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We put our vat claim in a week ago Just over 43k They have just contacted me to ask me to check my figures as they get it to £60 more Requested 6 receipts Then will pay it Hernia op in two hours Then 3 weeks taking it easy Hopefully paid out by then

Was the title meant to be *pipe* clips and zip ties? I had assumed not and was waiting for an exposition on the myriad alternative uses for paper clips (apart from temp. replacement clips on split-link chains and repairing my reading glasses).

I'm no structural engineer but it looks fine to me. Taking that much out of the middle of the stringer would be a different matter As it's turned into share a picture of your home made stairs these are mine and are made of maple and cherry built around a central steel box

We had quotes for norrsken and kloeber as well as from our local aluminium window supplier who is a Smart Systems manufacturer. We are going with the latter, full measure, supply and fit. The cost was about 25 to 30% lower BUT the decision was based on the facts that 1. They are local with a good reputation 2. The can deliver the u value we "need" and all of the window door options we want in the same range (alitherm 400) 3. Both other quotes "bent" the truth ..." building regs say you must have 3G", " you can't have an outward opening front door and comply with pas 24", and both changed the size of at least 1 window opening to suit their range without mentioning it (double chk what the quote says) 4. Our suppliers order in the profile, spray to the ral colour we want, THEN measure the actual holes and manufacture in about 5 weeks, the others had timescales that meant windows would need to be surveyed off plan or would have a 10 to 14 week lead time. Our decision was also helped by the fact we actively did not want a wood finish inside and if necessary fitting could be done in more than one stage. Time will tell if we made the right decision.

Bro I made these 👊🏻

Thank you the op went well I’m home and up on my feet

Doesn’t the whole installation look a bit shit.

A relatively quiet week this week - the lull before the storm (hopefully not literally!) The scaffolders arrived to put up a single-lift all around the exterior on Thursday and Friday (and Saturday morning as it turned out). I say single-lift but there were due to be a couple of hop-ups for the gables on the south-facing roof. However, at one end the gable is over a canopy roof which means the first lift is 2m away from where the gable will be. We've left that one off for now - I'm hoping the timber frame company (Turners) can work off the scaffold tower at that end, or I will get the scaffolders back and put in what the frame erectors would like (we may need a sky-hook to hang it off though). The site is looking spick and span at the moment; the groundworkers were really tidy, the weather has no doubt helped (dust is easier to sweep up than mud), and Mrs P. has done some sterling work this weekend tidying up the few bits of spare timber, pallets, bulk bags etc, left by the scaffolders. As they were packing up one of the scaffolders saw an empty bag (which they had brought) and asked "Is this rubbish?", to which I replied "Oh yes, thanks", thinking he was going to take it away, but no, he just threw an empty Red Bull can in it 🤷‍♂️. Scaffolders truly are a breed apart. The house has proved to be too wide for the CCTV camera, so we moved the camera back. Now we have the workshop roof in the way - grrr! Looking at the project finances, frighteningly we have already spent over 1/3rd of the budget 😱. Major spend so far has been on design and planning, the timber frame and windows are both paid for, a good slug of the groundworks costs has also been paid with an invoice for the balance expected soon. This week I ordered and paid for the MVHR kit (based around a Zehnder Q350) and the ASHP and cylinder (Panasonic L series 7kW + 300l cylinder). I ordered the latter through Air2Heat who provide an MCS umbrella service (Paul Thorney - really helpful) so we should get back £7.5k via the BUS grant scheme, which would leave the heat pump and cylinder costing a net £1,200 plus installation costs. Anyway, we're currently running about £500 over budget (excluding contingency) with some opportunities for future savings and a fair few areas of potential overspend. Time for Benpointer's three Laws of Budget Management: If you go over budget, that's bad management. If you come in under budget, that's poor estimating. If you come in bang on budget, you've almost certainly committed both 1. and 2. Next week is going to be very exciting - I hope in a good way. Tomorrow (Monday) our timber frame arrives from Turner Timber Frames, with a team to erect it. The weather forecast is good, so fingers-crossed the frame fits the footings and it all goes up smoothly 🤞.

