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TBH that looks like cheap blown polyethylene and I wouldn’t want that under my bath... you need a low profile bath trap - McAlpine make one, as do others. Then you can build up using standard bits.

The smooth Paslode hot dip galv are good. They have a coloured coating on the tip that lubricates, then heats ups and acts as a glue. They are more difficult to pull out than the ring shank ones and will have shards of wood glued to the end if you extract them.

sounds like one of my mates, came in with blood running from his knee. 'i'd finished cutting the hedge (chainsaw) so thought the grass looked long and decided to cut it (chainsaw)' bounced off kneecap whilst swinging it. broke his wrist, had lightweight cast on it, phoned me, 'i can't grip the engine from the bike, i was thinking about cutting a bit off the cast round my thumb with the angle grinder to give more movement'. many more like that!

Peter has wanted a nail gun for many many years. However, he has form with tools which have resulted in a ban on the purchase from me and the kids. Chain saw - “it slipped” and landed just above his knee cap when he was doing a tree pruning course when in his early 20s. Angle Grinder - “it span” when it hit a hard spot when cutting into a wall for joist hangers. He blamed it on the fact he is left handed so the spin undoes the handle (it seems like an excuse to me). It hit his chest just under his bra line - I think he was trying to do a self moob removal of truth be told. Luckily they were both fairly superficial with no damage to bones, ligaments or tendons under the surface. You will understand I’m sure my refusal to allow a nail gun into the house.

Is that the 350+? Saw them the other day but didn't investigate. As it was explained to me, the 350 and 360 take the same nail types but they have different gas cartridges. You buy packs of nails and cartridges together (e.g., 2200 90mm nails + 3 cartridges). I think you can buy cartridges separately but they're so expensive that you can't save money by buying them and nails from another manufacturer. At the time I bought mine Montana did nail packs with cartridges compatible with the 350 but not ones compatible with the 360. The Montana packs were about half the price of the Paslode ones. I should have checked the other day to see if they now do ones compatible with the 360 but, given there's a li-ion version of the 350 out now I suspect they won't. Ugger. BTW, the chaps who did my sarking last year used Makita nails guns. They dropped quite a few half strips of 50mm Makita nails around the site which I picked up and have used in my Paslode with no problem.

Its certainly a steep learning curve. I'm on the nice bit now. The internal fit out. It will take a long time because of lack of funds , but it is mostly known territory & I can do a lot of the work myself.

I have the IM360ci. Done about 6000 or so nails with no problems. But, yes, the nails are the same as on the 350 and you could use clone nails but the gas bottles are different so you're stuck with buying Paslode packs for all practical purposes. Got another 2200 90mm ring nails the other day for £54 (+VAT). When I bought it two years ago I dithered between the IM350 and IM360. I knew that I could get cheaper (non-Paslode) nails for the IM350 but they had the IM360 on special offer so the actual gun was cheaper, having a Li-ion battery was attractive and my thinking was that by the time I'm done the 360 might have a better resale value. Not sure now if that was a wise decision but probably not a terrible one.

I bought dozens of boxes of nails via Gumtree at half or more the screwfix price. did suspect that some had questionable provenance as most sellers were building guys living in ordinary houses...some boxes *might* have been liberated from whatever site

To make it look posh 'n chromed!

Haven't had any problems in the cold with my Paslode nailer. Probably partly because I'm a bit of a wimp about working in the cold anyway but I was nailing the sarking under my floor during the “beast from the east” weeks last year

Buy the cleaning kit for the Paslode and it will be fine - will keep going and going..!

@Ferdinand thanks for your thoughtful contribution, it means a lot and I am greatful to all the people who spend the time to help others on this forum. Rather than clog up this thread I am going to take your advise on board and start a blog....... it will provide motivation as I will feel compelled to prove I am making progress! I really like your ideas and I think They will be a good starting point on the blog. I guess it will also be interesting to see how things change over time, I’m starting at a really bad stage so hopefully it will only get better ! As previously stated things have just slowly gotten out of hand and I have not been at the helm...... i now have at least one hand back on the wheel so Let’s get on with it. Ok will look into a blog....... thanks

I've had an air nailer for years; bought it second hand very cheaply and it's never once faltered. Just needs a bit of oil now and again. Gas nailers seem to be mainly a European thing, as when I was in the US every framer seemed to use an air nailer. The guys who nailed our cladding in place had a problem with cold gas cartridges, and one of them kept a spare cartridge tucked inside his pants to keep it warm....

