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Yes the weather was dreadful.

A few random thoughts. I'll start with what may be going through you SE's mind and their thought process. The 100 x 100 lintels tend more often to be what we call non composite lintels. In other words they act like steel beams say that "stand alone" and don't rely on having masonry above that interacts with the lintel / beam to create an arching / deeper beam effect. The 65mm deep lintels work in a different way, often compositely and they need to interact with the masonry above. In other words they are two different animals... but look very much the same. Now if you don't have say 4 -5 courses of brick above the lintel then you often need a non composite lintel. Also, on alteration work no matter how well you repoint the gap over the lintel you'll never get the same "bedding effect" that you get when you are laying the wall for the first time. You new mortar will shrink away so the brick above won't interact with the lintel to develop the composite action. In other words you can rule out a composite lintel on most alteration work. The difference in load bearing capacity is a lot so don't get caught out. You SE has probably also thought about how you prop the wall when you are doing the work and how much space you have to do this. They have probably also thought about what is above.. are there point loads from floor joists, maybe other stuff above, a door over lapping the opening, all sorts of permutations.. and that again rules out a composite lintel.. hence the 100 x 100 that is a non composite lintel. The 100 depth is say enough to carry the final loads but shallow enough for you to prop it? Before you go ahead mull this over. Be very careful about putting in any lintel orientated in a different direction from the manufacture's intention.. trouble ahead! Your weird 20mm cavity! What you probably have there is what we call a collar jointed wall. The two leaves are tied together with brick ties at much closer spacing than you have in a normal cavity wall and the gap between the leaves is filled with mortar... the gap is usually 10 - 20mm to allow for variations in the brick widths.. hence the 20mm you are observing. This allows you to design the wall using it's full thickness so you get more bang for your buck. In summary it looks like your SE has put a bit of thought into this. I would lift the phone to your SE before you start deviating from the design.

Or drill holes in steel and screw upwards with ordinary wood screws

Working at ours today. Our ground is remarkable, and something I had never come across before. About 12m thick pure, single sized, sand, plus some bands of cobbles, as laid down by glaciers. It is strong and dense as can be see by this picture of the ground, with deepenings for columns, hand dug with vertical faces. 300kN/m2 by our tests. Ask for details if interested.

Why are going for an enthalpy mvhr in the UK? There is really no point, we don't have the sustained cold temperatures, which lead to internal air drying out - which is what the designed to combat.

Tip.. If you want to build a house buy a plot from a pig farmer or one that's currently Allotments.

,No, but at least it's being considered. We were of the understanding that they aren't considering anything at present. Our current requirement is the discharge of our Surface Water Plan condition and our plan for that involves a fair bit of rainwater harvesting, so perhaps we're as neutral in that respect.

Fire resistance to the underside of a staircase in a standard domestic dwelling is not required. Only where you have the underside of the stairs as part of the compartment between two dwellings does it need to be fire protected. Limited combustibility/non-combustible staircases apply to commercial works - not domestic.

And do what ..?? Are you an expert ..?? What if the bottom 2 courses of an 8 course block wall aren’t to your liking ..? Are you wanting the whole lot taken down and redone and at who's cost ..?? Build a relationship and trust. Talk to them, explain they are building your dream and not just throwing up just another box. Buy the bacon cobs on a Friday morning, make a brew occasionally… pick up a brush and do some tidying … but above all, treat them like decent humans who are earning a living doing something you either can’t or don’t want to do … Finally … don’t assume they are all the same please, it will get you nowhere… trades talk, and if the builder thinks you’re an arsehole, then the local trades will all soon know too …

Yup. Doesn’t take much effort to find that info tbh. It’s in every manual.

All builders will have multiple jobs on the go unless you have pockets deep enough to buy them out of any other obligations. It's their way of spreading the risk. Also, good luck getting trades to document work to your satisfaction. Are you going to throw them off the job if they don't? Buying some long lead items in advance is a good strategy but you need secure dry storage or it will get nicked or more likely damaged (weather, machines etc). This is one advantage of TF in that you can order windows as soon as your CAD plans are locked as the apertures will be factory made and should not change. My advice is either to live on site or as close to it as possible and be there every day to passively observe and be on hand for clarifications etc. It's a fine line, you wan't to avoid micro management and let them get on with the job but not give them enough space to go awry. I found a routine of asking what the plan was for the day (or for the week on a Monday), making sure they had what they needed, popping in a few times to look around and catching them before they left was an effective strategy. Have a tidy up on your own and see what's been done and if you're happy with it. Then feedback next morning and rinse repeat. You also want to be seen as approachable for 'bad news', taking a pragmatic view and being solution vs blame orientated. Otherwise they just won't tell you and things will get covered up. If you are out of sight, you will be out of mind.

