Miek

Screwfix are expensive for nails in my experience, I've used this company. https://bulldogfix.com/collections/framing-nails good nails at a decent price. For noggins supporting walls I skew nailed them into place, those strongties look good as a manufactured alternative. The noggins I used came with the floor as a kit but 38x63 is about right, or 3"x2" equivalent would be bomber IMO. Hope that helps

Clearly a sensible approach. It avoids any excavation for a new footing which could potentially damage the existing wall even more. I guess you would need to ascertain whether the piling would hit any existing footing , but that's easy enough with a spade and some effort.

I would do it when off. And wait an hour at least for all the micro bubbles to accumulate at the top of the system. Maybe do it in the morning before the pump runs.

The new water in the system will degas over time, just keep bleeding the roof vent. There is very little space for it to accumulate so only a small air lock will stop the circulation. I would advise against a bottle air vent on the roof, even the solar rated ones die in my experience. Ok to have one inside, preferably on the cold side of the system .

I doubt it as you need the plastic part to overhang both walls , so there is only enough for 1 closer at 50mm. The offcut would be short on one wall.

I had a pasquill floor, they specified noggins between the joist ends to stop rotation. Did they send you a floor plan?

The vast majority of heat loss is from the surface of the water via evaporation. Bubble bath makes the biggest difference to keeping the water warm IMO.

Nails are stronger in shear than screws. If in doubt fill all the nail holes in the hangers is my advice.

Yes that's them.

Fix the wood at ground level if you can, so much easier. Usually timber hangers are fixed with sheradised twist nails, not screws. If the wood is a bit proud of the steel it won't matter IMO.

If using foam then go for the permanently flexible stuff, like illbruck fm330, especially important over a patio door for example where settling of the building might impinge on the operation of the door

A flitch beam might be a solution here.

The cheapest hire in digger with a driver is usually a JCB as they are their own transport . Probably minimum hire of 8 hours at around £40 hour. Varies by region a lot.

More or less the best price. Cheap compared to compriband which is silly money. These things are mostly used on expensive windows so the price kinda pales in comparison to the glass.

Lithium can discharge at -10C but usually cannot be charged below 0C. A pipe freezing protection kit which comes on below 2C could possibly be used to fashion some kind of heater, but probably not worth the hassle

That's fine in theory, but what about the defrost cycle. Once the evaporator starts to ice up, which they do quite frequently once they are below the dew point and below freezing then the COP figures go out the window IMO. I feel that the icing up of the evaporator can be a big issue in cold weather and its not often talked about or at least the drop in performance is largely ignored.

Cool, thanks. It looks like it uses the phones camera to add detail to the thermal image , that's a nice touch.

Very good thermal images I must say, way better than my seekthermal ones. Just curious what a camera like that costs?

Hi Folks As the title suggests, I'm looking for someone to K-rend (or similar) my build. 3 bed detached property block construction. I've contacted K-Rend and they have provided a list of installers, some of whom i've contacted, but just getting people to quote is proving rather difficult, I suspect they are all busy. If anyone has any recommendations they could put forward so I can broaden my search that would be much appreciated, PM me if you prefer. @Nickfromwales is the only member i can think of to tag Many Thanks Mike

The cylinder should have a horizontal pipe on the top outlet to prevent 'one pipe' circulation where hot water passes up the pipe center and down the cooler pipe walls in a convection current. if you have a vertical pipe you waste a lot of heat. 500mm is plenty of horizontal before you go vertically to the F&E tank.

+1

Thanks for the reply @nod, ill see what their opinion is. The architect suggested what you have said also, so thats encouraging.

Hi folks The next task on this build is to get the house rendered, Krend self coloured render. I have this 5m slider where the outer leaf is on steel . I've blocked it out with 12mm cement render board. But what's the best way to make sure the render doesn't crack? Maybe I'm worried about nothing but I could see joints between steel and block and render board moving differentially when the summer sun starts beating down. Any advise appreciated @nod

The moisture on the slabs could be the HP entering its defrost cycle. This happens at low outdoor temperature and high humidity and reduces the COP somewhat. If the unit is short cycling then go out and watch the rear of the heat exchanger to see if it's frosting up.

40mm clean limestone is what is used around here (West Wales) for land drains, it depends on your local availability what is used, here pea shingle is twice the price of limestone.