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I think the original Dualit design is a classic - both old-fashioned but also very modern in its repairability. I have one 29 years old and I don’t expect to replace it anytime soon. I’ve replaced the elements twice and the timer once. And this design didn’t require any clever engineering - just that the thing is held together with screw fasteners and also that spare elements and mechanical timer switches are made available. Wouldn’t it be great if more products would last a lifetime and were very simple to repair? I would fill my house with products like that. >>> £200 / 25 years = £8/year >>> My £5 pound one lasted over a year. i’m not a rabid enviromentalist - but just for engineering efficiency I would prefer not to send a dozen or so cheap toasters to landfill.

So ... are we closer to making @Adsibob the hoster with the poster toaster about which he can boaster the moster ?

They are generally very precise people who go by the written policy. Objections tend to be very personal and not well explained or linked to policy and so be completely ignored. Parish Councillors should study applications and consider them in detail, but tend not to take the trouble, but then spout forth about their own opinion (I know I was one of the few who did homework). Hence they are not generally taken much notice of either. Bu they are if well structured and with reference to policy, as their local knowledge then has some weight. Treat the planning officers with respect. It can be tough job, especially with the big developers and their lawyers trying to catch them out. meanwhile their councilors are on their backs too. Try to make your application relevant to policy. Yes refer to precedent. Pictures, especially artist's impressions, help. Planners, and especially councilors, are not necessarily skilled at visualising.

Hi I’m in the process of designing my timber frame. I thought I’d start a thread to pick some brains as I go along. The frame will be c24 225mm by 45mm timber with a breathable racking board on the outside plus 60mm wood fibre. I have engineering and architect drawings and designs. My next job will be to create my own drawings to use myself or pass on to a joiner to complete the actual work. I’m using a cad program called fusion 360 and I plan to 3D print the design to give me motivation and a nice visual model to refer to. I used to build prototype machines in the workshop without drawings, now that I’m older and wiser (hopefully) I find that concept laughable. I need a clear plan to refer to. I’m going to make mistake building this house. I have some time before the spring, building the frame in cad will hopefully help me make at least some of them in the computer before I take it to site. Below is a practice part of the wall. Printed at 3.5% of the original.

Very impressed with the little Wagner Sprayer Last time round I hired a machine Much bigger than the little Wagner Lots of overspray and waste Hardly any overspray from the smaller machine Takes about 15 minutes per coat for a bedroom

What a find! Nice approach as plenty others chipping in on the Architectural side. I'll limit mine to some SE stuff and some of the history of many of these types of Miner's cottages. I've done a few of these in the past.. here are some of the things I have learnt along the way. Mine owners built these houses at the lowest cost possible using the cheapest materials and labour cost.. just enough to keep their workers working. It's fascinating subject to research. I'll assume these are coal miner's cottages. Often a byproduct of coal mines is clay.. (they often had to dig through this to get to the coal) used to make bricks. the good bricks got sold, the "seconds" were used on the cottages. The good coal went to the big houses and for ships boilers, iron works etc, the low grade, full of sulpher coal was supplied to miners to keep the houses above freezing. High sulpher coal creates not least sulphiric acid which rots the mortar in the chimney's something awful. You have some cross walls but the mine owners didn't send their best masons to build the cottages, as they we often employed building the "manor", wool and jute mills ect. This means that the bonding of the cross walls is likely very poor. Also the external walls tend not to be that well bonded, the good stone went else where as did the best lime for mortar. My inclination is to look /ask.. on a fag packet what happens if we strip out all the internal walls on the original part and replace with thinner walls on a modern concrete slab with UFH. How much extra square feet are we going to generate? If that fag packet sum looks any way favourable then now we have a blank canvas to work with Architecturally.. a big open space. The new walls get tied back into retained external walls to provide any horizontal stability we need. How much easier / cheeper is it going to be to just cast a new insulated slab in a one go cf navigating round any internal walls? What savings can be realised by having a blank canvas in terms of abour / servicing and so on? It would be interesting to know how the existing walls really are constructed and what they are resting on. Until you know this you can't really make informed design decisions. Everything you do will hinge on this; the approach to insulating the external walls, you want to vault the ceilings?.. this will often introduce point loads.. you could end up wasting a load of cash if you don't get a handle on the existing construction in detail. Can you tell us more about what you know about the existing ~1800c construction and the later 1970's one, is it a cavity wall, how wide is the cavity and what are the walls made of. The good news is that hopefully the two storey bit will be heavy so that can be inspected for movement.. if it is sound then you have the makings of a benchmark.. you can say.. well that bit has been sitting there at two storeys for 50 years.. good indication of what the ground can carry sitting on this type of foundation.

More details of what you are joining to and what you want to connect to when you have found something that will fit your 50mmOD pipe? That is not a standard UK size of pipe

Bloodyhell Im going to close my commercial tiling business after Christmas Get myself a little van and go tiling bathrooms 😁

I was told exactly the same thing when ours was granted in early march this year. Although it might not look it the planning dept can spot a frivolous, vindictive or just plain irrelevant objection.

