Spreadsheetman

My usual (very good) plumber fitted a Rangemaster 1.5 bowl ceramic kitchen sink for us back in April and it has been successively developing more and more hairline cracks radiating out from the plug holes. Mostly in the drainer sink, but still in both. We used all the supplied (plastic+rubber washers) fittings and used clear silicone to seal to the ceramic as usual. I have been wrangling with the manufacturer via the supplier and they are claiming that we must have overtightened the fittings which has cracked the glaze and then thermal cycling is causing further cracking. So of cause, they are accepting no responsibility. Anyone got any suggestions? We used the supplied fittings, my plumber has done hundreds of sinks and I was helping and it all looked correct to me. How easily are sinks damaged just by attaching normal waste fittings? I wouldn't have thought it was possible, especially since the fixing threads are into plastic anyway.

Just as a coda to the topic I started. I had a discussion with the supervising sparky of the team that were finishing off my kitchen 2nd fix and he agreed it is a slightly grey area, but if I couldn’t get a 2.5mm2 cable into the oven it should really be fused. I know the oven I’m using only really works with flexible 1.5mm2, so I can’t do that. I’ve ended up with the 32a 6mm2 feed being split into 2x2.5mm2 t&e feeds (with wagos in a Wiska box), one goes to a 13a fused connection unit for the oven (which is hardwired in 1.5mm2 high temp flexible) and the other to a 13a single socket for the hob. Both of these live in the back of an adjacent base unit, so looks tidy. I’m happy with that solution and it is easy to change if I want to use different appliances.

Check out the manual, there is a config parameter for maximum power draw. It comes configured to work from a 13a plug which is moulded on the captive power cable. There is also a very useful parameter to change the conditions for the touch key beeping. This was pretty annoying by default as it did it for any key press and you can set it for just power on/off and faults instead.

This one: https://www.bosch-home.co.uk/product-list/cooking-baking/hobs/induction-hobs/PUG61RAA5B#/Tabs=section-technical-overview/Togglebox=accessories/Togglebox=manuals/Togglebox=accessoriesOthers/

I bought a load of the Deanta Ely doors which are the same look. The veneer is thick on sides and top/bottom to allow for trimming, but it is thin on the front and back over the engineered core. We cut a door up to make a custom short one for an understairs cupboard so it was very clear how they are constructed.

Can you find the ceiling joists and screw the track hangers up through the pb into them instead? I am doing that in the dormers in my current renovation to avoid the problem entirely. I have already located the joists by using small neo magnets to find the plasterboard fixing nails.

My last washer was a Bosch (cheaper one). I found the over-sensitive drum imbalance detection made it pretty useless unless very lightly loaded. I wouldn’t buy another one.

Yes, triac-based SSRs have a min load current. They also can have a leakage current which means they may turn very light loads on by default. You might be able to find photo-MOS based products that work down to zero load, but I don’t know what voltages are available in this type.

We just had a similar-ish problem where the previous owners had slapped a coat of blue satin kitchen paint over original satin paint. Anything we did over the top (including a coat of Zinsser bullseye123+) caused bubbling when further coats were added as the blue wasn’t properly stuck and moisture penetrated through it and made it lift. The only solution was to manually wet and scrape as much of the blue satin off as would come and then coat it all with Zinsser cover-stain which is solvent based. This worked and we could then paint normally over the top.

What has the magnaclean picked up? That should tell you how dirty the system has got. Does the new boiler warranty require the system to be flushed though? Might need to be done regardless.

We are replacing the wooden external-spec door into our closed porch (unheated) and wondered if anyone has any suggestions for threshold seals at the bottom? The existing threshold has a simple upright bar running across the width in the centre of the closed position and the door has a matching lip at the bottom. There was once a compressible seal between bar and lip, but this fell apart long ago. Naturally a draft comes in. I’m going to a bit of trouble to reduce heat loss into the porch (e.g. replacing single-glazed sidelights with double glazed units, new door with double glazed panels) and the bottom of the door is the definite weak point of the plan.

Reopen the isolation valves and don’t let the air out the air bleed valve in the top of the magnaclean.

