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Hardly balanced, in fact very selective, hardly surprising considering the source. It's possibly true that a modern room sealed stove emits less pollution inside the house than cooking does, but the important pollution is that outside the house which will be very much greater than the pollution from cooking and has a deleterious effect on other people than the stove owner. IOW burning solid fuel is a pretty anti social activity in urban areas.

drilling through the frame compromises the U value and cold bridges the frame. straps every time.

100% yes I can never see the point of fixing through a frame Other than saving on patching

If were me and I am no electrician Budget stretched 3x car chargers, you don't have a car requiring charging, pre run cable, both ends not connected. Outside end in a small waterproof box - all ready for later installation. Outside garden stuff, same as above. Ditch patio heaters as a waste of good electric Find out why a new build needs a 12kW ASHP - use all the money you save on the above fantasies on decent insulation and air tight measures, so are installing a sensible ASHP. No 3 phase required, to run a single phase house!

I confess to not really understanding what the valid, practical, use case is for this type of water heater in a typical domestic situation. Fundamentally you are taking heat energy from somewhere, so unless you don't need that heat energy and it renews itself from somewhere which you are happy gets cooler, you are inevitably robbing energy from yourself. In summer, if you use it to cool the house and warm hot water then yes, it might make sense (bus so does PV and a solar diverter), but in winter its more difficult to see, unless you have a source of genuinely waste heat from some other process which is otherwise not contributing to warming your building/stopping it cooling. Most of us don't! Hopefully someone can put me right and convince me that these are not just exploitative marketing.

I'm not sure I'm adding much to the conversation, but I'd agree with this and @andyscotland in that in my experience of running a few businesses and negotiating quite a few contracts, they're useful for signalling intent. Hopefully you won't have to enforce them, but they're a good way to expose disagreements early and to ensure that everyone has the same expectations.

As AndyS. If you dabble at being clever with the wording then it gives lawyers a lot to argue about. A simple exchange of what you want and what the builder is to do is worthwhile. In very plain English and short sentences. And how payment will be made. I went to a construction talk on contracts where the lawyer said his most constructive work was in setting up contracts, and the most profitable was in arguing clauses meant when surveyors had altered clauses in standard contracts. Moral, use a standard contract or just write your own summary. If you email it to the builder and they start work then that is your contract, signed or not, for better or worse.

Use one of the cables in the duct to pull a draw wire in then use thd draw wire to pull the cable back together with the new data cable??

It’s not always possible or practical but the best way. It’s not wrong how you've done it just the recommended way.

They shouldn’t But planners continually contradict themselves and seem to pick and choose as to when they follow policy The softly softly approach doesn’t work If you look through your local planning passed and think wow I wouldn’t have thought that would be passed The application is nearly always submitted by a planning consultant They run rings around planner Pros v immatures

As others mentioned... U value has nothing to do with the coverage . Whether you put tiles, slate, zinc or metal will make virtually no difference in the u value. In terms of zinc - most refer to zinc and really mean standing seam. Zinc is the material. Standing seam is the shape of the roof panels. You can have zinc roofs in other shapes (tiles...) And you can have standing seam in other materials Some previous posted a few alternatives. They are mostly coated metal . Other option would me aluminium. Then comes the question about installation method... Traditional standing seam(zinc) is rolled/formed on site from coils. Needs a specialist installer since not everyone owns the forming machine and knows how to work with the material. Most of the coated steel and aluminium comes in form of pre formed panels . Then there is only the seam to be closed on site with a seaming machine . And last not least there are click systems , where you can install without the need of machines/seamers . Panels come preformed . So it's really 1. Which shape you want (standing seam I presume from your text) 2. Which material do you want ( zinc=most expensive ; Alu= mid price; steel =cheapest) 3.which installation method you prefer (fully trained specialist = most expensive, general builder/roofer= mid price , self install DIY =cheapest) in point 3 : makes not that much sense to buy a DIY system and then hire a trained expert to install it. You might as well go with zinc in that Scenario

4.3m lengths, should be applied around the window in one length (if possible, you might need more than 1 roll per window/door) and pinched at the corners.

Perfect.

The Planning Application process is jangling for anyone. You are in good supportive company here. Most Planning Committees do as they are told by the Officers (Planners) - because to do otherwise would mean committee members doing lots more work on the cases before them. So if - and its by no means certain - that the members of the Committee have read a copy of that recommended Approval, then the Committee could well approve your application. Do you know who and / or why your application has been called in? Know the answer to that issue and you have the beginnings of a defence of your application. Ring the Planner who mis dealing with your application and ask - directly - why your application has been called in.

wouldn't we all. unfortunately the type of person who wants to be a councillor is exactly the opposite of what's needed. e.g . braindead.

yes. Then you take it to appeal and claim costs.

warranty - what should I expect/aim for? None. A builder who has a dependable warranty will charge a lot. Common law covers it in theory. Either pay 50% more for a bigger company, or learn up and check build quality as you go. Do make sure the insurance is valid and relevant. Get a copy if it and read the small print. it needs to be for a surprisingly high level of cover.. someone else may know the going rate.

