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The fault was found and is fixed, tge DNO guys are backfilling where they dug out the cable now. It appears that a groundworker caught the cable when they were putting the rainwater drain in and just squidged it back in without telling anyone. The cable had a small split and has worsened over time. On the plus side, it's the first time I've had a lengthy power cut situation, so it was interesting. The power cut started at about 5.30 yesterday evening. I switched off all non-essentials, leaving lights, some sockets and fridges and freezers running before switching over to battery power. The Sunamp was full and I had 50% charge in my batteries. There was no need for heating as the house is at a toasty 23C downstairs with the milder weather. We were frugal with lights and had no tv on. I charged my phone and we had tea and coffee this morning. The batteries finally ran out of juice at 8am this morning. Overall, aside from the inconvenience of the power cut itself, the sunamp and battery backup system have worked out really well.

Are there fire escape windows on the firsts floor to all habitable rooms. ..? If yes, then you don’t need fire doors in a 2 storey building.

You should have a SITE LAYOUT EXISTING. you should have. SITE LAYOUT PROPOSED. both of these would be needed for planning consent, you could not get planning without having the proposed site plan, so in effect you already have everything. It just either needs dimensions putting on it or some form of reference for location a drawing is not good enough to measure off. your architect will have all this information digitally, it will take him 2 minutes to add dimensions and forward it on to your contractor. Get on the phone and give him a big earful. He should have all your site plans in layers so he can add and remove layers depending on what you need to view.

It all went up guys! Thanks for all the help. Now got to pray it doesn't rot too quickly!

It's the old "remote delivery" thing we constantly battle here. Most places they only charge £25 but out postcode area is not listed and "contact us for a delivery price"

When the doors closed I have zero 4g or 3G ? wifi calling enabled

Normally there would not be any additional insulation between the roof joists. If adding something for acoustics keep it low density/higher conductivity mineral wool and ask the flat roof insulation manufacturer to run the CRA with specific reference to BS 6229. Ensure the AVCL above the plasterboard is as 'fully sealed' as possible, it will never be perfect!

Right yes it was early in the morning and I not enough coffee yet. I realize now I'd already found the 4.8 figure last month and commented on that upthread, and indeed already done the PHPP experiment too. The new UK spec matches the one previously published on the vaillant.nl website so same findings hold: we'd save 1.5kWh/(m2.a) on PER so about 227kWh/a or £35/a having this ASHP vs the Panasonic. (And discount the Daikin as both uncredible, and no cooling), and a bit more ontop from having lower heat losses of the Sunamp. Add on top there's going to be a delay until Sunamp have tested this new heatpump to certify its use, plus installer availability is so limited, I am leaning towards whatever presents itself as the most trustworthy/reliable option but still open minded it could be this setup.

The floor tiles have been an absolute pig to get hold of, first of the suppler sent the wrong one, second they sent the right ones out But, on about 11-12 of the tiles one of the corners got damaged in transit, so they are sending out another box, so assuming they arrive intact i will have more than enough, even with the wasted centre line layout, as i have got all the ones with the corner knocked off.

It does me, and there is an off centre window above it. However hopefully mitigated by a thin cabinet (20cm) with integrated sink, going up the left hand side, as below;

@Moonshine That document (SAP OCDEA nher) is out of date but does give good info on TBs. Download latest SAP conventions (Sept 19) from the BRE SAP website for current advice.

An off-grid inverter can do this, but cannot then be connected to the grid directly. It is possible to build a battery system that has two inverters, with no AC connection between them. There are a few ways to do this, but none of the commonly available domestic battery storage systems currently have such a capability.

that seems a good idea what it does highlight is if someone was wanting to add PV because their supply is prone to outages ,then std system cannot cope with that once batteries gone down --no power even if sunny EG lots of snow and power lines down for days in winter. so for those better to have a stand by generator in first place

If there is even a small chance that power could leak into the grid, there is danger to the workers, so the inverters are programmed to shut off. You may see Battery inverters with UPS functions, but I'm pretty sure all of them require a dedicated circuit, which doesn't lead back to your CU.

I think you're reading the line for A-7/W35, which is 2.8. (Notice the minus sign.) The coefficient of performance for A7/W35 is 4.8, slightly better than your Panasonic monobloc (4.52). Edit: you saw it before I commented. Ignore this. Mods please delete.

Is the power back on now? If not, then the PV will not start to generate, as it must grid lock before the inverter can turn on.

Finally got the sloping top bits of my cladding cut and fitted. Still got to stick the roof down, and do the skirt around the bottom, which I think I will do in black. Top half of my house will be clad the same, so pleased to have had the chance to practice on the posh shed

We have that set up. A Brittania dual fuel range with gas hob on a pair of 47kg cylinders, family of four. Works very well. One cylinder lasts 18 months at least. I was thinking of using smaller cylinders but someone here pointed out that they may not be able to deliver the gas flow rate required when multiple rings in use. Our cylinders are located about 40m (yes forty meters) from the cooker in a cabinet behind the garage. We used several lengths of plastic coated copper pipe designed for the purpose. I think the connections were gas compression fittings, pressure tested and then wrapped in Denso tape before being buried in the ground. Indoors we laid the pipe in the floor insulation (we have beam and block with insulation and UFH in screed in kitchen). We used one length of pipe indoors so no joints under floor screed. We only used a duct pipe through the foundations. To pressure test you turn off the valve at cooker end. Fit a regulator and cylinder in the cabinet. The regulator has a gauge on it. Open the gas valve on the cylinder to pressurise the pipe run then close it again. Pressure gauge should remain stable for at least 24 hours. Metal cabinets for gas cylinders are expensive for what they are. Ours is designed for 47kg cylinders but it's only just tall enough and has a fixed roof. It's a pain to wrestle the cylinder into place through the door and connect it up. See if you can find one with a hinged roof as well or at least plenty tall so you can get your arms in there. I've recently changed to much longer hoses (4ft) between regulator and cylinder so I can connect it up outside the cabinet then shove it into place. 47kg cylinders are heavy even on a sack trolley. Avoid steps between car parking and cabinet if possible. You can get them delivered but that might be more expensive. I've always collected mine but you need something to stop the cylinder rolling around and protection for the lip of the boot when dragging it in and out. Two man job really.

