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Yeah the glass has fallen off or been smashed off. Just needs a new bulb and possibly a pair of pliers to remove the old one.

If you can get across to the walls then yes, but often done by spreading the load across several ceiling joist (too often done with only a thin board if anything). A well supported stack remaining acts like a strong-back for the gable. Then remove the bricks going through roof line and finish to suit existing

I would question how are you going to get different temperatures to the different areas and a very different heat required for the FCUs and UFH, or are you planning to run at same temperature?

Sure looks like one of those "halogen bulbs inside a regular bulb" but with the regular glass bulb missing. Might have been like that for ages as it will work without the outer glass.

If you use pliers, And it's live, it goes boom. If you stuff in a potato and twist, it's safe and you don't cut your fingers, or damage the lamp holder

Also top tip.. If you've wired it in Double points (two ports in a face plate). You can use a patch cable between them and test back at the panel

Well done for giving this a go, thanks for posting as very interesting. Fair enough the walls are light in weight and I assume so will be the roof. How are you going to tie it down to stop the roof and walls lifting up in the wind? Are you going to use the long spikes to pin the roof wall plate down a good bit into the bales? Bit of house keeping on the maths mainly for all in case they use the same sums. 5 tonnes = 5000kg. Convert to Newtons 5000 x 9.81 (just say 10) / 1000 = 50 kN (not 5). If you have 2.5m^2 of pad area then roughly the pressure at the bottom of the pad will be 50 / 2.5 = 20 kN/m^2. If it is a temporary structure (say snow loading with a return period of 20 years as a ball park figure add some 0.35 kN/m^2 to the roof loading unless you are at a high altitude UK wise. A good bit of that soil you see next to the wall will be backfill (made ground).. ask how are the founds for the retaining wall formed. How far do they protrude into your garden? Is the soil you see just well compacted fill? The main thing here to watch out for is that if you are digging next to a retaining wall is that they are designed for two main things. One that they don't tip over and two that they don't slide into your garden. The sliding is important here. The sliding forces are resisted often by the friction under the found and also by the soil on your side and this can make a big contribution towards sliding resistance. I would avoid disturbing more of the soil close to the wall on your side or lowering the ground level on your side close to the retaining wall. I would give the OSB a swerve as I have my doubts about it performing well in this application.. it is thin and you have fixing issues.. and any long term moisture is not good for it. What about using cheep fencing slats with some 3 -5 mm gap between that are treated, these are more breathable than say OSB? Anyway it keeps the ethos of using more natural rather than highly process materials (lots of glue) such as OSB. If you have doubts get a bit of OSB and leave it out in the rain / in a bucket of water for a while and see what happens to it. As the thing is light weight how are you going to stop it blowing over sideways in the plane of the retaining wall? I assume you are going to make the roof like a stiff beam that transfers the sideways wind load to the rear wall? In high winds you could easily get 100 kg/m^2 wind uplift on the roof unless you live in a very sheltered spot. At the same time you get the wind blowing on the sides of the building wanting to push / suck it over sideways. I think it is these wind stability issues you need to concentrate on rather than the founds, although they are important.. settlement won't generaly hurt anyone (unless left unchecked) where as the thing collapsing or bits blowing off and hitting folk in the wind is a concern.

There are very few use cases for NHL5 now, you may as well use cement. It doesn't want to be anywhere near your stonework. You'd be better off going weaker and repointing often, then going harder and watching the stone start to spall.

I did exactly this, dead easy and quicker and less fuss than building with blocks.

Either will normally work but do run it past your SE.

Yeah either will work OK.

Indeed. Our SE has looked at this and we have a ridge beam going in. As well as the two purlins. I think we probably needed a ridge beam all along anyway because we have a section of vaulted ceiling. 🤔 Anyway, moving on, our ridge beam will be supported in two places near the centre of the roof as well as at the gables. Its a long roof. Our builder has suggested steel columns in the loft to support the ridge beam instead of building two walls of blocks up into the loft to the ridge. We do have existing horizontal steel beams at ceiling height to support either steel columns or a wall. The cynic inside me suspects our builder has suggested the steel columns because it is easier to schedule roofers and go forward quickly. I can't see a downside of a steel column but then I generally have no clue about such things. Is there anything wrong in using steels to support the ridge beam? Is a block wall in the loft (with an opening to walk through of course) a better solution? Structural Engineer is happy with either option.

If they mentioned lintels then they are looking at removing the top bit of stack and replacing the roof over but leaving the remainder in the loft. removing chimney breasts, especially on a gable end can cause a lot of problems because a chimney adds a lot of stiffness and bracing into a gable wall.