Firstly now have a 4G smart meter, commissioning time was about 10 mins. Spoke with Octopus just after commissioning to change tariff (16:00 on Friday) and am now on a smart tariff (Saturday 08:30). Octopus mini hub is also being delivered today. Decided to go Octopus Cosy. Super easy battery scheduling, should never run out of cheap rate electric, not super cheap but 12.65p per kWh, 2p cheaper than my E7 tariff. Have used Wonder Watt to schedule times. First cheap slot is setup as a smart schedule so it charges based on forecast generation of PV, second slot set to 90% SoC fixed target. 90% chosen so it does not interfere with immersion or heat pump diversion, and by this time, if the smart charge is ok the battery should already be above this level, so will only come in to play if forecast is wildly out etc. Final charge is set for a fixed 100% SoC. May need to tweak over the coming days, but will see how it pans out.

Hiya. If you click on the drawing that @Russdl has posted yesterday it takes you to his thread. There is a fair bit going on in the slab. Here is a bit of detail that works for a reasonable lightweight structure like this even with solid single story masonry walls above, which add a line load to the edge of the slab. Your pod will be pretty light but hopefully the below may give you some ideas as to how you can use Foamglass in other ways. If you are close to trees then you'll maybe have some swelling / shrinkage of the soil, thus you'll have some element of excavation to navigate around that. Rather than filling the excavation back up with say type one it sometimes works if you back fill with an insulating materail such as Geocell Foamglass. Below is a screen shot from a data sheet. On the odd ocasion if you have ground with a very poor bearing capacity you can make some headway by digging out the soil and replacing it with a lighter material. Just say the soil you dig out is 1800 kg/ m^3 and the Geocell Foamglass is 150 kg/m^3. Now stick a raft slab on top of that and you basically get some "free load". The excess load is then used in the settlement and bearing calculation.. you need to mindful of the water table for example as this can put a spanner in the works at times. On the drawing posted you'll notice that the slab is 150mm thick.. but it has an A252 mesh which has an 8.0mm bar size spaced at 200mm centres in both directions. It's not uncommon to use a thinner mesh, say A142, for a lightly loaded ground bearing floor slab, which has a 6.0mm thick bar. So why the A252? Using the thicker A252 mesh allows you to qualify the slab as a reinforced concrete slab. And now the mesh serves two purposes: 1/ It allows you to have less movement joints in the slab, within reason, depending on the slab size and it controls the drying shrinkage of the concrete more. 2/ The nuance is that if / when the wall loads induce too much bearing stress on the foamglass under the edge of the slab the A252 mesh starts to work by transferring some of the load back into the slab. This is a common technique used when we design raft founds for houses. You'll see that the mesh is bent down on site. This anchors the mesh which will be in tension. It's ok to bend this kind of low risk mesh on site provided you only bend it once (so as not to work harden the steel) and you must not have too tight a bend radius. In this case the bend radius is roughly twice the bar diameter. You can bend this mesh easily with a bit of steel 22 mm gas pipe offcut while applying some common sense. @mjc55 have fun exploring the pods design.

