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Bin it, too many reasons for me to type on my phone….

I have been painting for nearly 20 years, started out with a cheap gun and some white Hammerite to see what I could do and slowly progressed from there. In the early days a very friendly, former painter turned paint salesman gave me a lot of guidance on paints and how to work with them and the actual painting bit was just time and practise. The first thing is prep, doesn’t matter what I am going to paint I always clean the whole lot with thinners/panel prep (thinners is better unless over 1K paints, but by that stage you shouldn’t be needing to degrease). Ban all silicone procuts from the area, even silicone sealant when off-gassing can contaminate a panel and cause it to fish-eye. After that I sand, if you sand greasy or contaminated substrates you are only spreading the contamination and pushing it into the scores created by the sanding. Scotch pads are fine for giving a generally good condition item, painted or not a rub down. The rest of the time I would use a combination of what is needed for the surface could be bad, 80 grit then 120 then 240 etc. Maybe just a light 400. Once clean degrease with clean lint-free cloths and thinners – keep using clean bits until you can see the panel is actually clean. You will be surprised. For Something like a kitchen door I would hit with a 240 grit random orbital for a nice keyed flat finish, I might go up to 400 but doubt it. Gun setup is a skill in itself, a gravity fed cup gun would be best, there are quite a few settings. First thing I do is wind the air control in until it is very low, then wind it out till I get what I know to be right, difficult to explain, but you want it to carry the paint in a fine mist, but not so much air that you create a dust cloud, you can actually paint with low air volume but it’s not great for the finish as the mist is not fine enough. The other setting is paint volume, you need to wind this in quite a bit so that when you pull the trigger 100% you don’t just shoot heaps or paint, I use trigger control to initially do my light mist blow in, then more trigger for the final coats. You also have a pattern control, narrow is great for very lightly blowing in an awkward bit or an edge but must be used carefully so I advise any novice painter not to. Go for about a 4-6” pattern. You can also control the pattern angle by rotating the front air cap, I always set my gun up with the spray pattern fan sitting vertical, so as I hold the gun naturally and pass over a panel side to side the paint is hitting the panel wide, if you set it the other way and go side to side you will cause runs and is only really good for painting tall things you cannot move so you are going up and down. As you move the gun keep it back about a foot from the panel and when you move keep the gun at the same distance to the panel, people often swing the gun resulting in the mid-point being close to the panel and the outer of the swing being further back which changes so many variables as you go that you will notice it on the paint. Start painting furthest away from you, this means if anything falls from your overall-clothes you get the chance to blow it off (pull the trigger enough to get air, but no paint). For paint volumes for an average kitchen door, depending on paint, you would want about 30-40ml – for your first rodeo have a little extra to allow for some waste, but don’t be tempted to get it all on the door, its paint not plaster! A thin film of well adhered paint is all you need as long as you cannot see any shadowing or bleed through from primer which is why it is a good idea to use the right primer for the job, for light colours, like white, I like an offwhite or beige primer, white primer for white topcoat is bad because you cannot always see what is primer and what is topcoat and may miss bits. I would then use a 1k primer or filler primer for these doors, I would however need to check adhesion of the primer on the melamine because you might need to use a plastic primer or get a direct adhesion primer. Do some tests, I’d use a dab of primer from the can onto the door and leave it for min. 36 hours, then use your fingernail to see how well it adhered, do not panic if fresh paint just comes off, the chemical adhesion is not good until full cure which is why new paint is so delicate. The primer is the easiest to work with because it tends to lay down nicely and has good coverage so your not tempted to overpaint it. I use a 1.2mm nozzle for primer and mist it on finely to get the initial bond, round the edges or any tricky bits first, then the top (face of door), cross the panel across the shorter length and keep the paint flowing as you start and finish on the panel, overlay it a little, then lay it on in 2 slightly heavier coats after that tacks up and flashes off. If the primer starts to look quite glossy while you’re putting it on, you are putting on too much too soon, it should only ever look sort of satin/med gloss which is about right, matt is even better but that is very thin fast flash off territory. You can leave primer for a while if you want, but once primer appears dry you can move on, depends what I am doing will depend if I flatten it, if the prep was good then the primer will look good and so will the next