Leaderboard

That depends on how the charger is set up. Chances are it won't work though - the limit is going to be the current pushed down a wire, and 3-phase runs at 415V phase-phase rather than the 230V phase-neutral from a single phase.

It also wants to weaken it's neighbours, especially Ukraine, so rather than upgrading the existing pipeline through Ukraine and Poland and negotiating better payment deals, it has built a new pipeline it will control. All the new pipeline will do is divert supply from the old to the new.

Having lived with MVHR for 9 months I have just completed a DIY active carbon filter as my neighbours just like stinky bonfires too much. Whilst you can easily shut it off when you're at home, it is a horrible surprise to come home to find your home smelling like a bonfire. So I began to research active carbon filters and found those commercially available ones were stupidly expensive and the cost of replacing the filters was also the best part of an arm too. I began therefore at the actual active carbon filter and found that these are many and varied and a huge range of costs. Looking at what I had room to install I decided to get as large a filter as possible and at reasonable cost. I chose one designed for plant nurseries as they are both compact and low cost and got one rated at 600m3/hr with an estimated 3 year life. Again I found a variety of prices but being an experiment, I decided on one costing just over £40 delivered. You can find similar for up to 3 times this. Pictures show the construction of a 450 x 400 x 400mm box in 12mm mdf mainly, just the end out with 18mm to give a greater rigidity for the filter mount/seal. Installed it today and already tested tonight as just had to shut windows due to stinking bonfire again! Running at 220m3/hr currently with no smell whatsoever. Well pleased. Total cost less than £70 for materials. Being retired I don't count my labour. Monitoring the MVHR it has given some additional load/back pressure as expected, increasing the input fan speed by between 50rpm and 500rpm depending on m3/hr selected. The higher rate when running at 330m3/hr. At 100m3/hr its around 150rpm up. MVHR is Brink Flair 400. If this continues to perform, I might go for a higher cost filter with less back pressure when I replace it or see if I could squeeze two of these in parallel into the space I have. Should be possible. Just another 30 quid for more mdf and a few more hours making it. I rebated and glued joints to keep it airtight apart from the lid which is rebated and just screwed down. Hope this might inspire others to give it a go. Filter from Future Gardens, Assasin 600m3/hr. MDF from wherever you can get it. Just two quarter sheets. Plus a few hours design and sawdust making on my cnc router table but could be done using a hand router and table saw if you have a good eye for square and straight edges... ?

In my case, none of the comments received were uploaded to the website until the day before the determination deadline.

It is not a bad sign. Neighbours objections tend to be spurious, or raising what the planner would anyway. So it is one little hurdle, and at least means the neighbours dont hate you. The planner won't have looked at it yet but should speak to your architect if any issues...silence is usually promising.

Always good when neighbors don’t bitch - but …. Planning can be a dog with their own BS ; just wait ….

Final comment. Having lived with it for several weeks I can now say it works fantastically well. Yesterday, someone close by was burning rubbish including rubber by the smell of it. Quickly closed doors and windows (it was a nice warm sunny day) and result, absolutely no smell inside. Outside was purgatory! So if you're considering this, based on my experience I'd unreservedly recommend doing it.

Sounds fab . Have you thought about walk on glazing?

Oh this is an interesting one. Dave certainly has the best idea of asking the charger manufacturer, looking at your block diagram 3 phases IN phase would appear to be OK but it it is only an assumption and need confirmation from manufacturer. Please tell us what they say.

That raises an interesting question: So a 3 phase EV charger actually need 3 phases? If it just goes into a rectifier to produce DC to charge a battery, then probably not. I wonder what manufacturers would say?

I’ve just installed a 600mm diameter pipe 2.5 metre vertically, with a pump operated via float switch to relieve pressure off an old concrete slab with 30 plus construction joins in the slab( big slab) It worked in my situation

What is the reason for wanting 3 phase? If it is just more capacity then three single phase supplies would do that. If you NEED to run some 3 phase equipment, you will need a phase converter, but they are expensive and not a whole house solution.

