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Just seen this highlighted on a tax & finance email I get, and couldn't see it mentioned here yet https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-diy-housebuilders-scheme-digitisation-of-claims-and-extending-time-limit/vat-digitisation-of-claims-and-extending-time-limit-for-diy-housebuilders-scheme From 5th Dec 2023 apparently: * The time limit (I think for all claims) will be 6 months from completion, not 3 * There'll be the option to claim online (which presumably will also let you see status etc) * They will apparently no longer require all the invoices at the time of submitting the claim. I assume that will put things on a similar footing to businesses, where they might inspect some claims/ask for a random sample of evidence, and potentially impose penalties etc if they discover you've claimed something you shouldn't have - they don't spell out exactly how that will work. So would still be important to make sure you have & have checked all the invoices, but no longer the need/risk to post off all the originals to HMRC and hope they arrive...

There's grid scale battery storage being rolled across the country to store renewables and help with the peak demand so you're already funding that through taxes and levies on your energy bills. Battery production has massive environmental impact so its ridiculous for the first world to have thousands of EV batteries sat doing nothing for most of the time when they could be productively utilised to reduce the amount of dedicated battery storage being installed. It's not your power. If you read the link in the first post Octopus are going to charge your battery for free and take back SOME of it at peak times. Net result is you get some free energy in return for helping society keep the lights on. If you are wanting a grid connection then why the obvious objection to helping society run a serviceable supply?

Yes, but you need a calibrated, with supporting certificate (that is in date), flow meter.

See previous post. Im not talking new build. Wish i was, because id have achieved building my own house. Sadly that dream has long since been abandoned and evaporated. Hats of to those, like yoursef that made it happen.

More or less all agreed. My main point is that there are a large number of people who wont (not cant) make any change that causes (or which they perceive may cause) them personal inconvenience or cost, even if it benefits society at large or their children/grandchildren. Putting it bluntly, they don't care about (or can't see) anything beyond their own small world as it is today. They are egged-on by the the fossil fuel industry, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, GB News, Donald Trump, several British politicians (including but not limited to the Honourable member for the eighteenth century and his cronies), and the other people and organs of those who benefit from the status quo, don't understand or care to understand the science, and who are prepared to tell lies or half-truths to advance their own cause. However like you I am optimistic and believe things are changing. I don't yet have an electric car but it wont be long. I too want to wait until there is a natural replacement point; my annual mileage is about 5000 per year so it is probably environmentally more friendly to run my diesel car until it is a few years older anyway. But I definitely will NOT be buying another fossil fuel car, as well as being environmentally more friendly electric cars are just better in many ways (arguably every way except range) than ICE cars - simpler, faster acceleration, you charge them up at home so leave every day with a full tank, and you will eventually be able to use them to optimise your electricity bills. Nor do I yet have a heat pump That's not for the want of trying, I have not got one solely because of my LPA, which (even though it has formally declared a climate emergency) is obstructing every attempt, has its head in the sand, and believes that insisting on a noise level of 25dBA at the most affected assessment point makes sense. Eventually I will win this battle of course, its just taking more time and stress than I had hoped or even expected!

Then the entire loop has to be replaced, no brainer. You will never stop worrying about this if its not. Have you got their admission in writing? If so insist that you cannot have a joint in a UFH pipe.

We've had compression fittings last fine. Reality is, you'd detect with a damp meter through the carpet if an issue was suspected. Carpet lift and refit no issue, fix, refit. ... Few £100 and days work should worse case happen. Worse shit happens. Average house probably has several dozen pipe joints all over the place! Get them rejointed, pressurise over a weekend to ensure pressure is fine... Forget and move on!!!

Definitely pull it out or more to the point get them to sort it out and re pressurize the system

you could seal the whole outside of the fitting in something before filling with concrete, as your plumber what he would do to make it bomb proof (without questioning his ability with compression fittings)

It really isn't clear. After posting here I went on the BuildHub guide and on there it seems to suggest otherwise. I think, to be on the safe side, I will buy everything pre completion cert. For us its things like patio materials, tiles etc - things that are not needed to be finished for Building Control completion but would be allowable on the VAT reclaim.