A good place to start the process of elimination tbh, as there’s nothing worse than changing stuff to then arrive straight back at the original fault.

You just run a 32mm pipe and they will use a reducer just as the pipe enters your boundary, which connects to their 25mm outlet, simples. The drop would occur over distance, so upgrading to 32mm pipe will alleviate those losses and preserve what dynamic flow and pressure you have at the street. If you are defo going with an accumulator then you’ll be one of the best performance dwellings on the street. Chillax, and go worry about something else, like me now driving everywhere at 20mph ffs

We knocked down and rebuilt an old house in a village, the house was supplied from the water main with a 25mm meter and we ran the pipe from the meter to the house in 32mm. All our neighbours complain of low water pressure and low flow. Our water pressure and flow is fine, easily enough for two showers to run at the same time. We attribute our lack of problems to the 32mm supply pipe.

We have a 25mm meter connected to 32mm pipe to the house. Seems to work very well. Haven't felt the need to upgrade to a bigger meter. Currently feeds two quite high flow rate showers.

Nope! My sincere apologies. The house was burgled last night and the only thing the bastards took was my beloved scientific calculator. "What are the odds?", I said..... Given current market value I have set the reward for its immediate and safe return at £8.99 (or £6.99 if you have a Tesco Clubcard). These take the network pressure and 'lend' it to you, for the grand sum of FOC. Peak times for you to harvest said free energy are around 3-4AM plus some sporadic pockets during the daytime, and the name for this is "stored energy", the fact you borrow it each day is what makes this a great solution. No pumps, no maintenance (other than annual check of pre-charge pressure and occasional top up), and no electrical / other consumption seen by you, the user. Happy days. A survey of your max peak pressure per 24hrs is essential, achieved by connecting a pressure gauge with a double-check NRV on it to capture the peak reading, so you can correctly size the vessel and set the correct pre-charge pressure (so it actually fills with water).

Inflated costs. My 4kw PV, ASHP and cylinder, UFH will /is DIY install and it will cost less than £7k, but self build is horses for course's.👍

NHL 3.5 mixed 3:1 will be fine. Save NHL5 for under water and exposed conditions (like chimney stacks on top of the Dales).

@Mr Punter correct Landscape materials, plants and trees are expensive so if you can get a plan together it's very worthwhile submitting it along with your building plans to be able to claim the vat back in a few years time. You need a landscape designer not some random recommended gardner off faceache.

I was sceptical. Can confirm is solid as they come if the frame is the depth of the cistern. Drill a bunch of holes through the sides of the metal frame (with cistern out) and screw through into the stud with half a dozen shear screws each side. (the sort used for joist hangars etc) Some adhesive from frame to stud won't hurt. Most load goes into floor. The "peeling of the wall" load is all you're carrying, in pure shear, and can promise it'll go nowhere with a few screws let alone screws/glue. Shear rated screws example: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Angle-Fitting-Screw-Connector-Screws/dp/B09DDC65PX

Thanks for the suggestions. We're still in planning so it will be a while before I have any concrete updates, but will post back when I do

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.

I would humbly suggest that you employ a water engineer that sits you down to have a proper think about the real world water demands and whether all the outlets are actually going to be used at once 😉 I know it's not what many want to hear on BH but the reality is that when you sit down to work out the real patterns in a house the concurrent demands are less than most people think. You've also got the pesky building regs and resultant design guidelines suggesting less water use per person. I know I've said this before but when I designed my system I started off in the same trap. I thought I needed to supply 3 bathrooms concurrently blah blah.However, instead of looking at upgrading the mains supply and accumulator, hot water recirculation and so forth, I looked instead and reducing overall flow rates while retaining pressure so even with less than 30l/min peak flow I can supply all bathrooms and whatever outlets without anyone complaining - although my only complaint is that I feel the kitchen tap (which comes restricted to 6l/min as standard) doesn't fill my pots quite quickly enough when I'm in a hurry. Our current main drench shower is regulated to 6l/min and it works really well. This approach was in part inspired by comments made by @markocosic to a thread I started a while ago about a similar question. Just fundamentally changed how I looked at the problem. You can also use 10mm pipe for toilets, basins, dishwasher, washing machine which also reduces impact on flow.

+1 The ashp slab cooling really works and costs bugger all to run if you have a ~4pkW PV array. You only use it on sunny days after all. Also, less glass, shading. Prevention is better than cure.

I usually persuade my wife to get out and open the gate.