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no. The EU have treated us with contempt from day1 and we all know it.

You are not sleeping anyway, and I think, if you do get your house up to temperature, it may well not have to run during the night. There is no way you can not try this in reality. If I was the installer, I would just claim that you were turning it off all the time and making a fuss about nothing, then charge you £10k to remove it. It is a bit like trying to drive a car up a hill, a car where you refuse to use the brakes at all, but after you have moved 50 metres, you just let it roll back. Then claim it is the car/hill/life that is faulty.

good luck with Flight. let us know how you get on.

Yes, the pool is covered as the first thing to do is try to limit the evaporation. Then there is a massive Heatstar machine which sucks humid warm air out of the room above the pool. It feeds the heat back into the pool and cool air out into the room across the windows. It also kicks in to heat the room up very quickly with hot air when you open the pool cover. So this keeps the heating costs low but at the cost of £20k of machine and ductwork. It also uses a lot of electricity, but it is hard to isolate exactly how much.

Yep found that today, kneeling in clay to hammer them out was a pain If I'm allowed to fix the first layer of ledgers/transoms on the second pegs, I can stick to 2m lifts Already got some standard scaffold pole and fixings and was planning on tying through the windows/doors

42kWh/m2/y. Overall, can’t separate heating and HW but think 7kWh/m2/y

A euro cone is basically the same as a nut and an olive just the same as any compression fitting if the manifold has been made to have a Euro cone fitting then that’s all that will fit it as the inside is machined to except a Euro cone. Dont panick they are dead easy to use and 100% bomb proof what you will need is the little tool to shape the end of the pipe nicely so the Euro cone insert seats nicely into the pipe. Do a bit of you tube searching, 100% you must use the correct pipe cutter, do not be attempting to carve the pipe around with a hacksaw. If you haven’t bought all your bits yet you can get very nice rad valves that take a Euro cone.

Well, not all of it ?

Block build with a 100mm cavity full fill graphite insulation boards. Inside skin is lightweight blocks. Lots of tape and membrane. 150mm pir in the floor. Mine is a room in the roof house so on the most part it's 140 high density rock wool with 50 PIR underneath. On the flat roof section 400mm Rockwool.

That is the spin that the Daily Mail "newspaper" put on the case, they love a good immigrant story, indignation sells.

I bet if @Jeremy Harris was still posting here his would be the best.

you cant really treat UFH like a rad, trying to tweak the temps throughout the day. It wont work, it heats up the screed which takes time. If you have no immersion, then the heat pump can either heat up the UFH or your hot water not both at the same time. Dont worry about blending valves they are not fitted on new ones they can program the heat pump/cylinder to send the correct temp to the UFH without it. As you have found out while being efficient they are crap in comparison to a combi. limited hot water, cant have heat/hot water whn you want it etc.

weren't they the ones how prevented a foreign rapist being deported as he had a pet cat.

No, that is the UK Supreme Court - which we last saw in high profile action during the parliament prorogation saga. ECJ is (was) only for specific areas of law we agreed to devolve to the EU wrt agriculture, product, environmental standards etc. Also not to be confused with the EHCR which has a separate jurisdiction. https://ukandeu.ac.uk/the-facts/whats-the-difference-between-the-european-convention-on-human-rights-the-european-court-of-human-rights-and-the-european-court-of-justice/ The ECHR and its court are part of the Council of Europe, which has 47 member states, including Russia and the UK. The EU, on the other hand, consists of 27 Member States. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) is the body responsible for overseeing compliance with EU law within the EU.

You'll know pretty quick if the trap is drying out as you'll get a whiff of drains from that waste.

