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I think some inexperienced "weekend electricians" make a lot of false assumptions like this. Isolators are another example. DC isolators often present a number of poles that people think might be for separate strings when in fact they're designed to be linked in series to increase the breaking gap. IMO one essential bit of test kit is an insulation resistance checker. I wouldn't dream of installing PV without testing IR to module frame and to at least 1kV. Anything that's got wires and is outdoors is asking for trouble if there's more than 48V present.

I'm going to post this highly informative video again. It might surprise some people.

Nice demonstration. EXACTLY what will happen if you try unplugging one of those nice insulated MC4 connectors while under load. It is not so safe and fool proof now is it?

Hi, As a small step towards repaying the valuable advice I have received on this forum I thought I'd share the attached document, which I hope will be useful and/or interesting to forum users. I am a planner by trade, working in local authority. My SB is on a relatively small, highly inaccessible plot neighboured by mature trees, and tightly bordered by existing houses. The plot was a 'detached' back garden of sorts that came as part of the deal (and something of an afterthought) when we bought our current house. Nobody had ever even considered the prospect that it could be a building plot, and for many years I discounted the idea myself due to the restrictions listed above. Five years ago, having outgrown our house and exhausted other options, I decided to at least try to self build on the plot. I obtained permission at the first time of asking (albeit not quickly and not without having to make a tweak or two). Everyone, without exception, from family to neighbours to building tradesmen to delivery drivers to other planners, have commented on how 'well' I've done to get permission. Some of them probably thought I'd made a mistake, or that the Council did, or that there was some old pals act involved because I am a planner myself (even though I don't work in the borough where I am building, and it really, really doesn't work that way anyway). They are all wrong. I obtained permission because I did the thing that planners spend their working lives telling others to do - I read the relevant planning policies, designed a development that was in line with them, then demonstrated as much in the application. That is what the attached statement does, it goes from global to national to regional to local policy, then explains the thought process behind my design, in that context. I cannot tell you how many architects, developers and would-be planning consultants fail to design development proposals specifically to meet planning policies, and then spend ages moaning, appealing, resubmitting, and generally wasting time. I can't promise that if you follow the thought process in my document you'll certainly get planning permission, but I hope you find it a useful insight into how a planner approached self-build, and specifically the matter of seeking planning permission on a plot that the rest of the world had discounted. Cheers 647910914_DesignandAccessStatementRedacted.pdf

In my experience, if the LPA don't like it, even when presented with compelling case law, a plethora of appeal decisions they will go to the ends of the earth to refuse. My appeal document was over 10K words with 30 plus appendicies which they still battled. They lost and lost handsomely, and I got my costs back and permission for 2 dwellings rather than just the one I wanted. Poetic justice. Something of night with one of my local councillors.

That happened to me, despite the fact I knew more than one councillor had no problem with my application they all voted to refuse (and would not look me in the eye at the council meeting (good job i appealed 🖕)

No, it's worse than that. Most do no prep at all, then want time to think about it during the meeting. At Borough level there are politics involved and most councillors look to their leader and follow suit. At parish level, there is a danger of vested local interests dominating. Training is available but many don't want it. All these councillors are elected. Why don't you stand?

U-values: Floor: 0.18 Walls: 0.18 Roof: 0.15 Link to the doc here - https://www.gov.uk/guidance/building-regulations-and-approved-documents-index#approved-documents

Only if it is your designated disabled access toilet.

I’ve no idea what they have changed to, I just wanted you to be aware.

Basins Height: Between 760 and 1190mm is comfortable for the majority of adults. Span (the distance from left to right, without obstructions): Recommended: 1020mm Required: 760mm Clearance to the front: Recommended: 760mm Required: 510mm Baths Height: Between 500 and 600mm is comfortable for the majority of adults. Space requirement: The minimum size for a straight bath is 1500 x 700mm. Clearance to the side: Recommended: 760mm Required: 530mm Taps, fillers, wastes and any other form of controls need to be accessible from both inside and outside the tub. Showers Space requirement: The minimum shower size is 760 x 760 mm. Clearance to the front: Recommended: 760mm Required: 610mm

Every fee seams to be at least a £1000 plus vat now We paid 500 last time 5 years ago

Hope you didn't buy one 😁. To be fair I live around the corner (2km) from the old Appliances Direct depot in Derbyshire, and have bought more than a dozen appliances from them over the last 10 years, including 6 in one go once, so I know that Electriq is bascially an Appliances Direct house brand, roughly like Lamona with Howdens. Though I do not know if it is a separate related company. So it was a huge red flag when it appeared on a third-party site. For me AD have always been there-or-thereabouts on price, and I could go and look at the showroom in 5 minutes, pick up ex-showroom stuff, and collect easily in the estate car for smaller items. They have now moved to Castle Donnington, which is half an hour. My first thought was whether it was a secondhand bit of kit, but I think it is probably just sell-and-vanish. The brand is also now sold via Amazon, so slightly stretched and repositioned ('we only work with selected retailers'). https://www.electriq.co.uk/content/find-a-retailer . The others eg Laptops Direct, Drones Direct are Appliances Direct verticals. All run by a man in Huddersfield called Nick Glynne. Rapid-growing discounters leveraging scale remain a way to get quite rich, quite quickly. Very much a version of the same model as Pound Shop Chains, Dunelm or Screwfix. It's easier to build the front end presentation - as Toolstation prove to Screwfix' frustration. F

It’s when you assume nothing can / will go wrong, and you don’t exercise diligence, that's when it does go wrong. This forum dispenses advice, so take that as good advice, or with a pinch. Time on the tools, hands-on practical experience, qualifications etc cannot be replaced by a few paragraphs here. Nobody yet mentioned that they did / did not carry out the checks as per @ProDave‘s comment above, so we can assume they were blissfully unaware of the risks posed by NOT doing so and then self installing their PV. I’ve heard enough horror stories, and instances where an individual has been electrocuted, to be less blasé.