The My Energy Eddi was reformatted to work specifically with a SA. The 4 core cable allows L,N &E to be connected from a fused spur eg so it electronica is always ‘alive’. The additional live is for connection to a 20a DP switch which is fed from the Eddi. When there is sufficient depletion of the SA, its internal relay will click shut to allow power in from core #4. The Eddi is then the gate which opens and closes to allow input of those sporadic pickets of solar excess when they are detected by the CT clamp. There is nothing to upgrade, other than your knowledge. Consider yourself now upgraded.

Raise the wall plate level up but keep the ridge the same... Gives you more head height under the eaves. It reduces your roof angle though so can't take it too far. We did that and have a pitched door upstairs... So 3m ceilings in all rooms, rising up from the 1.2m wall plate. It's way better than it sounds.

Saw them before, they look incredibly cheap and weak. Can't see those cutting through a brick-back-filled sub layer if thats what's down there!

Normally the underside of stairs are boarded (30 minutes protection But plenty are left open I would ask BC what the point of having escape windows if the stairs are going to be fire rated

Nod is right BUT. I have had a very extensive argument with BCO on this. He was adamant that the regs said that the stairs must be non-combustible. The fact that we had completely boarded with 2 layers of plasterboard was of no interest to him. 'Wood is combustible.' Eventually we prevailed. I think you still have to board to protect the timber in a 'cupboard under the stairs'. The risk being that a fire might start in a vacuum cleaner/plug etc, and go undetected until it burst through. Sounds sensible to me.

Drill unless you have reason to believe there's something special there. One metre drill bit: https://www.screwfix.com/c/tools/drill-bits/cat12140001?productlength=1000_mm&ptashanktype=sds_plus_shank That's how dad usedto plant daffodils in pembrokeshire clay / sandstone...

With 20% off this was £34. Got it on recommendation of a few who have it. Comes with 4 spare spatter shields which are available separately. (They're not green, that's protective film that peels off).

My architect is planning on using the gambit that a rebuild will be more environmentally friendly and efficient and of course that a house will be there anyway so a 'better' one will be preferable. We have had a direct neighbour, 2 fields away, who got class Q, then managed to get it changed to rebuild in a different footprint, his argument is that it will be a holiday let not a new house in the countryside. This is a 5 bedroom 320 sqm house which everyone is pretty sure will end up residential. But, that aside that build can be seen from my build so the architect says that precedent has been set. I know about the 3 year rule, and if necessary we know someone who will take it on and do the whole thing, but not as we would like it so we don't really want to do that unless really necessary. We would also need to sell our house to pay for it, which we were also hoping not to have to do at this stage. I will talk to my architect and send you a PM if he thinks that will help. Which LPA are you, I know ours is pretty strict.

I think anyone doing a knock down and rebuild should perhaps propose the knock down as mitigation on the grounds the overall project will be neutral. Apply for the condition to be discharged and appeal if it isn't. If they refuse to process it Appeal for non determination. If you don't get a response to the application to discharge there is a "deemed consent" procedure. Will be important to follow the timescales allowed. Others with conditions.. There are a lot of rules the planners must follow when imposing conditions. Some make conditions unenforceable, such as those that cannot be met or require you to use third party land. If the problem can only be solved by the water companies I suspect you could argue that what the planners want you to do is unenforceable. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/use-of-planning-conditions Perhaps a group of you could get together and hire a planning consultant to try and find a common procedural way around it.

Yup, 12-15 even 18 months is about correct. The info is out there alright.... I've even posted links to it on here showing the sleep function. They do both AC and DC versions, just to confuse you even more lol. The DC is my favourite, as it allows you to load it up to the hilt without incurring the wrath of the DNO, eg allowing you to go to max allowance on PV kWp. For completeness, I am personally going with Iconica Hybrid inverters with AGM batteries, as any "brand name" battery is overpriced / unrealistic economically in terms of RoI vs useful lifespan ( IMHO ).

Nice. In terms of invert/battery recs: - I have solaredge (HD-Wave with micro-optimisers) and I'm so happy with it, I've got their new Energy Bank on back order. Will report back on how that goes when it turns up. However I know some people on here are vehemently against both SolarEdge and micro-optimisers, so to avoid making this a battle: the above is in no way a recommendation, just a statement of fact about my personal N=1 experience. - @Nickfromwales is a strong supporter of the Solarwatt battery & BMS. That seems to work with Fronius inverters? I honestly can't find any useful tech info on www.solarwatt.com though - like it doesn't even state if it is AC or DC coupled. Presumably you need to be in the trade to get their install manuals / application notes, which doesn't bode well for a DIY install 😕 Installing the battery now saves on VAT so makes sense. But whatever you do, expect supply chain delays.