I had the loan of a (Hitachi) gas nailer, it was good but they don't like the cold. You end up swapping gas cartridges frequently, and keeping one in an inside pocket to warm up. I've since bought a cheap 2nd hand deWalt air nailer. I also have a very cheap (Clarke) coil nailer. They both run off a little 12l compressor, and the total cost of the two guns and compressor was less than £200. Nails are cheap as chips, they're totally reliable, no batteries or gas to worry about. You have to lug around the air hose but I didn't find it all that much bother. The big advantages of the coil nailer are that you can get more nails in a coil, they have full heads rather than clipped heads (looks much nicer for cladding), and you can set it for semi-auto firing so you keep the trigger pressed and just bump the nose onto the wood to fire. I used it for all my sheathing/sarking work where you're firing a 50mm nail every 150mm along the edge of a board, and the semi-auto mode was lightning fast. Just don't bump it against your leg with your finger still on the trigger!

Yup, I fired a 90mm paslode nail into a finger (it hit another nail in the wood and turned sharp left ?), I managed to extract it with a pair of pliers and my workmate said shouldn’t I go to hospital, my reply was “nah, they know nothing about paslode nailers ?”. Finger works fine ?. i have both first and second fix paslode nailers and apart from cold gas not working (leave it in a cup of tea for a while) they have been great, expensive to use but speeds up work no end. I have air brad nailers in the workshop where the compressor is.

Cheers. From memory it was set at 25c. I'll go back to architect when we're making our other changes. Now to me, that's too warm. To my partner, that's just at the point where she no longer has to wear a wool jumper!

The rep for our stone said to start from the corners and work your way towards the centre.

I used a stone veneer on mine. It's more like tiling than stone work. You mix enough adhesive up to build what you think you can do in 30 mins then put it on and tile away. You can build it dry with no joints or joints. That's up to you. YouTube has plenty of videos to show you how you go about it.

I,m just waiting for a drone to fly over me it will get both barrels with no4 + full choke

We normally gun nail all As long as you use a ring nail They will never pull out

Invoices are fine. You don’t need to send receipts (I didn’t) but the claim form says that HMRC may ask you for proof of purchase. I logged my invoices in a spreadsheet as I went along (that was later used for the reclaim) and added an extra column to show how I paid the invoice; credit card, bank transfer, cash or whatever. If there had been a query then I had the details to hand. I haven’t heard of anyone on here being asked for proof of purchase TBH. I suspect that might be more likely if you have a VAT registered company as they will want to ensure that you haven’t paid the invoice through the company, or if you had reimbursed the company for the purchase.

Paslode im350 for first fix. Compressor and air nailer for second fix as the holes are so much cleaner.

I’m no plumber But I’ve fitted four Geberit on our house Very easy to fit and the final fit after tiling is a doddle Great quality

I have a 1st fix hitachi, it did a lot of work during my roof framing, sarking fixing, counter battening and so on, saved me many, many hours. It's paid for itself in time saved, I really ought to sell it on but it's handy now and then, and I think I have a bit of a tool addiction. Has been reliable, good tool. The joiners I used to help me with some of the framing and 1st fix used paslode however they were impressed with my hitachi and it takes the same nails and gas. It's amazing how quickly you can get through a bit of 1st fix timber work with a gun and a cordless skill saw. You have to shop around for nails though as they can be expensive. When I was last buying I followed my joiners and bought Fox NailMaster nails, a lot chepaer than paslode and they worked fine and were decent quality.

Hold fire. Dewalt ain't firing in nails fully home today...think (hoping) needs a clean, never cleaned before.

