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I had hoped we would be finished by now and I would do a photoshoot of the house, but it is dragging along. We are mainly doing landscaping and snagging. We finally have a driveway, the resin bound top still has to go on. They seem very intent on us taking a specific colour and we are suspicious that is just what they have readily available so have refused to install it until we see more samples. I hated the untidy bush along the road in front of the house, I thought it really let the place down, so I applied to build a new fence and then we tarmaced the pavement. Hopefully the neighbours are enjoying their nice new pavement. The lights are connected up on the stairs and I think they just look fantastic. Driveway, gates are also going in. Pavement and hedge before we tidied it up New pavement and fence Stairs

I remember now. I feel optomistic that this one is likely repairable. If you don't get anywhere I am willing to give it a try, obviously with no guarantee of success.

@Gav_P I am still waiting for my new board (2 to 3 weeks delivery) and the company seemed pucka, I can let you have the details of the supplier if you wish, or wait to see if mine arrives?.

Without some testing with a volt meter it is hard to be certain. One guess is the 2 core is L and N feed. The 3 core is then L and N out and switched L out on the yellow. The fact there is no yellow at the ceiling rose means another junction box somewhere. It is quite common to "loop at the switch" like this. The unusual thing is the 3 core containing L and switched L This would typically feed a bathroom fan giving permanent L and switched L for the fan, with just the switched L then going on to the light. Is this an upstairs room? if so look in the loft. Don't discount stupidity / ignorance and another hidden junction box above the ceiling.

The Kingspan branded Carrier is a pretty good ASHP, so it's very well worth trying the get it going if you can. Carrier are the worlds biggest manufacturer of heat pumps, with over 100 years experience, so even if you need to spend a fair bit in order to get yours running I think it will be worth it.

My guess is that they have changed the pump from the Secoh EL-100C to the Secoh JDK-S-100, which has the same air delivery rate and pressure but uses 30% less power.

Non alcoholic...never heard of it...?

Hmm, I'm thinking my wired system may be preferable now .... You may as well wait until tomorrow in case the clock change messes it all up again!

@lizzie that would be really useful - just in case....do have to work out my level threshold details and the right way to do the drainage and support the slate/stone etc. we had endless trouble with the level threshold thing - for reasons I do not understand none of the notches put in our slab were right (and the slab has an interesting set of slopes in it) so we had to build up as needed under each of them which took a lot of time. @Roundtuit I would love to get the manufacturer to take a look at the installation before it's too late. Will push them to come and see it.

Affected by the fire you had? Still some gunk in the ducting causing that?

I have only done one MVHR and it did not have any filters in the room vents or extracts - just on the main unit. Have you been having barbecues in the bathroom?

I’m installing a lux air as we speak All singing all dancing Remote controlled Sounds like a jet engine when tuned upto four £800

Why do the council think what electricity supply you have is a planning matter?

Here is Aldi's non-alcoholic fizz. Well worth £2.49.

In fairness the touchscreen controller is pretty good when it's working too. I just have to touch the screen to set what I want in any of the zones. It's 8 years old so in fairness it was pretty modern in its day as it is only fairly recently that everything is controlled by an app. The reality is that I don't really change things much either once it's set to the times and temps that I want.

My Biopure 1 is serving a holiday home and I was advised by the manufacturer to run the blower 2 hours on/2 hours off. its been running about 18 months now without any issues. With the 50% reduction in time the running costs are only about £20 per year as the JDK-S-60 pump is already a low power one (27 watts I think)

Is there not a tool in that set to fix that? ??

Inverter control allows the heat pump compressor and fan to run at a speed that's proportional to the heating/cooling demand, very like the way a modulating boiler works. This means that it has a very much lower starting current, so no starting power surge, and much reduced defrost cycling, as the heat pump will rarely run at a high enough power output to ice up the evaporator. Generally, inverter controlled units are a fair bit more economical and are always a lot quieter, as they will spend much of their running time at a lower than maximum power output. Non-inverter controlled units are "all or nothing", so when on they run at maximum power, and cycle on and off in order to control output. The give away that this model is not inverter controlled (apart from it not being advertised as such) is that it has a direct online starter and associated starting capacitor to the left hand side of the electronics compartment.

Pretty sure they are Chinese built units and will be as reliable as any other I expect. Compressors are Mitsubishi, the rest looks pretty standard and has a Wilo pump but as said by others, find out about spares ..!

I looked these at a plumbing exibition a few weeks ago. As Jeremy said some of the range ain’t inverter controlled.

Doesn't look as if they are inverter controlled, AFAICS, which is a bit of a downside. If I had to guess I'd say they were Chinese manufactured units that are being badged and sold as Cool Energy. Have a look on one or two Chinese sites, like Alibaba or Aliexpress and see if you can find a similar looking unit, as that will often be the giveaway that these are direct Chinese imports. Nothing wrong with that, except that the provision of spare parts may well be nigh on impossible in future.

I cant take cover off unit ....its large ......the wnole of the front....and probably heavy and only has those special rivet sort of screws that dont fit a screwdriver.... I would like to see inside to get an idea of what periodic sloshing noise is.

This is a condensate drain isn't it so can't the drain be filled from inside the unit by taking the cover off?

If you turn up and by everyone’s lunch That would be appreciated Quite unual to get a thank you Not all builder smoke or drink Real nice that you are thinking of them

How about a Wera advent calendar? http://products.wera.de/en/innovations_and_autumn_winter_campaign_2018_2019_adventskalender_2018.html

If you want to include a non-alcoholic choice, take a look at Aldi's 'Zero point zero'. It's in the fizzy wine section, looks like a swanky bottle of prosecco. It's a non-alcoholic bubbly but tastes lovely, quite dry and nothing like standard soft drinks. Also, it only costs £2.49 for a bottle, so easy to add in. I served it up to a bunch of girlfriends recently and they nearly fell off their bar stools when I told them what they were drinking - a big thumbs up to it from a blind taste test.

Christmas is coming - a bottle of fizz and a 'tin' of Quality Street or Roses or one of the others. Even none drinkers - unless they are vehemently against alcohol will either have a drink around Christmas or at least offer it to others. I'm a red wine drinker myself but celebrations always bring out the fizz. Doesn't have to be expensive either these days - decent Cava, prosecco or even English.

Good quality shampoo... Aussie brand always raised a smile. Trust me a tenner of shampoo and conditioner will be laughed at then appreciated for a long time...

I agree, but would add that growing up around really dangerous stuff was a very good way of learning, all the same. The risks were openly discussed and rammed home all the time; and not just the obvious stuff like farm machinery, but also the everyday risks, like those associated with the slurry pit or grain silo. Growing up in an environment where there were a lot of risks all around was a useful life lesson. I think the only negative side is that I grew up with a higher risk acceptability factor than a lot of children my age, which then led to me doing things that many would consider too risky to contemplate.

I did notice that one of the suppliers could ship from Spain instead of China and that brought the shipping times down to about 5 days, and the prices were no different. It's worth comparing the different suppliers for shipping options as well as prices. It's worth adding that the multi-head pendant light is about $95 but I originally saw it in The Conran Shop for just under £1k.

The slab is down (apart from the garage). Now we can start on the walls. I will be on site tomorrow. I feel I should lay a few blocks myself. Then as I do when I help my wife cook, I can claim I made it myself

we used earthwool acoustic roll, works really well you can't hear a thing, or thats what I say when someone shouts for a cup of tea.

Spoke to soon Neo Hub been off line all day and cant get it back on, hoping its an app glitch not my hub.