Nickfromwales

External boilers ( combi / system ) have a manufacturer required frost stat. At the set temp the boiler will fire and the heat from the exchanger will keep hot / cold etc from freezing. That assumes the pipe work has been insulated accordingly of course. In adverse installs an electric driven ‘heat tape’ should be laid with any susceptible pipe work to give an offset heat input, ( the colder it gets the higher the output, and vice versa ). In cold weather any system should be designed to stave off frost attack. It’s only in power fail that you cannot mitigate against such a risk and then have to rely solely on antifreeze measures in the liquids.

That’s a tidy price for a 4-branch. Buy it and move on Chop chop. ?

Ive looked into this for my house and was in a volley with an EB member before numbnuts pulled the plug. Can’t get that back now as it was by PM I looked into 100 and 150mm electromechanical dampers to stave off free airflow from room to atmosphere and did find a LOT of hideously expensive ( over-priced ) units. ‘We’ did find a cheaper robust unit but the cack hit the fan and I didn’t think to copy my stuff before being unceremoniously locked out. Something for anyone without mvhr or indeed with an extracting cooker hood, especially with 150-200mm ducting !

Au contraire. The Makita is a clever beast. If you’ve been working the battery hard and it’s hot the charger will refuse to charge it when first inserted into the charger. The fan will blow through the battery pack ( it has a dedicated airway designed to effectively cool the cells inside ) and when the onboard thermistor says it’s cooled down the charger will start to charge the battery. The fan will then run to keep the batteries cool whilst being fast charged. As I’m ‘in the trade’ I need my batteries chop-chop and favour the design. When one of my batteries dies it gets full honours and quite deserved too. I then list it on eBay and someone gives me £10 plus p&p for it!

Looks great. Keep going, and please keep updating

Not really, as there are far more moving / electromechanical components in a combi.

It means take the battery out and use it now

Hi and welcome. We enjoy it when 'trades' join and contribute, but please keep to the T&C's. Anyhoo, tell us more about the wonderful world of trusses and how you 'slot in'. Are you building, or have built your own home?

Yup. Its called money for old rope.

I bet none of them were designed with a true scrutinising eye, and few are maintained accordingly. Also, the shear size of the maintenance should be accounted for in the very nature of them being commercial properties, eg the £X + 40% should be factored in as running costs / consumables and would have been calculated and 'factored in'. If they've ended up so wonky as to be +40% then someone got it all wrong Lets compare apples with apples, and theres enough real life data on this forum for you to see that you need not worry about going +40% at all, unless you choose not to heed and observe the disciplines adopted and religiously followed by the many who have self built here ( and have been kind enough to share the results ( warts n all )). Plus your building a single residential dwelling under your own supervision so are in charge of your own destiny there

A HP will tick all those boxes, but you really need to adopt a ‘fabric first’ approach if you want to steer away from fossil fuel. High fabric & ventilation heat losses will not lend itself to low grade space heating so that may well end your chance of having UFH tbh. If you need X amount of W/ m2 and it exceeds what UFH can safely / economically provide then your back to radiators both up AND downstairs. Cooking on gas is still feasible with LPG bottled gas, in case that’s a concern / requirement. Sorry that I haven’t followed much of your other content, but how far along are you ?

The key is to build as low energy as possible and to go for all low temp emitters where possible. Rads, unless seriously oversized, will make an ASHP uneconomical to run. Try and get low grade space heating and then an ASHP makes much better long term sense. Avoid gas and oil where practicable, and get PV into the equation as the cherry on the cake. Possible ratio of 1kW inputted ( some from PV ) per 3kW produced ( via the HP ) makes the best sense. Having a chunky slab as a ‘storage heater’ will allow you to store in the day and emit during the night eg where you need to bridge the gaps where there is no solar gain / reduced outside temps. TS’s are notorious for excessive heat loss ( latent ) so avoid wherever possible.

Pan connector bores are around that size so I guess it would be permissible. Not entirely sure I’d ever have faith in King Kong’s thumb not getting stuck through I will have a good read of that though, cheers.

Yup. @TerryE‘s Willis / SA solution is indeed deliciously simple and crazy cost effective. Without PV he went to the Willis but beefing up the SA heat store with a PV driven setup would be equally simple and effective.

Only when its a vent and will not ever see 'other service' afaik.

