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A friend of mines dad was a bathroom fitter, years ago he had a non payer. I don't know how, but he managed to find out they were going on holiday (might have been months / the year after, I can't remember). He took a book and a packed lunch and parked across their drive so they couldn't get out / would miss the flight. They then paid in cash.

Our tiler tells the exact same story, Gary. Job value about £20k. Lake District What did you do about it? I asked. The answer surprised me. Went round while she was there - with a lump hammer. Asked her for payment. She refused. At each refusal, he smashed one tile. Four tiles later, she paid, in cash - real money which she'd taken from a drawer. Did he repair the smashed tiles, I asked. Naaaah.....

Honestly if you have specific items you really want to keep running like this, it's probably much cheaper and more reliable to get a dedicated appropriately sized UPS for it. The MAJOR issue with using a house battery for both solar PV self-consumption and critical system support during a grid outage is it is a compromise between these 2 use cases, and it will do a half-baked job of both. This is because to get high efficiency in solar self-use, you need to empty (or very nearly empty) the battery every day to create maximum capacity to fill up when the sun shines. However if the grid outage happens on an overcast day before it's had time to charge, you'll be heading into the outage with an empty battery and no way to fill it until +24 hours. You can leave X % permanently in reserve, but you really need to size X for the total base load of the house, not just the critical items. This is fine if you're SteamyTea with a near-zero base load, but anyone else that has humans living in the house, this probably means setting aside a significant portion of the house battery for "just incase" multi-day outage scenario. For £450 you can get a 1.2kWh UPS that would keep a typical MVHR running for 2+ days, come rain or sun. Personally, I'd just plan to open a window.

Imho. If there's trickles in one area then leaks. If the whole surface of roofing felt is damp condensation. Espically during warm days and cool nights....

Having had the power off for 3 days over xmas in the 90s we've not been without a generator since. If youre on overhead line grid supply I think youd be nuts not to have a small back up generator. Predictions are storm intensity is likely to get worse and youve only got to look at what happened in the north of england/scotland a few weeks ago to realise that it takes time to repair storm damage leaving some people without power for weeks. With most storms happening in the winter when the suns not shinning theres a fair chance batteries may not be fully charged and very unlikely to keep the lights on for more than a day or two if the power goes off. £200 for a small genny seems a no brainer to me if youre on a vulnerable supply.

I can’t see anything wrong in the photo, but It might be that she is not happy with a couple of minor details that could be “fixed” or, more accurately, changed. Before getting all legal with her. So I would ask what her dissatisfaction is based on specifically.

Small claims court - There's nothing wrong with the job you undertook in good faith. It's the ongoing question for small businesses tho' - Deposit, materials up front and staged payments or not?

Hello, I've just registered and wanted to introduce myself. Looking to move to Hertfordshire area, Cheshunt/Broxbourne/Ware/Hoddesdon. Gutted that I lost at an opportunity last week. Found a plot of land consisting of 740 m2 with an already built detached bungalow however it was sold to the neighbour so the agent had to take it off the market. I'm green in this sense so any help to guide and suggestions of how I can find my plot of land are most welcome.

Way more likely to be condensation this time of the year

Most likely due to lack of airflow, not 'ingress'. Mould starts when the walls stay damp because the air stagnates. My mate rang me about his HMO and was about to pay some "damp specialists" to resolve. I told him to fit an open trickle vent and ask the room tenant if they dry their clothes in the room. He bought a communal tumble drier and fitted the vent. Problem solved. I also told him to get furniture a little way off the walls, as a full height wardrobe up tight to the wall is a damp ( humidity and stagnated air ) trap so mould will thrive there.

Are both hot and cold mains pressure or from a tank? Is it possible the hot water is flowing "across" the mixer back up the cold and filling a tank in the loft? Unlikely unless hot is mains pressure from a combi and cold is from a tank. Bit surprised you had to break tiles to get it out. With a lot of mixers the cartridge is replacable by just removing the face plate.

exactly what I have with changeover switch inside.

Hi everyone. Now making good progress with the garage build. The project is way ahead of schedule. I am now in the process of constructing the roof using 18 mm OSB boards. The major problem I had was the concrete foundations were not flat, there was a slight rise by 1 degree approx near the proposed garage entrance. To solve this problem I modified the concrete blocks using an angle grinder and the wooden stud frame using a basic hand saw.

That's a stopcock / boundary box / Toby Choose which is the usual term for your area

Norway has privatised Statoil, the state oil company. They have done a fantastic job of investing taxes and other levies raised from oil production. That is a different topic to the business of running energy companies. They are a small country with a lot of oil and gas, hence more money than they need to spend. Whether or not the UK could have done this in the past is a moot point now. As to Vattenfall, TBF I doubt it makes much difference whether electricity generators are state owned or privately owned as it is a very highly regulated industry with modest profit margins and returns. Hence my point that SSE was unfairly maligned, it is the oil and gas companies whose profits are soaring, not electricity generators. The history of government owned oil and gas E&P companies is generally very poor.

