Nickfromwales

Tell him to (expletive deleted) off. I think you need to remind him you're paying the bills and it’s your house. The tail doesn’t wag the dog!!! Agree to pay him the downtime as an extra, an hour or two at his 10hr day divided by 10 x 2hrs, and take control of how this gets laid. Will the replacement 20% be the same batch / variant? If not guaranteed, then they need throwing in here and there to camouflage them.

I could show some pics of installs, ducting like tumble drier hose, held up (strangled) with cable ties, and other such very 1st year apprentice stuff. Looked like fed up teenagers fitted it as part of community service. Just worse than bread & butter stuff, and failures of whole house systems which needed total gut out by replacement suppliers and installers. As said, avoid. Or don’t.

Note: At those depths WRAS regs would bother me a lot more; they want a duct so the pipes can be withdrawn / replaced. I’m happy running pipes above a constructional, uninsulated slab, in standard pipe insulation, but this is a bit extreme for installing domestic pipework, naked, imo.

Geothermal heat / mass doesn’t swing temps below ground like it does in the frost layer (0-300mm iirc) at ground level. That’s how GSHP’s can give heat out when there’s snow on the ground.

That’s mostly just down to using good quality thermostatic showers vs ‘manual’ mixers. Decent ones will work with quite erratic flows and temps, so I always advise my clients to spend some money on such daily drivers.

So never subject to / at risk from freezing at all. Did you sleeve them?

Bundle up these fees and use that to bolster your actual build budget with the best General Builder you can find. They'll have a good electrician and a good plumber, and you'll get a good enough "M&E" experience with those guys being promised the work. It's not rocket science to add a few circuits for electrics, and run some extra pipes off existing for plumbing, tbh. Builder should become Principal Contractor, and be responsible for CDM2015 (if it becomes applicable) and the architect can remain as PD and just provide hourly paid support in isolation, if so needed.

Was on a job where a Norrsken slider just went pop, months after it was installed. It was either the middle or outer pane iirc, but we were all the other end of the room chatting and it decided that was the day to “leave the chat”.

Yup. Or, there’s another (the primary) stopcock in the house that you aren’t aware of.

Yup. Stopcock is the boss of all hot and cold now most prob, meaning you don’t (shouldn’t) need to go outside to turn off the rising main. Turn the stopcock off, and open the kitchen hot and cold taps until they run dry. Then, go around opening and closing every other hot and cold outlet in the house, plus flush all toilets and check they’re not refilling, to prove the stopcock is your master water shut off. Give that a whizz and reply back here with the results.

? Erm, no. A £10-£15 switch which you press your finger against, very occasionally, to select ON or OFF, is the most simple, easy, cost effective solution. Smart switching very high current loads would require contactors and more kit / palaver.

Is this a gravity hot water system? Or have you had a combi boiler conversion?

That’s Donald Ducked….

Yes. Its potable water, typically coming from a stainless steel (ergo food grade) vessel. I often fill the kettle with hot water from my combi boiler, if I know it’s getting filled right up. Doubt it saves money but defo boils in less than half the time which is handy.

Half a job by the sounds of it. An email to clarify why this detail is missing is WAY overdue.

It's all about the prevention of backflow from the untamed cold mains > UVC via the hot pipework. If you'd have seen all the installs I have that went horribly wrong, done by clueless / careless / ignorant installers over the years, folk would have a much greater respect for these things. Adding a non return to the hot outlet of an UVC (single check, not a double!) and / or a secondary pressure reducing valve at the stopcock are all retro fit disciplines vs a complete new install, done from scratch; the latter meaning all mixer outlets are fed from balanced feeds. The G3 installation particulars shown in the Benchmark / MI's allows protection for things like mixer taps being changed downstream for 'non-compliant' hardware, which then introduce an issue later on, and more, so you may start with a 2 tap hole sink with separate taps = zero mixing, and then go and buy a monoblock mixer without non return valves supplied in the box, so you don't then fit one on the hot feed to prevent backflow, and then you have caused a serious issue (that you thought was a harmless upgrade). Nobody gives 2 shits about this, not even British Gas. Don't hold your breath looking for anyone to care about you getting roasted, as there are too many plumbers out there (on their mothers side).

Erm……it would be you drilling the holes! A 20mm drill bit for £5 and some time marking out is total cost there. Copy other ready made benches, considering their logic for where these holes are and why etc.

Clockwise is loosen / open btw.

Put a spanner on the hex nut to hold it still, and give it a slight tighten when you're done. The internals of this gate valve may have seized, as these don’t last forever and dislike being in one place forever and then being asked to move. If you’ve got a combi then you’re high pressure hot and cold, and gate valves should be replaced with lever 1/4 turn ball valves. Simple route is to switch off the stopcock to the whole house, drain down, cut the bath pipes and fit speed-fit isolators in , then put the water back on.

Less traffic / (vigorous) mopping etc? 2 of mine in my bathroom are almost white again after 6 years. Added to the list of shit I’ll never get around to changing, even as a 2 min job. Life continues in the background.

Replace with new for £20 ?!?!?!?

That has a much bigger head iirc, so stick with Monument.

I always leave a small up-stand at the threshold, so you have somewhere to apply a sealant, as these will see a bit of wind driven rain if opened in our typical weather. You can’t really seal (successfully) without creating a slight internal angle for the sealant to reside. I also would defo not just feather right at the last couple of hundred mm, like a ramp, as you’ll see that when the sun’s on it; minimum 500-600mm.

Lol. Glad it’s a fun and zero stress pastime you’ve gone for.