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Just a word of caution. It seems that the "glass" panel is only 4mm thick, so that means it won't be glass, but some type of plastic, as there's no way a 4mm thick glass panel would be OK in that configuration. It's a cleverly worded advert, as it seems to avoid using the word "glass", yet sort of implies it is.

heres your thinset mortar --in a can

I'm curious to know how reliable your air source heats pumps are. In the past two week, our ASHP has gone "down" three times - it's not been a mechanical fault, but a software issue. Thermostats throughout the house have been calling for heat but the ASHP would go into standby mode and the temperatures would plummet. We had to call support and they had remotely remedy this. Three times in two weeks is poor. Does this happen to your pumps?

Yep and it works fantastically. Zero risk of it toppling out with a very simple clamp bar to the feet.

Possibly not. But it didn't stop first a very stressful letter -potentially- threatening xyz.. & also a follow up council visit here. As council/ police have to follow up any complaint with a visit, my n'bors take advantage of it: more than 2 couples consistantly over 2.5 yrs instigating visits from every single dept they can think of, soley to cause me stress, less that they'd actually likely get any results. And it works. Every time the doorbell rings I get depressed/ dread fills me, another council man? they even got police visit me only weeks ago (due to my damn builder). And they think each is perfectly justified too. So in order to live here with as much relaxation as I can (not alot tbh) I need to mitigate against council visits, as best I can.

For around 210m2 of 150mm insulation and 5 and 5.5m beams, we were £55m2 exc VAT. The long beams added a lot, but as the sleeper walls were down we had to go with that. So that was beams, closer blocks, insulation and gap strips - delivered to Scotland. It's a super easy system to install - I'd use it again for sure.

If rebuilding a laptop, I highly recommend buying a new SSD rather than just re formatting the old HDD. It is a game changer in terms of performance.

A word of caution. We built a raised platform at the end of my mother's kitchen to take the washing machine, tumble drier and dishwasher, specifically to provide easier access, with less bending over when loading and unloading the machines. It worked very well, and was solid enough as we made the raised platform using blockwork laid on a concrete floor, and then quarry tiled over the whole floor and the raised platform. Unfortunately, around a couple of years after we did this, the washing machine developed a fault, in that one of the spring dampers that support the drum broke. My mother was around at the next door neighbours at the time, and when she returned home later that evening she found that the whole ground floor of the house was flooded to a depth of a few inches, with the carpets floating off the floor. She had to move out of the house for around 3 months, whilst everything was dried out, the electrics replaced, the walls replastered, furniture and carpets replaced, etc. The cause of the problem was the raised platform. When the drum support failed, the machine started vibrating, moved itself forward and fell face down on the floor. The glass door broke, but the machine carried on working, trying to fill with water to complete the rinse cycle. Being face down, with a broken door, the level sensor failed to shut the water off, as it was trying to fill the whole ground floor of the house to the set fill level. So, by all means look at doing this, but think about fitting constraints to prevent the machine falling off the plinth, plus, perhaps, some additional means of shutting the machine off if the worst does happen.

First thing would be seek permission from both neighbours to join onto their walls. then you only have to build a front and back wall.

Place I use for glass is Go Glass in Cambridge. They don't list glass canopies on their web site but its the sort of place that could probably source fixings and make glass to your dimensions.

Wikipedia suggest a number of possible threads. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripod_(photography) See under subheading "construction".

Were you too noisy, or were your parents too noisy?

Probably need to check that thread on the tripod is really 5/8th. Should be 27 threads per inch, might be easier to check that.

yep, a perforated panel (min 25% open area) with mineral wool behind it will act as a decent absorber, in fact without the mineral wool there is a bit of absorption there too. The panel can plasterboard, ply, OSB etc Have a look at some perforated plasterboard to see if that fits the bill https://www.british-gypsum.com/product-range/acoustic-ceiling-systems/gyptone-acoustic-ceiling-boards If you have been into some new build flats, you will usually find perforated plasterboard in common areas such as the stairs as its a requirement from building regs (ADE)

The simple way is to use the λ value for the material plus the thickness, making allowance for the surface factors. You can use this simple U value calculator, but it doesn't account for thermal bridging, geometric thermal bridging, or edge losses: Simple U value calculator.xls

Even better Q Joe! they deserve SO much.. but, from one of them I had a noise complaint (router, C'saw etc used outside.. no more than 1+ hr/ day tho on average & nearest is approx 30m away: all detatched houses.. but many retirees) so need to do all I can to avoid the 'next council letter/ visit': actually the primary reason to build a 'workshop' of sorts, as an extension.

I found this: https://palramapplications.com/product/nancy-door-awning/ POLYCARBONATE PANEL – 4mm

We have Jetfloor. Our longest spans are 4.45m and they had no issue with that. Total cost (supply only) for all materials (123m2) was £4,550 (albeit that was in 2015). Included 57 beams, infill books, inlay sheet, overlay sheet, Thermalite beam end spacer blocks, Thermalite edge blocks and Thermalite coursing blocks (for top of dwarf walls). We also had perimeter blocks to insulate the slab from the external walls and have Perinsul glass blocks in the below DPC build up of the external 'skin' to minimise cold bridge to the timber frame.

Regarding real life experiences, we lived in Singapore for a few years. Hot climes so hard floor tiling is the norm. Stone, marble, porcelain etc. We lived in an apartment with marble floor. Moved to UK and purchased a place with engineered wood floor. We moved all our furniture from Singapore to UK, the acoustics are completely different despite the same furnishings, though granted room is not same size shape or construction. Another experience, we changed our previous kitchen from porcelain to amtico. Night and day difference in acoustics as well as improved comfort when walking barefoot. Amtico is slightly resilient so feel more comfortable, plus it imparts a feeling of warmth compared to the tiles. I expect the floor temperature remained the same, but it felt warmer.

