epsilonGreedy

If it is a BT hub just follow the instructions on the slide out password panel.

@prodave do you know how far away the broadband street cabinet is? I ask because your experience sounds like my previous property which was about a mile from the cabinet and delivered 2mb on a good day or zero when playing up. It would be useful to know how fast your broadband is when working ok because a web page or streaming radio station does not stress even a poorly 2mb link. This test page gives a useful 10 minute polling log of link speed. http://startrinity.com/InternetQuality/ContinuousBandwidthTester.aspx#cst_windows

How about a dual function megnetic system that could also levitate a car for an oil change. Lifts and pits are 20th century thinking.

Not much "fantasy" in the replies so far. How about a large 4 lane Scalextric that can be lowered on pulleys from reinforced roof trusses?

My annual Protek insurance is not much more than your 3 month extension and I have previously noted their 12 month policy rate is better value per month. Are there any optional extras you can remove from the cover like hire plant, legal cover and personal tools? I recall a previous thread on this subject where someone said they managed to get conventional householder cover pre completion, this was through a specialist insurance broker.

Ok. Give the last few posts I feel my original point remains valid. The OP should consider meterbox positioning as part of the whole electrics design. If he finds a convenient spot for an in wall meterbox but later finds that positioning the CU nearby is problematic, that then creates later hassles such as digging a further external supply trench to route a long tail to somewhere better for internal CU placement. CU placement then affects the length of high amp circuits within the house.

Thanks. Is this because of dampness in the meter box or the hassle of a trip outside in the dark to reset it? My original plan A was to route about 600mm straight up from the meterbox and into the CU. However I later realized that the swing of a door and its handle would impact the face of the CU. Plan B requires routing the meter tail 1.5m up to ceiling joist height then traversing 1.2m over an internal door threshold or through ceiling joists and then back down an internal wall to the CU. I have yet to study a sparky's facial expression as I propose this route. One concern I have is that when the CU is remote from the meter tail originated from an external wall mounted meterbox there is no visual clue on the internal wall that indicates a safe zone (or danger zone to the future DIYer with a drill).

I think so. I will know next Monday when my DNO turns up to reconnect me on my own direct mains cable link to the main road. My concern was more about whether the cable would obstruct future digging for drainage.

That is because your sparky knew his job and put in the extra circuit protection.The issue becomes more interesting when the meterbox is wall mounted in the main house and the meter tail route to the CU gets long and complicated. The regs are designed to dissuade people from snaking the incoming meter tail along a complex route through the house internals to the CU. A question for @ProDave, given the situation of a wall mounted meterbox within the main house and a customer who demands a long meter tail through the building to the CU, would you also add an RCD in the meterbox in addition to the 80A fuse mentioned above?

OP: Have you considered internal wiring runs and placement of the master fusebox? The default rule is to keep the meter box to fuse box (CU) cable run to under 3m otherwise extra circuit protection is needed. The internal CU also needs to comply with disability placement and access regs. Final thought, what about drainage trenches? Could there be a later routing clash?

@simplepimple what is the speed limit on the public road? I have a lot of sympathy with the Council's demands having previously lived on a 40mph country road where some drives spread cheap round p gravel onto the road near a blind corner.

Following with interest... @Russell griffithsHow many m2?

I am considering a similar option. In my case it would be simpler to locate the manifold in an upstairs airing cupboard and then route the UFH pipes down to the ground floor only UFH. I wonder if noise from circulation pumps might we worse upstairs leading to a disturbed night's sleep?

