Nickfromwales

Just to keep this thread fully informative, and on topic.....SWMBO found the remote in the wardrobe. ? Panic over everyone.

The stairs are fantastic. I can still recall the pre kids days where i put something down and it was still there 3 days later ? Not so any more. Both daughters ( 6&9 ) came downstairs accusing each other of losing my bedroom smart tv remote ( so they can watch more bloody YouTube ) which still remains outstanding ? Keep the pics and use them against the kids, telling them "santa will be delayed until the house looks like these photos, chop chop !" ?

Conversation is the key one, as both parties usually, incorrectly, assume each will try and have the other over. The biggest issue I see with other local builders is them assuming the customer won't pay extra to have some luxuries / initiatives applied to the core budget, like when I sub to them to fit a kitchen for eg the customer has a nice new smart tv but no data connection so I suggest a cat5 is pulled in to which the builder then throws a wobbler wailing "who's going to pay for that ?" when the customer has already said they're happy to pay extra for such an important ( but simply overlooked ) addition. I often see such stupid things being argued about at the end of the job, where a simple schedule of works would show the customer hadn't requested XYZ so the builder didn't do it. I don't do any job now without SOME sort of brief. For a full build I'd deffo have a VERY detailed SOW as there are just so many areas where this can go astray.

The micros make me dizzy. Too small and too bloody quick Looking for another Lunchbox rolling chassis for daughter #2 now.

Perfect ?

No issues whatsoever mate . I race Caster 1/10th scale with my boys when indoors, and they've got FTX Colossus's 1/8th for rally cross / bashing. All running lipos with brushless. My summer goal is to get my Losi 2.0 rolling chassis converted to electric and running, proper old school one which I'll be running 22v ?

Why conjoin them @recoveringacademic? Can't you build them detached and dispense with the concerns brewing here ? 8" gap between the two would suffice.

Extending them is no problem at all, been done plenty of times . Make the joint above ground and if possible accesble, if not, I'd recommend soldering and heat shrink sleeving to get a lifetime hassle free joint. Measure the resistance before and after the connection and you'll know it's been done properly.

22mm is the norm. 22mm pipe will need a 60mm conduit all to itself if it's to be pulled in / out. Tbh the Hepworth pipe can sit directly in the insulation, as @jack suggests he may do if ever building again, but I'd advise against that as the clicking / creaking noise of the pipe moving against the EPS may drive you nuts. My mate foamed his pipes into IWI covered walls and the noise of them when the heating is cycling is very apparent .

Please just get a schedule of works in duplicate and each of you sign them with the agreed amount. It protects both you and the builder and is so simple to refer back to if confusion or disagreement should ever occur. The document simply states for £X your getting XYZ, no more no less. Trust is a beautiful thing, but confusion at the details stage can add a big chunk of time ( £ labour ) so be very aware. As a contractor this method has saved me countless times where Mr Blogs thought he was getting 20 spotlights in the kitchen diner but had only paid for 8 etc. I'd never do it differently. Edit to add : Oh, and of course the very best luck moving forward

Yup, but let's be honest....wall mounted just looks the business. ?

Yes, but you need to know your finished floor level to the nearest few mm's to put the frames in early on. With the wall mounted free standing WC's you can also define the height of the pan, and when I suggest to customers to have the pan an inch or so higher than normal they agree that it's far easier to hop on / off vs the standard height. Worth remember that your not stuck to that constraint with the wall mounted ones .

Roca frames are around the same price but Geberit all the way for me Fit and forget with known after sales support.

For belt n braces I've lined the reveals with 25mm cellotex too This job has IWI ( 62.5mm thermal PB ) so I wanted to be double sure there was no significant shift in 'temperature' in the window or door reveals. That just gets PB bonded on then for which I use the foam and bracing to keep it flat whilst it cures.