coat(s). I use IR lamps to speed things up but the garage door open on a summer days with air moving will have it touch dry within 20-40minutes. I am assuming you will use a solid 2K colour, if not, apply basecoat with similar technique to primer, then treat your 2k lacquer as the following. If the primer is perfect, I just move on. 2K paint is almost always 2 paint to 1 hardner and then I use about 10% thinners, if painting the doors on the flat I would paint them with 10-15% thinners. I use a 1.2mm or 1.4mm nozzle for 2K. Hit the doors edges first quickly with a light coat, then proceed across the door, same as primer really, let that tack, you should still be able to see primer after this coat, it is just a mist, then come across with the gun flowing at a higher volume of paint (I use trigger control but you can wind the pin in or out to control volume) keep the spray pattern wide for a novice as less chances of runs. After the first coast back off and wait, look across the garden or think about something else, even be tempted to hang the gun up, walk away, take your mask off and just look at something else for 1-2 minutes because human nature is to keep blasting on paint, there really is no rush. Now add another coat. Once the panel is basically fully covered and looks “done” tip your paint back into your mixing cup and add a dash more thinners, swirl that up and tip back into your gun, on a high volume spray and wide pattern, mist the whole panel with over lap briskly (but not too fast) from side to side, the extra thinned paint will land on the existing coats, the solvent will help to level the paint and you should, if you get it right, be left with a really really smooth and if gloss paint, really really glossy finish. However, be very careful, too narrow a spray pattern or too slow and you will cause a run at this stage. If when you think you are done the panel looks dry or matt, its not “wet” enough. You need more paint on it, that will dry as orange peel. I have intentionally created a textured or “dry” finish before and that is lots of paint, wide pattern, lots of air and too far back, result can be almost chalky with the right paint, not good for kitchen cabinets! If it looks dry, get another pass on it with higher paint flow, even if you have run out of paint, go quickly mix up enough for 1 more pass and you will be fine. Have a bright light or torch handy, when you’re done, shine it over the panel looking for dry bits or bits that are a bit thin, quickly just mist over that whole bit again once the last coat has tacked a bit, 2-3 minutes. Now, screw ups. If you make a mistake on primer, don’t worry, it just means you will need to flatten it, let it cure well (too soon it will bog down and clog the paper or peel/rub off), and then 1200 it to remove specks or runs, flatten it and blend it all, you should not need to blow in more primer if you are careful. If you make a mistake on 2k, don’t panic either. Just leave it, do not even think about trying to rectify it at this stage. Walk away and clean your gun. After about 12 hours you can take water and 1200 or 2400 grit to 2k no bother, dampen it down, little block and sand out any runs or imperfections, always use a block or your fingers might cause the paper to rub through the paint. Once the defect has gone you can use Farecla rubbing compound (basically like a very fine sand paper) followed by Farecla finishing compound (Halfords do their own version in little tubes too) OR you can lightly rubdown the whole panel/door etc. and hit with a very fine, 20-25% thinned 2K and just mist it on to refinish the door. H&S – 2k paint hardener contains isocyanides and 2K will set like jelly, if you breath it in you end up with that in your lungs, you may fall over and end up in a very bad way, some people cannot cope with it at all. So, you need to take care. They recommend you wear an airfed mask, but I use a full face cover 2M mask with FPP3 filters over organic/inorganic gas and vapour filters which will cover all the nasties. When wearing the mask, I cannot even smell the paint. Make sure you spec your mask up with the right filters. Not sure what you mean by radioactive style, radioactive protection is just dust protection so you don’t breath in radioactive particles, for painting 2K you actually need higher protection believe it or not. I would also consider painting outside on a slightly breezy day, this does bring with it issues though, but I quite often paint outside, I painted outside at the weekend and didn’t get a single bit of dust or anything stuck in the paint, if outside conditions are not good I paint in my garage, I raise the door about 2 feet and have plywood boards with huge car fans mounted in them, then get jammed in to extract from floor level, I then open the side door, with the fans running I can sand and paint in the garage and there is not even so much as a hint of a haze in the garage, I still of course wear the mask. Also wear gloves at all times and ideally lint-free long sleeves because the paint landing on your skin can be absorbed. These H&S tips are not perfect, but it works for me. I would get your gun setup with some cheap thinned emulsion and practise, practise the spray pattern adjustment, practise the air volume and the paint volume (pin) control. Anything else, key to your painting, just ask.

