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14 ton down today another 14 tomorrow and the screed out of the way I going to bring a company in to do a flow screed But I’ve been on a couple of job’s recently where they have lifted I went with what I know in the end Shame really as I don’t bother putting matting down with flow screed Unless it’s specified

The attitude towards asbestos is a bit OTT these days, certainly in relation to other potential dangers such as silica dust and also carcinogens released when working with MDF, both of which nobody seems to give two hoots about. The risk is probably not far off similar though. Asbestos in things like artex and corrugated roofs is fairly low risk in comparison to blue asbestos in boiler rooms for example, which is high risk. I’m often hearing of people buying houses lately and being scared by an asbestos survey that has identified asbestos in artex or the bitumen/glue under their flooring. They then have it removed at great expense. Mostly unnecessarily imo. Total overkill.

Maybe the advice is to find an ecologist you trust. We got our planning consultant to recommend one he'd worked with before and who he trusted. Also, but I'm not 100% sure about this, I think they're looking not only for evidence bats have been there, but also that there might be places which sleepy bats might find attractive to roost in - gaps, nooks and crannies. We have two buildings which needed to be surveyed, a 1960s dormer bungalow and a dilapidated Victorian coach house. The plot backs onto a canal which raises the risk that bats will be around. I was sure we didn't have bats present but wanted to make sure there were no spots which bats might find attractive, so before the survey, I filled gaps and put chicken wire over holes. The ecologist crawled all over the place but gave us a clean bill of health, no need for emergence surveys.

apparently they're called dip tubes! https://mcalpineplumbing.com/traps/shower-traps-accessories/stw19-tubec-dip-tube-shower-traps

I’ll see if I have fittings on site tomorrow and mock it up / post pics.

But like everything it can be done badly or done well

Just a quick one, bought one of these last week, it's an absolute game changer for me, accurately trimming down timber and sheet material accurately, managed to snag one from machine mart online with 2 rails and a bag relatively cheaply (425) ex display I assume. I'm usually a bit do I or don't I with tools, trying to weigh up whether I'll get my pennies worth, or should I try and make do with what I already have. It was bit of an impulse purchase but certainly no regrets after a weekends worth of use.

Deciding to buy mine was an utter relief. I now have three tracks - short medium and long and some connecting pieces. I was given a 90 degree 'square' for my birthday. Use the ripping blade. It'll stay in the corner for a while and then - oh yes - I can do that easier with ......

Thanks saveasteading. Out of 'principle' (dangerous word...) I feel something is due to us, but then the builder, his team and the attitude they've all had (positive & supportive) since day one forgives an awful lot of sins..... One we will think about over the next week or two as we approach it. Ill post back with how it goes for others.

Business partner, in Hertford, has an ASHP. Vaillant jobbie. 7kW nominal into their 250 litre nominal cylinder. DHW nominal setpoint 45C. In practice this means a max of 53-55C from the heat pump and the top of the tank at a shade over 50C. (the coil-through-tank arrangement results in a stratified charge) The 250L cylinder was chosen for its coil size not because he needs 250L, but in practice this allows for a lower operative temperature without running out. Summer COP for charging like that is of the order 4.5; winter (average in UK is 7C; DHW reheat timed for hottest part of day) ought to be over 3. You can use the zoom function on that heatpumpmonitor dataset to see how other units perform. Suppressing reheat until the tank is materially emptied materially bumps COP (3.5>4.5 in this weather) Legionella disabled. Tanks turned over often enough are not at risk. It shouldn't be a major part of your usage anyhow.

Once you hace had a track saw, i doubt you will be able to live without one.

Well they understand their market.

It’s fine as long as it’s cleaned, decontaminated and roughed with some 80grit. You need to use “gap filler” cement instead of solvent weld to bond these together successfully. I always twist the fittings back and forth a good few times to get the plastics to ‘weld’, and you can feel when to stop doing it as the glue starts to bond and cure quite quickly after it displaces what’s not needed in the joint. If poss, it’s nice to use solvent cleaner and a lint-free cloth to remove excess glue from the pipe, internally.