They are actually a very good quality tile There’s a weeks work there for three of us She has asked me why I’ve put triangles in the sunken tray Said they look odd Tge builders contracts manager has been down and said he will pay me to take them up and replace with different tiles if need be The house is 950k and she’s up-to 1.3 so far There’s nothing wrong with the tiling I think the tiles are a bit plain for such large bathrooms We will have to replace the Impey waterproofing and probably the boards

By designing in more features like that if you can.

@SimonD Thanks for your reply. I'll reply soon.

A good plan. Gives the client an excuse for backing down, and a chance to meet and discuss what happens next, that you have taken advice, the certainty of your success at court and the costs the client will incur. It is very good that you have photos. Now is a good time to type up the job process....dates working on each room, when the client was there and saw the work, and any comments . Also re choosing the tiles....were there samples? I say this because you will forget details soon, and a written report now can simply be handed over to the judge and will likely be accepted as accurate. email your notes to a mate, or even yourself, as that kind of date stamps it. Do not exaggerate or elaborate as this will probably be obvious. I knew a famously bad payer once and an unpaid contractor friend asked how best to get paid. I advised a knock on the door and a polite reminder that the payment was overdue, while his 'driver' stood at the gate looking big. Cash immediately...there seems to be a pattern of this. I also saw the same person getting a builders merchant delivery....and I knew the MD so phoned him.....'don't worry , we (all the merchants) all know him and he has to pay everyone in advance and doesn't get discounts.'

Usually for warm air heating which needs a lot of air. I also ran all water pipework in plastic (I am a late convert from copper), dead easy to feed through without loads of sharp bends and joins.

That is why initial design is so important. Heating, plumbing, MVHR and wiring are often considered second, and you can tell because the design and positioning is often compromised.

This is partly covered in the regs - An accessible shower room should be of a size that will accommodate either a level-access floor shower with a drained area of not less than 1.0m x 1.0m (or equivalent) or a 900mm x 900mm shower tray (or equivalent). The drained area of a level-access floor shower may overlap with activity or manoeuvring spaces where access to other sanitary facilities is not across the drained area. So the drained area of the shower can be in the activity space. I think I would read this as the activity space could be in the shower as there is room for this plus a 900x900 tray. However, another part of the regs supersedes this - except where reduced by projection of a wash hand basin, unobstructed access at least 800mm wide to each sanitary facility, So you could have what you show, but only if the entrance to the shower has to be at least 800mm wide. I don't think you can have an accessible shower with a 627mm wide entrance. It is also worth noting, in case this is the plan, that an accessible shower cannot be an en suite.

I discounted using larger pipe due to its inflexibility and not being able to feed the pipe through holes between joists 🤔

Why we should use large diameter pipe for MVHR, double the diameter and you quadruple the area.

20mm holes no probs. But 110mm and 100mm for mvhr are a bit trickier if you have 5-6 pipes together.

Hello @learner. Forget it, until you get a sh1tty letter. Then do as @Temp suggests and do your very best to avoid setting a date for the agreed action. Then forget it again. Until you get another sh1tty letter. Then do your very best to .... That is what is happening right next door to me and 6 years later nothing - not a thing - has happened. Enforcement sounds nasty, but , locally at least, it's toothless BTW, we aren't experts. Just hard-bitten

Best thing I did getting out of contracting, still miss the fun bits but really don’t miss the payment problems. Unfortunately it wasn’t practical to go back and take buildings and bridges back down. hope you get your money

We will be living the dream !

Tubbs is a lady.

Sod how large the roof is, or how wet. It is less than a kWh. My car does 1.5 miles to the kWh. Be easier to park closer to 100 metres away from the house i.e. in the road I live in rather than the parking around the back.

The problem with opening windows (if the house is ~airtight you will need to open at least 2) is that that heat will escape. UPS is the best and cheapest solution and could power MVHR and broadband.

Thats 3kWh more than i've used since back end of february

Just rainwater running off the edge of the parapet coping , I always tilt them towards the roof to avoid this problem. Or better remove the whole parapet, they let in damp, wet and cold.

and with climate change who's to say these occurrences won't become more frequent. I see no issues with doomsday planning, I do have a basement/bunker after all. when the s**t hits the fan only @pocster and I will be left in our dungeons living out the rest of our days off our battery solutions. 😂

@PeterW off the top off my head, no idea of the power draw but it’s low. As for the “why” the house air quality became pretty unpleasant during the last prolonged outage requiring windows to be opened making the ‘passive house’ just a ‘house’ which started getting cold and we have very limited options to halt that cooling.

My main aim is to keep the MVHR running in the next outage.

I think the Powerwall 2 is the only unit which seamlessly handles power outages for the whole house, others just have a seperate port where you can wire a socket up

@Thorfun I’m with you on this one. For exactly the same reason, with the same requirements and the same lack of interest in any ‘pay back’ time. Reading with interest.

Lift it and put a few cuts in the back of it and squirt a bit of foam into each cut then re-lay it with a couple of blocks on top to hold it down if you really want it flat but your screed will push it down tbh with the weight of that. Don’t forget the slip membrane under the egg crates.

