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On our previous build I built the foundations for the garages and due to an unforeseen delay with the Brickies I built the house foundations as well Having turned 60 recently I vowed I wouldn’t get involved with building the foundations Other than loading them up for the Brickies I set the pins Then heights Brickies arrived Friday and started complaining about the 625 foundation blocks to heavy Then the 300 wide foundation blocks for a 125 cavity I couldn’t get 350 wide anywhere So have to put a 100 mil solid behind each corse Then they asked for loading money It’s now 830 am and nothing is done At that point I said pack your s##t and go With the help of my wife I’ve laid 360 trench blocks in two days They are far to heavy for my wife to lift 7 to a m2 50m2 x £25 cash There's enough there for them I’ve done two 12 hour days and still some trench to go and 360 concrete block before the BB arrives next week My friend who The Brickies work for has limited control over them and the 50 odd others that work for him due to the shortage of labour But has promised me a better gang in two weeks More of a sound off than a constructive post I think the message in there is if your builder is falling behind Be patient with him As his excuses may be real

As Dave said mix up soapy water in a washing up bottle. squirt it onto valves and pipe joins, if it’s leaking it will be fairly obvious.

I remember using these in the early 80s Paramount partitions Baton top and bottom slid on then a length of 2x2 pushed into the edge to start the next one off Giving you a fixing every 1200

We have 2015 FIT, the generation goes via a meter into the consumer unit. We added a battery, have no idea of the MCS status of the installer, it has its own inverter and goes to a separate breaker, interfering in no way with the PV generation/metering. I am not concerned in even the tiniest bit that the battery may affect our FIT.

We are getting there

Superlec blow my local factors out of the water.

That was my thinking - I have a meaty Airflow MVHR system and 2.6m floor to ceiling heights - 2 extracts on the MVHR in the kitchen area and recirculating hood. 2 months in and I haven't even used it since moving in. Same with the tumble dryer - another thing yet to be used. The MVHR is like being inside a tumble dryer without the dizziness! The only downside is the accelerated drying time on the timber and associated shrinkage having moved in mid Feb. Oh well - kept a stock of caulk in anticipation.

Glad to hear it. What does that mean (as simple as you like) Diesels are lean burn engines. The power output is varied by making the mixture of air and fuel either fuel heavy (more power) or fuel light (less power). Petrol engines have the same air/fuel ratio across the whole power band (stoichiometric). You may have noticed that when some diesels pull away, or accelerate heavily, they smoke. This is unburnt (wasted) fuel. No extra power is produced at the smoke limit. There is a fine balance, for all combustion, on the air/fuel ratio to get maximum power at any given moment. This has got more complicated with the introduction of turbo charging. This has the same effect of putting in a larger normally aspetated engine i.e. you get more fuel to burn in more air. Turboing has the advantage that it is also scavenging energy that is usually wasted from the exhaust, and you can have a better bore and stroke ratio i.e. reducing the total surface area to reduce heat losses. The compression ratio has two functions. The higher it is, the more air is heated up, this aids combustion in a diesel. But go too far and you get pre ignition. This is when the compressed air is hot enough to ignite the fuel, before the piston has reached the top (TDC). Fuel in both types of engines is actually present before TDC, this is to allow for a few milliseconds that it takes for combustion to start. To get around this pre ignition problem, fuels have ignition retardants added, octane and cetane are the rating numbers for gasoline and diesel respectively. Low numbers burn faster. This is why old American cars had large engines, their fuel was at a lower octane rating (this does not mean lower energy density or quality), so lower compression and lower power. But also lower emissions of CO2 and NOX. It is the higher compression ratio of diesels that has caused the NOX problem that VW cheated on. By reducing turbo boost, and running the engine cooler while being tested, less NOX is produced, there is less power, but they does not show up during a static tests. Ideally an engines power is measured as Specific Brake Power. All this means is how much power comes out for the amount of fuel put in. It leads to some interesting numbers for large engines, which are generally more thermally efficient at part load. Tried now and it is getting dark, time to head home from the very end, almost, of the country.

I did once had a cylinder where the cylinder was leaking at the point the handle was welded on. I pointed it out to the Calor dealer who seemed completely disinterested.

To be absolutely sure, turn off the valve on the top of each cylinder, it could be the hoses or their connection leaking so just turning off the outside isolating valve won't stop the leak. If you want to have a look for the leak yourself mix up some soapy water (washing up liquid) and squirt that over all the joints and the regulator etc and you will see it blowing bubbles where it is leaking. Agreed you need a competent LPG gas safe man not the previous incompetent one who obviously never did a drop test on it.

I’m guessing this is just an agent type website who will take your order then try to get someone to fulfill it. I would definitely be wary.

Can you go onto the gas safe website and find someone with the LPG qualifications locally and get it done, fully agree about not using the original installer.

Not sure there is a quite kitchen extractor, in recirculation or outside venting. Something that shifts between 250 and 800m3/h of air will not be quite when you are stiff besides it. You should never need a speed above the first setting, I would only use it if you are frying. Steam will go in and basically come right back out and be taken away by the MVHR. Being negative, I doubt you will have much success with attenuators.

