Jeremy Harris

Very few of my AutoCad drawings have dimension labels. There's not really any point in adding these except for drawings that are designed to be printed off and used as a paper copy. Probably 95% of mine don't have dimension labels, mainly because they are fairly pointless on a CAD drawing and also because they clutter up the drawing (unless put on a separate layer that's turned off so it's invisible).

This map shows all the UK nuclear power stations, and most have long runs to population centres, much like those from offshore wind farms:

If you only want to view the .dwg, then it may be that one of the free viewers will do what you need: https://www.autodesk.com/products/dwg/viewers (I've not used them, as I have a copy of AutoCad, but they look as if they may do the job)

IIRC, some of us here had a lengthy discussion about David MacKay over on the other place several years ago, probably around the time of that video. It was great fun, as one of the combatants in the debate was convinced that the UK could just grow enough miscanthus to provide all the energy we need. At the time I spent a few hours calculating just how much arable land area the UK would need to grow enough sustainable biomass to provide our power needs. Unsurprisingly the result was more land than the UK has. Mind you, the same biomass fanatic refused to accept that you can't get more than about 8% efficiency from biomass (and frankly that's pushing it in the UK). One or two of us were making the point that PV panels are a great deal more efficient at turning sunlight into energy than plants are. The biomass plonker was having none of it, and insisted that growing plants in vertical racks would improve the conversion efficiency. His arguments reminded me of a former colleague, who started an argument one morning, accusing me of speeding on the way to work. He'd been following me, and, according to his logic, because he was driving at the speed limit I must have been speeding, as I was in front of him. Mind you, he was Cornish.

Much the same would be needed for any form of generation, be it gas, oil nuclear or whatever, or any of the interconnect projects. They all need connection infrastructure, so any new generation solution is going to create similar scars on the landscape.

Depends very much on what happens to the generation market. Right now, renewable generation is significantly cheaper to install than either fossil fuel or nuclear generation, so we're seeing a bit of a boom, even though most of the subsidies have now been removed. Wind generation, in particular, seems to be attracting a fair bit of investment. The reason for that investment is because the return on it is pretty good, and that return comes from the price suppliers are prepared to pay in the wholesale buy-ahead daily auction. Suppliers compete with each other to retail electricity, so there is an inherent commercial pressure to keep the retail price down. What I suspect may happen is that we see a greater range of half hourly and seasonal wholesale prices, as the grid gains a greater percentage of variable renewable generation. The chances are that this will result in significant wholesale price increases during periods at night with little wind, followed by more periods of negative pricing during daytime periods and strong winds. This volatility is likely to then drive a market for energy storage, and as that comes on line we're likely to see the variability even out, with a consequent reduction in the variation of wholesale energy pricing. As that variability reduces, the need for "smart" metering diminishes, too, as "smart" metering is intended to be a way to modify demand, or charge short period variable rate tariffs (which is really the same thing), in order to smooth the peak to trough ratio on the demand side. If I had to predict what we'd see next, then I'd suggest that we'll see a continued growth in renewable generation, combined with a significant growth in energy storage, be that batteries or pumped storage.

Not sure it is, really. There's a farm building conversion a few miles from here that has an EPC of A138. The house is pretty poor thermally, not a lot better than building regs. It gets the very high EPC because two of the attached barns have roofs that are covered in PV panels. IIRC it has something like 30 kWp or so, and somehow that lot got included in the EPC for the converted house.

Sounds as if you're OK to plant a hedge, from my interpretation of the planning rules. There's long been debates about what constitutes the "boundary with the highway" too, as in theory it would seem that a 1m high fence could be built on that boundary, a a 2m high one erected a couple of feet behind it, without breaching the requirement for planning consent. I've a feeling we discussed this a while ago, perhaps relating to @Bitpipe's front hedge? The driver's sight line referred to in the planning guidance relates primarily to the sight line from road junctions, not that from private drive ways. In general, unless there is a specific condition or covenant that applies, there is no legal obligation for anyone to provide a clear sight line from a neighbours drive. If there was then about 90% or more of the drives in our village would have a major problem, including ours and our neighbours!

The bottom line is that the EPS rating doesn't mean anything useful, and is ignored by the majority of house purchasers, it seems. What really matters is whether the house is comfortable and whether it's cheap to run. If both of these criteria are met then the EPC can just sit in a drawer gathering dust, whilst you enjoy the fruits of your labour. Just had our electricity bill, and, coincidentally, the FiT statement (no cheque yet, though). We're paying £48/month by direct debit, and are currently £101 in credit (we switched supplier in January, so that's ~5 months to build up that credit). The FiT statement is for £340 for the quarter, so we're on target for a normal year, which is an income of around £1,000 from the PV system. That's balanced by an electricity bill for the year of around £576, but I think we're over-paying at £48/month, as we've built up a hefty credit in just under 5 months. I think we should really be paying about £35/month, but our supplier wouldn't initially accept a direct debit that small. If I'm right, then we should end up paying around £420 to £450 for the year, and receiving back around £1,000, so well over £500/year in profit. Not bad seeing as I'm now pretty much always charging my car for free, too.

