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Best thing I've ever bought was a set of Peltor ear defenders with a built-in FM radio. Means I can listen to the radio without annoying anyone else. It also means that I can put them on to listen to the omnibus edition of The Archers on Sunday morning without being disturbed...

My neighbour that installs MVHR systems insists on a coarse filter before the 2.5 filter. Massively increases the life of the filter, but more importantly delays the pressure drop as the filter clogs.

My MacBook Air has been running Skectchup since mid 2013 without a hitch and I have some very detailed models. The more textures and layers you use the slower it gets.

Means I can listen to the radio without anyone else annoying. ?

If it were me, I'd be taking £1k off the kitchen/bathroom budget and getting the best windows you can afford. Fabric first. Actually, that's what we are doing to get the standard of bi-folds we want, kitchen budget, down from £10k to £7.5k. kitchen is easier to replace than a window system in 10 years time.

Just a quick update for those interested in following the project. We have now installed the Izodom 2000 insulated raft foundation ready for our ISOTEX walls. We have a few details in the roof structure to finalise but we hope to be onsite with the blocks in mid to late September. Anyone who is interested in looking at the insulated slab let me know. Tom

In my case the treatment plant end the SWA glands into a waterproof junction box, in my case just for the air blower pump. At the house end the SWA glands into the metal case of the consumer unit. Don't make things more complicated than they have to be.

We ran a duct underground for the power, at the same time as we put the treatment plant in, which was during the ground works, before the house build itself was started. The cable's a run of SWA that connects to a watertight distribution box near the treatment plant, with the cables to the air pump, water pump and alarm system made off from there.

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Still waiting - apparently waiting for senior planner to return from holiday next week. They understand that the similar property down the road for permission under non- determination and they are aware that the inspectorate were not at all bothered by the volume increase. I can’t see why they wouldn’t pass it! We wait another week

Yes it’s a fair point . I’ve got no where to fall - apart from that big hole . After a few days my wife would notice me missing and report it . My own urine is quite nice so I could survive .

I always carry my phone around with me on site. It would be somewhat disappointing to be lying on the floor with broken bones and not be able to call for help. It's also why I have a cheap and relatively small phone: a) because I won't care too much if I break it and b) it's more likely to survive an accident which breaks me.

Could you use a fine wire mesh sheet instead, easily washable then?

Yep plan to do the same with some MDF, sealant and gloss paint. Then use a car pollen filter from eBay to do the prefiltering as they can be had for £3-4 each so swapping every 3 months is no hardship.

It is worth following @nod's posts on this subject in an earlier thread.

In exactly the same situation...... need a second hand laptop / iMac for the same reason as well as the ability to get stuff of numerous hard drives....... been needing it for six years but never needing it enough to fork out the coin, rather spend it on building materials and trees........

The spec you'll need will depend on: - How large/complex your Sketchup models are. - If you plan to use any rendering plugins. (there are some free ones). - If you plan to use the free web version or the desktop app (I find the later is more responsive, whereas I struggle with the web based) In terms of a MacBook again, it depends on: - If it's Macbook, Macbook Pro i5 or Macbook Pro i7 and the number of cores. - Amount of RAM. - Amount of graphics memory. I'm using a 2.5GHz i7 with 16Gb memory and an integrated graphics card and the Skethcup desktop application works smoothly with a fairly large model. Could be a bit more responsive but very useable, although turning off shadows improves things. Web-based version hangs a lot though.. Dan

I have a de Walt radio and a set of fm radio ear defenders, good combo for different situations.

Not so much reccomending. More trying to flog to. ?

Steady ! I’ll hack your shitedroid from here !

But it's DeWalt...

As far as ventilation goes then it's fine, but it might be hard to comply with Part B for some habitable rooms (not a bathroom) without some opening windows (needed for escape from fire usually).

Why not just get an app for your phone, some bluetooth earbuds and stop annoying everyone else with local radio.

or like me you try 5 times and the website crashes

6 weeks may be optimistic but at least you are through the eligibility phase.

Thought you just topped up the exit pipe with a jug of water from the top, or similar mechanism. In this case do you not just need a side connection where you can connect a hose to initially fill the tube from the top, and an air valve at the very top to let the air out? How precise it all needs to be will depend on how tolerant the whole thing is. F

I have just received a letter from HMRC to say our claim has been received and there are no outstanding issues, 6 week lead time started ?.