Use HydraHyde gloves from Costco for gardening etc. Can't find a link on their website, but same as these. WELLS LAMONT HydraHyde Water Resistant Leather Work Gloves Size UK XL : Amazon.co.uk: DIY & Tools Around £22 for 3 pairs in the Costco Warehouse, sometimes come on offer. They have outlasted most garden centre gloves.

tbh, not sure what you mean here! this is what I was thinking with the boss collar you linked? or like this with 2 x strap bosses the boss for the shower needs to be as low as possible to give a required fall from the shower to the soil pipe.

@Nickfromwales trying to piece this together. So would that be one of these out of the boss a short piece of pipe to connect one of these then the wash m/c and shower into each branch?, and then a bung in the top.

Too late/early - correct they are R32 models.

I have started a new topic to carry on this aspect of the this thread to allow this one to get back on track.

I ordered a bag of threaded plastic caps to put on the end of the Hep20 threaded male couplers. https://www.vital-parts.co.uk/threaded-caps---thc020-1112-p.asp

Maxa i-32V5 which he the same as a Viessmann Vitocal 100-A. It has CO2 refrigerant.

I agree. I think the main issue here is that because the drawings show and note insulated cavity walls, that is taking the building more away from what is known and seen as a garage and more a habitable space. And this is why the BCO is requesting a fully compliant building. If they stuck with a single skin garage, then once inspected and signed off, the OP can do what they want.

Not yet ! Have tried white spirt though.

Agreed, and i wish i could block some contributors. Sometimes it's useful to know how little some people understand, or want to understand,( Lockdown was idiotic) . Especially complex stuff like numbers. And to remember they're out there and allowed to vote.. But it's not for here I agree. Is there a way of telling the system that I don't want to see a particular discussion or person? I've only seen this because I see everything that is commented on by a person I follow.

Traditional oak framing joints + dowels or A4 stainless coach bolts if you want it to look more contemporary. Your design looks like it's halfway to traditional joints already. They don't have to be millimeter perfect - this is rustic green oak right. Robin Clevett has a video or two on YT showing a little bit of green oak work he did.

100% It also gives you a chance to pack out any imperfections I used a rough cut 4x1 Four quid for a 4.8 length

What I would do... Slope the top of the post 1 so rain runs off. Fix 2 to 1 with screws, but recess the heads and fill with dowel to simulate pegs. Notch 3 to fit 2. Screw 3 to 1. Don't screw down through 3 into 2 to avoids holes in horizontal surfaces. Ideally slope/bevel all top edges but that needs a table saw.

I've been on both sides of this. Even if the contract allows adjudication, you will end up with high fees and the risk of paying his too. Have a quiet think about this as if you were the adjudicator......and remember their job is to resolve, not punish. Look at your best case on damages, and the builders best case on resisting these and justifiable extensions of time and extras. Take one from the other, allow costs, and ....I forecast that you call it quits. If the builder then decides you have gone soft and he will sue you, then you have done your homework already. Another exercise is to do the same list but with best and worst outcomes too. I have had several nasty / opportunist clients try to avoid the last payments. Even when, nearly always, the adjudicator agrees we are in the right, it all ends up costing money, time and aggravation. It cost our clients more.

