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Ah! Of course. 🤦‍♂️Thanks for the post . This is my go-to level because It has both a bubble and electronic feedback If set to electronic, you can hear when the item is level (the error can be given both in degrees or percentage) - you don't need to look at the level You can use the level upside down - the display automatically compensates The surface of the level allows you to write on it in pencil It has a built in laser (30mm above the base) (wish it had a laser both ends) It is magnetic It can be strapped to a straight edge - levelling a path today with a 3m straight edge ( 3 black slots for velcro straps provided) The level can be used as an inclinometer You can set the level to 'level' (or another value) when the level is placed on a slight incline (red turnbuckle on the RHS) You can 'hold' any value (hold button) allowing you to read the level when the viewport cannot be seen ( measure> hold > view) Yes, it's German, and you'd expect me to buy one. Haende hoch Fritz : I'm biased, I agree. I am sure that people like Zeiss, Leitz, or Hilti, or Dewalt do levels that are just as good. If someone drove a digger over mine, I'd have ordered another a few minutes after having stopped swearing. For a self builder, and for me, it's close to perfect Exactly.

Stick some masking tape or tippex etc on your bubble, find a pretty level or plumb surface, put level on surface and mark edges of bubble, spin 180 degrees and mark again, difference between your two sets of marks is true and you have more accurate lines. The bubble size changes with temp, hence lines usually being too far apart in our climate

Hey, go easy on yourself. S**t happens. Nothing and no one in life is perfect. Ever. You can only do your best. Try to shrink things down in your mind and imagine you are advising a friend. Sure it's annoying and very unlucky, but it will get sorted out and repaired. And it will look absolutely fine. I bought a little endoscope in anticipation of problems like this, to help diagnose things, but have only had to use it to look at spiders so far. I think self building does your head in a bit. 3am is a bad time.

music to @Pocster's ears that.

If I find I'm constantly moving other people's never-been-used-in-a-million-years stuff, I now tell them that it's been put on Death Row. Photograph it and pin that on the notice board. The photo soon gets covered with other lists and stuff. They've got 6 months to move it. I allow one Appeal, but if it's still there a year after the Death Sentence .... it's gone. To date, not one complaint. They just buy other useless stuff I need to find storage for. Why is that a bloke's job eh? Why?

Internet. West sussex county council.......Search function. Dropped Kerb.......... All the information you need will follow.

I will look it up in the morning fella.

This sounds promising. Can you expand on the detail of this product please.

It's essentially heat_loss/deltaT * degreedays * 24 Heat loss in kW and answer in kWh. Where deltaT=design temp of room minus outdoor temp (about 22 in the south east UK) and degreedays is the number of degreedays per year in the location (about 2000 in the UK). 24 is of course the number of hours in a day. I'm not sure if MCS do any tweaks but that is the basic formula.

Sure it wasn't geo-membrane?

I'm told it is a resin, which I'd guess is not recyclable. Also told that it would have been a better quality in plastic, which is an option. Black would not be recyclable. others? No idea.

Here is a snippet out of my Atag gas boiler manual. This is X plan. 3 way wired back to the boiler, the boiler then knows what temp it fires at. ASHP are the same configuration X plan.

Yes. They rally want to grow wider though so this will be regular. do it soon, long before frosts, so it can grow shoots and harden them. or leave 'til spring.

Good news mostly then. He is correct to some extent. Silcone, along with cans of expanding foam, should only be issued to builders with a prescription from the building designer. However there are products that don't harden in the sun (UV)and so may work for much longer. If you can find a way of flashing over, as suggested, then so much the better. Photo please. Only buy stuff with a recognised brand name. Own brands (with some persuasive names) can be very variable. I have taken a liking to Everbuild. There is a big range and their spec sheets are clear. You'll be wanting uv resistant and permanently flexible. Everbuild appears to be owned by Sika. You are going to need the tiniest smear of it to fix the leak, but it is probably worth replacing it all at that area.

