Nickfromwales

And here's where the fabric won't be saved. The things will just refuse to be extinguished for a very long time, so the fire brigade will be pumping foam or powder, or CO2 in, and then have to do so with copious amounts, retreat, repeat, and so on. Too many manufacturer sponsored YT videos showing how 'easily' these 'silly little fires' can be extinguished with a cup of tea in the other hand. Utter bollocks. I've punctured lipo's that we use for racing RC cars, and the amount of anger stored in a box the size of a cooks matchbox is mind-blowing (eg run away and come back in 30 mins to see if it's calmed down yet). When we raced in community centres or leisure centres etc they were adamant that no lipos should be charged indoors at any time whatsoever. Some charged in their cars, outdoors in the carpark, and some cars went up in flames. The facts dictate that these are minimal risk, so attempting to contain this type of fire inside a residence is a bit pointless; if it goes nuclear, feck all will save the building, you'll just have more time to wait for the fire brigade to smash the cupboard to bits and pump your house full of whatever they choose to use to attack the damn thing. Attics are obviously now deemed the worst place to put one, as that's the highest point for the devastation to then drop through the house / into, toxic crap and all; and fire fighters won't be taking their shoes off to come into your house and ascend into the attic space to then unleash hell (of a lot of water or whatever else).

You'll be saying the same thing in 2030.....

You need new plumbers!!!!!!! Have you asked your insurance company if you're covered for this? You need someone who will be proactive here, and cut the studwork out in 6" sections so the screws for the rear wall plasterboard will pull out without hurting the rear wall, IF you want to retain just the plasterboard to avoid decoration? Again, insurance should cover this and the entire wall coming out, decoration, everything. It's dogshit lazy plumbing. Is the shower valve being replaced?

Spread of what exactly? Flames which are in the immediate vicinity, or the enormous amount of toxic fumes given off? The occupants will be killed by smoke / fumes probably at least 30-60 mins before being 'burned' to death. The extra layer of PB / other FR or intumescent material will just save the fabric of the build, and have zero whatsoever to add to the preservation of life. HMO or multi-level dwellings consider the preservation of the fabric, so fire-fighters can have safe access to rescue those on 2nd floors and above, but in a typical domestic residence you just "get out, and stay out"; this is preserved by the standard required by b regs for the obligatory 30 mins. After 30 mins in house fire, the last thing on your mind will be pondering about if the surrounding material can cope with another 90 minutes of utter hell. It boggles my mind that folk have such low comprehension of what this type of fire would do to the survivable interior of a family home. You'll have 5-10 mins max to evacuate, and at 120 mins your family members will be looking into your will to see what goodies you've bestowed.

120 mins is barking mad tbf. If this is inside a domestic residence and the battery(ies) go up in flames, after 15-30 mins anyone near it would be gasping their last ever gulps of air. Early detection and a robust plan to GTFO is all you’ll have for a choice. Attempting to tackle it would require halon or CO2, but in an enclosed plant room that’ll kill you too. If these go up in flames, grab the cat and get out quick. The automatic fire suppression demos are all lovely, but unless it’s a bloody huge reservoir then these just won’t have the legs to keep a terminally ill battery from showing you exactly what it’s capable of.

I’m up against this constantly. My attempts to steer folk away from expensive and time consuming misadventures is often rebuffed at first, then it’s an 11th hr dash to douse the flames with dampened £50 notes.

Your issue will be the lower flashing, and how close you can take that to the gutter.

Current client has looked into this and we spoke in depth about what's "coming next" for the regs surrounding domestic battery locations. Attics are apparently getting removed from the acceptable list, largely due to the logistics of fighting a fire up an attic; eg not having a fire-fighter getting into such a compromised position to fight what is a bloody horrible fire to extinguish. I always design electrical systems to have multi-sensor smoke & heat detection in all plant locations, and I always run a 3-core to the garage if it's quite near to the house as an early warning of a fire in the garage, to give the occupants an opportunity to tackle it before it became fully involved. I also put "locate / test / hush" buttons, positioned strategically, where someone woken by the omni-directional wailing of the smoke detectors can press "locate". This silences every detector except the one which has been triggered, so if in plant or attic or garage etc you can go straight to the source of the smoke / fire vs searching every room in the house in a panic. Not many people put the TD up the attic though, lol.

Red flags galore......good advice!

I guess not!!!!!!! #anyone??

Deliciously simple, but this has to always be the absolute last resort. I don't make the man-rules, but I do wish I made headache tablets.

£35 if you buy my welsh crude, and can accept the smell of cod coming from it...........

Wise words, a lot of people forget.

Extend the trough into a deeper sump, and whack some pumps in!?! We've been self-building for a long time people........ You need a rocket firing up the back end Get stuck in and crack on; there's no free lunches, and the sooner you're not sat in the wings 'considering things' the sooner you'll be living in it

They’re more likely to run out of things to fire at ‘the enemy’, at the rate that they’re going through munitions.

I hope nobody goes and buys up all the loo rolls again……

@Nestor fyi I’ve asked, and the aeration is defo 34/7/365, and the IPS pumps out effluent based on the levels in the tank. So the question is, does the PCB control the effluent pumping to keep the levels properly managed. If so, this can’t be bypassed and needs fixing asap. If it’s been full of snow which then melted then I assume the PCB is a write off. Time to fit a new PCB and screw the cover on properly / provide better cover from the weather, and let it do its thing.

Why not run for 15 mins every hour or 30 mins every other hour etc?

You and these valves need to get a room pal !

That particular one is a KORE raft foundation system, so yes, it's a big 'L'-shaped profile so cannot 'float' or detach. Your detail is perfectly 'doable' with the correct fixings and methodology to keep the insulation in place. Looking again at your detail, why the 300mm slab design with UFH in screed over just 50mm of insulation? Who's design is this, and what is the rationale for the spec?

“Malleability”. Got this drummed into me as an apprentice electrician.

I’d always put the volumiser on the flow with a heat pump, but if this can be chopped to minimise work and needs to stay on the return I doubt it’s a huge issue.

People look at me daft when I say “yes I can do a cheaper job for cash, which bits would you like me to omit?”. They say “none!”, and I say here’s my invoice. Cough up.

It’s down to geotechnical surveys and input from an SE. Trying to short cut and ask questions like this here are (sorry) a total waste of your time, and nothing typed here will be of any value or use whatsoever as none relate to your site You can bite the bullet now, and do the geotechnical and grounds conditions surveying, test pits and percolation testing etc done, as you’ll need these to decide on what type of foundation is required regardless, as "feasibility". Also, this will discount the possibility of having to do a piled foundation, in the worst case. With a good engineer anything’s possible, but more info would be needed about where the 4m deep manhole gets its input, from the new house, as you may need to alter this to become a proper backdrop chamber (with such huge inverts).

There’s a piezo buzzer / sounder on the PCB, the white circular gadget, so it’s defo got alarm indication for some sort of warning when something goes wrong, the manufacturers literature will tell you what this is and then you decide your appetite for risk if you delete it. I doubt if it being on constant makes any sense whatsoever, and personally I think that would decrease longevity. @Russell griffiths, how often does yours go on / off and how long is the pump running each time? Do you know what the alarm indicates?