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As I have finally got my completion certificates after years of being on a ‘building work in progress’ policy I decided to use one of the comparison websites to see what I could now get plus I want to include accidental damage which I couldn’t have with building work ongoing previously. Surprisingly, in 3rd place and not much different to 1st and 2nd was my existing insurer (Halifax) who were offering buildings and contents for £141 although they were sneaky as they had taken off £50 cashback which is never guaranteed. So 191 vs my renewal quote of 288. Rang up to cancel. They immediately cut the quote to 235 and cited that my current policy is unlimited in some areas and includes the detached garage where the other quote does not. Still asked her to cancel and she said she could include accidental damage for both buildings and contents for 285 which is a pound less than my renewal quote which didn’t include that. I don’t want to spend eons of time on this so just wanting to know if it’s in the right ballpark really. Thanks And in answer to your question @lizzie mine is timber frame with stone / blocks / render. She looked it up and said that it counted as standard and they didn’t cover anything where the frame was metal for example. Not sure about larch cladding but it doesn’t seem to be the timber frame that causes it to be non standard, but possibly the cladding might. Well with Halifax at least.

What are they doing with the Avios scheme / credit cards? I only have a BAEC Amex as I generally collect there but think I might have a small balance in an Avios account somewhere.

I’m just glad I wasn’t party to what you guys were up to crawling around in that cupboard!

I’ve owned sheep. Believe me they are never that bloody obliging! Mine escaped and ran down Epping High Street on the last Sat before Xmas causing complete chaos. Needed 3 police cars and several residents to round them up before we could get down there with the dogs and a trailer. Bloody things were destined for the pot after that episode believe me!

37 + 66 + 41 = . Or are we going for 200 with a baby on board

Or in my case, it is better to have no need to climb any ladders EVER. Hate the things.

No one's going up a ladder here!!! Not unless I am somewhere else!

I don’t have much info on that score other than the receipt for the purchase and a photo of them on the roof. They are pretty much south facing I believe (well I am on the coast and they point in the direction of England anyway!). The TS is 475l.

Yep, that's what I've observed. Firing on 24kw then straight back to standby. I am more than happy with what you achieved here. And the turd is looking pretty shiny from where I'm sitting. I've called it much worse in the past, and who wants to be on the parish council anyway ....

A very ancient quote however. Can you really explain things like computer science, medicine, modern biology in terms of the principles of physics alone? Back in the day when Rutherford made that quote science may well have simply been data collection (biology certainly was) but things have evolved since then. And of course the biggest irony is that Rutherford was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry rather than physics .

Deffo the best outcome or you would always have wondered if you should have done it. Induction is great - enjoy. And be sure to put those 4 pans on at full whack, just because you can .

3.5 decades here!! Did physics A Level but don't remember any of it as hated every second of it. Chemistry and maths were more my thing, but actually physics could well have ended up being more useful for many more practical reasons. Should have paid more attention clearly . And I thought Crackerjack was at 5 'o clock? I only remember Michael Aspel and Stewpot though

Mine is certainly not passive sadly. And was cold in the fabric of the house as apart from 1 room I had no heating previously for at least a couple of years. I'm having trouble even seeing the solar thermal actually doing anything at present. How hot does yours heat your TS to? And what does the heat differential need to be between TS temp and the collectcr for the ST to actually heat the TS? From memory when the ST used to work many moons ago it used to take the TS temperature to about 40c (according to the one temp gauge about mid way up the TS). Never seemed to get hotter than that.

It seems to me that as soon as one of the rooms needs heat the boiler comes on. I’ve not yet seen any of the rooms showing ‘heating’ without the boiler firing although I haven’t looked at it obsessively for sure. I also haven’t seen the boiler at anything other than 24kw since the heating started working. It’s either 24kw or off. It can modulate however, I’m just not seeing it now.

When I say switched off I mean the temps are set to be lower on the room stats during the times that I’m not here so the heating / boiler doesn’t come on. If there was a huge cold snap I guess it might have to come on even to maintain the lower temperature (which is 18 in the main living rooms rising to 20 when I’m physically here). When I return home the temperature is set at 20 so the boiler either comes on or not depending on whether the temperature has dropped below that value. So I guess it is autonomous, but I’m learning how to set it optimally as a 24kw electric boiler coming on all the time is a bit spendy. Does 24kw mean that it will use 24kw every hour it fires or something else?

I’m still not really sure how I can tell if the solar is heating the store. I’m hoping that it becomes more apparent in the proper summer when the heating is off and I’m just using DHW.

Here you go

Mine was 2006 regs level so probably worse than yours. And I know I don’t get zero losses.

Is that like Toulouse Lautrec?

If @Onoff doesn't have a loo in his bathroom maybe he's already using the duckpond?

