Jeremy Harris

All the bits have arrived whilst I've been laid up, so all I need now is some spare time to put everything together and start writing some code to get it working. One of the main issues will be power consumption, as some of the sensors use a fair bit of current. This makes a battery powered version a bit challenging to design, especially as some of the sensors aren't going to be that easy to just power on and off whenever a sample needs to be taken. Right now I'm behind with preparation for tree planting at the front of the house, so will have to get that sorted first.

I was very, very tempted to set up booby traps after catching the Council snooper on camera. I don't often get really angry, but the Council managed to get me seething for weeks by doing this. The pompous woman I spoke to on the phone, that tried to justify a member of her staff breaking into our property, with no PPE on, and ignoring all the warning and keep out signs, by telling me that lots of builders tried to avoid paying Council Tax so they had a duty to check up on every new build regularly. The implication was that she thought I was deliberately avoiding paying the tax, even though we were so far off completion that I hadn't even started to think about it yet. Anyway, they lost out on around 18 months of Council Tax just because they put my back up so much that I very deliberately (and perfectly legally) kept the house in a state where it could not be declared a rateable hereditament, just out of spite.

That was certainly the case with Ecology. We needed a small mortgage (£50k) and the valuer estimated the value of the completed house, just from a visit to the plot whilst we were still doing the ground works. I don't think we even had the foundation area levelled at the time. I remember talking to the lady at the Ecology and she said that there would be no problem, as not only was the LTV on the completed house value well inside their lending criteria, but the LTV on the bare plot as it stood was as well.

There are some posts on this, as we had the council send around a lady one evening to climb over our security fencing and snoop around, in order to send us a council tax demand for a house that was far from finished. The law is pretty clear, and relates to whether or not the house can be considered a rateable hereditament under the Rating Act (1969, I think). There are two bits of case law that clarify this, but the key one is that in order for Council Tax to be levied the house has to meet certain requirements in terms of habitability. The easiest one to not connect in order to make the house definitely ineligible for Council Tax is the water supply. If the house does not have a supply of potable water then it is not a rateable hereditament and therefore cannot be valued for Council Tax purposes and placed on the register. If your house has already been valued, banded and placed on the register, then you need to appeal to have it removed, on the ground that it is not a rateable hereditament. A search of the forum will find the relevant case law, as I know that it's been posted here somewhere. The other thing worth doing is removing the assumed right of access under common law that the Council has to walk on to your plot. I did this by both writing to the Council telling them that I had revoked their right of access, and that if they wished to visit to inspect (they have the right to ask for this) then they should contact me to make an appointment. I also put signs up outside, specifically revoking the assumed right of access for all Council staff or their contractors. Edited to add: Have a read of these threads, as they have more on Council Tax liability and the relevant case law that applies:

Our planning officer told us the same, 100mm tolerance on all dimensions, except the ridge height. Apparently ridge height is the thing planners get the most complaints about, according to our chap. We had complaint about ours, and luckily I was able to borrow a Total Station, stick it on the OS datum nail that is conveniently still in the lane by our drive and in the presence of the planning officer demonstrate that we were actually lower than the stipulated ridge height. It annoyed me a bit that the neighbour that complained had gone directly to the planning officer, as we were bending over backwards to keep that particular neighbour happy, spending a fair bit of extra money to give them what they wanted along our shared boundary.

I had a supervisor send me a copy of a PhD thesis to review, as he couldn't get his head around it. Interesting, as it was on an aerodynamic subject, the supervisor was someone I had a pretty high regard for, plus it was in his area of expertise, not really mine. I couldn't get my head around it either, and ended up going down to se him at Southampton and talk it through with him. With both our heads trying to get to grips with it we discovered a fundamental flaw in the original premise. Not easy to spot, and it was a job made much more difficult by the style of writing. By pure chance I met the chap who wrote the thesis a few years later (it took him 11 years to get his PhD) and he was possibly the most irritating and pedantic individual I've ever met. I came to the conclusion that he was a sociopath, and that he probably had some form of undiagnosed personality disorder.

Normally the ends are packed to take the compressive load in the lower member, and the upper member has to be fixed so that it can take a tensile load. If there are gaps like that at the bottom, then as I think I mentioned much earlier in this thread, that could well be a contributory factor. I think one issue may be that some builders don't realise that any composite joist, like posijoist, I beam or whatever, has slightly different end fastening requirements to a solid timber joist.

I've tackled a lot of the work on our build, and spent one year's summer holidays learning to lay bricks for some outside garden walls, under the tuition of a proper brickie back in the 1960's. Since then I've built a few brick and block structures, none have been pretty. I know the basics pretty well, and have laid a few thousand bricks and blocks over the years on small jobs, but even if I was given 3 months intensive tuition I doubt that I would be up to an acceptable standard to build something like a garage wall, let alone a house. It seems to me that there are some skills that you can only really learn by doing them for a pretty long time, and some skills that you can't ever learn, no matter how much time and effort you put in.