Gas costs you circa £100 for standing charge, just to have it connected. Not mention the report. No idea where they get a CoP of 2.8 (well I do, see below). A typical well thought out simple system will get to a CoP of 4.0 and beyond. A simple heat pump install is, no thermostats, single zone, run 24/7 on weather compensation. A 3 port diverter to switch between heating and DHW. Nothing else is needed. This will get you a cop of at least 4. Add into the mix the circulation pump switching off between compressor cycles gets closer to 5 on mild days. Running a heating circulation pump for a 180 days a year is around 70W x 24 x 180 = 302kWh or £75. This figure is never mentioned in the gas calculation, nor is any electrical running costs, associated with boiler. But is always included in ASHP CoP figure (or should be). So you now have a fixed cost of £175 to have gas (standing charge and circulation pump), not included in the gas costs comparison. So if you use 6000kWh of gas at 6p it will cost £360, plus £175 so £535. Your good boiler install is getting 95% efficiency, so of the 6000kWh consumption only 5700kWh energy delivery. So on a standard rate tariff you pay say £0.25 per kWh for electricity. Let's use the 2.8 CoP figure and see the cost. 5700kWh/2.8 is 2035 kWh electric. 2035 x 0.25 is £509. So even with a cr@p install you are beating an gas boiler on running cost. Now for a CoP of 4 1425kWh of electric needed 1425 x 0.25 is £356. A system designed with hydraulic separation, buffers, low loss headers, the additional pump(s) needed, mixer valves, not having a low temperature heating system, on/off heating timing could get you at 2.8 or worse. To get a decent efficiency from a gas boiler you need a low temperature heating system run on weather compensation, ideally a high gain cylinder run on priority demand. So one flow temp for heating and another to heat DHW. (Which is pretty much the same as a heat pump install). A boiler will yield 95% efficiency an ASHP around 400%. So heating system install is the same cost. Such a system will yield a gas efficiency of 95% and ASHP around 400 to 500%, not 280% mentioned. Then the cost of heat source A good boiler is more than a £1000. A high gain gas boiler cylinder and ASHP cylinder are basically the same cost. Now ignoring grants an ASHP could cost £4-5k, but you really don't have to pay that. I paid £1300, you could get a really good Panasonic for around £2k. So a heat pump is a little more expensive without any grants, but you do have a payback of 5 or less years which is a little different from the report which said never. Time of use tariff, even E7 will give you electricity at 6p to 14p. Add some PV, a battery changes the cost profile again. My cost for electric average this year is about 7p, so are now down to £100, compared £509. Can a boiler give you cooling if you need or want it - no. I voted with my feet today and had my gas disconnected. To summarize, reports like the one linked to, are uneducated drivel, biased against heat pumps, no proper analysis completed. Rubbish in rubbish out. A typical gas boiler installed on S or Y plan will getting closer to 85% efficiency, so now quite a bit more expensive than an ASHP. A new build, a simple ASHP install is a winner.

I just found a lovely use of a zip tie. Couldn't get the bottom screw of the pipe clip in ....

Intelligent go smarlty controls ev charging 24 hours a day but gives you a window of cheap rate leccy every night to use at your own pleasure - the window is actually slightly longer at night than with the dumb version go.

Well there's nothing for it : instead of talking about it, or counting dimples, I'm gonna have a to get off my Botticelli and do some laying. Nuvver steep learning curve on the way. 🫣

But at the moment you can get a better rate for exporting your solar electricity and heating your water with the heat pump (with a CoP of 2 or more). And it's even cheaper if you can use a night-rate/EV tariff when heating your water with the ASHP.

Long while no update. Messed about with hybrid (gas and ASHP) last winter and after doing the total running costs, decided I was approx £100 plus to have a hybrid system, mostly due to additional standing charges - so gas has to go. Meter being disconnected tomorrow, by Octopus at zero cost to me. Ignoring the hybrid settings, current settings are No thermostat, WC on heating and WC on cooling (very small amount of 0.5 Deg flow temp change). Change over (between heat and cool) by a single repurposed light switch. In addition to that I have a second set point which adds 3 degs to heating curve and 1 Deg is removed from cooling curve, this activated by a Shelly relay if I have excess solar PV. CoP when running has been great, high 4s to high 5s. When coupled with standby time it hasn't been the best (measuring all electrical input in the ASHP system and heat meter). So heating CoP overall was mid 3s. Cooling high 3s. However between heat pump cycles the circulation pump was kept on, with pump, valve, performance monitoring and other stuff drawing 117W during standby. Switching the pump off with everything else on, brings the standby down to 31W. So to fix the issue I have implemented the circulation pump to run in sniffer mode, so circulation pump runs for 4 mins after heat pump compressor has stopped and then stays off for 40 minutes, before starting again. If heat pump senses the return temp isn't within limits the heat starts again. Current running cooling and in the last 24 hrs including one DHW heat cycle at night (15 degs) the daily CoP has increased to 4.91. A similar average temp day a week ago the CoP was 3.88, with one DHW cycle in the day at 20 degs. So CoP has increased a full point. Rough calculation is a saving of about £50 per year.