Get a full kit from the likes of mid summer whoesale or ITS. The in roof trays (GSE) take a bit of figuring out to get started (location of the battens is key) but fairly straightforward. If you can do the physical install yourselves, any electrician should be able to wire the panels to the inverter etc.

Cut the tarmac nice and neatly and sand / cement bed a soldier course or 2 of the paving blocks on the concrete.

Fair enough. Have you already got this pre-plumbed cylinder? If so my thought now is run it with the simplest heating-only design you can, per LA3222, and if come next summer you have issues requiring active cooling do it properly and install a2a unit(s) upstairs. They're very plausible to retrofit

Whatever you come up with, point it towards me please. I'm struggling to figure out how to heat my indoors this winter.

A different plugin might already offer this functionality, if you skim through this constants file (even if you aren't a programmer) you will see roughly what options are available: https://github.com/binsentsu/home-assistant-solaredge-modbus/blob/master/custom_components/solaredge_modbus/const.py

I got my natural Spanish slates from Jewson. the Mont Azul Lombeiro. they were around £1.25 a slate Nov 2021. a very good slate and our roofer was very impressed with them. even another BM rep came to site and saw them and said they were really good for that price and Jewson were on to a winner there! might be worth checking them out. according to the owner of the Mont Azul brand they come from the same quarry as the Cupa slates. some pictures in my blog post, it'd be interested to see what the current price is on them as could save you some money.

It is a little long winded but it seems stable enough, I'm using Home Assistant (https://www.home-assistant.io) with 4 plugins: 1. Grafana plugin (https://github.com/hassio-addons/addon-grafana) 2. InfluxDb plugin (https://github.com/hassio-addons/addon-influxdb) 3. HACS - unofficial community app store, needed to install the next plugin (https://hacs.xyz) 4. Solaredge Modbus Multi (https://github.com/WillCodeForCats/solaredge-modbus-multi) I turned on Modbus TCP on the inverter and connected it to my network with the wired LAN port. This gives it an IP that you connect to with plugin 4 above. Right now I can only see data not control anything and the plugin does still use polling, I have the polling interval set to 15 seconds and it seems to be fine. Tomorrow I'm getting an SM-230 meter fitted, I will use https://github.com/nmakel/solaredge_meterproxy to get the data into the inverter via a wireless Modbus gateway and a Raspberry Pi connected to the inverter with a RS-485 USB interface. More details to follow. At this point I will have direct Modbus access to the inverter (not TCP) as this is needed to set any values. We should be able to find out what values to set. The above should let me tell the inverter and battery to maximise self consumption. As for charging from grid at cheap rate that is next. Let me know what you find.

I was down in Cornwall last week and the little cafe in Kynance cove has Solar tiles instead of panels & tiles etc

Off the top of my head I think the 3M 6057 will do organic gas & vapour - which is basically your petrochem based solvents and paints but also inorganic gas & vapour which I like to have because etch primers etc. can have inorganic chemicals in the makeup. There are so many in the 3M range, make sure you add a dust filter on top of the cartridge, on the 3M 6057 I list above, you then get a little pad of filter material that click on top with a retention bezel, get the best filtration which is FFP3. You can change these more frequently but the cartridges are good for 12 months or when breathing feel laboured through them. This setup is also good for doing MDF/PLY because it covers the dust but also any formaldehyde (or other resins) or off gassing from cutting the material.

Was in short trousers then. I still am.

The main thnking is that water vapour can travel from the inside of the building to the outside, and weather, i.e. wind and rain, cannot travel from the outside to the inside. That limits your choice of materials and any ventillation between screen and the real wall. Ah, is this place in Italy. It may be the other way around, it depends on the local climate.