The flue liners are 235mm wide externally which gives 7" internally. We are trying to follow a local architectural style which requires an external chimney size 5 bricks wide and to simplify things this width will be taken straight down to the concrete flue base plate sitting on the internal cross lintels. I knocked the first chimney breast down when the mortar was still green because it looked too big in the room. When the brickie returns he will rebuild this which should not be a problem because the internal wall has open sockets about 120mm wide to which the chimney best will be tied to. Aha. I imaged the vermiculite would have a quick spin in the electric mixer. Thanks for the tip.

lift the floorboard sheets up on the scaffolding the day before otherwise you will start the job knackered. 60m2 of floor = about 1.2 tons of 22m Caberdek. Once the first section of floor is laid, lift the next 10 boards up to floor height and rest them on two saw or hop-up stools because it is better to lift each board to be laid from a height of 2 feet. One great tip from my carpenter was to stick some ducktape around the tapered neck of the glue bottle to catch glue dribbles running down the outside of the bottle. Posi joists were relatively easy to lever up onto the scaffolding with two people, one lifts from the ground while the other pulls from staging until 50% of the joist weight is beyond the pivot point of the scaffolding handrail. The 5" wide, 5.6m long joists were tougher. Finally, and the most subtle tip I learned, is how the align the first row of boards. These must be perfectly straight or even have a slight concave shape in the direction of lay because if there is any hint of a convex curve this be cause ever larger gaps as that convex curve grows as it radiates out with each additional row of boards.

Ok panic over, my floor board expansion gap varies between 10mm to 20mm, it was 50mm for the joist to chimney breast wall gap. Due to a timing problem the floor went in before the ground floor chimney blockwork so this can be tweaked to the floor aperture as it goes up. According to the Caberdek technical doc the expansion risk in the decking is attributed to the newly installed floorboard sheets absorbing moisture.

My Architectural Technician favours insulated liner flue blocks but I went for standard pumice/cement flue liners. Now I am trying to work out how much vermiculite fill I will need, it is looking like 6 to 7 bags a chimney i.e. £120!

10mm feels like a common sense expansion gap. Maybe I am confusing the joist to blockwall/chimney breast gap. I will go out to take some measurement and will report back.

That's odd because the joist manufacturer's design and the carpenter assumed a standard 50mm gap around the floor perimeter. The 50mm gap looks unnecessarily large to my untrained eye but at the end of the day hybrid PIR/Plasterboard will bridge over this gap.

Yes I like the Egger finish (the one that seems to be a matt grey very thick paint finish)? My Caberdek has a permanent thin laminate finish which is a bit more prone to chipping when handled.

I am just being extra cautious about the possibility Covid might cause a disruption to roof slate supplies and hence an extra long period of exposure. After the physical exertions of last week including lifting 1 ton of floorboard sheets up 2m onto the scaffolding I am looking forward to an easy week and just painting on some sealant.

So did I but when the 50 sheets arrived it was Norbord's Caberdek. The confusion was a prior quote direct from DWB a joist manufacturer included Egger but in the end I sourced the joists and decking separately. I tend to go with whatever my preferred BM stocks. I have been impressed by the weather proof finish on the Caberdek and also the weight of each board.

I like the idea of brushing the D4 on. The messy bubbled up ends that the carpenter did at the end of the job were applied by dribbling the D4 out of the nozzle.

My brickie team will be restarting next week now that my first floor has been fitted and while the Caberdeck board edges are accessible I plan to brush on some type of sealant around the perimeter edge. I have a few litres of old solvent-based garage floor sealant kicking around and this soaked into my static caravan OSB skirting quite well. Alternatively I could continue and finish off the job using the same technique used by the pro carpenter who helped me fit the floor. He used up the remaining D4 glue on some edges, however when applied to the board edges this bubbles up higher than the board surface and helps retain a rainwater puddle on the surface, the depth of the D4 glue also reduces the mandatory gap between floor and wall masonry. Should I consider something else, PVA for example?

I had to look into this subject because I forgot to move a wall profile string when working at 1am the night before the dig started. A 5m trench had a 70mm taper that I dealt with by shuffling the whole house 50mm to get a best overall mid concrete position within my 600mm trenches. I did my own setting out with a steel tape measure plus trigonometry. My digger bloke was excellent and the end result is good.