I don't know about Scotland but in England a loft conversion can turn a two storey house into a three storey house and the rules for fire doors and fire resistance of walls is different for three storey houses. Sometimes the stair well on the ground floor has to be upgraded by doubling up plasterboard. Check with the BCO but if you only need FD30 doors then you can get some pretty nice looking cottage oak doors these days.. https://www.doorsandfloors.co.uk/woodland-oak-ledge-and-brace-fd30-fire-doors.html https://greentreedoors.co.uk/product/oak-mexicana-fd30-internal-fire-door/

Talk to Steve burgess at icf supplies, he will have somebody.

Any of the Blueair Range, these are rated the best air purifiers in the world, and filter down to 0.1micron, much smaller than most HEPA which do to 0.3micron. We have two Blue Pure 411's which are classed as entry level, but as far as we can tell do a good job (hard to really know), and also come with a small amount of carbon to absorb smells/gasses: https://www.breathingspace.co.uk/air-purifiers-c1/blueair-blue-pure-411-air-purifier-with-combination-filter-p232 Obviously the more expensive units with SmokeStop are better for getting rid of smells and gasses, all depends how much you want to spend. EDIT: Just changed the filters for the first time today, done every 6 months, and my god were the old filters black! New filters are £20 each, so not stupidly expensive.

Nothing wrong with the basic construction The important issue for the U-value is to get it calculated correctly with; correct timber bridging for the top & bottom chords of the easi-joist (BASF only have it at 6% and Ecotherm at 12% when it is actually 18%) correct thermal bridging for spray insulation within the joist depth (between the metal webs) correct thermal bridging for quilt (perhaps not filling the metal web void) correction for the metal webs passing through some insulation layers (the 60mm PIR under the room will mitigate this to some extent). U-value probably nearer 0.15 W/m2K rather than 0.10 W/m2K.

No problem with the condensation risk analysis - generally you have decreasing vapour resistance materials from inside to out plus the ventilated airspace so all should be OK. As you have a cold roof there should be a vapour control layer on the warm side of the insulation, this will increase the margin for safety in the assessments. However both sets of U-values do not include any correction for the thermal bridge created by the metal webs passing through the insulation layers. I've had a look at the easi-joist brochure (https://www.wolfsystem.co.uk/products/easi-joist.aspx - see page 39 of technical guide) which shows U-values including the effect of the metal webs and they add about 0.08 W/m2K to the basic U-value (higher than my guess of 0.03-0.05 above). Also the Ecotherm calculation has the chord width as 47mm when it should be 72mm for easi-joist and this increases the bridging from 12% to 18%! Ecotherm calculation also does not correctly address spray foam between the easi-joist metal webs

Hi Adllan, I attach one of the calcs. The other one was not quite as good but had less information. The details of the EasiJoist values are on pp 21 and 39 of the manual: https://www.wolfsystem.co.uk/media/114954/easi-joist-tech-guide-v8-6th-edition.pdf On speaking to the BASF technical team the view was that it was possible to get better overall U values and mitigation with cold bridging with EasiJoists than timber rafters as the Walltite will completely fill the gaps between EasiJoist cords and the holes within the webbing. The Wolf manual suggests no difference.

We got more detailed information on the thermal bridging from the EasiJoist webbing from two sources and it looks much better than we feared. We have decided on breather membrane on top of 254mm EasiJoists, spraying 154mm of foam directly under the membrane and an additional 100mm of soft roll underneath to fill the remainder of the EasiJoist space. We will have an additonal 60mm of PIR under the EasiJoists. There will be a ventilated 50mm batten cavity above the Easijoists with standard lay up for Tata above (18mm OSB, breather membrane and Tata). This gives us a U value of 0.1 with no condensation risk. It will also give us a really good head start on airtightness for the MVHR system. We did look at having 25-60mm of PIR (not foil backed) above the EasiJoists and spraying directly under that (with a view to countering the potential cold bridging from the steel webbing) but the calcs showed a risk of condensation. On speaking to one of the technical teams we were told that because the spray foam bonds with the PIR there should be no increased risk of condensation as there is no surface for condensation to form on but the calculation programmes cannot cope with this level of sublety so to be safe and for guarantee purposes we are going with spraying under the breather membrane instead.

Yabadabadooooooo ..... Hoist by own hand ... Noooooooooooooooooooo !!

Christ you are right ! I’ve set myself up to be burgled ! . They’ll leave the sink and walk on glazing ( unfortunately) just knick the bog rolls !

Be careful about inadvertently revealing expensive gear in the background. Unprotected toilet rolls on show like that are likely to attract burglars. Mods: Feel free to delete my quoted photo on security grounds if need be.

Here you go: https://www.nooshoes.co.uk/product-tag/high-heels-for-men/

Could I declare my hands-on self build to be a job, then self isolate with suspect Covid19 and pocket two weeks of statutory sick pay?

So SAVERS no doubt and with immediate effect. to BORROWERS probably some time in the future and only partially.