You pay it. Assuming you have mains the use is a tiny cost. Nothing will spoil relations more than you charging.. Anyway, if you tell the builder you will charge for it, then he will rightly add it to his quotation as a job cost.

Usually indicates that the openings weren’t big enough for windows? Nope. I’ve recently had to organise the removal and refitting of a load of Rational and Velfac units, and the original fitting crew used “universal” plates which were a complete bag of shit. The replacement fitters I drafted in took one look at them and just conformed what I thought. They then produced the proper brackets which actually lock into the frames by design, almost not needing screws at all, by offering them up parallel and then inserting into the profile of the frame, and then the bracket gets rotated 90° to lock the bracket into the frame. Rock solid. Anything less is a huge bodge. Drilling through the frames with concrete ( or other ) screws is the very last option imho.

No ! Just flushing an empty loo max db 😁

Another ‘good news’ Quooker story. We have a Cube (chilled filtered water) that has been on site for over 3 years but only really used in anger for about 18 months. It started playing up so we booked a service. The engineer arrived and proclaimed it dead/dying and called his supervisor to discuss a replacement despite it being way outside of the 2 year warranty. Within minutes it was agreed that they would replace the Cube free of charge. I think it helped that because we are in a hard water area the Cube is supplied with conditioned water (Combimate) and filters were replaced as required but a big ‘recommend’ vote for Quooker. Also, if anyone else has the Cube that is a small aluminium skinned er, cube, they apparently have many problems with these. The replacement will be a completely different design so if you have the aluminium skimmed Cube watch it like a hawk and get in touch with Quooker the moment it seems to be playing up and hopefully you’ll get the same good service.

So we have to listen to your shit ? 🙂

I’m going to use my phones decibels measuring app at discreet points along the pipe ( mainly where wc enters ) . Get some readings before and after lagging .

good job. will be interested in how it works. don't gorget to keep detailed data from you testing using the correct units to keep @SteamyTea happy.

Yeah it’s probably the best . Shipping was a flat rate of £15 . I went for it in the end . 6m ; 114mm pipe ; 50mm thickness

Two things, it is not just smoke that is the problem. Probably illegal to fit one that is not approved for the zone it is in. Easier to just not bother, they will, in time, be banned anyway.

I'd suggest gaps in IWI is actually worse for the fabric of the house as warm moist air will be able to condensate through those gaps to the cold side of the insulation.

😎 minor point! - website is (expletive deleted)ed anyway! ; I can't order even if I wanted too. I'll keep looking!

"Right sweetheart, tell me when ..... 'cos I need to put my ear to the pipe: oh and don't forget to tell me how big it was "

You can also have a system of running contracts, all written by you. Eg an email saying, dear Dave*, as agreed today, please construct the footings and blockwork up to dpc and backfill. Includes all labour, plant and materials, and details to the drawing I gave you today. To begin on monday and be completed within 2 weeks. Payment in full of £x within a week of completion. There are many gaps in this but it covers enough to prevent a major dispute. * what is the ubiquitous name for builders these days? Stefan perhaps.

Thanks both... will be doing in Scotland in February so there are fridge-like qualities in the natural environment!

The heritage/conservation Officer is unfortunately entirely correct. Your current planning relies on the conversion of the existing buildings, which planning rules require them to be Structurally capable of conversion. There is no route to planning for a new build by arguing the existing buildings are not structurally capable of conversion. If that's what you have argued and have provided evidence to the LPA it's likely you are already stuffed. I'd withdraw your application and consider your next steps carefully. You may need to apply for a Certificate of Lawful Development, to check if the LPA still accepts your original planning is still valid. You are likely to need a new Structural Survey which confirms its structurally sound, but some how doesn't contradict the new survey you just shared with the LPA.

Glad you have some acknowledgement that there is a problem. Really does highlight the need for half decent energy monitoring. Especially if there is 3 Phase. 3 Phase is not really that useful in the domestic setting, except it does allow for a greater capacity. Reducing the loads though time shifting i.e don't run a 6 kW water heater at the same time as charging the car and cooking supper, is probably an easier and much cheaper option.

Great to hear you are making progress at last on this! Interpreting this with a bit of license, they're saying that it's a 3 phase inverter, but your house is only consuming power from 1 (or 2) of the phases, so even if you turned everything in the house one, you'd never be able to self consume all the generated power as some goes on a phase you don't draw any loads on. This is absolutely fine, so long as you have a v2 smart meter. (Do you? sorry can't see it in this thread but I though you had said), or a correctly configured dumb meter, it should balance out the phases (using net-metering across phases) so e.g. if PV generates 2kW on each of the 3phases, but the house draws 5kW on a single phase, you shouldn't be billed anything for import but get paid 1kW for the net export (3x2kW - 5kW) if they start fobbing you off saying your whole house needs rewiring to use 3phases push back This probably means the new inverter requires a different number of strings, so they need to chain the panels a different way. This should be fine.

