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Hi and welcome. With a CV like that you should be answering all the questions. I am sure @JSHarris will be along shortly.

As it happens, John Ward has just this afternoon published a video explaining why fiddling with the incoming cable might be less than optimal:

If they are as old as the panels, 7-8 years, they are probably near end of life. But you can get a replacement for about £300 so still a good buy, if split between 3 would be about £1500 each, similar cost to mine.

That's just as funny reading it a second time nearly a year later. Especially as I have now seen "the gap"

Guide from Simpson here - it’s the US one but the screw sizes and fixtures are the same https://www.strongtie.com/products/connectors/wood-construction-connectors/technical-notes/fastener-types-and-sizes

You can screw them but MUST use the screws supplied by the joist hanger manufacturer, you cannot use your normal wood screw.

If run at typical UFH flow temperature then the towel rails wouldn't even feel warm to the touch, I think, plus you may well find, as we have, that in the heating season the UFH only comes on for an hour or two every couple of days. I opted to fit electric towel rails, wired to a circuit that includes a time switch, so that circuit comes on for a couple of hours each morning and evening. Seems to work well.

For the amount of heat you’d need from them, if used in conjunction with wet UFH in the main slab, I’d stick to the sheer simplicity of electric towel rads + electric UFH. If you’re relying on these rads as your main auxiliary heat source, eg no UFH, then prob best to feed them from a HP as you won’t be able to load shift. Would be disproportionately expensive as a heating design though, imo.

Nailed. And, to lighten your evening, have a laugh at my ineptitude while doing the same job ..... ?.

If you can get them for close to the start price, that's about £28 per panel They are a slightly smaller version of the panels I have made by Trina Solar. Those are 230W panels, mine are 250W. Looking at the pictures of the back, they look to possibly be suffering from "degraded backing sheet" Mine were advertised as that, though the reality was only 2 of the batch I bought had any sign of problems and were easily fixed. It does appear this make, the backing sheet along the joint lines between individual cells is prone to cracking, perhaps due to it getting hotter there? At least the seller of mine mentioned that "defect" Mine claimed to be from a solar farm that was upgraded. There certainly seem to be a lot of these for sale, this seller has a warehouse full and advertising different sized batches as well, e.g 20 panels for a starting price of £750

At least 50mm away to allow for the metal work and potentially any services

Twisted nails, it's what they are designed for.

A self-cutting adaptor on the vertical section above the trap? BES 6957 or similar...

Another vote for the left. If you were to build a tiny extension between the chimney breast and the red dotted line it would be a side extension, not an extension in front of the principal elevation

As far as I know the Jan 2020 thing only applies to septic tanks discharging into a watercourse. If they discharge into land drainage then there is no imminent requirement to upgrade them. My next door neighbour has a septic tank discharging into the burn and there is no sign of him doing anything to replace it yet.

It’s the one on the left And this may help you https://planningjungle.com/wp-content/uploads/Part-1-of-the-GPDO-Visual-Guide-FREE-VERSION.pdf

So if I get this right, you want to make a "wedge" of PU foam to go around the window upstand, so that the water will always roll downhill, yes? If that is the case, just get working with the saw, rasp and sandpaper on your celotex offcuts. To hold it all in place, try sticking it down with gelcoat. One think to remember is that matt does not like to wrap around an external corner, so a big radius is needed. Much bigger than it looks like you already have.

Yes, PU sheet is the way to go. You can get it with a glass fibre tissue covering, makes it much nicer to handle and uses less resin when you come to lay it up. Any chances of some pictures. Failing that, corrugated cardboard.

Polyurethane foam sheet is the stuff used with polyester/vinylester resins usually. Available in fairly thin sheets from many GRP suppliers, like this: https://www.cfsnet.co.uk/acatalog/CFS_Catalogue__Polyurethane_Foam_Sheet_417.html It can usually be shaped and sanded without too much hassle, although it's a messy job. PIR should work as well, but may be a bit harder to shape.

I would still fit a heat pump just for cooling. Just great for killing two birds with one stone. If you’re not in ‘need’ of cooling it is very hard to justify the capital expense, ( at a time when every penny counts ), and more of a concern when you factor in it’s inevitable maintenance, repair, and ultimately it’s replacement.

@Nickfromwales is right here - for ultra low capital cost, and assuming you have a heat input that really is down in the low kW requirements then a Willis heater setup will work. At less than £100 to do, there is a real challenge to make a commercially installed ASHP pay at that point. @TerryE has this setup in his place.

Here you go: https://youtu.be/njWOH-fMI_g

Will it pass BRs ? Stolen without shame from here

Having a slab means you can charge with heat also means you can almost always load shift from off-peak electricity, ‘injecting’ heat into the slab once or twice a day. Even heating by direct electricity is palatable with such an effective heat store, subject to the house performing well of course.

A further point of explanation, is unlike a boiler, a heat pump will only ever heat space heating or Domestic Hot Water one at a time, never both together. This enables the heat pump to run at a low flow temperature for heating and only run at a higher temperature when heating DHW. It is this separation of functions that enables it to switch from cooling mode to heating mode when DHW is called for.

All of this seems like a convenient way to say our product doesnt meet the standard set by the market leader but we have some excuses to justify our shortcoming. Its like saying I dont run as fast as Usain Bolt but I consume less energy as well and I am cheaper to sponsor.

