SteamyTea

True, we overvalue diamonds and celebrities and undervalue clean water and social care.

That is more a reflection of his customers shallowness than any real, measurable, business methodology. If someone turned up in a £100k car and was selling an identical product to a man in a cheap suit and a wobbly Vectra, I would pick the one that was offering the best service. If you make business decisions based on emotion, it is time to retire.

Never looked into it too closely. There is evaporation losses, which are disproportionately high for and semi absorbent material, not that glass should be. May have to spend a few minutes looking it up. A friend of mine has a similar type house. She had a similar conversion done, may ask her what calculations were done. She did not have to worry about neighbours wall as her place is end of terrace.

I said I am a special case. Am not bitter, other may be. But are you capable of doing all the H&S, Food Standards and Employer paperwork on your own. Do you get, by law, inspected every 2 years and have those results in the public domain. And that is before TripAdvisor reviews.

It is those loses. I can't remember where the figures are published, but a few online calculators state it. I am not 100% sure that just the u-value of a window takes this into account. Here is one: https://insulationcart.com/knowledge/u-value-calculations/what-is-a-u-value-and-how-to-calculate-it/130

You can. I am a special case though as I moved down here for other reasons and only play at working. My background is very different from my current job. I work in catering, because it is a reliable income (I live in a seasonal holiday part of the country). The usual wage for a chef, down here, is around £18,000/year. Half the year is compressed into 3 months though. Other staff, are generally on minimum wage and zero hours contract. State benefits often pay a lot better than working. Why I have no problem with people on benefits. And they get to go surfing. To put things into perspective, a mate of mine works a an engineer in the renewable energy field (properly qualified and chartered) and earns less than me. He is not unusual. I don't work in the RE field any more, too many interns and 'professional' that know very little. As for 'spending 7 years' training. I spent that many too, not counting my apprenticeship in toolmaking.

You said it. But if a VT is earning around £12/hour, your staff will be earning less, say £10/hour. Which is what I said a mystic at the seaside is worth. Just for a laugh, cut one persons pay, and increase another, give it 6 months and see if the productivity has changed. Productivity does not correlate with pay very well.

That is just the steady state value. There are surface affects that will increase the losses. I think they are in the Building Regs. That is exactly the time I see spelling and grammar errors.

Under floor heating

Slight difference as the vehicle technician, to use the correct term, is probably paid a fifth of what it charged. Do you only get about a fifth of the practice fees? Also, if a VT makes a mistake, the consequences can be serious. Thankfully this does not happen too much.

This is an old problem. One of the colleges I was at narrowed the corridors. This forced people to interact more. That was in the 1970s. Open plan, hot desk offices have been a disaster too. People need control of their space and how it is shared with others. The film Brasil springs to mind.

Nice one, have you been to Milton Keynes, Sorry Adam, sure you have heard them all before. And welcome. It is a type of sub base. I have no idea what it stands for. Think it is a type of gravel/rubble/stone/aggregate. One for the abbreviations thread, it may be in there.

Did anyone?

There will be about 20% less energy because the modules take that away. There is also convection currents, which says to me that microinverters should be positioned at the bottom of the module. The fact that inverters are very reliable, implies that temperature is not a huge problem.

I have often wonders that.

I seem to remember that it was something that came in a few years back It may be an MCS thing. Does the 17th say anything about suitable positions. Wording like that is often a catch all. But all the same, I am not sure that putting an inverter in potentially 60° C is a good idea.

That should make it easier, as long as you know what the questions actually mean.

May be worth starting a list and asking people to put numbers against them. Then can get an idea. Just saying 'near impossible' just makes it a more interesting challenge.

The architect that designed my house had no idea either (and it was an architect). They then reproduced it hundreds of times. More seriously, we tend to know what we like, so we can take pictures of them easily now. Then play about with sketches and models. Both skills that are easily learnt.

I don't see that as an answer, it needs a bit more fleshing out. I am a reductionist. If I don't understand something, I start to break the problem down into smaller parts that I do understand and can create solutions for. This may sometimes look like stabbing in the dark, but it eventually gives an answer. So rather than 'I don't understand any of it' answer. Find the bits you do understand, and see where they fit into the bit that you don't understand.

Take a picture of a house and trace around it. Not being facetious as that sounds. I think this is a major problem. I do not understand why 'our' councils are so difficult.

Isn't that like saying that accidents are caused by bad driving. It never address the real problems. So maybe I should have asked a different question. What area of self building do people not understand?

I think you are not allowed to put inverters in a loft anymore. This may just be for normal ones. Amy be worth someone checking up in the latest edition of the electrical standards.

If that was the case, then they would pay the price. Split over the who development it would be peanuts. I think part of the problem is that some are still rented from the council, so when they say they have paid off their mortgage, what they mean is that they have paid off the 25% (or whatever) they owed on the joint ownership. It would also be a bit strange to think that a house on a derelict housing estate is worth the same as one on a thriving one.

I have slept on this, but I am wondering why self builders use an architect. We all know what a house looks like, and what we like. So what is the 'big hole' in self builders knowledge that makes them use an architect? Is it lack of drawing, planning, structural, artistic, materials, plumbing, decorating, electrical skills etc etc? If the most common areas can be identified, then it is easier to give help.