I feel the Planning officer has a romantic notion of the "open countryside" and does not appreciate that in private ownership it needs to metaphorically earn its crust. It is unreasonable to expect a paddock to be open to an access track - there are 101 reasons why that wouldn't be acceptable, and it is unreasonable to categorise the open countryside as absent of fences and suggest that they are contrary to the intrinsic character and beauty of the countryside. It is also unreasonable to label post and rail fencing as "ranch type" suggesting it is alien to the UK countryside, being of a type only used on large North American horse and cattle ranches. I'd include the agriculturally typical post and rail in your Reserved Matters application and set your argument out. I can't imagine they'll refuse on that basis as I don't feel their position is defensible on appeal. Maybe an approach on the garden is to split what you currently have proposed into a smaller garden, close to the house and then the rest as an area of amenity land. It still allows you a residential use, but restricts the area that is considered as residential curtiledge, so from the LPA perspective it keeps the residential paraphernalia (sheds, rubbish bins, clothes lines, hard landscaping etc.) closer to the dwellinghouse.

The manufactures are probably tied by legislation, so should still be within the condensing temperature zone, or it would make a mockery of the whole thing. No good having a boiler that only condenses when the temperatures are spot on, wind is not blowing up the exhaust and the sun in behind the yard arm.

I am not so sure about that. Compressed air storage is currently the cheapest, then pumped hydro and then batteries. Hydrogen fuel (fool) cells are one of the most expensive in £/MWh. I also think that synthetic fuels will be used in long distance transport situations i.e. trucking, aviation, shipping, military. We have a large knowledge base with combustion technology in aviation, and turbines/turbo jets are pretty efficient when it comes to kg/km. Changing from one liquid fuel to another is much easier than changing from liquid fuel to gaseous fuel. That is long time off, we have plenty of sources of kerosene. Have to be careful with that, just taking a percentage of use is very misleading, over the last year many industries have been on shorter working hours and have cut night shifts. Industry/commerce is still a large user of power.

No ? Sherlock ?

think my hubby is going to enjoy reading this, haha ?

Yes, part of why this seems like such a large increase is that it is measured from a depressed base driven by COVID. The price of gas has been quite depressed in the last couple of years. I went though my emails to get an idea of what I have paid each year.

Nail > head. Also vice versa, it will want to shut off sooner too ( if you have self-learning energy saving controls or manually manipulate that to allow the residual heat to ebb away ). Those are referred to as set-back controls. The new combi could go where the cylinder is now, and just go for a vertical flue. Done this hundreds of times. The kitchen tap may be the pain then though, but should be no worse than what you get now as the run would then be in 15mm not 22mm ( subject to you making that alteration to the existing plumbing of course ) so less primary dead legs of water to discharge before getting hot water to the furthest outlets.

Thinking that (local) Planners care about your planning application Neighbourhood objections Listening to idiots on the Parish Council citing invalid objectings to your development. Waiting for a planning application Decision Notice Failure to plan in sufficient detail Architects designing what they want , not what you want Charlatan trades folk. Trades who do not answer the phone, or return your call in a timely manner Weather Changing your mind about important stuff after you have started building your 'dream' extension Any trade that does not do what it says it will do, - on time - on budget - on specification. Invoices with so little detail that even a saint would become suspicious Builders who charge VAT on a self-build supply and fit contract - and who will not be told that domestic clients are not charged VAT Not having a sense of humour Welcome by the way! That'll do for starters. Waste time on BH. Time well spent.