We will see how the weather holds up, if nice I will hit the top half of that (bottom done last night) with the 2K solid white paint - I'll post the results as I suspect you will be doing all this soon! I really enjoy painting but it can be stressful, so do it when you have time, there is no such thing as a quick paint 5-10minutes to build the gun, mix the paint, 5 minutes for final degrease of items, maybe only 3 minutes of actual painting, with waiting time between coat, then you can spend 15 minutes cleaning the gun! In that time you also don't want anyone harassing our or even present without a mask - I usually do it when I am home alone and like a breeze to help carry away the fumes/paint dust. Allow an hour for even 1 door, oddly, allow about the same for 4 doors.

Yes! 2K is fantastic to use but the vapour is heavy and very harmful. completely different to ‘normal’ aerosol cans where you apply lots of thin coats, 2K you lay down thick and fast

Your bigger issues are isocyanates not arsenic, and that you should be using a positive pressure mask not just a reactive mask. 2K isn’t something to play with - especially in confined spaces. If you want to paint that lot, just use the melamine paint and accept you’ll get a satin/matt finish Also, read this https://www.hse.gov.uk/mvr/bodyshop/isocyanates.htm

No

Grand Designs S10E01 Isle of Wight The Tree House. The Linen Jacket With Jeans era. Lincoln Miles and his artist wife Lisa Traxler. Essentially a good project, but with various elements of craziness. Including proving that painting corrugated with yoghurt soup does not make it grow lichen, and that domestic with turbines are a PITA. Lincoln Miles is one of the few who have created a career off the back of Grand Designs. Vid here:

I was spraying 2k at the weekend, more to do tonight. I spray paint most things that I need to paint, I work with everything from waterbased, cellulose, 1k and 2k (my favourite for a tough finish) - always have a fairly wide range in stock in my garage at any given time ready for most eventualities! Weekends efforts in etch primer:

Here's a snap shot of my pv price

Google and download the GSE Configurator tool - I have it here but cannot attach to the post. Find your panel size, then use the GSE configurator to produce a full spec/shopping list. Very good and makes it dead simple. I used it for spec'ing my in-roof system.

If anyone is doing a roof integrated system in Cornwall, I am interested in look how it is done. Tempted to copy the design in GRP.

If it was donated, it may be a nice windfall of a few hundred for the charity. https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l1313&_nkw=guy+rogers++chair

If you are rebuilding later then no

EasyRoof and GSE are the suppliers for in roof trays. Can be fitted by a competent roofer. Usual suspects (Midsummer, Wagner Renewables etc) all stock the bits and will do your design for you. Cross posted with @Conor

Thanks, this helps. It seems that you are often using large amounts of electricity in the middle of the day when your PV should be generating. It may be that it was a cloudy day of course. It could be that the ovens are on or that the the heat pump is heating your water. The other useful thing to know, but you would have to gather this on a go forward basis, would be how much you generate on a given day versus how much you export. Then you can tell if you are always using a lot of electricity but it is covered by PV, or if your PV is covering a small amount of your electricity. If it is the former then you would expect your electricity usage to go up considerably in the winter. I suspect that is what is happening. It takes a lot of fiddling around to maximise the use of PV and heat pumps. This doesn't work for everyone, my wife doesn't like being told to use the washing machine at night when we have cheap electricity for example. If you are running UFH flow and hot water at 45C then you should have a decent COP and decent performance from the system. In fact I would expect a COP of 3.5-4 at this time of year. To maximise your use of PV you should try to not use the ovens and PV at the same time. The ovens use 1-1.5kWh per hour, but the elements come off and on, so at any one time they could be using 3kW each. Your heat pump has an input of around 3.5kW. Thus if they all fired up together you would be using around 10kW in the house and start to use a large amount of imported electricity. If there is a time during the day when your wife tends to cook, say 12-2. Then I would set the hot water heating on your heat pump to be 9-12 and 2-5. Thus it is much more likely that your PV covers your ovens and hot water use. If you cannot stick to a specific time for cooking then there is nothing you can do about this except buy an expensive battery. During the summer there is an argument that you should in fact heat the hot water to 50 or 55C during the day when you have PV and turn it off during the evening and night. Again ideally, everyone has showers in the morning and then the PV reheats the water during the day. A lot depends on the size of your hot water tank and the amount of hot water you sue though. During the winter though I would use 45C for the better COP and lack of PV. Ultimately there are many trade offs between cost and convenience. Looking at your usage charts you have quite spiky energy usage. You can try to smooth this out to use more PV which will help in the summer, hence my comment you could maybe save around 1000kWh but that won't help in winter. In winter the only thing that can help is reduced energy use through insulation, draught proofing etc.