A very good question. An ICE is a spark ignition engine. Fuel/air goes in, gets compressed, and at the right time, ignited by the spark. Now the fun starts. The temperature rises extremely fast, closely followed by the pressure, THEN the piston starts to move. There is a slight bit of combustion happening as the piston moves down the bore (flame front and all that, why Wankles are hopeless on fuel economy), but basically the temperature and pressure rises at the very start of the stroke, then rapidly decreases. Diesels on the other hand, limit the initial amount of fuel that is injected, this is ignited purely by the temperature of the compressed air. As the piston moved down the stroke, more fuel is injected, keeping the flame front alive, this keeps the temperature and pressure high for a greater amount of time. It also means that when the crank is 30° either side of 90° from TDC, on the ignition cycle, combustion is still happening, this is the crank position that allows most dynamic torque to be produced. Diesels are often referred to as 3 stage combustion. There are also differences in air delivery pressure and temperature, bore/stroke ratio, gearing etc. Gasoline engine Diesel Engine

No

Nope, all good. For under the tray or for the remainder of the bathroom flooring? If the latter, green P5, for the former as per @Temp’s reply.

Thanks. That's all very well but to do that hack I would be trying to find and work on a resolderable version of the even smaller C type plug. I think that's the final nail in the coffin of this project. It just shows the STUPIDITY of making devices with just one USB connector used for data and charging. In the good old days, power cables were a separate connector to data cables. This is what we call "progress"

AIUI it depends on the FiT. Most had "deemed export" of 50% of generation, and didn't have an export meter installed. On these so long as the battery is outside of the generation meter there's no way for FiT to be impacted. But those with metered export could easily be impacted. I'd imagine the catch all advice is ask the FiT provider to confirm.

Welcome.

hello @Carpy. Welcome Wot him above ⬆️ said ... +1

Look at a set of spanners, they're all different lengths. I believe this comes from years back. The idea being the average man, putting the average force "F" on that particular spanner, puts the correct 'ish torque on that particular sized nut. Length of spanner "D" being the variable. As said above Torque = Force X Distance.

You might need to rebuild that wall. the only stuff i know with honeycomb cardboard comes as a "complete" wall with the cardboard structure down the middle and plasterboard on both sides. the "stud" is used to join 2 sheets together. It sounds like someone has ripped the plasterboard off one side exposing the honeycomb core. I don't know a way to re attach it. I would probably cut vertical strips out of the honeycombe at 400mm centres to insert a new studwork frame.

Top guy. It's done me a lot of good to read that Gary. THANKS.

And this is why I do everything myself, I just cannot put up with the moaning and winging.

That’s bloody hard work Nod! It’s kind of reassuring to know that others, even professional trades have the same issue us amateurs suffer! Unfortunately (or fortunately?!) I can’t do it all myself so just have to wait until the trades are ready, and accept their way or no way 🤯

Stiebel Eltron are the Bentley of the HP world, and are Uber-fussy with the installation criteria, ask me how I know!! Not a bad thing, but they are very focussed on correct and immaculate execution wrt to the implementation of their products. A simple and acceptable ‘adaptation’ would meet their criteria; eg the employment of a much larger UVC for one, plus some manipulation of the flow temps of the HRC vs the stored temps of DHW ( and flow temps to it ). The HRC can then be made “invisible” to the HP so as to not upset SE. All in a days work lol. Not exactly If the HRC has no demand and managed losses then there would be no heat energy lost, ergo nothing to then keep triggering as demand aka call for heat, at least no more than acceptable latent losses attributed to the system and its components. A HP is there to provide heat energy, end of. It must do its job, simples. How the install is designed and executed will dictate the efficiencies of the system as a whole. I think it is very narrow-minded of SE to state the above, but that’s if it is designed for a domestic installation. If it is not, and you apply it to an adverse scenario, then expect the fleas to come with the dog.

So that service is roughly double the market leading provider for cost …

Tell us what you think it will cost and we can tell you how far out you are. If you get a shell up and then employ various trades, I’m saying your place will not come in under £450,000.

If you don't want problems with condensation, then I would say yes. But your nogs seem to be the full depth of the joists so when you panel over for the ceiling there's a whole lot of closed-off spaces. Think of what happens to the water vapor in the warm inside air when it gets up to the cold underside of the ply. A vapor barrier may help but they're hard to make perfect when you bore through for LEDs and cabling. Cold roofs generally require a howling draft throughout to be foolproof.

Build a cylinder stool? like old airing cupboards?

Ours hob extracts to the outside and is pretty powerful. If it over powers our MVHR it hasn't complained 🙂 It clearly bypasses the heat exchanger in the MVHR so must reduce efficiency but its probably only used a few hours a week so the effect would be small.

I would ‘mole’ under the road if it’s public and only single track (single track causes a lot of hassle to get a permit to dig/close). you dig the two holes either side of road and all the trenches and save yourself a fortune.

Is that because the neighbours septic tank runs into it🙈

spot all the English that can't tell someone's religion from whether they say "aitch" or "haitch"

It is because successive governments have devolved powers to LAs. This gives the impression that the government is doing the right thing, but being let down by the LAs. All a load of political bollocks and should stop. The motoring journalist and TV personality James May once said 'if I came to power there would be one law: Don't be an arse'.