@ProDave @Nickfromwales @TerryE My plumber came around today and was all geared up to swap the join but upon looking at it up close, was convinced this was only superficial corrosion caused by the plumber who installed this system not cleaning the flux off this join. He went as far to clean it up and it looks a lot better. Some other joins I showed him were also green around the joints (not as bad as this one) and he said he sees it all the time. He said it wouldn't worry him. Given how bad it looked before, it's clear that this corrosion hasn't seemingly eaten into the pipe. I was expecting it to all look very pitted / rotten etc. I was nervous when he was cleaning it, I must admit.

@flanagaj, this is an area where you could potentially save some money. You can get good u-values from 2g windows. For aesthetics we had to go with 2g, we wanted the crittall style look and steel windows are another level of expense. Our windows are only 1.3 u-value, but the coating on the inner leaf of the outer pane is what makes all the difference to how the window feels. This is a pretty standard thing to have and it helps reflects back your body heat. We have Smart Alitherm Heritage windows. A lot of companies use their systems but market them under different names like Duration and Cherwell. In the UK windows market you have system manufacturers, underneath them you have local fabricators, then you have installers/retailers. Sometimes the installer will also be the fabricator. The fabricators supply the local retailers. There are many exceptions to this. You could have the best window system, but be let down by the fabricator or installer or both. This website does good coverage of the aluminium windows market and will list a lot of system manufacturers. https://www.doorandwindowexperts.co.uk/aluminium-windows/who-makes-the-best-aluminium-windows/

Hi All - Just wanted to say hello before I start brain-dumping all the problems I've been losing sleep over for the last few months. I started my extension/renovations last year. Its been slow going and way more expensive than I could ever have imagined but starting to make progress now. That said it very much feels like one step forward and three back. Up until this I had zero experience in building so it's been a mega steep learning curve and only seems to be getting harder. Anyway, thanks in advance for any advice I get here. I've found it very hard to get good advice so far and most of the questions that I have found good answers to came from this forum. Paul

My answer, and I can say this with great confidence, is either, i.e. whichever side you prefer. Just make sure they are either: A) all the same way up, or B) if not all the same way up at least arrange them so they are in a pattern (e.g. checkerboard or stripes or chevrons or whatever). Do I get extra housepoints?

As @ProDave says they are probably OK, but I personally would (i) check immediately under the joins for any evidence of dripping / water damage, and if so bite the bullet and replace them. (ii) don't disturb them unless you are going to fix them properly. The last time I got burnt by a joint this bad was about 40 years ago (I am not a professional plumber but only have done the plumbing on my own houses). In this case I left it but the joint then failed after I replaced the CH pump. I couldn't resolder because it was at a low point and I couldn't drain it down. I ended up cutting out a section and managed to put in a small insert with two new end-feeds. When I got the failed bit out and looked I found that the plumber had never actually soldered one side: the flux and gunk were all that was sealing the joint! Nick is the expert on this. He is my Sensei. 👍

Just had an update, and a new inspector has been allocated with a site visit scheduled for the end of the month! (finally!) ... now to keep our fingers crossed for a good outcome

Doesn't look too unnatural compared to some staircases I've seen.. I built my own because the quotes were coming out insane for mine. But they were an unusual shape and design

Nope. I think the OP got shafted so is trying to navigate a way through with a mixture of manufacturers. Hep2o all the way for me.

Wouldn't this be a better solution in this case @ProDave? Saves doing anything inside the wall or serial switching. Can still replace the external cable if needed but just use a wireless external switch (they sell IP67 versions).

By the way. My timber frame is up. Roof is due on next week. In IP8 if anyone wants a look next week.

Wowzer! That is efficient. Hopefully we will be submitting ours in a years time. Good luck with the op and enjoy the time off 🙂

If you want proper 2-way switching without replacing the cable, wireless is probably the way to go https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Quinetic/index.html replace indoor switch with a "Quinetic Wireless Switch c/w Built In Receiver". Add one (or more) "Quinetic Kinetic Wireless Switches" wherever you need them.

