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Some may recall that I fitted an odour extraction system to our bathroom toilets, to suck air directly from under the seat, using the flush holes in the rim. The effectiveness of this has just been commented on again, so I thought it worth doing an update. For those that didn't see the original posts on this (I've a feeling they may well have been on this forum's predecessor, so now lost) I decided to plumb the space above the cistern on each WC to the MVHR extract ducting, using 40mm waste pipe. This air space is directly connected to the flushing water outlets under the rim for any WC that has an overflow that discharges to the pan (as the majority of newer ones do). It was an easy modification, just a hole cut in the side of the cistern, well above the water level, and a bit of pipe fitted: Although the air flow rate is pretty low, it's remarkably effective. Literally no odour escapes from the pan at all. In our case, it was very easy to install, as both cisterns backed on to the wall where all our eaves services run, so running a length of extract duct along there and plumbing it in to both cisterns was just an hour or so's work. Well worth it, in terms of the benefit this system gives, IMHO.

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We previously had worktops with grooves cut into them for drainers. They didn't work that well and were difficult to clean. A steep sharp groove in stainless steel as above might work, but then it would not be useable for anything other than water drainage unless you put a cover over it. In the current house we have just flat quartz worktops with no drainers cut in. Small amounts of water have too much surface tension to flow on a shallow slope and will bite happily just sit there, so even with a slope you still need to sweep the water into the sink. As the water will sit there anyway, a flat surface is better the rest of the time and easier to clean. What we do have is two sinks, a smaller one in the island and a larger one at the side, that way there is always somewhere to sweep water, crumbs etc into. It works really well. If you wash lot of stuff by hand then you might want a recessed area to hold the water, a recessed area is easier to clean than grooves, but in that case I would recommend a dishwasher ?

"Used" ?

There has to be a very specific reason to make me use 1.5mm for lights (e.g a very long run of cable) In 99% of cases you simply do not need 1.5mm for lighting, and with a lot of modern light fittings you will struggle terminating the cable, 1mm makes it so much easier.

"Onoff was here 2010 - 2019"

Morticians are quite keen on this sort of detail I believe.

I was only "sitting"' contemplating this this morning. I REALLY need to get my ar$e in gear and fit a fan to my unfinished pan take off system. My youngest has, on occasion, slid an A4 sheet under the door whilst I'm in there with the word "SMELLS!" scrawled with a Sharpie. 32mm solvent weld fitting into the top of the Geberit cistern. (Not sure tba whether this will impede servicing but I can always multi-tool it flush). At the mo the take off pipe just ends in the loft:

Over the years I've been bought a few pints telling your story . Nobody believed me. Now, I can refer them to the post about it......

Found On Road Dead

Not quite, when you allow 15% for timber fraction, on same build-up as before U=0.157. To get 0.14 or better you need at least 70mm, U=0.136

Series 2A

Most of the builders merchants offer a similar service I would think they would take a bit more care in the hope of follow up business

I also got a costing from them a couple of weeks ago. They took my timber frame quote, reviewed what was included/exlcuded and based the costing on this. You do have to tell them everything you want included/excluded (i.e. no radiators) up front ideally. They take into account your post code to give localized labor rates which I thought was interesting. My concern with this costing though, is that all materials are very basic so I'm unsure how useful this costing is if you know we are going to upgrade most material above the basics. We don't want to use a quote that is around £100/ft2 for a mortage application if we think we are going to spend 50% more, else we're are going to be short of money. I think we're going to find and use a QS (will likely be a fair bit more than £150) who will be able to use more realisitc estimates for things based on the level of material/quality we're looking for. Dan

@Ferdinand Just collecting evidence for when I get around to writing up my bit about the effects of mass on temperature.

Yes ... and when I had recreated the model in Excel and reduced the item costs it’s come in about 65% of their estimate.

I stayed in a friends new built house in Manchester. The water tank was in the spare bedroom cupboard. The room was too hot (and I like the heat), noisy and because it was also an airing cupboard, humid. I did not stay a second night.

