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Yes, definitely fell the trees you want gone ASAP in one go as quick as you can. You don't want someone slapping a TPO on them if they get a hint you want to build, so don't give any warning, just turn up one day with a chainsaw(s) and get felling.

You'll get an equivalent blade from Amazon for about £20. I use trend and Saxton. https://amzn.eu/d/aZRIIIG

nice. I've decided to do ferrules at both ends. been going great guns this evening and got quite a bit done. will keep going whenever I have free evenings!

It depends perhaps whether this was general advice or detailed design. As @Moonshine this is perfectly feasible in block, but needs detailed design . I've done a basement and chose to use a proprietary block system into which went reinforcement and concrete, rather than standard blocks. But it needs very specialised and expensive waterproofing if it is to be an occupied space. On the other hand, a reinforced concrete wall, designed as if for a swimming pool, water tank or reservoir is feasible too, and may need less waterproofing measures. Cost difference? It depends on a lot of variables. Without seeing the detailed design and covering correspondence, and the client brief, and understanding of the contract and supervision responsibilities, we can't really comment on the design suitability, and I probably wouldn't choose to anyway.

Also, if you are daisy-chaining lives (I didn't), using double ferrules is much better than twisting together and inserting two conductors in the same screw termination.

Just a very short blog to show the windy roost ( not fully finished, is a self build ever?) plant room. I'm quite chuffed I got it all to fit, and I think it's quite neat. It's full DIY and house's the UVC and combined buffer, UFH manifold, MVHR unit, inverter, consumer unit, network hub. All in 4M³. Plus storage to come. Yes, the printer doesn't fit, but it's coming to its end of life so that's all it's getting for now. Jobs to do: Ceiling Insulate MVHR ducting / box in Shelves on the left hand side Clothes Airer ( a Scottish requirement to have one)

I only foamed to hold the 110mm in place - not necessarily of course . But as a pro - that’s what I do ( big balls emoji )

I always do ferrules at both ends. Keeps it neater and straightforward for anyone else making wiring changes later on.

same as @Pocster but didn't foam. our plant room is in the basement so basically everything pretty much goes up!

How smart do you want the HW controls to be?? You want HW when you want it? Ideally I want the boiler range rated to the cylinders capacity to transfer the heat and the flow temperature of boiler to be whats required for the end temp of the water in the tank to be what I want. Pointless for me to bugger about trying to achieve condensing temps in my boiler when heating water. The coil in the tank is sized for a 3kW input - the boiler is throwing 10 kW min at it (12kW on start up because that's what I have range rated the boiler to be maximum) Even if the tank is down to 16 deg (ie completely cold) in 36 mins (time not boiler run time cos it'll cycle a few times in that) at a set point of 82 deg the tank stat set at 48 deg setpoint will turn the HW off and it'll gain another few degrees during the pump over-run period If there is any HW left in the tank say 40 deg at top and 16 at the bottom it'll heat it to target in 20 mins If it's -2 outside the house doesn't lose temp in rooms in 20 or 30 mins - there is still heat left in the rads when the water is called for. That's why I will be going DHWP with the next boiler because now I'm doing it manually and in this day an age I want stuff to work for me not require manual intervention and I can leave the boiler to sort out it's flow temps based on weather comp for when hot water isn't needed.

Clear it pronto. If you have fidgety neighbours, clear it early Sunday morning. Standard practice here in West Lancashire : nobody will be able to do anything about it until Monday morning, and nobody'll visit until Tuesday at the earliest. It is common here to kill anything that moves on land prior to making a Planning Application. I do not advocate that strategy, merely point out that it works.

My basement is blockwork, 2 skins with a 200mm cavity which was core filed with concrete and mesh. Waterproofing externally and internally.

Broke two 3mm drill bits putting it together. While I am at it - here are two OpenSCAD sketches of possibilities for the street-side bookshelves in the non-technical part of my library. We'll see what the carpenter thinks. Or perhaps open-topped bookcases are better? I'm having trouble finding examples of those I like.

Right. It should go much more smoothly in the future. Well, both realizations (staggering + modular design) should be credited to the German company that sold me the boards and the screws. They basically told me as such, left it up to me to provide them with a design with measurements (I just sketched one by hand - now I now some OpenSCAD, though I don't yet know how to make the measurements show) and sent me the boards after, well, many more weeks than I expected. I could stagger the verticals in the second design, but that would mean missing out on the possibility of installing a cremaillère en bois, no? Though let me see - perhaps something is possible.

Can the boiler not go in the loft? or above the cylinder with vertical flue?

Clear it, will make the land seem a lot bigger and means people can see that putting a house on the plot is achievable

Clear everything, but you must also clear all the debris, do not leave any piles of timber just in case it’s used by some rare newt or something. Literally strim it down to a flat lawn. If planning was unsuccessful could the adjacent houses be interested in putting a couple of garages on it, just a back up plan to cover your investment.

Thanks very much for your detailed reply jack. In the turbocad model I isolated the detail I wanted to share, then created a drawing of just that detail. Then in the drawing view I could select the image and copy it to the clipboard. But on pasting into my buildhub message it just pasted in a 2kb thumbnail. I'll explore the snipping tool this evening and let you know how it goes.