If the AAV has failed and is letting air out, then it will inflate the plastic bad you are about to tape over it.

Heatmiser sell an opentherm mini hub that will control 2 zones with 240v relay to zone valve. The opentherm is done by output from the mini hub to boiler. So you could buy another neoair to replace the t6r and then wire up the minihub. The other alternative is to use EPH CP4 combination if you're not using a heatmiser wiring centre - with the cp4 you just have 2 stats with receivers with one receiver set up at the hub unit which is is wired to the boiler with opentherm. Oh, and especially if you're running a low temperature heating system (i.e. 55C or below), make sure the installer has actually installed the UFH with hydraulic separation, otherwise you'll probably end up with balancing problems between the radiator system and ufh. HTH

We had a sample of this stuff and it was very impressive. But for some of the sizes of our windows we would’ve needed 2 panels per window and so would’ve had a line down the middle

>>> Which brand do you recommend for this That bright green stuff in the image is Ubbink.

Marshalls Driveline Priora https://www.bradfords.co.uk/product-mar426-driveline-priorar-permeable-paving-200-x-100-x-60mm-charcoal-8-08m2?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21419188078&gbraid=0AAAAAC3XVZy1CYchyxu_zsJB-bDxfT6NZ&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3PD41r2mjgMVAIFQBh0wMiUCEAQYAyABEgJ7U_D_BwE

Well passive submissive...

That is a thing, but usually caused by the flush pipe not running downhill, eg it wasn't cut short enough so there is a trap of water that then sits in the horizontal bit between the bend and the pan. Agreed, and will be the decider. Don't forget that for this to be a true test you need the cistern full of water, so there's weight on the seal, so don't empty it and isolate the feed.

I couldn't find anything like that when I had a massive wasp nest in my garage roof - I was up there extending the socket ring main and they really really weren't happy with me being there. I gave it a dose of wasp killer spray and but it only killed the stripey b*stards outside the nest and clearly they weren't happy inside the nest - I couldn't get close enough with a can and lance....... So radical measures required 3m 15mm copper pipe and a suitable plug Obviously I made the plug stripey b*stard friendly Then a decent load of ant powder (Apparently it has same active ingredients in powder format) From a distance of 3 m I lanced the nest and then with a compressed air feed I injected the ant powder - pushed down the pipe by the ear plug Next night it was very silent and I cleared it all up A massive number of lavae were in the nest and the whole lot went in a bin bag and I was able to finish my wiring!!!

Yes definitely has an effect. The floor surface temperature is maintained at around 18 degs through out the building. We have massive windows 30m²+ in the lounge. Compared to pre heat pump cooling, when we struggled to keep room temperature in check, would get to 27 most sunny days and that was with the blinds closed. Now even when it is hot air temperature wise you feel it's cooler. Room temperature doesn't get as hot and it recovers relatively quickly. It's not Aircon, but you also don't have a continuous draft either. Makes the house a comfortable environment to be in. Without the need for external blinds etc.

There are options for 22mm chipboard routered out, or insulated panels routed out (for the pipes), so get some googling done and check the responses here for related content

Thanks for that Pain not to bad Feels like I’ve been kicked in the goolys Yes there was several pro/forma invoices They haven’t really picked up on these They asked for six paper invoices House trusses garage attic trusses and posis joists Kitchen We purchased five large mirrors They require photos showing them fixed in place I’d built 6 fitted wardrobes also Same again there Photos showing them fixed in place I had a look for the £68 discrepancy It was a typo I’d made in the very first invoice I’ll Bob them an email with all the details and wait and see Our previous claim went through in about eight weeks So not going to bad for time now We’ve been in almost twelve months now Doesn’t seem to be an issue anymore

Not necessarily a smaller gap at the bottom, but I saw no point fitting a top door stop. But I was making my own door liners in Oak, and it saved on the amount of planed Oak I needed to buy for door stops.