Good shout, gutted I missed that, I'm usually aware of these and check, goes to show that the name of the site can help deceive.

My view, and my plan on this was / is to board all walls. That way no arguments and you will have great easy fixing available.

not at the moment. although id love to

Try Express bifold in Leeds. We have sliding patio doors from them and pricing was reasonable. It will of course have gone up in the meantime. Simon

Yes that is in principle how it works. you must terminate the cables in the DC isolator first. Then you must confirm insulation resistance between DC cables is good, i.e. you have no damaged cable no nails through the cable and most important have not messed up the wiring of the isolator and created a short circuit. Then lock the isolator in the off position. Then plugging in the panels one at a time in series should be safe, but I still prefer to do the last connection at dusk when the output from the panels will be small. Remember DC is much more dangerous. The alternating nature of ac will likely throw you off if you touch something. DC won't do that so is far more likely to be very serious. 250V dc is not something you want to touch.

I think your advice is don’t get your QS… a good one is worth their weight in gold, a bad one as you have found is useless.

So just to finish this off.... At the start of the year the M and E tender package was really late (and still is wrong) and I was explicit in my requirement to build in May. The QS insisted I wait until the M and E was ready. No suggestion of excluding the M and E to tender to watertight instead. Which would have been perfect. When I told the architect in April to exclude the M and E from the tender he said the QS didn't want to do two tenders so we should continue to delay the tender and build. (ie serve the QS interests over mine) When I insisted in May the tenders go out, the QS insisted on inserting M and E that was wrong so the responses would be pretty useless. When I insisted again to request quotes to watertight the architect said the builders wouldnt like that. When I said a watertight approach would be best because I wouldnt accept 30% mark ups on M and E from builders for inflation the QS said a phased approach is not possible and builders are entitled to price in inflation risk. Just before the tenders came back I asked the QS in a zoom meeting with he and architect how much he thought the build would cost me and if he would give me the estimeate he promised in the engagement email. He refused and after some prodding he totally lost his shit. The architect is suspiscousy supportive of the QS 🤔 When the tenders came back the prices were ridiculous as expected with the M and E way overpriced and the specification wrong anyway. So a completely useless exercise. I asked the QS if he was going to provide some guidance on the wether the tenders were reasonable and offered good value. He said no. He said I should accept the lowest offer without scrutiny or question, which is conveniently from his local builder that he introduced to the tendering process. A builder that became available after the delay the QS created. So, the QS gave no cost quidance or estimate. He caused six months of delay. The tenders went out with incorrect M and E specification instead of build to watertight. His only guidance is to accept the lowest offer from his preferred bidder. He put no price to anything. He provided no value at all, just advised me to accept the lowest tender without any cost analysis or estimate of builder's profit margin. ... and that pile of zero value shit and months of delay to my build cost me £3,750. My advice is don't get a QS. Mine was a charlatan. A waste of money that has delayed my build start from May to August.

Our house was quite complicated and we used a QS. He took the drawing package from the Architect and worked out his own cost estimate. When the 3 quotes came back from the builders the QS went through each of them and adjusted them so they were all based on the same assumptions (Eg to ensure they all had same provisional sums). There were also some items that differed quite a bit between the builders. The QS discussed these with the builders to understand why they were so different. We then had a three way meeting with me, the QS and the Architect to select the Builder. This included discussing the changes to the the quotes that he had agreed with the builders. In the end the three quotes were within about 12% of each other. The lowest was quite close to the QS's orginal estimate as the ammendments balanced out. The cheapest builder turned out to be the one I had found rather than either of the two suggested by Architect and QS.

Right, really stupid question coming up, but for the life of me I just can't make a decision on these. Perhaps it's because everything seems to be going t*ts up with our build and I want to at least get something right! So, we are having wood cladding on part of it - reusing the old boards from the barn. They're approx 150x20mm and will be fixed to standard batten (50x25mm). I want to use screws to fix them on and like the look of these: https://www.toolstation.com/tongue-tite-plus-stainless-steel-tg-screw/p36869 but they are 49mm long, which will mean they will pass through the batten completely - by a good 4mm. You won't see it of course, bit I will know... There is a shorter one at 45mm: https://www.toolstation.com/tongue-tite-torx-screw/p49111 Apart from the length, what is the difference between the two? Other than the shorter one being more expensive? They are both SS but seem to be called different things. At 45mm they will still prbably just poke through too. There is an even shorter one, at 32mm: https://www.toolstation.com/tongue-tite-plus-stainless-steel-tg-screw/p25702 but of course that would only leave about 12mm in the batten. Is that enough? I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure. Can anyone put me out of my misery? I realise there are bigger things to worry about in life, but hey ho... PS The wife keeps telling me she wants a longer screw, but looks a bit blank when I start talking about cladding 🧐

Actually i have just had a thought. We should all be complete experts in the NPPF and all of the local councils saved policies / local plan, etc. That way we could tick a box at the end of our applications to say that we have considered and met all the local and national Policies. That would save the planning officers having to do anything except send out our approved letters. Some of them might actually get the letters out within 8 weeks then. Obviously not all of them. That would be way too hard.

I could see that going very wrong. Remeids me when I told someone in a text I was going out for a row (in a boat) and he replied you can come and row with my wife any time you like she likes a good row.

He could be waiting for 2 other really expensive quotes so he can give his mate a nod, and that price wins and he gets a kick back…. but that never hapoens