Ignoring the relationship with the neighbour, then there are really only two things that matter. The first is "is there anything in the title to your house that specifies that you have an obligation to maintain a visibility splay?" Should be recorded somewhere, but may possibly be in a planning condition (which may mean that it's not actually valid if that hasn't been recorded with the title to your house). Assuming that there is no obligation on you to maintain a visibility splay, then the restriction will the standard one in planning law: https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/200130/common_projects/20/fences_gates_and_garden_walls Note the condition regarding a driver's sight line; generally this applies when there is a defined visibility splay, but not otherwise. In essence, you cannot erect a fence that's taller than 1m high on a boundary that faces a highway, without getting planning consent. You can however plant a hedge in these circumstances without needing planning consent. I have no idea why planning treats hedges differently from fences, but it does. I've taken advantage of the freedom to plant a hedge along a boundary facing a highway by planting a row of trees, some of which are over 4m high.

The last couple of weeks haven't been great here, May was generally better than June has been so far. Today was the first day for a couple of weeks where we were generating enough to charge my car, for example (it's now fully charged and we're exporting - damned nuisance given that there's nothing else we can do with the power at the moment!).

Do the hazards also include slipping on an abundance of squashed GCNs? ?

Probably one for our resident wet room expert. Are you there @Nickfromwales? When I fitted our wide shower screen, I didn't like the idea of drilling holes in the shower tray to secure the small bracket on the outer lower edge of the screen, so I just used a bead of clear CT1 along the outer edge of the glass at the bottom, where it meets the tray. I'm surprised at how rock solid this is, it doesn't seem to want to go anywhere, and has withstood the odd knock and the edge of the glass being used as a hand hold.

+1 to the above. By doing this, and, if necessary, making it clear that you are a domestic client, so have no CDM responsibility, you're OK. CDM was never intended to make life more difficult for a domestic client, it just so happens that some unscrupulous people who are trying to sell advice services try to make it appear that this isn't the case. It's fair to say there was also a lot of confusion around just what it involved, and it could usefully have included specific mention of the situation with self-builders.

I'd agree with the point made by @lizzie. I know of two self-builds where the directly employed project manager caused significant problems and cost over-runs. I'm sure there are really good PMs around, as I had meetings with two either of which I'd have happily used, had our circumstances not changed. It's really important to track down previous customers of any PM and see what they have to say. One of the people I spoke to I heard about from another person who'd used him and recommended him, and a personal recommendation counts for a lot, in my view.

The gauge figures aren't always accurate, but 100µ is supposed to equal 400 gauge, so that makes 300µ equal to 1200 gauge, so it looks as if you have the right stuff. µ = micron = 0.001mm

Really like the K6 telephone box. I've wanted one for years, but SWMBO vehemently opposes the idea every time I've suggested it.

I fitted one of these meters in the tails that run to our consumer unit: https://www.universalmeterservices.co.uk/elster-a100c-p-150.html The big advantage this particular meter has is that it has an IR output on the left hand side that constantly transmits data from all the internal registers. The data it sends out includes: • Product Code (Product code number) • Firmware Rev Code (Firmware revision) • Manufacturing Serial Number (Specified serial number) • Utility Serial Number (Utility specified serial number - 16 character maximum) • Configuration Number (Programmed configuration) • Energy Register Definitions • Energy Registers Readings • Status Flags Including present import/export status • Error Flags • Anti-creep Time Number of hours the meter has been in kWh anti-creep • Time Powered-up Time since last power up • Time in Rate 1 Number of whole hours Rate 1 has been active • Time in Rate 2 Number of whole hours Rate 2 has been active • Power Fail Count Total number of power fails • Watchdog Reset Count Total number of watchdog timer resets • Reverse Energy Event Count Number of times reverse energy was detected It sends this data about once a second, and it's dead easy to stick an IR receiver over the port and then just read the serial data stream.

Best be very careful, as there have already been cases where HMRC have refused to refund VAT on the basis that the three month period had expired. Their view on when a house is complete seems to be at odds with the previous view that complete meant having a completion certificate. There is masses of stuff on this in the VAT thread here, but you need a minimum of ten posts to be able to access that section.

I've locked this as it is a duplicate post. Original thread here:

My inclination would be to use an air rifle, rather than a pistol. 12 ft lbs close up will give a pretty clean and quick kill.

Best read up on the law, I think. I own an air gun, perfectly legally, and there is no requirement to licence it. The law is pretty clear, any air rifle with less than 12 ft lbs at the muzzle is not a firearm and does not require licensing. The majority of air rifles sold in the UK are below this limit, specifically so that they remain free from licensing requirements.

The figure to use in the calc above is the 15 kW maximum, with an assumed supply voltage of 230 VAC, so 15 kW / 230 VAC = 65.2 A. This assumes that the maximum load in the MIs for the cooker is actually 15 kW (worth checking, as it may be that the maximum load is limited in some way - our induction hob has a rated maximum load that is lower than the sum of all the rings, for example). Applying diversity gives 10 A + (65.2A x 30%) = ~ 30 A. This is the current to use when selecting the cable. Next the cable table in BS7671 has to be checked for a T&E cable running across a ceiling, with insulation spaced above it, which is reference method 100 in this case. The table shows that a 6mm² run of T&E is just acceptable, with a rating of 34 A, but, as above, it's a very good idea to allow a margin, and the next cable size up is 10mm² T&E which would be what I'd use (and is actually what I did use for our cooker cable).

A tip when installing the UV disinfection unit. Make sure there is lots of room at the end so that the lamp can be pulled out and replaced. I forgot the first time I installed ours and only discovered the problem a year later when I found I couldn't get the lamp out for its annual replacement. It needed a fair bit of plumbing rework to make enough space.

We have that problem with two of us in a 130m² house...