A lot depends on the style of the house and build, and how much thought was given to cable routes through the structure. Consumer unit placed in the far corner of an outer wing eats up cable, as do impenetrable steels forcing tortuous routes. A wired thermostat in every room adds up too, as do wired multi-way switched lighting circuits.

Yes. The limiting factor is air pressure, which limits the theoretical maximum head that a pump can suck to about 30ft, although in practice few pumps manage better than about half this on the suction side. Priming is the only real issue, as a non-positive displacement pump (which many are) won't suck at all unless the suction pipe is full of water.

PS if you're pulling from the consumer unit end make sure you have help to ease the cable through holes / round corners otherwise it's very easy to damage the outer sheath (and, if you then keep pulling, the inner insulation).

In the past I've just made a couple of T-shaped legs from scrap timber, then a horizontal length between to keep it rigid and a broomstick / length of conduit across the top secured with the drums on it. Sit something heavy on the legs or just screw them to the floor. A real one looks like this but a T is easier than an A in wood IMO. 

You could have a worktop with a waterfall front edge.

Pump it back up to 6 bar in the morning, then check again in the evening. If it still falls, check your test equipment is not leaking.

A small pressure drop when testing overnight, as things cool down, is normal. Water is virtually incompressible, so with the system full of water, with no expansion space, then the pressure will go up and down a great deal with temperature. Even a tiny amount of expansion as the water warms up will increase the pressure a fair bit, and the same applies as the water cools down and the volume of water decreases very slightly.

I think the £6k for the sanitaryware is light - you can easily spend that on what you have listed. I'm with @jack on this, a 16Kw is overkill even at building regs standards. That Grant ASHP is a bit lumpy on price too... nearly £7k plus another £1k for the cylinder..?? Copper all through..?? Why..??

A recess without grooves would be like this. TBH we just leave things on the flat surface to dry and it seems fine, although we very rarely handwash anything, if it was a lot there might be too much water. I think some people just put a dishtowel down on a flat surface and it soaks up the water.

We were planning on underfloor heating and then we started looking up costs for reinstatement, materials, labour etc as its about 117sqm of existing slab and started thinking it might be a bad idea... We might have more news on what we find at the weekend as we're hoping to prize up the bizarre floor tanking system put in the large retrofitted mobility access wet room which will leave a big hole and hopefully some clues at the edges.. We are still intending to put in a planning application for replacement, not sure it that will really help with the objective of saving money but it might just mean things are much less risky albeit will probably take longer but a better house at the end. Either way we need a fall back so doing what we can ourselves now as bungalow needs stripping and possibly even roof off to get rid of the maze of load bearing walls even if we have to retain it. We have certainly learned our lesson on what not to buy and we haven't even really started!

There'll be a minimum volume that your ASHP will need. A buffer tank is only required if your UFH system doesn't have at least that minimum volume of fluid. Radiators will need to be UFH compatible (ie, designed to work with the relatively low temperature water provided by an ASHP). You'll likely be disappointed with ordinary radiators. Same with the towel rails - they won't output much heat if they're being supplied with water from the ASHP.

Get back on the low-carb diet.

I can't see why it wouldn't work just fine plumbed in to an extract fan. Just a matter of making up some sort of connection to the inlet side of the fan.

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

I don't know how much cable you will need but I do know you need a cable drum frame. I made one that could hold 10 drums. Put it in the room where the wiring centre/ cònsumer unit is then pull the cables off the drums and out to their end points. I could run 2 or three runs of the same guage cable so, when I used it, I had a few drums of each. Although this did leave me with some ends of drums. It was much quicker than pulling one at a time. The only one I didn't do that with was the CAT6 for that it comes in boxes with a pull hole and you just pull it out of the box.

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.

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....

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.

We have a trussed garage roof that was designed to give a usable storage area. The roof trusses are simple A frames, two rafters plus a deep combined ceiling joist and loft floor joist. Not a massive amount of headroom up there, but adequate as a storage space. I've carpeted the central area, so that it's a bit easier on the knees when crawling around up there. I made a large loft hatch in the garage ceiling, fitted a loft ladder, plus an electric hoist, so getting stuff up and down is fairly easy.

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Brought a tear to my eye. You’re sounding like a pro already. Just need to top it off with “ no way I can get there this month” & “ would help if you get it bumped out for me.” :))

Hey @Alphonsox how come you have the jazzy moving avatar. Did you win the leaderboard or what? I WANNA know...is that @recoveringacademic heart trace after measuring his joists or what is it... intrigued I am.