I think that every time I walk past my ASHP when it's in cooling mode and I feel all that lovely heat being lost to the atmosphere. Even less feasible is using cold air from heating to make refrigeration more efficient. Slightly more feasible might be to divert some of the cold air in summer to keep a larder outside the heating envelope cool.

It's a minor [¹] sadness that you can't pump heat out of the floor slab into the DHW tank. [¹] Very minor given the small amount of cooling typically needed in the UK. In warmer climates, however…

I'm not, but others are. Yes, you can both heat hot water and cool the floor with an ASHP, it just needs a motorised valve to close off the tank when the floor cooling is on, plus a valve to open and close the UFH, with the hot water set to priority. What happens is that if the tank calls for heat, if the floor cooling is on then the UFH valve closes, the tank valve opens and the ASHP is turned on in hot water mode. When the tank is up to temperature, the ASHP turns off, the tank valve closes and the UFH valve opens. If cooling is still needed the ASHP then turns on in cooling mode.

Open accounts with the respective suppliers. Approve the materials on request and make the orders yourself. VAT trail is neat and tidy, and it’s a very effective method for controlling materials overspend. You do due diligence, and prices are kept as low as practicable. Labour only; Pay wages for the guys / gals on site weekly, 7 days in arrears, and be 1000% prompt each Friday / Saturday ( if invoices are suitably surrendered ) with no excuses. Funds need to be at hand no matter what so you can make those payments religiously. Bespoke is difficult to cost, but any decent builder can employ their own QS for their own reassurance BEFORE summarising. You’ll pay for that service ( indirectly ) anyway, so why not QS it yourself and administer the results to your contractors with you in the driving seat If you have a fixed set of plans then this is do-able. You just need a contractor who can fragment this into known-knows and known-unknown’s. The former fixed, the latter variable. Fair all round then, with a view to where costs could escalate, and %’s of unknown liability being ‘reasonably’ identifiable from the outset. After that it’s in for a penny, in for a pound. Whatever difficulties your contractors suffer will simply come out of the coffers, AFTER they’ve demonstrated them to you before hand. Do not allow the contractors to undertake any ‘extras’ without prior approval, and give them documented correspondence stating any such work, undertaken without said prior approval, will not be paid for. It’s then easy for you to identify if they’re squeezing you for more money when they just have to work hard, rather than having actually needed to carry out unidentified / genuine extra work. Oh, and if you want this to go smoothly, you’ll want a project manager / project coordinator to keep a finger on the pulse. That person ( can be yourselves ) needs to be available, by phone at the minimum, EVERY working day. Or, agree a fee, day rate + X %, for the lead builder to take on that roll. Sounds like you may need to be at the helm a lot here, particularly at the outset, to get the ship onto calm waters... ?

PRV - good things to have working. (See Three Mile Island ?) Sorry about your week, but good to see that your subscribers on the Youtube channel have nearly hit 50. Honest everyday stories are what brings them and keeps them. There a lot of people living in that world who keep stumm, or just ignore it - you are doing a good job ! F

Not in England and Wales ... ? no minimum width requirement south of the border ...

i think he is really asking the question so he can save money on build costs . If it were me --i would at least fit UFH piping in the floor as its very cheap at build stage to do -, maybe you can balance cost of heat pump etc with more expensive running cost of simple panel heaters? fiiting pipes in floor at build stage leaves you options later

Good news is I think the contractor felt ashamed enough to apologise and rectify the work on one roof today. Turns out being a reference for half the other self builders in the development has some sway when they realise it! Taken today and tomorrow off from work to supervise onsite directly and ensure the rest gets fixed too. Thankfully I had spare material for the car port which can be cannibalised for this, and they'll be paying for replacements directly out of their fees.

I just got all my invoices back this morning and confirmation that my full claim is payable, this includes some invoices that were in my builders name , some in my plumbers name and one for glass that was provided from a local company, the only paperwork I had for this one was a worksheet with the company name on it and amount paid, no vat number on it, I didn’t expect them to pay this one but decided to put it in anyway, happy days! Oh and it’s only 8 weeks since I submitted it!

I spent an hour or so in the architectural museum at Bath last week. I got chatting to one of the volunteer staff there, who pointed out that at the time that the grand Regency buildings in Bath were being built, architects were joiners and masons who had gone on to study design, after many years of working "on the tools". The thought that went through my head was that it's a pity this no longer seems to happen, as I doubt that anyone with a solid background in hands-on construction would likely to come up with designs that their clients would be unable to afford.

The other system gets a weekly clear out courtesy of 4 pints of Guinness at the pub quiz.

Dropped a bit of glass on it I heard...

is that because you lost your other foot in an accident ..??

But then if it is only 1989 here I might have to hitch the horse and cart up

A poor show! Width is always important! ?

You need some more baseball history. Would be wonderful so see an entire Grand Designs episode where all the Kevin McLoud questions were answered strictly with Yogi Berra quotes. But will it leak? "You can observe a lot by just watching." When will it be finished? "It ain't over till it's over." Is it on schedule? The future ain't what it used to be.

@pocsterplaying the piano in the picture house

Oi ! If they started filming grand design on the start of your bathroom it would of been in black and white !