About once every couple of months, we have family or friends over for a large brunch, when we get through 30 bagels (so sixty halves). That is probably the number @Mr Punter had in mind. That’s fine, we would relocate the toaster to the island for such occasions in any event.

How about a dimmable, colour change, LED light. Got to be worth a try as it could be a very cheap fix. No one wants bright lights in a bathroom, except pornographers and @Pocster, which amounts to the same thing. Just seen the bottom of that quote. If the light bulb work, it is only £3k.

True, but the cheaper ones don’t always have a great reviews, and it is only their most expensive lines which are fully repairable.

I’ve previously suggested in other discussions my own planning approach which was to have an early informal discussion with my excellent and helpful planners to get an understanding of potential issues the types of things that could cause issues, to read and understand local planning policies, and early discussions with neighbours. Resulting in an uncontroversial and successful application. But others rightly have pointed out not all local authorities have accessible and sensible planners like I encountered. I’m unclear if your latest application has been knocked back or not. One option you can consider is posting your designs here. It may well be the case that what you’ve submitted is actually hideous and they have rightfully knocked you back, if it is we’ll tell you honestly and offer suggestions. Likewise it may well be what you’ve submitted is beautiful and we can give you that encouragement. It may be a beautiful design but you’re trying to build it in an inappropriate location. Thing is this group has zero agenda not being your neighbours, etc and we are obviously pro-build. Just a thought. I’ve seen a few designs posted in this forum and unsurprised that the application has been troublesome.

Although it can help, each application is determined on its own merits. Third party comments are noted and if they don’t relate to Planning policies and/or not material Planning issues, the comments will be disregarded. The only thing multiple comments can have is the formal determination being made by the Planning Committee and not Delegated Powers. Some LPA’s require a minimum number of objections in order to trigger a PC decision. And the “number” of objections relate to a property and not the person. So for example, a HMO would be deemed as one objection.

Oh yes, we are a friendly and knowledgable bunch 👍. I believe that’s got to be taken into account and worth pointing out. With mine I got a “street scene” drawn up including my neighbours house etc to show my application in context so worth doing. IMO going to appeal is easier than applying for planning permission, I did my own and the department were more helpful than the planners department 🤷‍♂️Post you plans etc here (with personal details covered) and you will get loads of ideas and real life examples of what can be achieved.

It may be something as simple as the wiring between the indoor control box and the outdoor unit; there doesn't look to be any securing for the cables so it might have come adrift. (It's only 2 wires.) The flow sensor for the pump control is the black thing on the vertical pipe to the left of the magnetic filter, but I suspect that there could be a flow switch in the outdoor unit as well.

They don’t pay much attention to any neighbour objections so I wouldn’t worry too much what the neighbour’s say.

I can't see the remote in the wide pictures of the airing cupboard so one would hope that the remote has been installed somewhere sensible. Even if it isn't you can get a remote temperature sensor which can be installed in a suitable location. https://midsummerwholesale.co.uk/buy/samsung-heat-pumps/Remote-Temperature-Sensor-MRW-TA I installed my remote in a location which didn't perform very well so I installed a remote sensor in a more suitable location. I think that the Samsung remote is pretty good, as long as the system has been designed correctly. You can programme several heating or hot water schedules; I don't see what an external control would give you more than that. Have to say that it isn't at all intuitive to use initially, but once you've set it up the home page has easy access to control either the heating or the hot water, both on/off and temperature. IOW it's pretty similar to most programmers, not intuitive and fiddly to set. In the end scheduling doesn't work very well with our slightly undersized system so it's been setup to 20C in the living room constantly. That works better than timed control both for comfort and economy, but the system does have to be carefully adjusted to work properly.

Welcome, yes planners are in a world of their own I have fought them on more than one occasion but don’t be despondent. Regarding neighbours comments they are only relevant if they have a valid planning objection, not “I don’t like it “, for example on my last build my neighbour objected to a new entrance as “our headlights would shine in their windows “ but when I went to appeal it was pointed out their house was 100+ yards away so their objection was not valid. IMO it’s not about being in tune with the local area but fitting in with the local planning framework and policies. With my appeal it was determined that even the planners were not abiding by their own policies and I won hands down 👍. Lots of advice here regarding planning “problems”, would be good to see the objections raised and your neighbours comments.

Ah, bugger! Might be worth contacting Mike at WW to see if you can parallel 2 channels.

The Samsung controls are very basic, and with the thermostat built in will always read overly warm by the nature of an airing cupboard. As part of the hand over they must take you through its operation, including how to use it. The Samsung instructions are quite complicated for a novice. Have a look through YouTube videos so you know enough to know what they're talking about! Most systems will have an external thermostat, then use the Samsung system for the hot water which is obviously fine for basic controls. That install does look quite messy, I would encourage you to keep a close eye on this project!

WEE stopped that happening about a decade ago.