@Thorfun Spoke to a few companies and decided to go for this: https://www.soundstop.co.uk/ZTECFT55.php

Anecdotally is an partial anagram of No Data. Without knowing the energy inputs, air leakage and temperature variation, it is not possible to compare the two. Building Regs will tell you a minimum standard anyway, so you cannot go below that. If you know the power losses and the power inputs, the sized of the room, you can calculate the energy needed to heat it

The garage temp wouldn't drop if you vent the 'very cold' exhaust air to atmosphere. You'd need a transfer grille in the external wall of the equivalent size eg to input the equal volume of 'fresh' air as the exhaust expels ( I'd recommend 20% bigger to stave off resistance and risk air being pulled from the house ), and this would then only allow air as cold / damp as outdoors to arrive at the garage interior. To be perfectly honest, I think the heatpump will suck the available heat energy out of the garage in a matter of minutes, and the exercise is flawed / pointless as the CoP will then drop like a rock.

Yes exactly for the protection

So a normal framed glass balustrade has the supporting structure (i.e. uprights and handrail) which would need to comply with Part A - the 0.74kN/m and (technically) PD6688-1-1 requirement of 0.5kN/m^2 over the whole area. If the supplier of that uprights and handrailing structure doesn't provide that calculation and BC want it, then a SE will need to demonstrate it complies. The glass infill itself needs to comply with Part K, which would mean glass meeting the BS EN 12600 standard... Class 3... I think. This will mean it has been tested with the pendulum test to resist a given impact force and if it does break, breaks 'safely'. The system of securing the glass (beads or clamps) would also need to have been designed. Now... with a frameless system I believe you would need to get the supplier to demonstrate BS EN 12600 compliance and give calculations that as a cantilever it can withstand the 0.74kN/m & 0.5kN/m^2 requirement. It would be relatively trivial for a SE to calculate the load capacity of the glass pane as a cantilever at a given thickness. The challenge is what do the support look like and can that be proven by calculation or whether load testing would be needed.

One piece of advice I was given by a lawyer long ago is to be careful writing your own contracts. There is established precedent for interpreting words in a contract that can be quite technical and not exactly the "plain English" meaning of a word that a non-lawyer would expect. His advice was: a) if you might want a court to enforce a contract, ideally have a lawyer write it or b) if you have to DIY then write in your own words, avoid legal-sounding language, and include a statement that "the language should be interpreted as plain English". Then if it does get into a dispute there's less risk of getting bogged down in / caught out by a legal dictionary definition of one word and the test is more likely to be "what would a reasonable person think that sentence meant in context". I have always therefore gone with option (b) as life is too short to be paying lawyers unnecessarily 🤣 So if you do want to use JCTMW as a reference of points to include, fine, but ideally write that as a letter of agreement in your own words rather than copy&pasting the language from the original.

True, it would definitely be feasible to make some sort of load management work. Really, even if 3 car chargers are installed, the requirement is probably just to be able to plug three cars in at teatime and have them charged by morning, without having to go back outside to unplug one and plug in the next. Doesn't necessarily mean they have to charge simultaneously. I'm sure that will become a fairly common requirement for multi-car households so as you say if the kit isn't yet available to do that (off the shelf, I'm sure it's already doable with a Raspberry Pi, some current clamps and some contactors) it probably will be before long.

I am sure that some will claim that because they live in a rural setting and they use 'their own wood', this story is untrue. Smoking in public buildings was banned, and that was less of a problem than this.

Two things. Will the temperature drop go below the dewpoint, this will cause condensation. And It is maths, not math.

Fernox TF1 was my weapon of choice. Thought the expensive ones aren’t worth the money.

But but but, 40A or smaller fuses are common place in Europe (in France you get higher standing charge the bigger the fuse) so if it's not already supported chargers will soon come with the option to shed load if import exceeds some defined cap. It's already super common their to have contactors that automatically shut off some loads of approaching the supply limit. All that said, personally I'd do the 3ph before I got vaguely serious about installing half the gear mentioned in the OP, but I don't think the OP really is and they're future proofing for things they'll never install. Else they'd already have got 3ph without complaint.

I think you'd be looking at least £400. For no benefit what so ever. I'd be ditching the cover and start putting money away each month towards an eventual boiler replacement / breakdown in 5-10 years time. I've never seen the value in these sort of polices, I've never paid more than £50 for an annual inspection / service and the only issue I had in a boiler in nearly 15 years cost £200 to sort.

Might be better for wood.

Better glued and ring nailed

Contact adhesive is far from ideal but better than nothing. Why two layers of 11mm? The extra work, especially all the extra screws and gluing large areas will be a pain.

For the double slates (aka slate and a half) you want one for every other slate that's on a verge, plus another dozen or so for breakages etc. You should be able to return unused double slates as they normally come from an opened pallet anyway. We went with 600x300mm as it's a more modern look... And that's all they had in stock 🤣