Roofer came, good news and bad news. Good news is he spotted some minor issue which he patched up pretty quickly with another coat of the triflex membrane on a small area. Also good news is that they didn’t forget the fabric membrane that goes between the sedum trays and the triflex, that’s been there all along. Bad news is that as @saveasteadingforeshadowed there appears to be an issue further upslope from the site of the leak: a large 4m by 1m skylight. Of the 10m perimeter of that glass, the two short sides and the long side at the bottom are all fine. However about 1m of the 4m top side is not bound by a wall. That 1m should have an overhang of glass that surpasses the upstand. But it doesn’t. It meets the upstand approximately half way across it. There is then silicone covering the join with the upstand. That silicone has failed/cracked. According to the roofer , who says he worked for 20 years in glazing previously, putting in new silicone will only ever be a temporary measure because it is still vulnerable, due to the lack of overhanging glass. He said that these types of designs never work long term and that I should look at replacing the roof window. From my perspective, that is prohibitively expensive, I think it cost c. £3k and removing it would also create potential damage to the roof. I asked if as an alternative they could install a flashing to cover the vulnerability, he said it would not stick because of the self cleaning glass is designed to have nothing stick to it. I’m just wondering if that is really that accurate? there is some lead flashing which has been stuck to the glass by using Tesco’s Vana Pro Clima airtight tape sandwiched between the glass and the leaf flashing. Reading up on the specs of that tape, it is only designed for 6 months of outdoor use, but I wonder whether we got away with that as being sandwiched between glass underneath and lead flashing on top, it is not actually “outdoors”. Trying to stay calm, but very difficult.

Cut them as a hedge, with a hedge cutter. Some branched may be thicker and need a lopper.

There may be a newer version. https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/439-fabric-and-ventilation-heat-loss-calculator/

Give the heat engineer app a go , it’s a tenner for a one off report. I found it easier than Jeremy’s spreadsheet. https://www.heat-engineer.com

If you have UFH the system design is done basically. Just a matter of kW for the heat pump size, if your have loads of zones, install a buffer (but a two port in the return line). 3 port valve and cylinder. 6kW can get away 22mm copper pipes as long as the run isn't for miles, 6 to around 10kW 28mm primary pipes. Keep an eye on eBay, my ASHP was £1300 delivered (same thing from Viessmann, currently reduced to £3300 from £5200) https://viessmanndirect.co.uk/Catalogue/Vitocal-Heat-Pumps/Vitocal-100-A, The same person I bought my ASHP from, also had pre-plumbed cylinders for £6-700, @Jenki I think bought one.

Add a porch to act as a buffer stopping external air coming into the house?

We used to stick the caravan roofs on with double sided tape. Was good stuff.

I've got a Bosch DNM120L bought 13 years ago and I also think it's good, especially as an inclinometer, not as posh as yours but didn't cost as much. Don't think they make that model any more.

The screws will have a very small cross sectional area. About 9mm2. You have about 70 screws per 1.2*2.4m board so about 0.02% or 1mm2 per 4,500mm2. To take your 50mm thick PIR layer the calcs look like.. (99.98% X 0.022W/mK)+(0.02% X 45W/mK) = an average thermal conductivity of 0.031W/mK so it does make a small difference. However in the real work you need to hold the wall together somehow. Your 50mm layer of PIR between battens at 10% wood will have an average thermal conductivity of about 0.034W/m2K. So your wall as built will have a U value of about 0.32W/m²K Vs about 0.27W/m²K without the effect of the screws. Assuming 20m2 of wall heated for 8hrs a day at 100days per year at a delta T of 12deg is 9.6kWh/year. At 15p/kWh that is £1.44 cost of extra gas per year. Feel free to loose sleep about that but frankly I think you did the bang on right thing by building securely.

I used a Sarnafil S237 membrane, it's mechanical fixed, all fixing hidden under an overlap then fully hot air seam welded, with a standing seam welded on also. No issues so far. We paid £14k fully installed in early 2021 for about 200m2.

The whole idea is it's on the plan, sorted, you have planning permission. There no permitted development rights for anything while a property is being built, until approved and signed off. While a build is under progress it has to be completed as per the approved drawings. The heat pump location looks like I took it from the Scottish version of permitted development rights https://www.gov.scot/publications/guidance-householder-permitted-development-rights-9781780456836/pages/8/ But this English site says front wall. Less prescriptive.

