maybe a problem claiming. Not all policies are the same, but in this area I think they are mainly pretty similar. But I did leave the business 30 years ago, so I could be talking out of my posterior.

No, you can't filter sodium ions out of water with the sort of activated carbon and phosphate dosing cartridge that's normally supplied with boiling water taps. You can remove the sodium ions by more expensive (and lower flow rate) systems, but it's not worth the hassle, IMHO. To put the sodium content of softened water into context, it's worth looking at how significant it is in terms of the amount of water you drink. An ion exchange softener exchanges calcium for sodium in a ratio of 2.17:1, so if you had water that was really hard, say 400mg/litre calcium equivalent, then there would be 184mg/litre of sodium in the softened water. So, every litre of softened water you consumed would give you an intake of 184mg of sodium. A litre of milk contains about 400 to 600mg of sodium. The recommended maximum daily intake of sodium is currently 3400mg for an adult, although I monitor my sodium intake reasonably closely and rarely exceed around 2000mg per day - I think you have to have a pretty unhealthy diet to get over the recommended 3400mg daily intake, although it's surprising just how much hidden sodium there is in some foods.

Careful, a claim is probably in progress. I had a VERY minor car accident. Driving on a single track road, oncoming car, passing place on his side of the road, so I stopped just short of the passing place to allow him to pull in, but he didn't pull in he carried on trying to force 2 cars to pass in a single track road (remember I was starionary) and clipped wing mirrors. Mine just cracked the plastic casing, his was left hanging by the wires. He was adamant it was my fault (how?) and he was going to claim on my insurance, and proceeded to take lots of photographs. So I informed my insurance company what had happened and made it clear I was not making a claim (I glued the cracked plastic back together, it was an old car) nearly 2 years later I had a phone call to say they never received a claim from the other driver and were closing the claim down. They advised I phoned customer services as I might be due a refund. Sure enough, the 2 renewals in the intervening period had been inflated, and now the claim was closed I got £200 refunded.

That's another thing that sounds like Emma wotsit in Harry Potter - presumably when being lunch monitor, and declaimed whilst waving a chopstick.

I do know roughly in what direction the laundry bin is to throw clothes at. I think we have a washing machine too somewhere... A fairy brings the over stuffed linen bin downstairs occasionally...

DIY Kitchens wall unit went up today. 1000mm wide with bifold up door (bifold 'cos I'm fed up of standing up whilst unpacking the dishwasher and cracking my head on an open door) Once installed the final packing was removed to reveal the top hinges had popped. The back panel had not been fixed to the bottom of the unit so, although the packaging wasn't damaged, a jolt on one corner had knocked it out of square and popped the hinges. I contacted them today (with pics) - within a couple of hours they came back asking if I wanted replacement or refund. Luckily for them I am only 20 mins away so the redelivery won't really cost them LOL (And if they don't want the other one back I have a great place for it )

By way of update. The controller power works in reverse to what is expected : A5 - B1 +24v A1-A3 0v B2-B3 0v

@Matjaz looking at your link that is an Arduino running a 20x4 display, 4 buttons and 3 thermistors. Adding a cheap PSU I would expect there is no more than £25 of parts in total in a unit that is priced at £350. To make a closed loop unit to only do the basics is a similar price. Your comment that using the 1-7 steps will result in significantly lower energy consumption is completely untrue ! To heat water to a temperature requires exactly the same amount of power at 50% as 100% as it just runs for twice as long .... @ProDave that is pretty much what I’ve done this morning - Pair of DS18S20 sensors on flow and return, a quick ramp up / down algorithm and then vary the power input as the DeltaT between flow and return reduces.

From what I've seen, it does regulate the temperature using the thermostat, but just runs it as if it was a non-modulating heat pump, like many of the earlier models. There are tens of thousands of heat pumps in service that only allow on/off operation, including all of the non-inverter controlled ones. There's no risk in doing this, it's just not the most efficient way to operate them, that's all. Efficiency can be improved a fair bit by modulating the heat pump output to match the demand at any time, which is what most inverter controlled heat pumps do. In this case the supplier of these heat pumps is only supplying the basic heat pump, not the rather expensive proportional controller. The information @PeterW has obtained shows that there is a three connection binary power control system, that allows the heat pump to be modulated from off to 100% in stages: 0%, 30%, 42%, 53%, 65%, 77%, 88%, 100%. Looks pretty easy to make a controller up to do this, TBH, and not expensive either.

Its so hard to know whats the best thing to do. I have had 4 different plumbers working on the house and the most recent guy is kind of cleaning up after everyone else and trying to get it ship shape but i'm just a bit lost about whats the best way forward. The ASHP is currently running but no pipe stat means we just have to turn it on and off manually (its just running to make sure screed is ok before tiling) Current plumber has never worked with an ASHP that didn't have a digital controller so he seems a bit lost and its a tough spot to try and make decisions in .

Yep - works on a single pipe stat set to temperature. Assuming this is the same spec as mine. Should come with a Siemens pipe stat in the box with the controls

@PeterW Itll be running mono-temp, eg never doing hot water. Can it simply be told to fire up at a set temp ?

all carefully designed to confuse & exclude those not in the know.....