In heating mode you will never get anywhere near to using all of the 24kW unless you have the house freezing cold and want to heat it to 22oC ASAP. Nominal heat from a wall mounted boiler would be 12-14kW to heating ( max ) and then whatever you have for DHW will dictate how fast the cylinder can reheat ( aka "recovery" time ). To be able to heat the cylinder and run the heating simultaneously it could be beneficial to go up to the 28kW as the minimum heat output ( maximum modulation ) will be pretty much the same, or you could stick with the 24kW and go W-plan ( domestic hot water priority ) which would allow either the heating OR the DHW only, and never the two together. The biggest issue you'll have here is running the UFH separately from the radiators. As these are two completely different beasts the plumber would normally specify a room stat for each UFH zone, with a 2-port zone valve shutting the UFH on / off respectively which then islands the UFH from the rest of the system. The cylinder and rads would also have 2 port zone valves that isolate them in line with heating and hot water demand. If the UFH is running and nothing else, then the boiler will short cycle. To deal with that, you would need a 50L wall mounted / floor mounted buffer tank across the flow and return to the UFH manifold AFTER the UFH zone valve ( so it does not act as a bypass when the UFH is off and heat unnecessarily ). This is multi-faceted as always! Q: If you have 2 electric showers, and only one that uses DHW, then IMHO it is a waste of time and money to fit a system boiler and cylinder. Why don't you just fit a high flow combi such as a Vaillant 938? That will exceed you DHW needs for sure and then you don't need a lifetime of annual G3 service callouts for the UVC.

Welcome to the countryside, nothing odd about it ? Relocating a family to a static without mains power just as winter approaches will be very stressful, be prepared to rig up outside lighting and lay down temporary gravel paths. Many find an extra home built porch helps. Offer the neighbour a no nonsense metered hook-up with a large margin of +£0.10 per kwh and you will be better off then spending money on your own offgrid generator/battery/low voltage setup. How long before the house is finished?

Are the joists the right spec for 600 spacing? Have a look at the span tables to check.

I would buy an inverter generator, generally quoted and better AC output and couple that with Pro Dave’s suggestion of gas fire, water heater etc.

You can also 'EWI' the inside. - hack back to bare stone - parge coat to air seal - dot and dab large EPS boards on - mesh - render - skim Works well even without parge coat if you seal the EPS gaps incl sockets etc with foam. At the time EPS and mesh/render was cheaper than insulated plasterboard and the external wall insulators were looking for work over winter so the labour was comparable. Needs a good vacuum cleaner when they take the 8 foot rasp to the walls to plumb the freshly applied EPS though! ?

Don't say a lot for the member on here.

No he won't; I think you have your answer from the t'others. ? It might be worth dropping an email to the Council making clear that you do not agree to extensions unless you do it in writing on each occasion.. There are lots of ways to distract yourself from this. One is to jump over the banisters with rope attached to your underpants (or your under-crotch safety harness), and dangle in mid-air for a bit. At least one person on BH tried it, and reported that the wedgie provided a noticeable diversion. Presumably if you do it daily you get a bit more used to the sensation. I am now going to run away and hide, before a man in a microlight appears over my house, bearing rotten eggs. Ferdinand

Laundry needs a mention in this discussion. I physically burnt out a 13amp plug that supplied the shed housing a washing machine and tumble dryer.

Or drill a hole in the pin and put a nut and bolt through (really tight).

Connect future pipe to the ports now, run it through the existing floor to a point where you can excavate a little to expose the ends, and just cap end them for the immediate. Use straight connectors to join back onto the pipes in the floor at a later date. FYI the fittings for 16mm UFH pipe are ridiculously good quality and I have put plenty of the joints in to repair damaged pipes / alter previously installed jobs where I've had to correct, etc etc, and they just do not leak. Put 9mm foam insulation onto these runs to preserve the heat in the flow pipes, and then a bit on the end of the return too, where the cap ends are, to keep the pipe and fitting in top condition. You do NOT want to screed these in and then damage them when you come to dig them out at a later date Don't forget to run a cable in a conduit to the same point also to extend and connect to the additional room thermostat(s) in the new extension.