I have got 2 paslode nail guns, and 2 air nailers and a compressor. The paslode guns save a huge amount of time if you are getting into any sort of serious chunky woodwork. My air nailers fire 18gauge brads up to 50mm long, and 23gauge brads up to 20mm long. I love all of them, but you defo need to take care when using both. I had a 100mm paslode nail skip passed its intended piece of wood, go through a fence, and pass about 2ft from my neighbours head. I also managed to fire a 50mm brad into the top of my leg. I had to laugh when i got to hospital, as when they wheeled me through the hospital they were saying "Got one here who has been shot in the leg" everybody turned round to see who had been involved in a gunfight.... It had gone through the flesh, and stuck in the bone. Dont under estimate the power of either type.

I've got Senco 1st and 2nd fix gas guns, over eight years old now. The 1st fix only gets dragged out occasionally these days to fix fence panels and the like but still works ok after a battery charge.

Yes we have Click Mode in all places a "posh" switch was not deemed necessary.

So, there you are @K78 , just buy one. You have my permission. Just a question of price now.?

Click mode / deco range is brilliant. You can take a 4g 2-way switch and remove 2 switches and replace with intermediate / momentary push / other and it still looks like a generic switch. A1 ?. Rounded edges like MK logic and a very light switch action with a quiet ‘click’ rather than the chunky ones which ‘snap’ on / off. Quite important in a TF house so choose well Big thanks to @ProDave for mentioning them elsewhere ( I found some ‘Twatt’ harping on about them from 2011 onwards )

Yup. My gas hitachi 1st fix doesn’t like long gaps at all, but is a great gun. I have both 1st & 2nd fix guns and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them. The service kit is only £40 odd quid iirc and servicing is easy so unless you’re a roofer / TF contractor you’ll struggle to justify the extra spend on the Paslode. I will soon buy buy an electric ( battery ) 1st fix, probably the DeWalt unless Makita sort their ? out. 80% of my kit is Makita, chopsaw is DeWalt, big SDS and breakers and laser are Bosch. I’ve killed enough stuff to know what lasts so I’m settled on those 3, ( with Hitachi for the nailers ). I have a compressor and air guns too, they are great but will live in the man-shed for my own use due to practicality. I did run my air framing gun off a cheapo B&Q 24L compressor for years without issue, just needed to be running a lot of the time which I think helped kill it eventually. Was perfect for 2nd fix / finish / stapling etc so you don’t need a huge compressor if the work is light.

Had my Ist fix Paslode nailer for about 7 years and apart from the very infrequent nail jam it has never let me down yet

I rarely pour cold water on any tool-related purchase discussion: buying one - even a simple thing like a plumb bob - is one of life's pleasures to be savoured, thought about, over-researched, talked about in the pub, dreamt about. But. Every chippie I know - and respect - says don't buy a first fit gas nailer unless its used weekly. They need too much love and care. Bit like a whiny child. Always catching colds. Damn Damn Damn. My sincere apologies. Ian

There's no big power transistors on that PCB so it does suggest it's sending something to the tool.

I’ve a 1st and 2 nd fix Hitachi Same gas and nails as the pasloda Half the price from Tool Monkey

Sounds like a 1st fix nailer you are looking for. My local tool shop (think old fashioned sweety shop but with tools??) is a big makita stockist, they only sell and rent paslode and dewalt(only dewalt power tool they stock) they also do air nailers but didnt pay much attention to them...... if you already had dewalt batteries then no brainer I picked up a new bare dewalt for £190 plus vat. Paslode are more expensive but hold value very well. Another point I save almost £10 per box on not buying gas.... I reckon I have went through 30 plus boxes so far. A few guys on here speak highly of the Hitachi. Worth a look.

Paslode IM350+ Li-ion or similar. BiL has one. Not that I'm jealous!

I would. First at 1200 to upset the sparks then another at 2400 to catch the edge of the board

In a manner of speaking. The thermal store is used to decouple the heat source from the heat sinks, among other things. All the heating requirements are met from the thermal store; there are 2 coils to supply DHW, there's a weather compensated supply to feed the radiators and another supply to feed the 2 UFH areas. If it's not too cold and there's a fair amount of sun the solar thermal panels and diverted PV supply more than enough energy. The boiler hasn't been lit since the 22nd of March. Unfortunately it had to be lit this afternoon. Even in the depths of winter it doesn't usually have to burn for more than 8 hours a day (3 fills). Last year the last burn was on the 28th of April and the next one was on the 9th of October. Bear in mind this is in an old house with a much higher heat load than a modern house should have. It's possible to justify a system like this if you need to spend a lot of money on fuel. In a modern house heated by gas I'd expect the annual heating cost to be pretty low. Spending multiple thousands on a complex wood system isn't going to make financial sense.