We want extensive access to their large market on favourable terms and they are naming the price. We left in Jan, free to do what we wanted since then. Oh - the WTO also imposes a court to arbitrate trade disputes. https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/dispu_e.htm And every EU member is, and remains, a fully independent sovereign nation. We admitted this in the Brexit white paper. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-united-kingdoms-exit-from-and-new-partnership-with-the-european-union-white-paper/the-united-kingdoms-exit-from-and-new-partnership-with-the-european-union--2 “Parliament has remained sovereign throughout our membership to the EU”

Have we been any different to them? The media has been making up stories about imaginary EU "bans" like the one on bendy bananas for decades. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/unitedkingdom/en/media/euromyths/bendybananas.html

Sorry but I can’t help it..... why can’t you just go and sleep In a room ( or a tent) that’s not noisy while you conduct the experiment that people suggest ? I have various health issues, sleep very poorly and need complete quiet for a good nights sleep but can still manage to sleep in the back of my landrover in a sleeping bag when it’s -5 by the side of a road without whinging..... come on man, stop finding excuses why you can’t do something and come up with some solutions so you can. People are here to help but you need to rise up to the occasion and show some fortitude and a willingness to work with people.... Don’t bother having a rant about how I am picking on you bla bla bla .... it’s a public forum and I actually want to see this thread come to a happy ending but it’s sooooooo hard being an armchair critic and not saying something !

It was enticing to believe that we could have all of the existing benefits with none of the cost or obligations - if it were true, why wouldn't you support it? Sadly it was not true. I'm not saying there was no reason to vote for Brexit but the 'we hold all the cards' and 'easiest deal in human history' was hyperbole.

Fish are an emotive but economically irrelevant (0.02% of UK GDP) concern. I'm not saying the current situation is necessarily equitable but it's been somewhat hijacked as an easy to understand issue and largely ignores many other reasons the UK fishing industry is in the state it is in. Also the majority of UK caught fish is sold to EU markets as it's not what we like to eat (herring vs cod.) Level playing field really applies to everything else we farm and make and want to export. Again, taking the US example, you can create cheap meat if you have low animal welfare standards (even if you address the health impacts by dipping in chlorine or using lots of antibiotics), or looking to other regions, cheap manufactured goods if you allow modern slavery, child labour and low environmental and welfare standards. If you're selling into a market that has much higher equivalent standards then they will not give you this advantage otherwise it's unfair own manufacturers who need to comply with stricter rules and incur higher cost as a result.

And all totally avoidable. What does not get much air time on the news is before the referendum a whole string of politicians stood up and told us we would retain a free trade agreement with the EU. IF as looks increasingly likely that does not turn out the be what we get, will people be complaining, protesting on the street about how we were lied to? if not WHY NOT?

I’d use the twin wall polycarbonate as it’s strong and let’s light through and takes screws etc but isn’t easily broken or seen though.

With regard fishing, Jeremy Vine had a Cornish fisherman on lunchtime and he said he agrees with a level playing field but the French have access to 80% of fish and can fish up to 6 miles of our coast, but we are entitled to 8% of fish but can only go within 12 miles of the French coast and that’s not a level playing field.

Update. Supplier has said the solar edge can be configured to output at a lower limit. So I'll go for the 5kW inverter for now, and If I go for more panels in the future it can handle up to 7.5kW anyway.

Well done for getting ahead of this. Our first fix plumbing just left a vertical section of 75mm waste. Tiler neatly cut backer board, laytex, waterproof and tile around the pip, plus laid electric UFH mat where required. Month later we unpacked the bath (funky oval free standing type) and realised supplied flexi waste and space under bath was not sufficient. Cue plumber cutting out tiles, latex, waterproofing and backing board and OSB to create a 150mmx150mm workspace and me clenching and hoping the UFH wire was far away (it was as this was under bath but had fault detector clipped to it at all times. They fitted a fixed U trap and flexi from that to the bath - small risk with your approach is that the U does not sit upright or gets knocked sideways and stops working. They then did a generous (10mm) barrier of sealant around the perimeter of the cut before reinstating bath. This for 2 baths.

If you can get it at a decent price I would be inclined to do nothing straight away, re seal it, an monitor for more movement. Is it really worth completely demolishing and re building just for a small crack in a single storey annex that is not likely to make it collapse? You might dream up plans in the future for a better, more ambitions extension and then it would be worth demolishing to start again with something bigger and better. My BIL lives in a 300 year old farm house. Every summer a small crack opens between the original house and the 200 year old extension and closes again in the winter.

It does, but it also takes longer to lose heat too IME. I only run mine for about an hour and a half each day (early morning) to get it up to temperature again and that works fine. The temperature drops very little during the day so I don’t notice a small temperature change. If I’ve been away and the system has been switched off for quite a few days then yes it takes several hours to heat up.