If your intention is to stop it being a mess and stop dogs fouling it, then the low fence as the house the other side of the footpath seems to achieve that. So why not do that low 1M fence straight away and start to get it tidied up?

If you aren't able to open it all up to make a kitchen lounge diner it will depend if you are going to regularly use a dining table as ProDave has just said. A family regularly using a dining table for moving lots of plates to and fro might find the hatch useful - a couple with a few plates less so. It's all about your intended lifestyle in that house until you can do a major lounge/kitchen / diner remodel. Even if you are a gogglebox tv dinner family (heaven forbid!) it might still be useful......but you will need a surface both sides that you can reach through to rather than just putting plates on the ledge (asking for trouble)

I have not moved in yet so don't know about the functionality yet but I see all the point being valid.

Take out the entire wall to create an open plan kitchen, dining area. 🙊

Yes, that bit should go That’s crossing the fine line I mentioned … by a country mile 😬

ek not as bad as mk for roundabouts. was down there for a couple of courses, wow, and not in a good way

Moved to EK about ten years ago as wife's family live here. One day I left the house I had bought and got lost in EK (called the roundabout city..) and it took me about two hours to find my way back.

Good work. Nice to see progress. Is there 2 x ensuites on the first floor master bedroom or is this a typo? Thinking of the somewhat fierce temperatures that have been around recently I'd think carefully about overheating. The SW facing rooflights will be a real culprit. Maybe bin them or include external blinds. The large sliders/French doors will be easy to shade with brise solail or a pergola. Other than that it all looks well I think.

heat pump no different from car aircon, how many cars have you had or been in where the aircon doesn't work, normally a easy fix, failed seal, something come loose.

Yay! Well done. Looks like you'll get a good few sunny days next week - report back.

Open fireplaces are very inefficient and a permenant draft, no a wood stove can be fitted without removing all that stone work (some work required within the “throat”).

There certainly is, but stupidly expensive: https://en-uk.ring.com/products/video-doorbell-elite

Hi @Jenki No. But will do in the next few days (at least start it....) M

Normally?? Without trawling the forum I think its normally 3 or sometimes 2 letters, usually h, k and w with random capitalisation, if any😁

I’m with @Declan52 on this If you don’t want to go with insulated PB or a hard plaster then you can use 25mm batten infilled and tape to make it airtight. Board over the top and job done. Skim PB 25mm batten / insulation 100mm medium block 150mm cavity blown beads 100mm medium block 15mm render You’ve also got your skin purpose back to front - the inner skin is always load bearing not the outer.

I think you pay someone to take it away. There was at least one Grand Design that was based around keeping one of those chimney breasts as a heritage feature. You cut a hole in the rug, and give at as a poncho to Gary Lineker to go with his goaty beard. You need to attach multicoloured pompoms or it won't be ridiculous enough. And he needs a pork-pie hat from somewhere.

Some people have nothing better to do than find things to complain about, ignore it. a few years ago I lived in a street backing onto some waste land (old council garage site) local dumping ground, broken glass everywhere, locals dumped all garden waste etc. one day I needed to move a JCB so decided to clean up the area while I had the machine…. 2 days later a letter from environmental services telling me to remove the rubbish I had dumped.

Yeah I tried pir with humidity . It’s better . But if SWMBO has a real long soak in the bath ( and falls asleep ) lights can still turn off . I did suggest a camera but SWMBO ……

Yeah that can happen also . Especially true for my bathroom . Pir turns lights on but if you are in the shower can’t detect you ! - so lights go off eventually. I did suggest to SWMBO a camera would solve it ; but she wasn’t sold on the idea ….

Normally, on this forum it is!😁

Surprising, normally kWh.