Nickfromwales

They’ve used JG Speedfit, and as always there are no circlips installed behind the collars….. This is why I only use Hep2O (Wavin Hepworth) push fit in every permanent installation I do, and have done so for the last decade. JG has the ingenious flaw of slowly undoing itself over time, and this will be 20X more of a concern with heating as it’s going hot-cool-hot-cool so will expand and contract for the rest of its serviceable life. Get the circlips (collets) LINK fitted before the boards go back down and sleep soundly. Copper is king, always will be, but modern push fit is perfectly acceptable when installed CORRECTLY.

Yikes. I’ve dot & dabbed tiles more times than I can remember, but always with cementitious adhesive and never without having completely buttered both the reverse of the tile and the wall. I’ve tiled for over 3 decades, never a callback / other issue, not with grout and not in wet rooms or wet / splash areas, so the principal is fine I assure you, just this guy is too comfortable riding the luck train. Is that ready mixed adhesive from a tub? If you’ve heard sounds then that sounds like excess adhesive having the moisture sucked out of it from the porosity of the tile and the bone dry plasterboard. That usually results in the adhesive shrinking back and tiles drying in place differently than where they were ‘laid’, often resulting in kickers and uneven finish. Here the walls simply don’t look bad enough to have any reason not to have done bed & butter, plus there’s no sign of him ‘squishing’ the adhesive into the tile and board by moving them around as they’re set into place.

Some stopcocks have a washer that falls to the closed position in the absence of ‘flow’, but that’s a random addition to the possibles for the process of elimination here tbh. The problem with noises in a plumbing system is they can be produced somewhere away from where you think you hear them. Swap that back to a gate valve, as that’s a cheap possible win. Then try again!

Yup. Nice isn’t good enough, needs to have quality or what’s the point. Make sure you have spares of the batch of tiles above, then ask your new tiler to cherry pick the few bad ones and re-set new tiles in to reduce the issue. Does just seem a bit of complacency had set in from the pics, as just the odd one vs a whole shite lay….. shame as you say but needs doing properly, simples.

Where is the F&E teed in? Possibly look at relocating that.

Heat pump yes, but the demand will have to be known, and the temps won't be much or any better unless it's a high-temp split which will give a decent CoP at 60+oC. That leaves you heavily reliant on burning wood to keep the whole house 'warm' if the rest just adds background heat, but in bedrooms and other spaces away from the WBS I expect the rads are actually doing much more than you may first realise. Turn them off over winter and test this theory afaic, and then maybe readdress this in the new year when the UK warms back up a little.

Just the worst possible one, in honesty. Not unless it's massive. The losses will outweigh the gains I'm afraid, as, for one, the storage type and useful energy capture to then run these high temp emitters will be of negligible practical benefit in actuality, plus the accumulative losses and poor responsiveness will further add to the negative maths. The last TS I installed for space heating to rads was 2600L, and took up a 1/3 of a garage (for comparison). That stored at 85oC btw. Driving this into a slab with UFH would work, but for rads I'm afraid it's a battle on a good day to suggest this is a 'good idea', sorry!

Just a 'not great' solution to be honest, the immersions into a TS, so these are my thoughts.

This may require a second G3 sign off, as you're then sealing up a pressurised cylinder which could go "bang" in the perfect storm. The thermal store type needs to be considered and whether or not it has a T&PRV relief valve or not, but a decent installer can talk you through this for feasibility before committing. It's just the thought of your heating costs via indirect immersions and then the losses of the F&E setup that make me think there's a better way perhaps. It may require a new TS in the worst case, but if this is your heating solution for life, I'd even consider an electric inline boiler and do away with the TS altogether as that is a very convoluted and inefficient way of changing electricity into heat tbh.

As this is now an expensive way to heat the home, I'd defo consider converting to sealed and pressurised, and do away with the F&E arrangement for good. Then there's also no way for air to get in. https://www.bes.co.uk/intafil-plus-24ltr-heating-vessel-and-sealed-system-kit-20246/ for example

Hi. I've recently done a 16th century cottage bathroom and the floor was like a piano keyboard, as you walked the floor deflected downward at each joist. Then ensued the biggest pig of a job you could wish for, getting it solid and level enough to be converted into a quality ensuite with bath and wetroom shower area. I sister'd the biggest timbers I could get in, but on both sides where it needed it, glued and screwed to death with zero nails used ANYWHERE!! You can park a car up there now. Do all the strengthening work, then get an electrician to drill the joists to re-route the cables, and then lay 22mm P5 deck, again glued and screwed, and you'll be fine. It's a LOT of work to do these properly (retrospectively) and I did have to re-do some of the plumbing tbh, but you get out of things whatever effort you put in. Good luck!