Line the underside of the cabinet with a sheet of asbestos and it'll be fine.

Have you a picture of the intended screws? In my mind, and I think those answering before me, you simply build a deck using timber or perhaps galvanised steel. Onto that you can build what you like. Fixings would be from above, screwing down through the top plates of the screws. Big screws or maybe bolts. I'm not a fan of ground screws although I can see they have their place. Temporary structures with difficult access comes to mind. What is it that appeals to you?

Are you just making life hard for yourself? If you are using ground screws for a good reason. Would you not bolt bearer beams to the ground screw and the the floor panel to the beams. You may be easier Ground screw Bearer beam 22mm floor panels Insulation (floating) either EPS or PIR Floor panels (floating)

This is what the RGBW colour picker looks like Hadn't noticed DMX colour lights have the automatic daylight control option now, like Dali CCT lights.

A Dualit one will last 25 years (ours did), and you can get spare parts (such as a set of reflector plates). The other is digital, and will not. It seems you can get it in a colour called Eucalyptus. They haven't fallen for Elephant's Breath, yet.

I’d say NO In saying that many of us have no room to talk As we spent 900 quid on a hot water tap and are about to do the same again A kettle would probably be cheaper than a basic toaster £209 is not a lot in the grand scheme of things Go for it 😁

Try Glidevale continuous soffit vents.

1mm insect mesh stuck to the back. Some vented soffit looks terrible so choose wisely.

They are both uplight and downlight (doubles) and downlight (single) It’s why we went for them as we are using the singles (downlight) in the single storey section and doubles (up and down) in the 1.5 storey section. I’m down the plot later so shall take some pictures for you.

My first question is what are you planning to put on the outside of the wood fibre EWI? I take it the idea is full fill of the frame with insulation? The reason for it being so thick is to get the extra insulation depth. My house frame is all 195 *45.

Have looked at Larson strut for the walls? Your 225mm studs will create a thermal bridge at each strut. Which you are mitigating with external insulation. The Larson strut, uses 2 smaller studs joined together with ply or OSB. So you would have say two 4x2s, or a 3x2 and a 4x2 with a gap between, the gap maintained by several pieces of the OSB nailed to each stud. One stud is structural The other to form a depth for insulation. The thermal bridge becomes the cross section of the OSB instead of the stud. You can make a good depth of wall for insulation and could save the time and effort of external insulation as well.

There are so many options for something like this. There’s that garden rooms bloke on YouTube that advocates cementing threaded rods into the ground and building off that. Also your skill level - what you can do yourself - costs of materials etc etc. I’d never built anything before so my small barn was DIY constructed as follows ( apologies if using wrong terminology). for founds I did a strip foundation with deeper dig at 6 points - four corners plus mid way (8x4 building). Couple of courses of brickwork around. Foundations. In filled with hardcore, sand, dpc, solid insulation then did a concrete hand pour over top to create concrete floor. Treated timber bottom plate 4x2 fixed to perimeter brickwork. I built a series of modular 2.4 x 1.2 wall panels out of 4x2 with 9mm osb on face. These were bolted to the bottom plate. Built the gables same way, then the roof timber, beams etc for a 45 deg roof. Clad structure in breathable membrane. Insulated the framework and put airtight polythene stapled inside. Whole thing clad in combo of steel sheeting and leftover Siberian larch from house. Interior not yet finished but thing has not moved even in storms. Inside it’s not cold in winter and not hot in summer. saved a fortune building it myself and really enjoyed doing it learning many skills I hadn’t done before other than usual diy around home.

We have a couple of portable CO2 monitors that include an alarm feature. Not mandatory down this neck of the woods yet but a damn good idea. In a power cut all is well for a short while unless you start lighting candles etc then the air quality falls off a cliff (according to the monitor, not so easy to detect yourself). I’m sure it would take a good many hours in an airtight house with a non functioning MVHR to become a serious health issue. In our case we’ve bought 11-12 hours of extra MVHR if we lose power with an Ecoflow battery that kicks in to power the MVHR in the event of a power cut - mainly so we don’t have to open any windows and throw the heat away.

How cosy. Having grown up in the tropics, I still find 24°C a 'bit chilly'. Humans evolved in places with a mean temperature of 26°C. 26°C I find quite nice, but still need long trousers and my jumper on.

Yes, but when you hear, constantly, that a heat pump only works in a well insulated house all context is lost. Most people would not have any idea if their house is well insulated or not, all they know is that it 'costs a lot to heat' and 'it is cold'. Then they generally don't know how much it costs or actually how cold it is. There are too many vague statements, that are presented as fact. Then ask someone to do a bit of work, like read the meter every day, and they get the huff. So energy must be too cheap if someone can't open a door and read a meter.

Just let it wash over you Our near neighbors have apologized for the negative comments Stating it was the planning consultant that THEY employed to stop us that worded the objectionsssssssssd 😁

Don't forget to get a new bread knife

Sorry, but what?