Andy. No wonder this is causing grief. Here is a suggestion. Mull this over even if just to rule this idea out. It seems like you are getting run ragged. The following suggestion is based on tactics used to deal with say a home warranty provider who is using the fine print to avoid addressing the issues. Take a step back first. Get yourself a "street wise" Stuctural Enginneer. Get them to site for a day.. yes a day and expect to fork out £800.00 -1200 quid. Seems a lot but the SE will spend a few hours thinking time after they have left site.. not that bad. The SE will look to see where the frame is non compliant..and everything else that they can see or even if they "get a smell" they will look at that too. Once an SE is instructed to examine everything..it means anything else that may count as a contributing factor.. they do.. no prisoners! For example the SE will look at all the nail edge distances, plumbing of the frame, the roof trusses, the load paths and how this missalignment of the dormer may be changing the load paths and if the supporting walls are still ok. The ground levels, how the kit is sitting on the founds.. odd stuff that may not seem directly related to the issue.. damp proof membranes, vapour barriers.. tile batten spacing.. the lot! The reason for this is that all these other bit's an bobs contribute to what SE's call "robustness" and this forms part of the design codes. Also, if the say trusses are not sitting where they should be then questions get asked, for example are the connections still ok.. again are the tile batten spacings still compliant with the tile specifications.. it's a big can of worms to defend! Make no mistake if you are an SE and you are instructed to survey a timber frame.. well that is what you do! You don't muck about! The secret here is that once you find a non compliance that impacts on the structural safety of the building you have them over a barrel. What you then say is.. hey you may be quoting me the fine print but you have supplied / erected an unsafe structure. This cuts to the chase as if your SE say's it's not safe they have to do whatever it takes to fix it.. if it goes to court.. the SE stands up and says..they provided an unsafe structure and by that time the HSE will have been notified also, so too they will be chasing them. What I can say is that once you nail them on the structural side they are often keen to negotiate. The next step is up to you. You can try and negotiate a settlement yourself or you can instruct your SE to "have a chat" with your TF supplier. The SE will not "do a deal" on your behalf in terms of the fabric as professionaly they can't compromise on safety. The SE at this point acts as an independant person. To explain. An SE has a duty to public safety, you may sell the house but the liability rests with the SE long after you have gone. However, by acting independantly they will often use some back channels to reach encourage settlement that is equitable. They may for example say to the TF supplier.. well if you don't play ball with me I'm going to recommend to my Client that we get a QS of like mind to me.. no prisoners.. and the bill is going to go up. My Client just wants it sorted and quickly..they are not seeking to punish you but if you keep digging in they may take a different view! These are thing an advisor can say but you as a Client may not be so able to do. Andy. Quite often trusses may not be "quite where they should be" Not all of the trusses will be fully loaded so sometimes you only need to remediate a few, maybe one or two so it's not often a case of the whole lot needs to be taken down. The key here is to find the big stick to bring them to the table and quickly. The above is one possible way of achieving this. Ideally.. resolve it quickly, settle and not spend time trying to get your money after you have moved in. The moving in should be fun and if you have this hanging over your head it kind of spoils it? Lastly the supplier will also be expected to pay any SE fees you have incurred.

Eh! Say I have 1,000 blocks delivered to site, unloaded by a hiab by the supplier to the nearest location to the build as possible. Same for cement, insulation and sand. If my brickie told me to he is adding 10% onto my invoice for client supplied materials I'm telling him to jog on.

10% on handling client provided materials is pretty standard. It pays for the moving it, unloading it, reading the manual to install it etc.

Should be OK

Plastering the walls would certainly help with airtightness. I don’t know how good insulated plaster is in practice. Can’t imagine it’s anywhere near the performance of PIR. Skimming the plasterboard would only be necessary if you like the finish. You can just tape and fill otherwise. However, a suspended timber floor is awful for airtightness and presumably has no insulation under it. Do you plan to take up the floor too? I am no expert on stone walls, however as I understand it from older houses in Edinburgh often it is only heating the inside of the house that stops water making its way right through the walls from the outside. They tend to be sandstone which may be the issue. If you insulate the inside of a non cavity walk I am not sure what measures have to be taken to avoid water damage. Hopefully someone can help you with that.

