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Well I initially felt the same as I love woodwork and had some machinery, but, with all the other work on the build I was involved with i got the satisfaction of assembling the “kit” and ended up with a lovely looking oak staircase without the hassle and longer time frame.

The biggest problem I encounter with self builders is either too much micromanagement of stuff that is really insignificant, or just a complete lack of investment in the most basic of forethought and M&E planning. Seems one or the other tbh. The micromanagers seem to lose sleep overthinking / over engineering / worrying about stuff which has never caused them issue; up to them making the new home! I would install a medium sized accumulator without a seconds hesitation, as the uplift in the performance of the entire hot and cold system is remarkable. No dip in pressure and flow when a loo is flushed when a showers running etc, just night and day difference tbh for not much money.

Usually you are needing compression fittings where the Hep terminates, under sinks etc, so converting to copper is what I do each and every time. Usually with the Hep 90 in the wall, and the copper disappearing into it out of sight. Anyone who has pushfit on display is low down on my list tbh, looks horrible and unprofessional, plus all the pipe and fittings can then rotate and move about / around.... Feck that!

Like most stairs the stringers rest on the next landing then I secured with metal brackets, cad drawing available (crayon assisted drawing 🤣)

👍, just a suggestion, when you board the wall pencil on the plasterboard where the pipe is so you don’t screw into it when fixing the plasterboard, what is that black small pipe connected to the basin waste? Also what noggins are you putting in to support the basin?

Apologies it took long to respond and thanks for the wise advise above. The relationship has not been great with the neighbours so for our peace of mind we decided to use the the Party Wall Surveyor route. We didn't have a SE hired as well. Luckily the neighbour agreed for our surveyor for joint representation and it was in the end a smooth process. The Surveyor recommended hit and miss approach for laying foundation adjacent to the neighbour's garage in his party wall award. We are now looking forward to start the construction. Hopefully no more issues with neighbours at least.

Very few clients will bother with a maintenance program, so checking the pre-charge pressure annually often goes out the window…… and that’s when the bladder can pop and the vessel will rust from the inside out. Then the entire unit needs to be replaced.

The bladders do wear out eventually, but are changeable in the decent units. TBH I have these in customers homes that I’ve installed over 15 years ago and they still have my mobile number, as do all my previous clients, so if there was a failure I can only assume they would be on the phone for support (as some had such bad pressure / flow that if the kitchen tap was running downstairs and you opened the basin tap upstairs, you’d hear air being sucked into the tap and zero water would come out). I demonstrate the accumulators to the clients by opening every tap in the house, simultaneously, and they just cannot believe it. Then I show then that the cold mains is isolated and then open that and it gets better again!

We have a borehole and have the very thing upstream of the filter system. Couldn't agree more

anyone used https://www.doorsofdistinction.co.uk/ ? prices seem good.

Yup, in a nutshell.

I will get my crayons out in the morning.

Suggesting I know feck all ? Your biscuits are (expletive deleted)ed now

Too be fair - chance of hep20 connector failing is very very slim .

I need to 90° out of the wall so converting to copper is easy as I can push fit it into the 90° hep2o elbow. I don't see the issue here! I see most posts that people come out of the wall in copper and run plastic in the walls. 🤷‍♂️

small black pipe is condensate pipe from an AC unit. 18mm ply fitted within the studs for fitting the basin to. that's also on tomorrow's list of things to do!

I'd put a trellas up at the join and plant something, climbing rose or even ivy. You'll soon forget about the rest.

T piece hidden in the wall😩

Sure can! It’s a great way to save money. if anyone questions it just call it landscaping.

Overnight I decided to have a go at digging deeper, since the back four pits would be more difficult to access than any of the others in case it turned out they *needed* to be deeper. I'm glad I did - against expectations, I've found a lovely flat hard horizon at about 0.7M below ground level. It seems the brick wall goes at least four concrete blocks down, and I'm around the middle/bottom of the third one down at this point. At 0.5, I was still in topsoil 😬 . My spade just bounces off this layer. I can dig into it with a pick - it's mostly compacted gravel, various other bits and pieces mixed in, a few whole bricks and so on. This depth must be fine. SURELY. Mind you, this bottom 0.2M is easily as much work as the top 0.5.

Our set of Stairbox stairs, but using the Fusion handrails and spindles from Burdidge.

Yes I found them on EBay from a company in Yorkshire.

Turn blocks on their sides and cement 4 together (2 one way, 2 across) and they will spread the load much better.

You worry too much, add extra noggins if you think you are weakening the timber by drilling a hole, sheet the front with OSB as nick says also gives the benefit of decent fixings for everything you screw to the wall. im a 18mm plywood fan for this, in kitchens, bathroom, staircases as you are always getting a decent fixing for units, sinks handrails etc. saves grief, saves time. better result

Mines been in use for a couple of years, no issues - except to top up the air once a year, when the filter package is being serviced. Mine is outside in an insulated shed.

@SimonD I started in the same place - wife demanding, we be able to run 3 showers at once, because it would be required. The system I installed could just do that. Only time 3 showers have run at once is when I did the test. Since then only one shower at time, used, irrespective of how many people are in the house.

So a small update and stats Have now added the battery inverter to home assistant. The main reason that I got home assistant was to automate the charging on cheap rate, but only charge by the amount required, based on how much PV generation is likely the next day. GivTCP is the app running on Home Assistant, this connects to GivEnergy Inverter via an API, it also looks up the solar forecast from Solcast - another API. Dont get E7 for a couple of weeks, so running generated solar only. Have updated the Home assistant energy page, which looks like this, this is todays stats On the GivEnergy Cloud, there is the same data, but the forecast data is also represented. Fine tuning the Solcast page for my array you make small changes to angle and direction to fine tune the forecast compared to actual, but its not too bad from the looks of it.

Hi @Bodger No reason why not 2 doors. check with BCO. The garage one will have to open into the garage and the internal one into the room, I assume. Don't forget the fire door frame has to be special as well - with intumescent strip and fire rated hinges and lock/latch, and covered key holes. Good luck M

Very bad advice.

Knowing just how smart a guy Jason is, I'm sure he's got a very good reason for the shape beyond aesthetics. I'd venture acoustics, as sound won't be reflecting straight off the wall and exhaust air is projected up and away

You can lower your nutsack into an upturned petrol mower, the fact it's a bad idea is another thing.

It's a very cheap hobby, practiced by many.

Ah but if it appeals to the right people... my (young) other half on seeing the purple colour with a happy octopus on it: "Oh that's cute!". So that's one barrier gone to getting them installed.

I remember complaining to my dad how long some app or other was taking to run on my computer and he replied his first interactions with a computer required the program to be put on punched tape and then physically posted to the comoutt facility, where it would eventually be run and an output tape posted back. Round trip was about a fortnight if you were lucky. 😁