So took the time to install my simulator for a cylinder DHW probe and it works a treat. 5.6kΏ resistor across two terminals of the wiring centre and a 15kΏ resistor connected to normally closed side of a relay. A call for heat opens the relay contacts and the heat pump thinks the water in the cylinder is 42 degs, so starts a heat cycle. Once the thermostat on the cylinder is happy the relay contact closes and the heat pump thinks the cylinder is at 51 degs. The cylinder and heat pump are not connected to each other a wireless MainsLink switch. This has released a set of contacts that now allows a double set into be used and two WC curves. 62c460aeda4aa444DS-MAINSLINK-9.pdf

As a mere human it's hard to tell the difference between compressive strength and surface hardness. Just because you can dig your nail into a material doesn't mean it's not plenty strong enough to hold up a house. Infact the insulation can often be stronger than the soil below it.

Quite the opposite of minor. I say that because I sense your starting point was - Never-Done-This-Before-Lets-Give-It-A-Go If thats correct, the job took hours and hours more than you thought it would take (twice as long maybe ? ) The verticals are staggered - and so stronger, less likely to bend. (PS, the second design could be improved by staggering the verticals too) You've realised that modular design is helpful - cuts down the number of cuts needed. All the more creditable therefore. Ermm, I've got some spare MDF - could you build me some .......🫠

When he drives a car does he accelerate in the lowest gear possible up to the red line, then hit the brakes, then does it over and over again. I do the long journey up to Buckinghamshire every couple of weeks, always amazed me, on the motorway, the number of cars that have no traffic in front of them that keep apply the brakes, for no obvious reason.

Superb Post Nails the problem with both customer expectations (don't want to pay for the extra effort required to set up the system to work at it's most efficient) and poor knowledge of boiler installers (who throw the biggest boiler at the wall and set it to a much higher temp than needed on the grounds that they won't ever get a call back for a house not heating up). My neighbour won't change his flow temp from the boiler ECO setting becuse the gas engineer he uses says that's the best setting for the boiler all year round - I've measured the actual flow temp - it's 68 deg C - his return is 54 deg - it's only condensing in the warm up phase once the house is up to temp and the delta between flow and return narrows it's never going to condense.

Most people don't. When I quote for installs, I take time to try to explain to customers what it takes to install and configure a new system that is as energy efficient as possible. Often they're surprised because none of the other companies quoting even mention anything like this. Just like the heat pump market though, the boiler companies and controller companies don't make things easy. It takes a long time to understanding what's on offer for which make of boiler and how to configure it to work properly and then you get the big names like Tado and Hive, for example, marketing their controllers that apparently produce massive savings but neither do any modulation control in the UK, just relay.

Can't get it in one length and prefer the look of it stopping at each post

L shaped bracket, screwed to the newel post, handrail sits down onto it and you screw into the bottom of the handrail through the bracket. You will need to rebate the end of the handrail to accommodate the thickness of the bracket. I would do that anyway, I would not want a screw head through the newel post to plug or otherwise hide.

I've installed hardwood timber floors in many houses using the floating floor method and it performs exceptionally well. I actually revisited a house over christmas where this was done in 2006 and the home owners reported the floors are as stable as the day the were installed, I believe 17/18 years is a sufficient test duration! I believe the buildup was: 18mm oak T&G boards 12mm hardwood ply (laid half bond at a 45 degree and screwed to the ply layer below) 12mm hardwood ply (laid half bond and loose over the PIR) 120 PIR Sheet DPM Concrete subfloor

The plan is to use two 90x25 and two 40x25 timbers glued to make a 90x90 hollow square section. It's going to be painted and the narrower width timbers will be inline with the handrail and spindles so somewhat hidden. I'm thinking the 90x25 facing the landing will get screwed to the Unistrut at 200mm intervals to couple the timber to the metal. Alternatively, perhaps the 40x25 pieces as they don't stop at the top of the beam.

It improves the reliability of the connections. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJk0mzaATI4&t=35s I found that once I started using ferrules using with stranded cable, I now don't even consider screwing down withough using a ferrule first. Also makes moving things around after the fact super-easy, rather than needing to re-gather/twist the strands.

This metal post will be down the middle of a timber post that will add the vast majority of the strength of a solid timber post too.

If electricity wasn't 3.9 times the price of gas, it wouldn't matter. Stupid 'environmental levies'...

Our whole house is running between £50-75 a week depending on how cold it is outside, that’s 115m2, heated to 22-22.5 24/7. Not unreasonable to have a £300/mo electric bill, especially if they’ve set her DD payment to cover the worst month. We’re on prepayment (reasons) so we don’t have to worry about paying the same amount every month so the energy co can pay their shareholders.

I already had a wood burning stove when my heat pump was installed. I'm sure that made no difference to my RHI application. But I only use my wood burner for the occasional damp day when we feel like a fire or in the event of a prolonged power cut. Be that as it may, your neighbour appears to be spending way too much to run their heat pump

Yup glued and screwed to itself. All joints broken between the layers. If you tape the foil faces of the PIR then another layer of a material of low permeability is pointless as far as I can see. In fact there's a risk with two layers of impermeability materials as any construction moisture will be trapped permanently. As the battens and PIR have different compression strengths I would worry moreso that they would compress differently over time and sags would be more obvious. You could have very closely spaced battens I suppose but then you're really eating into the insulative effects. Also you'll have to rip 25mm battens from larger materials as they come typically in 22mm so all the weight will be on the insulation anyway if you use them.