No, someone did some sums for me and the thermal bridge was very small and in my opinion not worth the expensive price of basalt ties. I spent the money on more insulation in the roof ?

I liked living in a conservation area, kept the place looking nice. I didnt mind getting permission to trim trees I had planted etc.small price to pay for nicer surroundings.

We have 2x 500l thermal stores in the house heated by 20kw log gasification boiler in garage and solar thermal . PV/ashp to be added. Log and thermal seem to work pretty well. All done DIY. I am slightly concerned about hooking up the ashp to 1x 500l thermal store for ashp efficiency. We are installing a bioethanol fire in the house for the caveman instinct of light a fire to be warm.

@Tony99 you could use a big - 800 litre or so - thermal store with a number of coils to segregate the heating requirements and sources. I would have this in the garage (!!) but make sure it’s well insulated and it won’t take up floor space or potentially overheat the property. I would run the TS directly connected to the back boiler, and this would be open vented. Coil 1 - at the top - is your DHW mains pressure coil, and no moving parts to get blended hot water. Immersion 1 - below this coil to provide a hot water boost if required, and the primary immersion for PV Coil 2 - gas powered coil from the boiler, means you can heat just the top 2/3 for DHW Immersion 2 - below the second coil, this is the second dump load for PV. Coil 3 - this is the UFH coil, and I would link it to coil 2 using a motorised valve for the ability to push the boiler feed directly into the UFH if required if the TS is below temperature to heat the floor. I’d say this isn’t overly complex, but big thermal stores have big losses so you need to manage this carefully.

https://newatlas.com/cct-silicon-energy-battery-thermal-energy-storage/59098/ https://www.fircroft.com/blogs/worlds-first-thermal-battery-could-revolutionise-energy-storage-99111535454 Edit to add: possibly the first one going into production, that can return the stored energy as electricity?

I remember running from the bathroom to the lounge where Mum would be warming a towel in front of a 3 bar electric fire. Same getting up in the morning, getting ready for school where she'd be warming my school clothes. And that was with coal fired central heating. To be fair the boiler would have gone out overnight. No insulation in the house, single glazed wooden windows. In heavy snow we'd have to dig our way to the coal bunkers then break up the first bit of coal that'd be all frozen and stuck together. Baked spuds in the ash pan was about the only good bit!

I certainly would not pay that. That £40K would buy quite a lot of LPG. Even assuming £1K per year usage that's the next 40 years then.

Indeed. So if new homes won't be able to have gas, what will they use instead? Don't tell me those in charge still believe that wood pellet stoves are carbon neutral or environmentally friendly? If so heaven help us. And if Electricity is to be the new fuel, then what is going to happen over the next 7 years to improve the capacity? Turning more homes all electric, and the growth in electric car usage, is going to impose some massive changes to the network, with little sign of much of a plan to deal with that. Or is there another side to this, the fact that North Sea gas is in decline and it's a case of wanting to reduce our dependance on gas so we are not held ransom to imported gas?

I suspect you'r right, although I doubt that will have much impact, as the RHI for a new build won't be massive. I believe that the reason for introducing the RHI wasn't related to new builds; it was aimed to incentivise improvements to existing housing stock. I'm not convinced it has had much in the way of a positive impact, either. I rather suspect it's been mainly been used to subsidise things like wood stoves and pellet burners, rather than ASHPs.

Very easy to hit a nail or a knot and it is very tempting to take a firm hold of the thing you are nailing, but if your hand is within 4 inches of the nail it can still be vulnerable. I have seen nails bend right round and make their way out of the same side of the stud.

well maybe SGN quote for my new gas connection will not be such a blow after all# was wanting gas if possible --but the £46,572.52p was an Eastenders "you having a laugh"