epsilonGreedy

Oh I had a feeling there would be a scientific gotcha. Ok so Plan-B. Run the armoured BT cable naked through the trench for the voice link. Regular CAT-5 cable through the 20mm conduit. Should I attempt to maintain a minimum distance between the mains cable in the trench and the other two cables for signal quality?

Hmmm yes two lengths... this is an option, so it does sound that the armoured and effectively heavily shielded BT cable can function as expensive CAT 5 Ethernet cable even when laid underground. The corrugated plastic ducting I have available is just 20mm and I am not sure it would accommodate two lengths of the heavy BT cable and I am worried about electrical safety if it is laid directly alongside the 40amp mains cable.

I have chanced upon a reel of abandoned armoured BT cable and I am thinking of using this to make a future provision for a garage based office network and phone. The current situation is that BT should be connecting my static caravan soon with a normal voice and broadband connection. 4 months from now I hope to have a roofed garage and a temporary office situated about 8 meters away from the static caravan. There is an existing mains power service trench open between the garage foundation and static caravan. The current custodian of the reel of abandoned armoured BT cable thinks it is multi core so is the following plan viable? Lay a 10 meter length of the BT cable in a separate duct longside the mains cable then close the trench. Then when the garage is compete use some of the cable cores for a voice telephone extension and other spare wires for a wired Ethernet link into the back of the BT hub still located in the static caravan. I would be hoping for a 30 Mb quality link between the static caravan and garage office.

Does this not lend credibility to the account of a lighting surge protector killing the farm worker during its 10 second re connection cycle?

I have only been on the forum for 8 months but here are my suspicions about budget overruns: Commencing a project without a rough idea of the spending schedule relative to expected progress. Paying a main contractor a weekly appearance fee rather than staged payments for completed milestones. Unexpected high service connection charges. The syndrome of "It was only an extra £200 to do it right which is nothing in the grand scheme of thing" x 100 such instances. Too much bleeding edge technology which results in high-margin gizz us a job chancers buzzing around your project like wasps around a honey pot. Not allowing for the additional costs of a slow multi year build, e.g. extra travel, insurance, scaffolding rental, toilet hire and domestic utility charges. Believing in the federated responsibility model, i.e. frittering away money on a gaggle of offsite/part-time experts to provide a cozy warm feeling you are being looked after. Overlooking all the small incidental costs, e.g. fencing, H&S signage, tarpaulins to keep things dry onsite during the winter, 40 concrete blocks to prop up the static caravan and £55 of armoured cable to provide power to the caravan. Not accounting for waste material disposal costs and skip hire.

My council handle NMAs on a 28 day decision target. Have you tried turning up in person? My council run a manned duty desk on a first come first served basis and I usually arrive with Swmbo to create the impression of starry eyed first time self builders.

No visiting meter readers knocking on the door asking where I have hidden the meter cabinet. Satisfy a mild curiosity about consumption figures. Folks here like to publish snapshots of their PV generation/consumption graphs and presumably I will get access to a web site maintained by the supplier with such graphs. Finally I got the impression during the sign-up process I was going to get a smart meter unless I specifically objected. Is there a downside?

He raised an interesting point about sub station trip out behavior and something I will remember because he reinforced the point with an anecdote about the death of a local agricultural worker. Apparently when the sub station trips a supply it then makes 3 re-connection attempts at 10 second intervals. The poor farm worker in question drove into a supply cable, there was a big bang at which point he jumped off his machine but then seeing no further electrical dramatics he attempted to remount his machine just at the point of a 10 second retry and his body created a lethal earth. The retry logic is there to provide automatic re-connection following a lighting strike though you probably know that. Surely he was making a reasonable point about maintaining a physical separation between an unfused mains supply and cabling downstream of the fused meter box?

Follow up: Job completed successfully yesterday in 2 hours. The main surprise was the size of the 40amp armoured cable, this stuff is huge and difficult to lay precisely in trenches. The electrician gave me the reel of 22m before starting the job so I could uncoil it into the trench route before he started. If any twists get left in it is like wrestling with an angry python. The electrician noted that a PMU? earthing connection back to the substation was missing within the builder's supply meter box on legs, so as per @ProDave's advice he put in a local TT earth, apparently this has to be a regulation minimum distance from the meter box. I had ordered a smart meter which caused congestion within the meter box. I got a mild ticking off from the electrician for crossing the 40amp caravan cable underground with the inbound 100amp utility supply cable, he said one sinking scaffolding leg could sever and connect the cables eliminating the protection provided by the main fuse box.

Nice and a great design for the location. Having sailed in and out of Poole many times I have been able to eyeball the development of Sandbanks from seaward and can imagine the lifestyle such a property will offer.

I feel the fine tuning of such an inspirational modern design should be left to a high-end professional after you have gathered opinion here. Is this some multi £ million pad to be built in Sandbanks Poole? Those pine trees look familiar.

This subject interests me and I wonder if the lower reversing maneuver could begin before a car has fully exited a garage. BTW you could point out that the diagram provided by the council depicts the car executing a magic pirouette at one point judging by the strange reversal of the car's bonnet.

Good point eye to screen is important for me and I have screen glasses tuned to a specific distance which is actually too close for my 30" screen. The next screen will be smaller because characters on the left and right of the present 30" screen are seen with a coloured fringe due to the refraction angle through my glasses.

Thanks all. Summing up... 70cm to 75cm should be a comfortable depth for a modern flat screen computer desk. Yup I agree that chairs are just as important and I prefer the slightly pitched forward typing posture as promoted by "task" chairs in contrast to the teenager semi reclined gaming chair. In 30 years of intensive computer usage I have only experienced RSI type problems when chair height was wrong or the screen was too low. I don't get on with keyboard shelves and need my forearms resting on the desk. More recently I developed a shoulder problem when typing which I realized related to a poor typing style with one hand doing 70% of the work. My new keyboard with a split down the middle enforces a better typing style though it took 3 months before I fully adjusted from a 30 year bad habit. https://www.microsoft.com/accessories/en-us/products/keyboards/sculpt-ergonomic-desktop/l5v-00001

No is was in the disposal heap at a local DIY container storage business. I asked the owner if I could take it.