My take on the Ecodan: Ecodans do fine on the "euro tests" for sCOP. The euro tests for sCOP test the unit at a few fixed points that are representative of perfectly weather compensated heating of an old-build in one of three climate zones. This means: - They have a "long and low" space heating season (heating well into the shoulder seasons and relatively more of this vs heating during the coldest snaps) - They don't capture domestic hot water production - They don't capture how well the built in controls on the unit do, or don't, work (the tests are at operating points fixed by the test rig) It isn't the highest performance unit on the market. And it's also an FGas based unit. High temperature capabilities are limited. In the real world you see a very mixed bag on the results. The majority are fairly poor. (if we believe heatpumpmonitor results) This could be because the people who typically choose Ecodans don't know how to install and operate them. This could also be because the controls on the units are poor and they don't operate anywhere near the lab test conditions in real life. If you dig into the results, the top ecodan is...delivering space heating ONLY (so no high temperature operation to produce domestic hot water) in an old build (so extended heating season) with UFH (so in effect it never operates hot). It comes close to the test results. The second ecodan...essentially uses uses solar thermal for the domestic hot water and tops out at 38C at design condition in an old build property. So again t's doing nothing hot. The third ecodan...is more normal (providing heating and lukewarm water - 42C) but read further and it's operated by somebody who gave up with the OEM controls being being excrement and wound up rolling their own to try get the thing to perform. Only by the time you get to the fourth ecodan do you see something "normal" but again I'd caution that it's an old build with extended space heating. The rest get progressively worse; with Ecodans occupying too many of the bottom rungs on the list for there to be no correlation between the unit (or the people who choose this unit) and performance. You have a passive house. The heating season will be MUCH shorter and harder (there won't be the long shoulders of low grade heat and relatively high ambient temperatures) and hot water will be a MUCH higher proportion of overall demand. You will want to pay a disproportionate amount of attention to the high flow temperature DHW production performance of the units. That will likely favour the newer R290 based units over R32 units. You'll want to be MUCH more careful about designing an overall system (both heat pump itself and the heating system controls that couple this to the thermal storage of your pipes/floors - no stupid hysteresis stats on 101 zones etc) so that it can operate at part-load. I don't think an Ecodan ticks those boxes particularly well. It's long in the tooth. Naff OEM controls (read through the trials and tribulations of the openenergymonitor folks trying to control these) and what looks like narrower operating window (look at the minimum flowrates etc required) compared with other units. The Vaillant units aren't anything to write home about on paper. They look like they don't work as well as an Ecodan. Yet they're disproportionately represented on the upper part of the heatpumpmonitor charts. Probably not a coincidence. Perhaps due to an "ok" unit with superior control when it comes to heating. Perhaps due to those designing these installations being better at it. Performacne oriented units? Perhaps Nibe S2125? Rated with a sCOP of 5.0 on the average climate and 6.4 on the warm climate for underfloor systems (35C peak flow temp) on the euro test cycle. https://www.nibe.eu/en-gb/products/heat-pumps/air-source-heat-pumps/s2125 https://assetstore.nibe.se/hcms/v2.3/entity/document/319563/storage/MzE5NTYzLzAvbWFzdGVy (The south of the UK is warm climate. The north of the UK is average climate.) Don't get confused by the nameplates. 8 kW nameplate on Nibe is about the same at 5 kW on Vaillant. (Nibe quote the "max" heat output in warm conditions; Vaillant quote the "design" heat output at the cold/design condition; both are similar) Perhaps a Lambda unit if you're feeling brave enough to try a low volume unit? https://lambda-wp.at/luft/ https://zewotherm.com/de/produkte/waermepumpen/zewo-waermepumpe-lambda.html Rated at sCOP 5.7 on the 35 degree *average* climate cycle. Similarly impressive sCOP on the 55 cycle infers decent DHW performance too. Quiet courtesy of both the sheer size and blowing through the heat exchanger to muffle fan noise rather than sucking through it and giving you direct fan noise. (at the expense of being somewhat more difficult to clean) Three options for PV diversion 1) run at a set output when digital contact bridged 2) measure the actual excess export and run at as close to this as possible using a meter 3) get told what to run by an external device using a modbus input Also tall to avoid getting buried in snow; buried in cold lakes of air; and designed to thermosyphon from the house (needs heat pump higher than the house) in the case of a power cut etc. Relative to this kind of thing the Ecodans aren't a performance oriented unit. They're so so. Robust but not lighting anybody's pants on fire. And in practice most appear to be towards the bottom of the league tables in real world performance vs other similarly "so so priced" units. I'd at the very least want to know why my designer were picking this over other units and what they do differently to ensure that their designs aren't at the bottom of the league tables in terms of performance. It doesn't appear to be a given that these perform well.