Thanks chaps- indeed fixed by replacing the pull switch. Thank goodness! Grateful for your replies. Zoot

in the meantime https://www.shopclima.it/en/mitsubishi-electric-pxz-4f75vg-2x-msz-ap25vgk-msz-ap35vgk-erst20d-vm2d-ecodan-multi-3-1-pxz-r32-system-with-msz-ap-wall-units-and-200-l-hydrotank-7-5-kw.html

You can install an ASHP under permitted development even in a conversation area, so long as it's not visible from the main road and a few related location restrictions. Plus all the usual constraints (1m from boundary, comply with MCS section 20 noise design limits, be the first/only heat pump on the premises, not be used for cooling, etc) Is your concern related to your comment about PP being for it "on the south side" ? We don't have the context to interpret the relevance of that. In my experience (also in a conservation area, and we forgot to put the ASHP on the PP application at all), the LPA won't care about MCS, and the MCS installer won't care about PP/PD process. The only value in the paperwork is to cover your backside if anyone comes at you making complaints, or when you come to sell. Doing an MCS install it the easiest (in terms of effort, if not money) way to get an official looking piece of paper that says you followed the MCS noise guidelines. And that's only important if someone complains about the noise.

I used the same one to set my walls heights on a staggered wall, roof is at 12 deg sitting direct on top of wall. Used the Lazer it has, and got the wall heights bob on. You can recalibrate if you need too. I also have a Stanley fatmax, which is very robust and it's used and abused for the last two years. Had a few expensive ones at the start of the build and managed to break them quite quickly.

If you have superfoil you can get water flowing a long way from the leak... So that may need thinking through as well.

Our, very definitely , former groundworker was adamant that the lines were away from the bubble so that you could line up the bubble with it for pipe gradients. All drains were to go in at this gradient regardless of what drawings might say. On the bubble as standard. "Off the bubble" for steep. This caused some expense , but it could have been a huge problem. We then did the bulk of drainage ourselves.

That should be 5.0kw to 14.5kw so approx 3:1 modulation Our house is quite far from neighbours so we didn't face this problem. Also the two units we put are in different locations (about 30m apart). MHI units are slightly noisier on paper than Mitsubishi Ecodan but in reality we didn't find them that noisy. Also the Max noise figures are at max output which should not be very often. Does your house need 29kW heating input? If 14kW is sufficient then they should be able to put 2 indoor units and one 14kW outdoor unit. We haven't upgraded the filter but as mentioned previously we haven't used the system much. At the moment we have old floor diffusers with dampers, but we never used them. We did keep couple of flooring offcuts next to diffusers to cover unused rooms if needed but never used.

I find an electronic level set on top of an aluminium straight edge works far better. Even the £10 compact one I got from Amazon give better results than either of my long levels. For lengths over 2m I usually just whip out the laser level and use a tape measure to set the opposite end.

I would go and give your builder a pat on the back. Most, don't even consider where you might be mounting things.

Dropped kerbs are dealt with by the HIghways dept. Not the planning Dept.

I routered the tops of the joists in my mates house, donkeys years ago, just enough to run about 50m of 8mm microbore directly under the chipboard (P5) deck. It was connected to the CH flow and return and was balanced with a single 15mm gate valve which was mounted under the removable bath panel. AFAIK, still works to this day, and I'm talking 20+ years ago. Zero insulation (as it was 1st floor / within the heated envelope anyways), and as the pipe was toasty hot the heat got through. Makes me shudder when I think back tbh, but this was a quick and easy way to get the result when there was a budget of <£50 lol. There are P5 deck boards available which are pre-routered, but I would suggest maybe contacting Wunda and asking them to design & supply a system for you that suits your exact circumstances. They give comprehensive support upon you placing a deposit.