With each appliance a Benchmark certificate is provided. Its usually the last two pages of the Installation Instructions. Link

Its just down to whether your friend has maintained his GS status. If not then the guy signing it off is on thin ice tbh. Seriously, the 'good old days' are gone, because of the number of incidents casing damage or death. The cert on the rental is easy, GSR fitter needs to do it, and you also should check that they've got fires and cookers on their card as some dont but still work on fires and cookers regardless. They'll go straight to jail if they haven't. I know of a local town where this was cracked down on, and at least 1 guy went to jail for an incorrectly fitted flue on a job he'd signed off for someone else. It hadn't been fitted properly and was found to be letting carbon monoxide escape into the bedroom. That guy was a long established and reputable fitter. That is why he got jail, as he should have known not to do it. The rest that got pulled were done by the taxman for fitting for cash, with the commissioning guys being told to volunteer the information about who fitted them or lose their GSR, or they would have to pay the taxable value of the work they didn't undertake. The warranty resides with the end owner of the boiler, and where or how it was bought should have no impact. It wasnt, and he got away with doing that for years.

The only ass would be the guy taking any assumptions about the integrity of the pipe and the way you fitted it. It would be like you being asked to connect a fuse-board in a finished house and to put your name to the cables all being of the correct integrity and in the safe zones / not buried in insulation etc. Eg you'd be an ass to agree to that, with your own business, family and the fact you'd be prosecuted for doing so. Having registration with such competent installers schemes is the thing that ordains you to do the correct thing, without exception. If I, a non GSR fitter went and connected a boiler for someone, and there was a death, the courts would give me a lesser sentence as i would be deemed to 'not know any better'. If the same happened with a GS Registered agent they'd lock him up for 10 years for manslaughter because hes been trained, is aware of, and should be operating within the guidelines of the correct legislation as set out at the time. Its not open to interpretation, its the law . The person who turns the gas on is the person who turns a heap of metal into a lethal installation. Again, legislation commands that you do neither. If you killed yourself or your family in residence then you'd just get a slap on the wrist, but they'd all still be dead. Yes, correct. You need to be at least ACS ( your qualification prior to becoming GSR ) and be working under the supervision of a GSR agent to carry out the installation of the boiler. That's why the Benchmark requires a section filled out by the installer, and one for the commissioning agent, even though they can be the same person. How people can be so ignorant of this is beyond belief sometimes if I'm honest. This only needs to go wrong once. Save money somewhere else.

With tiles i always tile the floor fist. that way your not looking down at the grout line. Never done it any other way TBH.

Yup, hes definitely a one off him

Normally you'd stop them at the horn of the hearth, eg around the corner from the WBS. Use the floor tile as an upstand in the fireplace

Absolutely the right advice. You CANNOT fit the floor and then tile onto it if its anything other than tiles IMO. The LVT will have a limited lifespan, compared to the tiles, so will likely be the first thing that needs replacing eg long before the room needs re-tiling. Apply the brakes and take stock of whats going on Does that mean the floor is just P5 or floorboards? Has it been ply'd? You really dont want an underlay in a bathroom so the floor should be prepped a-la @Stones earlier post. Measure twice, cut once

Guy I picked up gas fitting with actively destroyed the booklet after opening the box of the appliance so there was no 'paper-trail'. I look back and shudder. One of his favourite Ace cards was to open the regulator and allow more pressure through to allow sufficient burner pressure off existing 15mm supplies ( to save a new 22mm run ). Some must have been left running over 30 mb. No wonder he's got a nicer house than me.

Actually illegal as your not the only person residing there so cannot demonstrate that you did the gas work "for yourself only". If they caught him he'd get kicked off the competent persons scheme ( GSR ). Theres been a massive shake up around this, so beware. Its Gas Safe or UNSAFE. No middle ground there regardless of whats said at the pub bar.

Is this a brand new gas burning appliance that has been self fitted? If it’s brand new then it needs to have the Benchmark certificate filled out by A) the installation agent and B) the commissioning agent. Anything less will be an illegal installation and you will also never be able to claim on the warranty. WB do a good warranty but the Benchmark is the first thing they’ll ask for when you call them out. If your looking to stay off the radar then you may get a GSR fitter to give you a ‘home owners safery certificate’ but it’s very hard to find someone to do that these days as the tax and vat man is now actively seeking to prosecute in line with the GSR for cash installs which have just been signed off.