That's interesting - although the highway there is a road, and the neighbours on that road were understandably annoyed. In that case I'd say they just did not do their homework and walked into a lamp post of ignorance. They did not even know that a fence over 1m adjacent to a road requires planning permission - which is one of the absolute basics. They also trusted what Wimpy told them, without a 3rd party check. I think the Duty Planner or the free Planning Aid service from the Town Planners would have answered that with one email. It's not clear where responsibility lay for verge maintenance - if they are leasehold then there should be comeback. Otherwise they should have gone for the LHA on maintenance of the overgrown footpath itself - assuming it is adopted. IMO it's more likely they tried to pull a fast one for their own gain, and are cross that they got caught. These are £500k-700k houses. For what they have done, they need PP for both the toytown fence, and the change of use from (I assume) amenity land to private garden. As it is they may have a civil case against Wimpy, but 10 householders there are well able to absorb £60k between them, so I'd recommend moving the fences back and gifting the land to the Council - they are in the article complaining about "what happens if somebody breaks their leg on my land if I remove my unlawful fence" .

About the fast up and the slow down? (I also cannot help noticing that anyone going up the RHS of the Big Stairs is either going to have to be very short or will have a big bump on their head).

Thanks @Russdl. Yes, I currently try and do this and have external temperature data from our Brink Flair 400 MVHR machine which I use for deciding when to do that. The issue I will have is how to integrate that temperature data for automating this. Velux smart kit Netatmo can apparently speak to Apple Homekit so that may be one option (although I don't currently use Apple Homekit, I could given I'm an iphone user and have other mac devices as well). Another possibility is to rely on the Netatmo's ability to consult local weather forecasts, though I do wonder whether those are accurate enough. Anyone have any experience with automation of these windows/blinds through Velux Netatmo?

If you are dead set against a concrete floor why not do a floating double layer wood floor over high compressive strength EPS? That way you only have to return the 100mm timbers. I think a vapour barrier under the wood floor would stop condensation under the EPS and if you used 75mm insulation you’d end up with a similar floor level. I don’t think even two later caberdeck would withstand a large weight dropped from height but most peeps home gyms focus on machines and relatively light weights anyway. (Actually I used to use free weights and I think it’s awfully bad form to drop weights anyway, but that’s another story.) But rowing machines, treadmills, cross trainers, etc. would be fine. And that should leave spare cash for the most important bits, huge tv, sound system, mirrors, etc…. 😉

I saw it being used on a previous project where the client had a semi subterranean basement, and this was dropped down around (outside) the uninsulated concrete, filling the 300mm gap after the shuttering was withdrawn. Defo a simple solution in a difficult situation, but not the cheapest if you have an opportunity to use something else.

You only really need a minimal thermal break here, so just use a Wedi wet room former here and kill all the birds with one stone. Excavate the whole area, enough to get 20mm Wedi insulation board down plus your tiles and adhesive, and set the Wedi former the same level as that, and then tile across the lot. Make up the deficit at the tray area with layers of 6mm or 10mm Wedi board as required, to get the former at the right height.

That mostly refers to “whilst the works are being undertaken” methinks. Poor workmanship is one for small claims here, but too much ambiguity over who did what / when did this start going wrong etc. Bottom line is, OSO should have done a report first to show deflection, then put in a request for the client to get a qualified carpenter in to undertake the work in anticipation, then they come and fit the cylinder. They (expletive deleted)ed up massively here, so it is true that they should offer to correct the whole problem, as a gesture of goodwill. Let’s see what they say / offer in compensation etc.

Yup. Crazy. People have been dying from collapsed, boiled CWS tanks for a long time, so it’s not as if the risk isn’t there. This is why I usually do a day on structural carpentry, including boarding for access and so we can work safely, upgrading / adding insulation where we’re covering voids, and adding service lighting etc, as these jobs should be taken seriously and done properly. This one just looks like a hit and run, which (from a major player) seems pretty poor tbh. Let us know how you get on.

Hiya bud. I was told 80mm which accounts for a binder and top course. I’ve got 90mm in most places but at least 80mm everywhere. Constant fall to the aco at the garage 👍

check tinternet for piccies of the bare valve so you know where to aim for