Oddly the blade appears to be installed in that saw backwards….may be worth asking why if considering buying.

If you’re doing skirting and architraves all day every day then crucial, but most have it at entry level anyways. Dual bevel is nice if you can spare the few extra £10’s.

One example https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/256696857214?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=FtY60_Z0RRm&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=rjjTfFKkTOO&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Could also do with an automatic bypass between the flow before the mixing valve and the boiler return to deal with when the boiler is only (or very partially) servicing the UFH; where it then can’t dissipate the flow energy that the pump creates. Depending on boiler model it may have a modulating pump, if so not so much of an issue, but best to check so the boiler doesn’t self-destruct over time.

Yup. Two ways to go around a corner, a) an elbow, and b) a bend. Elbows are sharp 90°’s, bends have a sweeping radius. Bends for waste where horizontal, elbows or bends fine for vertical or where space is tight / immediately off the trap or outlet. People don’t realise how much restriction can be caused by cheap traps (typically much lower L/p/m flow rate at gravity) particularly for Chinese wastes on basins. Went to one job where the basin wouldn’t empty, suspected blocked trap etc, but after realising it was all relatively new pipe work I drilled out the slots in the plug hole to enlarge them and problem solved. Just not enough ‘hole’ for the water to fall through.

👆👌👊

Complete garbage for anything you want any precision with in honesty. When you’ve used a quality saw (DeWalt 780XPS for me) you’ll instantly see what I’m talking about. You’re far better off buying a good used DeWalt / Bosch / other quality brand and staying away from DIY shed stuff, plus far better longevity and support for spares down the road.

It’s the suds/foam atop the moving water that slows the air exchange and impedes flow. Its why I routinely put 40mm rubs to basins and 50mm to everything else, then reduce at the absolute last minute.

For the structural stuff, I would. SE needs to be involved to spec, BCO to indirect and approve then sign it off. Agreed, sorry. As per above 👆 SE needed then BCO.

You employ the BCO, so the sooner the better, but not before you have detailed construction drawings. The BCO will dictate the spec, and will tell you when they want to visit etc.

Yes, the ready mix reconstitutes with water, so is the anti-christ of adhesives for wet areas. I told my mate not to use it, he had a mate tiling who ‘recommended’ it (as it’s simple and easier for a lot of lazy tilers) and all the tiles around the base of the wet area of the shower just literally washed away over the subsequent weeks (glass finger mosaic panels). Cementitious stuff absorbs moisture as part of the curing process, so you can grout the next day and it’ll be bombproof. I’ve been tiling for north of 30 years, thats where this advice is coming from. @nod prob been at it longer at it than me.

Some are ok, some are jobsworths, that’s the problem. The info needs to come from your inspector not us tbh. I’ve had one pass without, as you say, but we used Timberframe not brick and block to build back up.

Yup. +1. Would need to all be made up from an off grid setup and mostly featuring Chinesium kit. First thing to break would wipe out the assumed savings (but I doubt there would ever have been a saving here more of an expensive failed experiment, tbf).

It’s just not something you can use where you need to dub out areas as it doesn’t ever dry out when applied over 3-5mm thick. Particularly bad where it’s a constant splash/wet area, or where a porcelain tile is being used (due to its lack of porosity). Acrylic works fine on new open plaster/plasterboard, and with a porous ceramic tile, but I simply stopped using ready mixed adhesive as it is just too inferior to cementitious stuff to ever risk it. Proper DIY imho. If you’ve tanked also, then it’s 10x worse again, especially if you need to grout the next 24/48 hrs, as this stuff really needs the grout lines to allow the moisture to evaporate/escape. I used it once over tanking, with porcelain, and 2 days later I removed the bottom batten and the tiles just started sliding down the wall in front of me. Whole wall was taken back off, adhesive in most places was wet enough to put back into the tub and be removed complete with a wet sponge, never used that stuff again after that tbh.