@vivienz, spotted on Amazon … https://www.amazon.co.uk/Palram-NANCY-1500-GREY-CANOPY/dp/B07KZVV54F/ref=asc_df_B07KZSMJP2/

I'll have a dig around when I get home. I'll have our actuals that I can send you (although we had 5 and 5.5m spans). Spantherm and Jetfloor wouldn't quote. Tetris made a cockup by not reading the requirements right but massively to their credit, they did everything they could to get us a working design. They went over and above when they could quite easily have said 'can't be done'.

The ASHP controller has the proportional control as standard and I use it to good effect. It monitors external, set and actual temperature to adjust flow temperature and circulator speed. There is an option to use the built-in electric heater to raise the temperature above what the unit is capable of, though I do not use it. I believe you can set it to come on at off-peak periods - again not tried so do check. Our unit is from Hitachi. I looked at the usual suspects, Panasonic, Daikin, Samsung and some others. Two things drove me to this - first was the Hitachi controller was capable to running 2 separate heat zones natively (annexe for elderly parents needs to be warmer), and second was the support I received from Hitachi was head and shoulders above the others, at enquiry, design, installation and commissioning. The down-side is local tradesmen are not familiar with this brand - Daikin yes, Hitachi no, so servicing might become an issue.

I will add a photo later, but the door has exactly the same thing as the one in the photo. Without the letter box and the pooch.

Unless your CoP is going below 1.0 then the algorithm is simple: always use the ashp and never use the immersion. The slightly funky variation would be to continuously set the ashp to "UVC current temperature +5°C" (say). This way you get a good CoP initially and slowly decreasing efficiency as it works harder to top it off with the final few kJ. (Analogous to the taller you build your pyramid, the more effort is needed to install the final blocks)

but other than poorly-set defrost parameters, is the COP of the average ASHP ever going to approach 1 never mind dip below it?

Carryin stuff. That's wot wives if for innit?

No need for a specific fitting. Just use a standard Y junction and then use a 45 to bring it back parallel with the input. Insert appropriate length of pipe between Y and 45 for required offset.

You are best hiring a small breaker Much quicker and cheaper than ruining your own drill Anything that is so hard that it won’t come off with a breaker can be left and gone over The brick that is pictured looks smooth Which is perhaps why it has blown You will need to do a slurry coat prior to scratch coat scratch coat + Wet dash coat £30 m2 UPVC beads Extra for stainless Add a £1 for white cement

I've used them, similar to the Marshalltown ones, and they were a god send for laying 160mm wide 7kn blocks, they were very heavy, but these let you hold the block with two hands from above and prevent bending down on the lower courses. If I were buying i'd get the Amazon pair, two for the price of one, I'm sure they'll be just fine.

I just put them in the wheelbarrow.

I think this is a very interesting idea, and given your proximity to the supplier (and the potential to negotiate a deal as they want to promote the product for housebuilding), worth serious consideration. Personally, I wouldn't be too worried by the thermal bridge issue of using strip foundations. Our house, (155sqm footprint) is built from ICF (280mm block, 150mm concrete core), the blocks sitting directly on the strip foundation without thermal break. The slab is cast onto insulation but is (in contrast to the detail above) thermally broken from the ICF wall, i.e. it 'floats'. Cost wise we heat to 21C 24/7 and we spend £200 a year on heating, which given our rather exposed location, is IMHO, a pretty good result. Something to think about if you go down this route: the cost of fixings and labour to fit insulation and timber strapping. ICF blocks generally have the benefit of plastic ties holding the two sides of insulation together to form the block, but they also perform another critical function - standardised fixing points into which fixings can be secured without having to drill hundreds if not thousands of holes into the concrete itself. You are going to have to mechanically fit a good depth of EWI, I assume some IWI, and then strap the walls inside to create a service void before you fit plasterboard. That's a lot fixings and a lot of drilling, time and money. Critical I think that you factor this in. If you have a look at my blog there is some info and pictures on some of the fixings used in our build.

The 32 is a denser product, and IMO a much nicer one to work with, cuts nicer

Hello, IMHO there is nothing to gain by going below a U value of 0.1W/m2.K for any fabric element. Assuming no thermal bridges (e.g. rafters) this occurs at 250mm (or slightly less) for most PUR/PIR products (e.g. Celotex). The money would produce a greater financial and environmental benefit invested in renewables/air tightness/efficient appliances etc

Sheet material such as habito board gets much cheaper if you can buy it by the pallet load direct rather than being delivered by your builders merchant from their store. Resilient bar is a good call and not expensive. for our 150m2 ground floor it was about £400 in materials and 2 man days to fit it. Just make sure you use the correct length screws as fixing the plasterboard with too long screws that go into timer just defeats the whole point of it isolating from them. If you do use habito you don't need any other ply or osb behind unless it is in the kitchen. In bathroom use green plasterboard with ply behind or work out exactly where fixings will be and nog locally. Dont forget bog roll holder and bathroom cabinets.

Having looked over the Building Regulation plans produced by my Architect, I'm confused as to what type of plasterboard I should be used where, as the blurb on the plans doesn't go into any detail? Is there any particular Building Regulation rule I should be following, or it as simple as use 12mm throughout?

For your pride and joy, the finish is the last thing you'll be looking at for life, so I'd agree, TnF'd just doesn't cut it. I don't care how good a blob of filler is sanded, it's still proud of the board. Skim for me every single time.

Get on to big Arlene, she will get you another few years RHI no questions asked.