Well I don’t want to heat rooms that no one ever goes in, and I want to utilise the solar to heat the thermal store if I can during the day so I don’t want the electric boiler kicking in 24 x 7. My plan was to use it to heat rooms and water early in the morning, switch off at 7am when I leave for work if I go to the office, leave the solar to work during the day if it can, and then have the boiler switch on to heat up water and UFH ready for me to return in the evening. I’ve no idea if that’s a reasonable plan for this type of system tho! Very much at the learning stage!

The heating was knackered for so long that apart from knowing that 20c is comfortable in the living area (which was the only room I actually had heat in before) it’s going to be a bit trial and error to get the rest right I think. I clearly don’t want it to be as cold as before, but I don’t want to set it for tropical and waste money on heating I don’t need. It was so weird walking into a house with thermostats registering 24c when the heating was finally working that first day but that was also way too hot even for sitting around. The dogs didn’t like it that hot either. I think I may switch all non used rooms down to 14 which at this time of year means that the heating should only fire up if it turns really cold again. I may also switch the thermostats to 7 days instead of 5 / 2 as some weekdays I work from home and other days I go to the office so I have different requirements on different days. Will be a bit trial and error I’m sure! It’s definitely not warm enough to switch off the heating yet. That’s generally sometime in May IIRC. And then it’s generally off until Sept although last year the boiler was fecked and it took until mid Nov to get someone to fix it so it was pretty baltic in here by then.

Here is what the original SE asked the council to consider when they first stated that the SER certificate had to be started from scratch. The SE engineer I later engaged (because he was the original one who had provided the certificate for the frame) asked them to do the same thing but they refused at that point. As the original warrant was granted for the 2 dwelling houses under one building warrant, which was granted, and the notice of finalisation of structural details (form Q) was issued for this it would make sense that the original warrant for the erection of 2 dwelling houses is granted. We could then treat the extension that has been built to the rear of the second house under a separate warrant application with separate design calculations and SER certificate if needed which would keep things cleaner for the client. The reason I think this would be easier is the fact that both houses are now occupied by individual owners who were not the original applicant for the building warrant and to now do an SER certificate for both these houses would be expensive and time consuming and would involve trial pits needing excavated on site to prove ground conditions which I am sure both owners would be keen to avoid. As there is an SER and form Q for the original scheme this could be cleared off (turning a blind eye to the extension for now) and would mean this extension can be treated under a separate warrant, we would not be able to just issue an SER for the second house so would have to design both houses again and it would not be fair that she meets the full cost of design for 2 houses after so much time has passed. We assume you can discuss this with your team and let me know how we can progress with this, thanks. The council then refused this request: Further to on-going e-mails I have had time to check where we stand with the current SER scheme. Our position remains the same, we will require a full SER covering both the extension and the house (Only your plot), we will also require a new Form Q covering them both. We are not able to accept a completion certificate for the house only, as the extension has to be included and they need to be signed of together. It is unfortunate that the original SER engineer is not still involved as this would have saved a lot of hassle. Trust that this clarifies our position. When they refused this they sent me this letter (they gave me a month to sort the issue knowing that there was nothing I could do to alter the rules of the SER scheme): With regard to your amendment to building warrant application received on XXXX, and your failure to adequately resolve all outstanding points in my letter(s), I write to advise you that the application will be held open until XXXX to allow you to fully resolve all matters. Should a complete response not be received within this period, your application will be deemed refused, (you are referred to the final paragraph of my vetting letter). Our records will then be updated accordingly. If you wish to continue thereafter with your proposals then you will require to submit a new application. It should be noted that submission fees paid are non-refundable I was a bit peeved in truth as about 6 months after my husband died I finally managed to get my head round getting the outstanding things addressed. I rang the council and explained the circumstances and asked if they could help me understand what I needed to do to obtain a completion certificate and I admitted at the time that there was an additional room here. They sent a BCO here who advised me to apply for completion of the main house, and send in a SEPARATE warrant application for the extension. Clearly I would never have sent in a new warrant application had I known that it would be immediately knocked back as ineligible. I never did apply for the 'amendment' noted in the letter they sent me - they seemed to have changed the application from a new application to an amendment themselves. I suppose I should be grateful that they did eventually yield as I would probably have been waiting years to have the SER scheme wording changed. The original design was all done with the future room in plan so it wasn't like it was a massive structure bolted onto the side of the house without any consideration as to the structural design of it all. I will never ever do anything like it again however as it just ends up as a mess although in truth I knew that it might be difficult which is why I never wanted it built here in the first place (plus I don't even use the room!).

Change your profile pic if that is your photo as a first step, and remove or change your location. Won’t hurt to be a bit more incognito for a while.

We had the house party last weekend during Nightmare Heatinggate Yes a building warrant is like building regs, nothing to do with the PP. When I say cancel they threatened to refuse the amendment to the warrant to cover the extension, and every warrant has an expiry date so they could have refused to extend the building warrant further (see attachment). Either of those things would have left me no way of getting a completion certificate unless I had knocked the extension down. This was actually something I considered doing at one stage. Sledgehammer was poised!