And certainly your choice, sir, just a cost consideration to apply in some instances when you leave the Chinese market behind.. I had a lot of input with the utilisation of the software / hardware, via one distributor, and the upshot of it was the suppliers recognition ( after denial ) these units can be linked together with a master-slave arrangement with a Cat5 cable. The idea being that, in a power-out, the lead unit would step in to provide the 50hz 'metronome' to keep the second unit in play ( eg when it was missing the grid frequency which it / they used for harmonising when in normal conditions ). Cheap enough system too for what it gives, eg much higher throughput in parallel ( 6kW reliable with 2x units ). Maybe an 'energise to break' contactor for one CU with the non-emergency / heavy loads on it would facilitate a clean handover and subtract the induction hob / micro / EV charger / electric shower etc. Easy enough to design if you want the best outcome, but it is a little "doomsday preppy" when reviewed under the microscope....

Thanks and will be doing this tomorrow. Will post back here what happens once I've gotten to the bottom of this if anyone cares to follow!

It's interesting how you've read that as I didn't find myself getting hung up about the rough numbers. The basis of his calculations are actually rather more clear in that they're based on representative figures published by one of the large energy companies themselves and he does, on several occasions, make note of that they're simplistic, roughly representative figures For me the more important, and accurate points, are to do with political economy rather than an argument about the specifics of the accounting. E.g.: I think he makes a pretty strong point and actually pretty robust argument re what's really going on that many people aren't even the slightest bit aware of. E.g why has my proper , not traded, green tariff electricity price risen by just over 50% when it has nothing to do with gas prices, unless my tariff is being used to subsidise the gas or something else. That's where the real accounting and political failure lies, not with the back of a fag packet calculation of fixed and variable costs of energy providers. But the only way we're going to find out who's got their figures right is wait for end of year profit statements from the oil and gas companies. I know where my bets are.

Here we go, with thanks to @Trw144 https://www.wolseley.co.uk/product/vaillant-arotherm-plus-air-source-heat-pump-35kw/

Yes any of the turbo type blades are best Finer equals neater cuts

The regulations state the size minimum for the shower, use that dimension and add to drawing. Activity space then adjoins the defined shower space.

But they are all estimated, the estimate will change hugely, based on building shape, size, build type, external and internal finish, flat roof, pitch roof, insulation levels, ventilation/ airtightness, heating type (gas, ASHP,gshp, UFH radiators) etc etc. Two different kitchen designs can change a build budget by £50k, the amount windows can change it again by £20 to 30k with ease, uPVC or Ali clad can change it again by the same amount. My thoughts are for a basic start point. £2k to £2.5k per M2 with someone else doing all the work will be a basic ok performance house, so 400k for 200m2 two storey. Add a good 10 to 15% on for single storey but depends on roof complexity (our roof added about 25% to m2 cost). The more bells and whistles and any changes you make along the way will add quite quickly. The above assumes limited or no landscaping, painted internally a single colour.

We all like photos, I took this photo yesterday doing a site survey. These are 2 11kV 400A breakers which protect two transformers. Note the 11kV cable coming in on the right, dropping out the back at low level and going into the trench are the 2 outgoing 11kV cables going to 2 transformers. This is actually client owned as the point of connection from SPEN is 11kV - behind this wall is a 11kV ring main tap using a MEM ringmaster unit - basically a 11kV cable in from the grid, and back out, then a single cable into these two boys. You will note on the right hand breaker the load is shown as about 4.5 (x10 multiplier) - that is 45A at 11kV! Pretty serious! This is what protects a 5 industrial units and 15 little modular offices.

I don’t like the external right side bearing for the main steel as that is the primary point of load and it is on standard bricks only. There is no visible padstone and it is taking the load from the full beam plus the cross beam (that needs a pair of welded legs adding over that cut out ..!!)

I think many suppliers are jumping on the bandwagon If fuel was to drop tomorrow They wouldn’t drop there prices Through lockdown oil prices plummeted I can’t remember haulage companies pass that on to the end user Once the recession kicks in They will all find a way to discount prices

Its one of my regrets,not stick building on site. Taking a bundle of timber and ending up with a house is special. I had a look at some wall buildups last night, in terms of cost only for a project in the back of my mind. The most economical way to build for my target u value of 0.15 was externally osb sheathed 200*44s, AT membrane, a 44mm service cavity. pumped cellulose and rockwool respectivly, 15mm plasterboard, soundboard if you're feeling generous. I like the idea of a continuous insulation layer outside then studs. Great for thermal bridging. The issue with external foam is the ludicrous price of the PIR, and the amount required to bring the dewpoint outside the sheathing. (probably a non issue with good airtight treatment taping of the OSB to be fair) Also pir shrinks, underperforms in cold weather and burns in a nasty manor. In fact if it wasn't for the headline K value (remember laboratory conditions only) and the sometimes unbelievable marketing I don't think anyone would bother. Don't forget the cost of screws too. At 30-40p each long screws can add up quicky. If I was building again I'd use the method I described here. Better still it can all be put together with a nail gun.