Hi. Most shower trays / wetroom formers are 22mm thick and cannot be 'cut into', however there are very few instances where I've run the electric UTH (under-tile heating) wire into the wet area, as there's very little point tbh. I'm actually installing a Wedi setup atm for a client, and have allowed for the main areas / circulation space to be serviced by the UTH but not the wet area. When the shower is running, you'll only need a couple of degrees to raise the floor (wet) area to where you perceive it as "comfortable" (that has a thousand definitions btw) so I doubt it is worth making this job such a PITA. There's a few solutions for the wet UFH in the bathroom, but I am a fan of (correctly installed) aluminium spreader plates. Then you just install 22mm P5 'weyroc' flooring with ply atop, and tile away. This isn't a very 'reactive' floor heating system as there is a lot for the heat to get through, hence it is very few instances where you see wet UFH in just a bathroom. The economics of just running that on its own for eg would not make much sense but with your circumstances it likely won't matter as you'll likely have the heating 'ticking over' vs on or off? You will defo need this to be on its own manifold with its own thermostatic valve, if there's not UFH elsewhere in the home? If that is the case, you can possibly get away with just having a pump and a TMV at the buffer tank sending tempered water direct to this individual 'zone', but we'd need much more info about the system to advise definitively. If you have this amount of renewable / lo-cost energy available, I'd make like easy and install UTH which you can run over any wetroom former etc. If you install the tiles over insulation tile boards as I am doing here, then the heat up time will be massively reduced and then it can just be timed for set-back operation, switching between comfort and economy temp to make it energy efficient.

No difference at all, and be warned.... if you're that intent on details and micro worrying you will put yourself into an early grave!!

Probably skew nailed or screwed to the mullions, ideally would be on noggins but the PB or backer boards will hold even if theses boards are just used as load spreaders

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Can we drop US word "curb" and use the British word " kerb" please? Kerbs are there to curb wheels going onto the pavement.

I suggest you let other matters and conspiracy lie for a day or so, and look at @Big Jimbo 's points carefully. Are they correct? Can you address them?

It says on thr triflex spec that it suitable for sedum (not all systems are). So it shouldn't be that. I'd only say that leaks often originate elsewhere and migrate to a point which makes them drip. That leak point will usually be directly upslope from the drip. The eaves perhaps. Your leak is tiny, (a pinhole)so it may simply silt up and not recur, so don't rush into anything , stay calm with the roofer then note what he has said. Photograph the damp bit and record the position in distances from walls.

Very much so, but different things cause different people stress. I found my build completely stressless but a different aspect of my life ( @Adsibob knows what that is) caused me much stress leading to yet another cancer. It’s very difficult to do but try to be pragmatic about it and if necessary find someone else to act on your behalf when dealing with the roofing company.

Excellent. Rustic timber and precise metalwork. The other way round wouldn't work so well. You say you've gone for the treatment that makes the greying, sorry silvering, faster and consistent. It would be great if you can report on this transition from time to time. I declare now that I am not a fan of silvering. The architects show golden timber in their publicity shots, and later justify the greying as intended and natural, but don't change the picture. It can be worse with chestnut or redwood though. Too often I've seen it going scabby, so good luck with yours. I think it is important that there are no areas of splashing or running water (eg off your window flashings and sills), so that it is consistent.

It really did do a good job of showing just how hopeless the present plan is. No hope of getting enough heat pumps installed and houses insulation upgraded. No hope of getting enough green energy built in time and the electricity grid upgraded to cope. No hope of getting enough new nuclear built on time. No hope of Hydrogen ever being a viable green energy source. The spokesperson they kept putting these points to had no answer other than waffle and pretend all was okay.

As I mentioned earlier, if the HPncan achieve pasteurisation temps (65C or so) on it's.own then we no longer need any immersion booster. That means it is physically impossible for the heat source to overheat the cylinder and cause a catastrophic event. Which means the safety features aren't needed, just a PRV, venting to the drain in case the expansion vessel fails. Which simplifies the installation back to that of a vented cylinder (DIY) probably easier (thus cheaper)

I suspect there is a seasonality element. The price of gas fluctuates lower in the summer The price of electricity will often go higher as it is generator constrained and southern Europe is guzzling electricity for cooling. I had a look at what makes up unit prices. Both gas.and electrify have a "per unit green tax" If you look at the absolute amounts Gas - about 0.2p/kWh Elec - about 1p/kwh You can see elec has a much higher level of taxation We could move almost all the cost of green taxes to gas. That would help. But this is where my subsidy pegged to the gas.price.wouid come in. It would effectively make the swap risk free. Even if electricity Soares away from gas your bill.woiod be capped at what it would have been if you remained. You may (if your setup beats the official COP) make a little.from it (winks). Human nature being human nature that fact may motivate people to increase efficiency. People will often work extra hard to get "free" stuff. This will remove one of the barriers to switching "what if is spend all this money and my bills go up?"

I have been to spec savers 😎

+1, You beat me to it. It was like being on a fairground ride watching that.