The deaths in England was around 0.4% of the population. But that is just deaths, the numbers hospitalised was much greater. On March 1/4/2020 there were 13,432, 6/7/2023 there were 6,429. So it has not gone away At any one time since April 2020, 1% of the population is in hospital with COVID, on average, even today. Now, if you think that COVID was not reduced by physical separation, then there is no argument to be had, but if you do think that physical separation of people and basic precautions, then locking us all down did help. If the NHS struggled to cope with an extra 681,300 bed.days, how would it have coped with a 30% increase? As for the Furlough. There is a bit of a myth that the vast majority of people were on it for a full period. At Peak Furlough, 31% of the workforce were on not at work (12/4/2020), by October 2020, 10% of the workforce where on it. It then wen up and down as the winter waves came along, but only at about half the rate of the peak. I did read somewhere that mot people were only furloughed for a few weeks, and as others have said, they, and there family, carried on working. So there was probably only a hundred people that claimed it for the full period, wish I had been one. The majority of the longer term furloughed workers were in the hospitality and retail industries, and they were all back to work by August 2020 (Eat out To Help Out). During the first year (2020) there was little opportunity to spend money i.e. no holidays, moving house, car purchases, so people just saved. This saved cash was not in circulation, so no multiplier effect. This reduced, at that time, government tax receipts. That money is now coming back into the economy (savings being used for everyday purchases). So while I would rather have not had a pandemic, I do not think it hurt the economy as bad as people think, and it saved a lot of lives and pressure on public services.

We ran ours around the internal panels. I also filled in the voids. No the upstand doesn’t double up as the expansion joint as it’s too rigid. We fitted a foam strip around the perimeter and the around the panels.

Lots of free money Those fools couldn’t give it away fast enough Clapping to support NHS workers was laughable As was the 2% pay rise offered to them afterwards There never should have been a lockdown I didn’t take a penny As I didn’t have anytime off Neither did my wife and daughter Who where seconded by the NHS for 18 months No time off no holidays At least they got a round of applause each Thursday

Well said! Lockdown and furlough was an absolute disaster. That is why we now have 9% inflation. 99.9% of people had no cause to be worried about covid and we are now all paying the price for the policy response. Taping off outdoor gyms and not being allowed to buy certain good in the supermarkets, is absolutely laughable.

XPS hell of a lot cheaper for better U value, more build up though.

Not sure my floor has ever hit 25 degs! Why go to the bother of building a passivhaus and then have the heating on in the summer? Just madness

1100 is fire regs. can ignore for ground floor windows exiting onto a hallway to outside door. Everyhting else has to meet 1100 and have a 450 clear opening so a 500 sash.

It's the reason i walked out of my job in banking. There was no mercy. Can't pay, take the house back off them. I believe that when the shite hit the fan in Ireland, the banks ended up owning more property than the general public. From memory, my first mortgage was £325 per month against a take home pay of about £1000. However, a tenner a month to the gas and electricty covered it. Petrol was about 75pence a gallon, a decent second hand car, about 3 grand. Now a bloody coffee is about 4quid.

I've just completed my first build with Protek as structural warranty provider. I would not recommend them. In summary their technical auditors are a nightmare. My out of pocket expenses due to delays in securing the structural warranty are several times what I paid Protek for the warranty in the first place. See some of my recent posts on the subject.

Let it disappear down the pipe! If I can dispose of U571, then a few dog hairs and a bit of mud will disappear to never be seen again, zero problemo.

They make better stuff than Billy Bookshelves, god I wish were were still part of the EU.

Do you buy in readymix and just get your wife to barrow it in and lay it?

NTP fitting... No joy, still binds up immediately. Ok so that's pretty much every fitting available so it's obviously got a thread issue. I'm going to go with the tap on the top, going into a 15mm and then the air valve. @Nickfromwales I hope you think this will do the job?

>>> I usually do windows 2100mm from the floor, 1200mm high. More skylights than windows then?

Soon we won’t be able to afford our rent / mortgage afford food afford gas afford electric afford fuel At least the suns out ( though I’m sure someone will piss on that and say it’s raining where they are )