Scrap the mist coat, buy Super Leytex and do your base coat with that.

£10k is bloody heavy tbh. 4kWp fully fitted system from my solar guy ( SolarWatt German manufactured ) would be £8.5-9k absolute max if it were a pig of a job. That’s for glass/glass ( Vision 365 ) panels guaranteed for 30 years. Drop £1k to go to the foil backed classic panels with 20 years guarantee. For Chinese names the price should be lower.

The couple did well, they put a lot of effort into it rather than paying lots of people and they did a quality job in my opinion. Like it.

In a rough area by all accounts, literally in the shadow of a tower block. Right at the start the local low life set fire to their static caravan and so far nobody else has started on the other 5 plots in the self build development.

Given that we run an electronics workshop and music studio from home and therefore have a base load of well over 1kW during the day, it's long been an ambition to get a PV array on the workshop roof. Unfortunately just as I was pulling the trigger world events intervened sending half the country (or so it seems) flocking to the doors of PV installers. I'm having trouble just getting them to pick up a phone. When I do get a answered, I'm not hearing things I'm happy to settle with. In the topic I started about AC cable length it was suggested that I find myself a roofer and get them to fit modules (a task I'm physically unable to do myself). But what are the regulatory hurdles that need to be overcome to do this anyway? Anyone should be able to buy the components - modules, inverter, racking, isolators and cable and do a mechanical install. A Part P electrician can install a new circuit and connect up the system. If the system is under 3.68kW it does not need a generation licence. The G98 application form is available on the energy network association website which also has connection guidance for G98 The form however asks for Installer Accreditation / Qualification which sounds like the first hurdle. This presumably means MCS accreditation. The MCS website hosts a Guide to the Installation of Photovoltaic Systems which is not very informative in this regard. Another aspect seems to be the structural implications and possibly the involvement of building control. There are companies who will do a Desk Top Structural Roof Appraisal for around £100 if you fill in a survey form. This should keep BC happy and go some way to legitimising the installation but if the objective is simply to use all the generation you can and not expect payment for what you export, but is this enough?

https://ecoenergyenvironment.com/about-us/ They've installed on a number of BH members builds. Typically installing German equipment ( Solarwatt ) but also do LG if you want silver instead of gold . Mention the forum if you make contact.

A dollop of seagull s**t, a bit of saharan dust, or passing clouds all constitute shading. Optimisers/micro inverters also allow individual panel monitoring/fault finding, the use of mismatched panel outputs and with Solaredge give a safe DC shutdown if the inverter is powered down. Quite a bit of extra outlay but well worth it, in my view👍

https://solartogether.co.uk/landing

If you can convince yourself that you will self-consume at least the lions share of what you generate, then do as @ProDave @canalsiderenovation and others have done and DIY for as cheap as you possibly can. Any decent electrician should be able to do this from start to finish. Installing the trays / mountings etc couldn't be easier, but a roofer cannot run DC cabling and make off MC4's so I would not pursue that advice tbh.

I have mentioned this before about performance warrantees. The way it works is as follows. Say a manufacturer makes a batch of modules, nominally 300 W ones, when they are flash tested, ones with a higher performance i.e. 310 W, and ones with lower performance i.e. 290 W are labelled up to the next lowest performance range i.e. 300 W and 275 W respectively. So say you were lucky and got a batch of top performing 300 W ones, so 310 W in reality. It is easy to see how a performance warrantee of say 90% performance after 20 years is offered as it is not taking into account the over production in the first decade, and you are working on 0.5% loss per year of the nominal performance, not the actual performance. Trouble is, the customer will notice a quite large decline in overall capacity over that time. The other problem is that in the last two decades, the performance has generally improved from 250 W to 330 W for the same form factor. So by over paying for a warrantee now, will just take cash away from retooling in the future. Generally, do what the big solar farm developers do, buy the cheapest per peak watt.

Solar watt will be my choice this year. 25 year performance guarantee @ minimum 80% for the classic panels and 30 years @ minimum 87% for the glass / glass “vision” panels. Warranty provided with backing from BMW.

Thank Dave I needed cheering up 😟

I won't post you a picture from my window, it would only upset you. I'm off out on the boat this afternoon. Mustn't forget the sun cream.

Been there, done that (don’t want to do it again). I won’t tell you we have clear blue skies down here….oh I just did 😎