Cheapest I can see on ebay at the moment is £20 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Brand-New-Approved-230V-Single-Phase-Electric-Solar-PV-Generation-Meter-100A/324383422000?hash=item4b86c23630:g:J6QAAOSwFn1fuQjX

Thanks for all the help . Worked out I need a standard trap and a flexicon2 .

Do be fair, I am surprised the thread stayed intact as long as it did!

Great topic @Oz07 All electric here in the new build, no gas or oil. We have MVHR, Solar PV with a PV diverter. A cat flap is the weak point in the fabric of the building. A bit difficult to be exact at the moment as our electricity usage is for 2 homes, 2 families with 9 people. The ASHP figure for the new build is approximately 4500kWh per annum. About 4500kWh for all other electric items. 9000 / 275 = 32.7 kWh.m2

Welcome, firstly I question if that is a party wall? They are usually between two houses and the middle of the wall is the boundary. To me that looks like your wall and they have built a garage up to it. Their roof definitely looks dodgy and I doubt very much whether permission was gained for your neighbour to use your wall (unless they have their own wall next to yours). Neighbour disputes are difficult but I think you have to insist they repair their roof as it is damaging your property.

To me it just looks like a poor wall. (Sorry). Not really sure why the whole thing is not engineering bricks - for that quantity the extra cost is very little. Suspect it will a tartup every 12-15 years anyway.

All my figures are in my signature, I have electric hob for cooking, so gas is purely hot water and space heating.

Stop saying that, it is just wrong. Any power source that is specified wrongly will cause problems, ASHPs are no different. And power, energy and temperature are different things, the word 'heat' in thermodynamics means energy, not temperature.

Who wrote the article?!! Was it one of those "advertorials"? SAP will push you towards renewable solutions. Any heating source that's poorly specified is going to perform horribly. ASHP have to be paired with an air tight, well insulated structure to perform well with it's lower heat levels compared to oil/gas. There's no reason the running costs need to be more, you're in control of when it runs and can pair it with Solar PV and flexible tariffs. You're not in control of oil prices although you have a tank and some oil to fall back on there but when you refill, you have to pay whatever the market rate is. As ASHP is newer technology, the market % means there are less of them being installed compared to Gas boilers so economies of scale haven't kicked in yet, so there's an obvious gap. At the end of the day you're in control of your budget and choosing the best means to heat your house within the bounds of legislation. I just wouldn't knock ASHP because of one article, that's all. The same publication have "air source heat pumps explained" available online if you search from 6th February 2019. Best of luck with whichever choice meets your needs.

I ask the simple question. How will I personally benefit from a smart meter. Every time I have asked that question the answer has been I won't. So I say no to a smart meter. That might be different if you WANT a tariff that charges variable rates throughout the day (and can work around the silly high afternoon / early evening price) in which case you might have a valid reason for wanting one.

Imho the wall has been built with the pillars separate and the infilling walls abutting them rather than being keyed in. It's then cracked on that abutting line. Certainly the upper courses. The lower 5 courses are engineering bricks, can't really tell what's going on there in terms of keying in. Probably doesn't have any wall starters used. You'll be lucky if there's a few nails banged in! See the pictures here, not quite your set up but see how the bricks of the infills and piers interlock. https://www.gardeningdata.co.uk/construction/brickwork/stretcherpier.php If you're going to repoint then mortar rake in a grinder then use a mortar gun. Follow the mortar gun instructions to the letter ref the mix and use a plasticiser. A video I found on YouTube: Tbh this particular gun has had some bad reviews but I can't fault it. My nephew in fact gave me his as he couldn't get on with it. What screwed him up I think is that he always adds a shovel of sharp sand to his mortar or render mixes. He also doesn't add plasticiser. Years back, not reading the instructions I tried putting a pure sharp sand / cement mix through another make of gun and it was so hard to squeeze out I cracked the barrel.

You take what you can get when you’re just a poor boy from a poor family.

As an atheist I'm not much for ghosts, gods and faith, so I find it interesting that after 17 pages not a single sourced tangible benefit of faith driven Brexit has been mentioned.