Character building! 700, christ, I've done about 230 on mine, and a lot of them were silly little bulltish invoices for small amounts from the likes of toolstation or screwfix. Just add a second sheet with a vendor and VAT number and do a lookup for the main culprits and then fill in the anomolies.

You forgot self cleaning 🤮

Why do you always have to make it about you?

@Pocsterclaim-vat-refund-diy-invoice-template.xlsx here is copy of the template handed out by HMRC, and a screenshot of the webpage it came from. Hope that helps...

Should be, as long as all the other rules about cables buried in insulation are followed.

Any more on this?

Am holding out for the roborock q revo to get a UK release. Can get it from Latvia but would rather a cat iron warranty.

Thanks both. The floor people have accepted liability (how generous!) although not actually apologised. They are paying for the plumber to dig out that section of pipe and replace. However I will now be left with two compression fittings buried under the floor. Honestly, the level of incompetence displayed by some people is astounding and is a never ending source of wonder and amazement to me.

There is also a distinct line of differing plaster. Which suggests this may been found before, and they replaced the plaster without finding the root cause.

My local vicar was telling me about visiting old Mrs. Simpson, the straight laced, old widow. When he got there he was greeted by the two Dachshunds, Max and Molly. In conversation the Vicar asked if she had any problems with them when Molly was in season. "Oh no, I just put her up stairs then" she replied. "How does that work?" Asked the Vicar. Mrs. Simpson replied "Have you ever seen a sausage dog run up stairs with a (expletive deleted)ing hard on"

Some suck better than others to.

Mobiles are banned already from use in schools. The headteachers have taken care of that. It's the out-of-school social media abuse issue that is the problem. This new legislation is unneeded and won't tackle the main issues. It's just more hollow populist dross from the Westminster govt.

It's a good series - check the others out too if you have time. I love my EV but find myself constantly having to defend them from what I can only see as a twisted narrative. The right-wing climate denying lobby love to punt this sort of nonsense and the petrol-head Top Gear folk don't help either. They punted the idea that EVs somehow diminished masculinity and were some sort of joke and went out of their way to prove this by driving an EV round and around a town till it ran out of juice so it had to be pushed to the charger. Ha ha, how ridiculous these EVs are. I feel like I need to do my bit - not only to help towards limiting climate change but also for these wee kids that get asthma from living near main roads. With a range of 70-80 miles my 2013 EV isn't the most convenient vehicle in the world, especially for long journeys but it's fine for local use, which is where many people are exposed to emissions. Given that there's no road tax on EVs and they can be charged for 7p per Kwh overnight and also possibly make you money via a V2G connection, it doesn't seem daft to keep an old EV for shorter journeys. The new ones have 250-300 miles of range, which at 3-4 hours of motorway driving is about my personal 'toilet range' these days anyway. By the time you have stopped at a motorway services for the lavvy and a coffee your car will be topped up again and ready to roll onwards. I don't see that as an inconvenience at all.

Your alternative looks nice - but don't underestimate the depth of the top chord of your posi joist - it'll be 100mm or more, so quite a gap. You can either chop up spare insulation and foam it in, or cut out slots in your internal/external insulation and 'slot' in the joiats and foam with airtight foam, wit the top flush to the top of the joist - and foam as you put on the board.

there's no getting around the problem that is @Pocster. you just have to accept it.

Energy used for the heat pump is electricity, through some inbuilt submeter? Power out is heat (energy) within the liquid exiting the ashp as compared to the heat (energy) when it entered it? Any idea how that is calculated? Perhaps just iterated from the temperature difference and flow rate within a known mechanism? Of course we're very happy with the result, and it's a great demonstration of the efficiency of ' low and slow'.

I have never seen real pump curves for these shower boosters but I did a few sums a few years ago for somone who had a gravity fed shower (U/stairs bathroom) with mains cold feed reduced via a PRV and gravity hot, the gravity hot gave a head of ~ 2.5M and the shower flowrate was 3.5LPM. The calc I made up years ago and occasionally use is. watts = M*LPM/(6.14*n), where n = pump&motor efficiency, don't know what the overall efficiency of these pumps are but I assumed 40% overall, I came up with a equilibrium flowrate of 5.9LPM at a head of 7.5M (0.75bar), a boost of 5M (0.5bar. My calcs were LPM = 12*6.14*0.4/5, 5.9LPM, the shower head with a boost from 2.5M to 7.5M should give a increased flow of sqroot (7.5/2.5), 1.73, 1.73*3.5, 6.1LPM so reasonably close to the pump calculation for equilibrium, don't know if he installed this booster or not as I heard no more. It would be interesting if someone who has one or two of these boosters installed in a gravity shower to inform of the increased flow rate.