Exactly. I used semi-rigid rockwool rwa45 on my recent dormer chalet downstairs ceiling insulation job as it is very easy to cut and friction fit. It also stays in place against gravity and doesn’t need netting to hold it between ceiling joists before the plasterboard goes up. Another plus was I didn’t want to add a vapour barrier in a place that didn’t have one before (there was loose glass fibre wool stuffed in there originally and I knew that wasn’t causing an issue) so I stayed with something breathable. I did add sections of rigid insulation between joists (slightly undersized and foamed in) and that took much longer to do properly. I’d not have trusted a builder to do the insulation job I did. It was a weeks work and very tedious, so the temptation to cut corners would have been massive.

This is exactly why I am looking at separate sockets.

I think I’m unlikely to get 2 x 6mm2 into 13a socket terminals. I could use wagos to split the cable to the 2 sockets though, 1 x 6mm2 usually fits a 13a. That’s probably the most compliant solution. I could always stick a 2-module DIN enclosure with 2x 16a or 13a breakers in a cupboard to feed the appliances if I wanted to run 2.5mm2 and allow the hob a bit more current by hard-wiring it.

Yes, but the 13a plugtop intrinsically limits the current pulled via the 2.5mm2. There is a tiny chance of a cable fault sufficient to melt the 2.5mm2, but not trip the 32a type B mcb in the board, but I’d reckon that is very unlikely. I have had an electrician suggest just cutting the plug tops off and connecting the cables together into the 32a! (and I have seen that done by a kitchen fitter using a bit of choc-block)

No, that is how they are (Bosch series 2 - a load of the Bosch and Neff hobs are like that). I fired it up for testing and it was pretty good for the kind of use we will put it to I.E. 95% of the time only 2 pans simmering. You could cut the plugtop off and set the power to 16a in the config, but then I’d have to find some way of adding protection in-line.

I’ve got a 32a 6mm2 cooker supply in the re-wired kitchen which I plan to use for the single oven and induction hob. Both of these are 13a plugtop devices. The cooker isolator terminates in a 6mm2 t&e cable behind the units. My thinking is to use 6mm2-capable wagos (773-173) in a Wagobox to split into 2x short 2.5mm t&e each connected to a single 13a socket in a pattress box in the back of a cupboard either side of the oven+hob. Any of the sparkies on here know if that is acceptable under the regs?

Tricky one, that’s a killer cold bridge. My chalet bungalow had something similar, but the difference was less than a block height and I had the ceilings down so I was able to plug the top of the cavity and insulate the inner block at the same time from inside with sections from 100mm semi-rigid rockwool batts. I used short batten sections to hold the rockwool away from the roof and ensure there was a ventilation gap. Interesting to see what people suggest.

Our main waste runs down in the corner of the kitchen in boxing. I had to have that apart for various other pipework to share the route so when I put it back together I insulated the boxing with rockwool rwa45 acoustic batts 75mm thick. (I had loads of offcuts so was keen to find places to use them). It made a big difference, the splashing sound is almost inaudible now.

In my current renovation project there are some old upvc windows and it looks to me like the internal quadrant trims and strips are hiding various sins that I need to fix (with expanding foam probably). I’ve never removed or fitted these trims - how do you get them off and how (and with what) do you stick new ones on again?

They look just the same as the beads I had injected this week. I also noticed that they don’t cling or behave like plain white eps, so there is something going on with the coating.

We found it wasn’t possible to buy the kind of property we wanted in the areas that we wanted to live in (2 bedrooms upstairs, 2 bedrooms/studies downstairs, dining kitchen, utility, living room). Chalet bungalows got closest, but we couldn’t find one big enough. We had to compromise in the end (extended chalet with one study in a garden room, kitchen a bit small and no downstairs shower) so will have to move when stairs become an issue. I’m pretty envious of the self-builders as it would be marvellous to get just the layout we really want.

It does doesn’t it. It seems to be saying that people want to be warmer than they can afford to be, so better insulation just means they can then afford to crank the temperature up higher (or build bigger houses for the same energy consumption). Getting a heat pump will work though as increasing the temperature beyond a sanctioned maximum will be so expensive that they can’t afford to do it.

In my renovation I’ve got 4 sections of floor-ceiling vertical pipe boxing to do. One in the kitchen needs to be water-resistant and part-tiled, part-painted, the other three are just painted. I’m thinking about using something like 12.5mm Marmox multiboard as it’s plasterable and tileable directly and much lighter and more manageable than plasterboard. (the extra cost is insignificant in the amounts I’d need) Anyone else done anything like that?