The general rule of thumb is that, as cable usually comes on 100m reels, the amount you will need is about 1m longer than a whole number of 100m reels... On a more serious note, I've just checked and for our 130m², 6 habitable rooms, plus two bathrooms, a utility room and WC, it looks like I bought: 200m of 2.5mm² T&E 200m of 1.5mm² T&E, 100m of 1mm² T&E 50m of 1.5mm² 3 core and earth, 25m of 10mm² T&E 25m of 6mm² T&E I know I had to buy another reel of 2.5mm² T&E when I came to wire up my workshop, though, but I have more than half that reel left over.

Been there..... Done that.... Didn’t work.... Created lots OF work ( for volunteer staff members who had better things to be doing )..... Went away..... Not coming back....

Or I can just quote economic principles in a forceful and outright manner. If I was female, it would be called assertiveness. But I am not, so I shall just insult general principles and entrenched ideals. I am doing my best. (not using emojis as I don't want people to know if I am serious or not)

It would, as SAP weights electricity heavily (and unfairly, IMHO) based on the state of UK power generation when most of it came from burning stuff like coal and oil. Now much of our electricity generation is from gas and renewables* SAP needs to change, so that it better reflects reality. * As I type this, this is the split of fuels being used to generate electricity in the UK:

Have you heard of the economic principle called 'division of labour'. Was coined by a Scot. Now what can I add to this to get the thread locked, or even deleted.

Yep 290. My wife Christine painted the stone months ago. Also did a painting of the house and 3 different cardboard models. It's so exciting to actually get on site and do some real work. We're building in brick and starting with the garden ?. First job is to plant the transplanted trees that are very unhappy with the move and now the weather and putting up our welfare greenhouse. We're keen to sow the grass for the garden but it won't last long on a wet day when the telehandler is around. You can tell this is our first build. Sure we will bump into each other soon.

That is exactly what I have done - 300 litre UVC on a timed 9Kw ASHP load from 1-3:30am taking it to 45c, then the ASHP kicks over to the UFH slab. Bottom immersion kicks in at 5-6:30am to take the tank to 63c. Towel rails and bathroom UFH mats on a separate circuit to heat up for an hour up to 7am. All main heat loads on E7. Top immersion is on a switch as a boost if needed (will eventually be Sonoff/ITTTT controlled) so that’s the only heat out of E7 hours.

The term "combi" will confuse most customers (as it did me) because we have been used to the term used to describe gas boilers that heat the DHW in real time with no hot water storage tank. Clearly that particular electric "combi" boiler does not do that. When I suggested a "storage boiler" I was thinking of one of the ones based around a big thermal store cylinder that have typically three 3KW immersion heaters and can heat a decent volume of water and use that both for central heating and DHW just like any other thermal store. The storage volume enables them to work from off peak electricity and mostly only heat up at the off peak times. They work best with E10. I know only 2 people with electric boilers both say they are expensive to run. One removed it and replaced it with an oil fired boiler and noticed a reduction in heating costs. Enough said.

All this to end up with a Ford Focus MK 1?

Why? Are there not some lamp posts that need counting, or some baked beans that need eating with a cocktail stick, or something? Perhaps I will never understand..

I just rediscovered this thread and have to agree. What @Russdl Has done here inspire me to do my own DIY demolition from February onwards. Loads of fun. Easy enough to do (as it was entirely timber frame). And as far as council goes= I did hand in a method statement, which I written myself. It was accepted but never ever checked in situ. I have no idea if I followed it so far as I written it and send it off and never had a look at it since. +1 for council cuts making the council check less. as long as you're good with the neighbours, which is always key to anything.

This was the question folks. Can we keep on topic please, as we've already had one train-wreck of a brexit thread go 'bye-bye' and I'm getting an itchy trigger finger already just by the way this is picking up pace ( in all the wrong directions )? I will ask that anyone who hasn't got anything relative to the OP to say, types nothing at all So simple an idea, it's almost perfect. This is not, nor will it become, a 'Brexit thread'. Go to the pub and discuss that over a few Stella's. Mods shall lock this for 24 hours to allow some time for reflection.................."Strike 1"

The snag is that there is some sort of universal law that dictates that stuff expands to fill the volume available. Add an extra cupboard and it will just end up full of stuff, so needing another extra cupboard, and so on, ad infinitum...