Just ask the door supplier to give you the metal fixing brackets needed to set the door wherever you like whilst still being able to fix into masonry / other. As above, if Bco is involved you'll have to install a vertical damp course and insulate the cavity. My preferred method is to get some 18" DPC, wedge it against the face brick with small offcuts of polystyrene spaced every 300mm or so to keep it taught and in place, then fill the gap with low expansion ( LE ) foam, applied to obtain a depth of no greater than 150mm. Have the DPC showing in the opening about an inch or so, so that when you fit the cavity closers you can fix over the DPC ensuring no break. The closers are plastic / PVC ( ? ) anyhoo so the damp cannot bridge . If you get insulated cavity closers you'll need to trim the factory fitted insulation to suit your cavity ( they're marked for cutting at the correct increments so a 1 minute job with an old hand saw ) but you'll then need to rake out a little of the foam in the cavity to accommodate the extra depth. For good measure, as I've done on my current job ( garage conversion with new knock through of a cavity wall ) I pumped a hefty bead of LE foam into the cavity and set the cavity closer into that. Brace with a piece of batten or 4x2" for 30mins whilst the foam cures to stop the closers from bellying out with the foam as its expands and cures. When ordering the door, make sure you allow for 25mm of cellotex to go at the head, bonded to the internal section of the catnic, to eliminate the cold bridge. Catnics are factory insulated but it's still not great.

At the risk of this being read by said customer.......let me just say that I'd have part tiled that wall.......but that's with 2 boys who pee like one of those Crazy Daisy's you get for the garden . The wallpaper had 3 coats of water based matt 'varnish' so is, erm, "splashback" so to speak. .

The 820mm frames have the flush plate low, so the toilet seat lifts up and rests on it. The 1120's have the flush plate high enough for the seat to rest back against the tile / other whilst missing the plate. Pros and cons with each...... With the 820's the seat can rub on the plate if you, ahem, 'lean back' shall we say. With the 1120's, should you go with a mirror chrome finish on the plate, you can get a lovely 'reflection' of the man tackle being drained. I fitted a white plate on an 1120 frame for a customer which works quite well....

These are the pukka captive thread, adjustable and lockable ones This image shows the slide and bolt type that are less than great.

Don't get the "basic" frames as the brackets to fix back to the wall are just bolt together metal brackets with elongated holes, quite shit tbh, instead of the better threaded arrangements with captive nuts and lock ring circlip type nuts which keep things from moving that come with the better frames. Also, I noticed the basic range have the water inlet but no thumb wheel to shut the water off during parts replacement / servicing, so the one I fitted recently ( where budget was tight, and then some ) would need the water to the house shutting off to work on it. Not the end of the world but I can't really see how anyone would want to save the few quid there tbh.

Surfaces of rads etc that get rusty and corroded won't be helped by a power flush. That'll only realistically get rid of the water-born particulate and slightly loose material.

I've often pondered over using an electric undertile controller for running Ufh as the better ones, the Warmup 3ie for example, have a learning facility for the setback times. Basically if you want the room temp at 21oc at 07:30 and the heating comes on and takes 1 hour 30 mins to achieve the set temp, then the stat will sample this over ( iirc ) three 24 hr cycles and then adjust itself accordingly. So basically on the 4th day it'll switch on at 06:00 and then ( again iirc ) it'll do the same for the off setting as the heat will continue to emit after the heating goes off, just probably a lot quicker in some instances but each case is individual. Have a read of the bumf but I think it re-samples occasionally to adjust with seasonal / envoirmnental changes. The 4ie has the wifi / smart phone connectivity so could negate a lot of other system components otherwise needed to control your heating from say a hand made Coracle, ( should, for eg, you have accidentally fallen out of one and into a cold river whilst trout fishing and need to heat the house up ready so when you get home you can run around naked to dry off ? ).

The problem I have is I need to give my customers a regular, reliable, replaceable device that can be bought off the shelf by any other trade or heating installer. As there is a wired version of Jeremy's stat and the performance is tried and tested then I just can't really justify going and 'tweaking' anything else. If it were my house then it would be fair game but all customer solutions need to be off the shelf just in case, as I've said elsewhere, I get eaten by a prehistoric dinosaur brought back to life by an eccentric billionaire. ? It could happen ?

I think @JSHarris's thermostat with its selectable 0.1 or 0.2oC increments is the way forward for the majority of instances TBH. If any solar gain complimented a space being heated by the central heating system in that house, and it was controlled zone by zone, by said thermostats, then the sharp increase in room temp would be responded to far, far quicker and negate any complex multi-functional / global controls. Operating ventilation would need to opposite approach so it only activated upon sustained overheating.

Plus every mdpe stopcock I've ever seen has had no such internal nrv.