@jimmyhorns, your tight for space loft reminded me of this thread that might be of interest:

I did have my garden designed, for a big birthday present, about thirty years ago. It was the best present I have ever had. The designer walked the garden with me and asked about the things I like etc. I told him a love trees. We have a large garden and he filled it with trees. The shrubberies were all measured and planted so that the large ones were at the back and they tapered to the ends. Roses over the door and climbers over the garage. The biggest reason I love it is because it stopped all arguments about what went where. Chris hates anything that spreads or climbs or really anything that grows! It is a constant battle to wrestle the mower, the slasher, the weed killer from him. He has managed to "prune" to within an inch of its life a magnificent spreading (!) tree that was supposed to shade out grass and weeds from beneath it in the front garden. He insisted he had to mow underneath it! I have asked for a garden design for another significant birthday present this year. Not so many trees this time due to all the leaves. A bit of a Japanese theme perhaps?

I don’t see why another type of bonding agent wouldn’t work. You won’t have warranty as you haven’t followed the guidelines for assembly.

you seem to be miss interpreting my picture, I am VERY aware what a dry stone dyke is and I clearly stated what my picture Is..... Not sure I understand where the next line fits in. I would also point out that dry stone walling, be it retaining or free standing is all about the key word (dry stone) there is no mortar used. The shape of the stones is irrelevant, my picture is of a dry stone retaining wall, those stones did not just magically come in that shape..... I worked every single stone by hand from Very rough Semi dimensional stone To the sizes and shapes I wanted to create the perfect curves and to have flat courses Running through it as this was the style this specific job required. If I wanted it to look more natural I would have done something different, like below. i am starting to look seriously at making my own gabions and will post some pics when I have my prototype ready. pic of 2 meter high dry stone retaining wall I built in australia 8 years ago

Thanks for the extra info folks, I like your creativity @SiBee the log filled baskets will be a great insect habitat, I think the iron in the rocks has caused a reaction with the galvanised surface of the baskets and is something I Had not thought about....I have similar shite rock with iron parities in it...... and I live within a few hundred meters of the sea..... thanks @vfrdave for the link still depressingly expensive for a 1x1m wire box...... Like me back when I was running my company cost would not have been a problem but there has been a lot of water under the bridge since then and my cash reserves went with it.... I really like the idea of the sheep netting and I think it would be a good solution to some of the areas that are not so much structural, like retaining the bank behind my proposed polly tunnel, I have some left over high tensile rylock from my garden fence (450m.....) and will have do an experiment To see if this is suitable. Growing various climbing/ draping plants on and over them could go a long way to making it look good. @scottishjohn some good points made and as a stonemason I am capable of filling the baskets Well, it’s all a bit frustrating as given the time I would just build Dry stone Retaining walls But I just don’t have the time as I have so many other pressing projects and retaining these areas is key to getting those projects started.... Covid has left me without an income and I think I just need to bite the bullet and accept that some projects will need to be delayed, only buying the bare minimal baskets and look into alternative solutions like the home made basket idea. when someone else is paying me to build a wall for them I have all the time I want but can only dream of having the time to do this on my own property, pic of low retaining wall I built in Hornsby NSW Australia about 8 years ago.

The chrome sleeve pipe solution was not just for the look but to protect the plastic pipe above the floor for accidental damages. A short copper or chrome pipe above the floor means a connection to the plastic pipe underfloor which is not prefered in some cases and chromes are not good for push fit connections with plastics. Then I found these brass-copper pipes which can slide over the plastic pipes end for the radiator connection. Its not the cheapest solution but this way, -no connection below the floor and just one piece plastic pipe for point to point manifold plumbing -solid straight pipe protection against accidental damages to the connection end of the plastic pipe with radiator. -nice chrome look as well. (actually, I think we can buy 18mm chrome pipes by meter and some 18mm flanges which would be cheaper)

Mic drop we have a winner @SteamyTea the steam off his sh!t is all that is needed!

I come in from work to a wet room with no heating and have a shower. Try 11 - 13degC butt naked. Now that's cold.

I have just been taking the piss, can't take anything I say seriously.