Metal stud with two layers of 15 mil sound block will out perform block Acoustically and be more cost effective Pictured is today’s job Two layers of fire board

Ply flush internal fire doors are fairly solid and not too expensive. Have a word with your local locksmith for keyed alike locks. Cobble frames out of 50 x 100. Job sorted.

lf you look at the past year (third chart), recent levels of renewables production are low, but not excessively so (green line). Further, these should average out over time and have only a modest impact on electricity futures. Looking at this increasingly suggests the real problem is the spat with Russia and lack of gas in storage across Europe. Demand remains low and fossil fuel production is well within the normal range. As an aside if you look at the daily average, you can see how much lower demand is overnight. Renewables production will work well with increased use of EVs which can be used to balance out grid demand. This is why the government wants smart chargers. Most EVs do not need to be charged immediately and can be charged when there is excess supply (if you are in a hurry they could charge a premium). In 4 years I have never once needed to charge my car immediately. Renewables are still only around 25% of supply and not the issue, it is the price of gas. Longer term the variability of renewable supply and demand can be modelled and the grid should cope with much more renewable capacity. Even longer term the expectation is that excess renewable capacity will be used to generation hydrogen to balance supply and demand over medium term periods. Historically I had thought hydrogen too inefficient and expensive, but it should prove viable in this scenario. Anyway all I can see is that demand for electricity is if anything low, fossil fuel production is normal, renewable production has been low but is returning to normal and the real problem is over reliance on one unreliable supplier. At work we used to always say not to invest when politics are involved. You can model wind systems over time, I cannot model the actions of the Russian government!

Sure, but the thing is they haven't quoted - I'm paying by the hour: however difficult or long it takes I'm paying them come rain or shine! No risk to them, all the risk on me. So, update: no one turned up yesterday. Got a message to call one of them in the morning but got no answer. Finally a call from them this morning: "we're leaving your build, mate". He tried to throw all sorts of excuses at me but at the end of the day it's a complicated, difficult build - yes, taking more time (which I'm paying for) but it actually involves some brainpower. Easier to jump ship and build a box with 4 equal sides - which is what the've done. I called the more senior of the two, and after some negotiation they have agreed to come back and finish the nudura walls and the floors - but of course fit this in around the garage they are now building. Oh, and 10% on everything going forward (only concrete really) - but they want this backdated to cover the stuff I bought before too (1.5k approx). We have no option really. We need it done. We can't wait for another Nudura specialist to become available (yes, it's a one day course I know, but that doesn't mean you can actually build a house after watching a few PowerPoint presentations). This level of unprofessionalism I find staggering, but I guess not paricularly unheard of. I will not be leaving a good review on Tripadvisor.

If running off the neighbours supply, beware that this will need to be a significant size cable ( 6mm2 minimum ) fed off a 32a supply, so not just a case of running a B&Q extension lead as it just will not have the capacity to deal with laundry after voltage drop. The circuit would need to be able to cope with what is onm it already, plus whatever you draw. If they have an external meter and there are Henley blocks there, and you get on with them like bests-of-mates-ever, then chopping in a temporary 2 way CU and a landlord meter, then running 2 cables between to share the loads, would realistically be your only robust option there I'm afraid. Plus, if you plug into the neighbours with a 13a plug from an extension lead you'll deffo need to put a 10a fuse in it to be sure you do not set fire to the neighbours house!! Just hire a silent genny, if it's only for a couple of months, and be self sufficient ( also without the risk of pissing the neighbours off ) Requests for...."can you reset your trip-switch AGAIN please......" ever other day never goes down well.

Little update… The planning consultant never got back to me so I muddled on, taking on board all your advice and suggestions I resubmitted the application using the existing gateway but reserved all matters to overcome the objections to the appearance and omitted the fencing. Permission has been granted ? but the planning officer has imposed a condition removing various permitted development rights, including Part 2 class A - fencing and gates ? Does this condition only apply to the red line area of my application and not to the rest of the land? In which case I could still fence the track because the fence would be beyond the 3.7m wide red line area allocated to the track I am considering appealing the earlier decision regarding the siting

Good job planners didn’t exist when gentry built their country estate houses a few hundred years ago!,! Actually one of our (sensible) councillors pointed out we need diversity in building when the planners wanted me to build a small bungalow .