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I have suspended beam & block grouted with sand & cement. 1200 dpm lapped up the walls & sealed to the DPM with bitumen tape. I also put butyl grommits over drainage pipes etc coming through the floor & taped them around the edges & the upstands to the pipe 75mm celotex with joints taped. I used duct tape from Lidl. 150mm celotex laid opposite way so joints staggered & then taped. 100mm perimeter celotex 500 gauge dpm foam perimeter expansion strip 50mm calcium sulphate screed. Good idea to take photos & measurements of where UFH pipes run in relation to walls & windows etc. .

Success, Old Fruit has been located. Having door knocked a number of houses I was finally pointed in the direction of his parents house! So Old Fruit, he’s actually called Chris, is coming on site on Friday to look at the job and give me a price!

Went to seek the advice of a neighbours last night regarding good local roofers. This morning I’ve got to hunt down a guy known locally as “Old Fruit”. I asked the neighbour “don’t you know his real name” the answer, “no!, I’ve only ever known him as Old Fruit” So I have no phone number and only a vague idea where he lives. Wish me luck as I go looking for Old Fruit !

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So my beam turned up today bloody hell its huge, I hope I haven’t made a massive boo boo as it’s a feature in my front room ??

Equation of faith goes like this : want bathroom + dont know exactly what suite + dont know what shower x not really sure how this is going to go / wife-factor Lots of variables not many constants ...

Pictures, pictures.

If he wants a weep hole, he should say it needs a cavity tray above them to deflect any falling moisture to the outer face. In theory he’s sort of right, but in reality it’s never going to get any water coming out of them. You might as well say every single wall tie needs a weep hole above it in case moisture drops on the tie and doesn’t drip of.

You need to look at the best way to do this efficiently, whilst protecting all the cables/circuits, and that means looking at the maximum demand from each CU, allowing for diversity. I'd be inclined to have a small master CU, fed from the meter tails, with DP MCBs feeding the cables that supply each of the CUs on each floor, garage etc. That way the cable supplying each of the distribution CUs can be sized for the demand. I'd also opt to fit all-RCBO CUs everywhere else, with just a single DP isolator in each CU. The way this would work is that the 25mm² meter tails are OK coming in to the main CU with just the company fuse for protection (assuming they are less than 3m away from the meter). The cable to each distribution CU would be protected by a suitably rated DP MCB (I'd opt for DP ones to allow isolation of each distribution CU using the main CU MCBs). Each individual circuit from the distribution CUs would have the mandatory over-current and residual current protection by the RCBOs. One slight issue with this configuration is the need to allow good access to every CU, something that could eat up a bit of space.

Indeed. It is in the mind as I am having a third of half of an octopus for tea, having had the other two-thirds of the half with a friend the other week. It is all the fault of the octopus sellers of Whitstable, who refuse to deal in portions smaller than a semi-Octopus, which do not work for individual light lunches. Given the musicality of Canterbury Cathedral, they should at least be familiar with demi-semi-quavers, and therefore be willing to sell me a demi-semi-octopus ie one tentacle. plus a slice of mantle. Alas, not. Tasty octopus, though. I was referring to the first unit you display, which is a through-the-wall item ie one 100mm hole, and you think is plug-ugly. The first one I installed back in 2012 put into a backless cupboard carcase with a louvred wooden door and mounted slightly off the wall. and was therefore invisible. That might be less trouble than a cephalopod in your loft. But it would require an external wall, which may be scarce. Ferdinand

Many thanks to you all for taking the time to give such detailed responses - it's very much appreciated. You've given us a lot of food for thought and options to progress. If we do go ahead I'm sure I'll be asking for some more advice!! Best wishes to you all.

Say after me "One unit of measure good, two even better". You have entered the Self Builders Revolutionary Republic of Geberit.

Benign positional vertigo. I had this about 25 years ago and it was horrible. If it's related to debris in the fluid of the balancing circuits, there's a sequence of rotations you can do that bring relief, basically by moving the debris to a stable position in the circuit. I think mine was just some inflammation due to a virus - the overwhelming sensation that you were moving when you clearly weren't was horrible. Exactly like being drunk to the point where you can't lie down because the room is spinning (what was it Dean Martin said? You're not really drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on).

Now spending 3 hrs + a day on the house

Interesting ideas thanks. This is a draft doc from the architect to accompany BR drawings. I liked the portable system I linkes to in the original post. Well, price was ok. There is 1 area if the roof that you could access without ladders (single storey) so if the independent BC company insist on something will try and limit to that area and see if they accept the portable solution. Alternatively or 4 maybe preferably see if they accept some connection rings set through the EPS into the wall though will need to know about cwerification etc. If that fails then maybe block access to that roof area at a height they accept. Currently it is accessible from a terrace by climbing over a std height 1.1m balustrade, could maybe make that 1.8m. Key point I think is to find the applicable rules on this. Thanks again, will update as I progress.

Part K2 has nothing about requiring fall protection from any elevated area to which there isn't access (my highlight): Protection from falling K2. (a) Any stairs, ramps, floors and balconies and any roof to which people have access

Fall prevention should be considered before fall restraint. How much might be without Prevention Measures? None? Problem disappears.

Is this bottom bend a proper rest bend or an ordinary tight bend?

Yes, correct, and the terminology is "room sealed" ( R/S ) type appliance

If you get a wireless stat you can move it aroun, for one.

Can’t remember the stepoc size but I think it was one less than the largest . Stone is sat on a separate footing . We had a gap between the stepoc and the lane so just did a concrete pour in the gap . Not very wide - maybe 40cm . i stuck a land drain around the base outside the stepoc . Covered it in chippings to aid drainage . We had very little gap between dug hole and external insulation. Our dig out was all rock so couldn’t use to backfill

It should be with me next week, I believe. I'll swap the controller over as soon as it arrives, and with luck should be able to tell within a few days if it reliably goes into charge acceptance mode after we've used the shower in the morning. The existing controller would fail to charge around 30% of the time, so I need to test it for a few days to be reasonably confident that it works OK all the time.

I agree that its would be 'possible' however it would be a really bad idea to render directly onto the outside surface of any SIPS system or timber frame wall construction, even ones faced with a cement based board. It's a much better idea in the wet climate that we have here in the UK to use a rainscreen in front of the SIPS. The rainscreen should create a ventilated cavity between the SIPS and the rainscreen layer. In British Columbia, Canada between 1985 and 2000 approx 50% of all buildings that were rendered directly onto timber framed external walls have subsequently failed. The repair costs exceed $4 billion. They subsequently altered their building codes to make rainscreen construction mandatory for timber bulidings. Google link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaky_condo_crisis