Nickfromwales

Tough guy eh?

I have to do exactly the same thing next week......Tap washers gave up the ghost so the carcase got soaked over time and it all swelled up so I have to remove and refit the sink and renew the cabinet. Not looking forward to it tbh, and it's a riven, ceramic tile I'm going to cut the unit into firewood and remove one bonded side at a time. I hope the tiles stay on the wall !

I'll read that later if the Coors Light don't blur the words too much. Work in the morning so only a 6-pack ?

I did.....up to the point I was sweating, effing and jeffing, and looking like a cheerleader. Cant be done. End of. Anybody know what I'm on about? And split one ? Just me then ?

Panel all 3 vertical walls. If you have an 1100 tray then an 1100 wall panel will have very little meat left for screwing / fixing the chrome wall channel ( for the glass ) to. I don't like the idea of water ever getting to a painted plastered wall. At the very least I'd want an Upstand of similar material for the tray / wall junction.

I'd buy 1100 or 1200mm wall panels for each end and make a splash proof area, in the interest of longevity. I don't like to see the cubicle finishing tight on the edge but that's just me.

Neither are silicones. These are marketed as combined sealant, adhesive, gap filling goop. Sikalfex is extraordinarily good stuff IMO and is my weapon of choice for setting in and fundamentally sealing shower trays / formers and bonding baths etc into place. The merchants often have a 'sample' box with two pieces of wood bonded together with a ~6mm bead of sikaflex and the challenge is to get the two apart. It can't be done, I've tried twisting and tearing it and it just doesn't die. CT1 is pretty much as good but can be torn / pulled apart. I use the clear one for sealing between trays and tiles as it doesn't degrade, go mouldy or fail like clear silicone does. For 'chemicular dissection', don't ask me .

If you have the handset and the rainfall head, and the diverter, you can do what I do. Select handset, aim it at the wall, turn on and retire until it's warmed through. With your radial setup it shouldn't take long anyhoo ? Fyi, I'd never go for JUST the rainfall head as the spray / handset is too damn handy for washing the glass and tray down after showering. SWMBO may well agree .

Telescopic / flexible waste, water, power connections ?

Say what?!? Even when I piss my wife RIGHT off, she doesn't chuck out 350w . If she did, I'd rip the boiler out and bring some cheerleaders home. Free heat . If I could find enough cheerleaders would that be considered 'renewable energy' ? ?

From what I heard from the last intelligent lighting install, A LOT! Supplier was charging the punter for light fittings, and the spark and I were comparing what was available through the merchants, like for like, and the markup was something like 300-400%. That's before buying the system and paying the spark a lot more to run several hundred metres of cable. My favourite was the system supplier doing a design ( for a PH ) which included a load of 120w halogen uplighters ?

Ive been called worse

Cheers. Re the kids rooms, I have a much cheaper system where I shout up the stairs and tell them to turn the lights off. I wouldn't recommend that system tbh as it's quite unreliable and gets mixed results Best alert system for the kids, if the second shout for their food has gone unanswered, is to take their Cat5 cables out of the router . They come down like a fire drill then. Unless going fully automated with an intelligent system, I'd probably only go for this radial, single point wiring downstairs. @readiescards, are you going automated ( able to blackout the house from the front door upon exit etc etc ) ?

I can just see the spin-off thread of "how to retrofit Ufh pipes into cured concrete?" Couldn't resist, sorry.

For the benefit of the uninitiated ( and me ) can you elaborate a bit please ?

Flow rates can be much slower with cheaply ones, but tbh Dave, your argument is undeniably simplistic and exactly right. That's the reason I didn't buy a £300-500 equivalent of the valve I fitted. That 3-way valve was around £80 complete This one is over £300 and I can't really see a difference. I guess I'm an inside man so can determine what's shat and what's not but with something as easy to change as a bar mixer valve, Daves logic is spot on. @ProDave, have you considered something like this which still has the fixed 150mm centred pipework and can be changed just as quick as a normal bar mixer ? Having the rainfall / rose over head spray is great.

Also it's how all the more complex folk wire their intelligent lighting systems. All lights run back to one location and switched accordingly by a multi-channel dimmer / switching pack. . If there is a bedroom, with one light and one or two switches ( wall + bedside ) then maybe overkill for that but for multiple lights in a given area ( liv / dine combined open space ) then deffo a good idea imo.

No problem whatsoever. As long as the pipe runs are kept ~ 100m ( I've run 130m without issue in less than ideal jobs and they've still been ok ) then you'll be fine. Make sure there is an automatic air vent on each manifold rail ( one on flow and another on return ) and job done. No different to the ones I've done in 2-storey houses where I've put the manifold upstairs. . You need to Uber insulate the pipes between the slab and the manifold ( anywhere where it's not in screed basically ) so if it's ever heated the heat only goes where you want, and vice versa if you ever cool to stop condensation risk ).

There's pretty much nothing which is not serviced from the front / above so very little to worry about from that POV. Manufacturers want you to buy their expensive bury-able trinkets so they make them as owner friendly as possible. Spend some money on the shower valve as it's the thing that, in fairness, gets the most use in most homes. A good manufacturer, such as Mira / Triton and upwards, will have overhaul kits or complete new parts available for the foreseeable, but I decided to keep 6 tiles back so if mine ( £80 odd off eBay ) ever snuffs it I can whip 2 tiles off and change the whole thing in a weekend. I absolutely did not want a tap / spout on my bath so am happy to accept the possiblity of having to change it in 5 - 10 years, but tbh, I may just go back on eBay and buy another to keep so I have spares. Mine has had a pounding and is a temp + diverter + flow control 3-way jobbie, and is going strong after 2 years of hard use.

If you have the opportunity to come up from underneath in a straight line to the outlet, the. No.1 error here was bringing the pipes horizontally through such small battens. I'd avoid that like the plague and I can't see why that can't be avoided if youve got 1st fix going in to a new build. No.2 error was the plasterboard guys not marking the location of the pipe so as to avoid putting a screw through it. I mark the height from the floor to the pipes and write that on the batten with a sharpie, then take a photo on the phone. Very handy as a reference tool for fixing things later down the line eg after tiling etc when you can't remember where any pipes / cables are ?

Hi and welcome. Please keep the questions in the relevant topics where possible so folk can find comments / reply with ease .

In and out at the bottom is the most common tbh, so would work fine . Swept tees help but aren't vital. Flow in at the top was the old school way but is still commonplace in commercial jobs, but it is handy to have the TRV up where it's accessible, just not very pleasing on the eye imo. A TS would mean no buffer, and is a good partner for oil so good luck with negotiations. Plus it's better to have the heat loss downstairs too so win win.

Hi Gary. I think the feedback so far has spoken for itself, so good to have you on board as a contributor. If your at all unsure of the "do's and dont's" please feel free to PM one of the staff, but were certainly the better for new, genuine members Prepare to have your brain picked Nick.

Hi and welcome