Should be easy enough to make one. Lots here

This can be a bit confusing. Method 1. Energy Out / Energy In times 100 5kWh [out] / 1 kWh [in] x 100 = 500% Energy Out plus Energy In / Energy In (5 kWh + 1 kWh / 1 kWh) x 100 = 600% It comes down to where the energy in is actually put in i.e. inside the building or outside the building. Taking that a step further, if there are thermal losses (and there is) from the outside unit, but the thermal metering is is done within the the unit, but the electrical metering is done at the consumer unit, then the CoP can look better than the delivered performance. I have no idea if there is an agreed standard/method for measuring CoP, I am sure there is as BSI seem to cover just about everything.

Also remember this is mostly summer generation, Dec and Jan will produce next to nothing, even if the sun is out the production day is very short. During most of Nov to Feb your heating will not come via anything your PV produces, it may offset a little. If you are using a ToU tariff (E7 etc) you really need to utilise that period well.

Good morning and welcome, lots of us about

Only the 'no neutral ones', and the current is miniscule

Driveway underlaid with type 3 aggregate wrapped with geotextile with a few overflow drains sounds good to me. Combined storage and soakaway.

The smart switches which don't require a neutral work by still sending tiny amounts of current to live even when the switch is off (in order to complete the circuit) and use that to charge a capacitor which powers the ZigBee gubbins.

They can't really go less than 665mm without a steel goalpost or box. If masonry piers aren't acceptable then a steel box frame is likely to be a better option to reduce foundation size.

Well done knobbly! Interesting to hear what you have done. We used Build Collective for SE plans, so are interested in your experience!

The Hydro Pro 8.3 has the same specs as you quote and also specs "Slow Fuse 15A"

The same for me. After I did all the paperwork for him as well.

If you're using an ASHP, I'd go larger than the recommendations suggest. A larger volume allows you to heat more water to a lower temperature, giving you the same useful output but allowing a higher COP.

Same here , he/she noted that we were having it fitted on the plans and that explained why we had no trickle vents in the windows and never raised the question again.

I showed BCO my spreadsheet with the per room flow rates, they haven't, yet, asked for anything else.

BCO was happy with my own spreadsheet showing flow rates.

For what it's worth, my BCO didn't ask for anything.

Note that V2L and V2G are not the same thing. V2L is not grid-synchronised whereas V2G is. Be careful to check that anything you do choose can actually do what you want. Its clearly possible in principle to separate your house from the grid, but I don't know what, if any, equipment offers it in a way that is permitted. One underlying issue here is that the grid operator needs to be absolutely sure that, when it cuts the power so its employees can work safely, someone isn't feeding power in from downstream. That results in tight regulation.

Agreed. We all have a part to play in making the world work well, we cannot just say 'its someone else's problem'. Once we get to the point where a large number of people (eventually it will be most) have one or more 60kWh batteries sitting on their front drive doing nothing most of the time, its a bit of a no-brainer that these should, if reasonably possible, be used for grid balancing. The principal challenges are working out how to ensure that they are charged when needed for transport, and incentivising users to make them available to the grid. Octopus are at least having a go. Its very, very early days for this technology but it clearly hat the potential to sort out a significant part of our (shared) grid balancing challenge.

Well done looks good (and tidy!!,) summers coming!

Looks great - I do like a tidy site too. Well done!😄

Absolutely cracking, look at that sky today. 300mm slab chosen for lots of thermal mass?

Submitted on the 18th 22nd they emailed requesting i upload 10 specific invoices, uploaded that night. 26th, full claim amount landed in my bank account this afternoon new system seems pretty good!

Just submitted mine online! 183 receipt lines using their template. will report back with how it goes