Thanks for the kind words, and sorry for not being around much - I came down with the flu; my fault for ignoring all the nagging to get the jab..........). Getting over it now, and trying to catch up here and with an email backlog, a seemingly massive task! I agree wholeheartedly with your approach. We did much the same in using professionals where it made a great deal of sense to, but questioned the need to use anyone else for just about everything, with my starting position being "could I learn to do this myself, safely?". If the answer to that was "yes", then that's what I did. The hardest part for me was the artistic design stuff, I really am not at all good with that side of stuff at all, give me a technical problem to solve any day!

That wasn't what caused the problems with Ebuild at all, nothing untrue was posted, and allowed to stay up for more than a minute or two before being moderated, AFAIK, but it's probably wise to only name a company that's provided poor service once you've come to the end of the road with all other forms of resolution, just in case. My personal view is that there is nothing wrong with telling something as it is, as long as it's 100% factual, with no embellishment. I think one problem with the naming and shaming lark is that it's just too easy to let natural emotional involvement get in the way of the raw facts - we all do it at times. I had a couple of iffy contractors, and have spoken of them but not named them, as neither really cost me a significant amount of money. On the other hand, I had appalling service from Santander, who reneged on a mortgage agreement at the last moment, and I have no problem with naming them in my blog. Similarly, I'm not the only one here who has been critical of Buildstore, with their high fees and very little in the way of added value with the self-build products. Most can get a better deal by going direct, particularly with insurance.

Neat idea, especially for all those who don't want to get involved in soldering up leads or making up their own interface solutions. What would be nice would be for someone to come up with a nice and easy way to make modular/adaptable housings. As the boss of the first lab I worked in used to say, "when starting to build a homer **, start with making the case, as other wise you will find you never finish it". It's sound advice, as finding or making a housing, drilling/punching/milling out holes and then makign mounting arrangements for all the internal components is invariably the hardest, most time-consuming and least interesting part of any project. **"homer" a generic term for a personal project being built illicitly in the lab.................. PS: In the post above I mentioned modding a RPi Zero W by fitting an IPC connector and disconnecting the on-board antenna, and using an external antenna. I have done this to one board now, and although is was a very fiddly job to get the 0 ohm link moved, and a bit fiddly to solder the SM IPX connector in place, it does make a tremendous difference to wifi performance. I now have a very solid link from the house down the garden to the garage, something that wasn't possible at all before I did this. The snag is it almost certainly renders the certification of the RPi Zero W invalid.....................

Yes, and makes for a MUCH tidier CU, with more room to lay things out neatly. All those flying leads always end up making the box cluttered and a PITA to work on, IMHO.

It's not wholly true to say the FIT has reduced to 4p per kWH. The current rate for sub 10 kWp systems is 3.93 per kWh generated, plus an export payment of 5.03p per kWh for half the generated energy, unless you have an export meter fitted. With an export meter you still receive 3.93p per kWh for every kWh generated, plus 5.03 kWh for every kWh exported to the grid. This can alter the dynamics of the payback significantly if you export a high proportion of your generated energy. It's also worth noting that FIT payments are indexed linked to the RPI, not the CPI, for the guaranteed period. This means that the 3.93p rate will increase by 4.1% in April.

Thanks for that, so you could "mix and match" DP RCBOs for the lower loads, with a few bigger SP ones for the higher loads? That neatly gets around the problem for things like electric water heaters that need a higher rated one.

Pity about the 25A max, as these otherwise look to be the dog's danglies. I have a three 32A RCBOs plus a 50A RCBO on the water heater feed. Looks like a good set up for a radial wiring set up with no heavy loads though. I still wish I'd had room to radially wire our build, but I was just to short of wall real estate where all the electrics had to go to take the bigger CU needed.

The 300 litre pressure vessel is going at the top pump house, so having a gauge on the top of it gives an easy check on whether it's OK, without having to trek to the lower pump house. I have one on one of my pressure vessels, behind the door in the pump house that is in front of the electrics, air drier (for the ozone system) etc, to save me having to open the other (padlocked) door at the other end of pump house to check. Every time I do a check that all's well I can just glance to see if the pressure is in the right range, which is handy. All the larger pressure vessels have a bladder that has a large flange that connects to the ring, secured with loads of bolts, at the bottom, which is also used to pull the bladder in and out for replacement, and a smaller tubular connection that clamps under a tank-fitting like arrangement at the top, fitted with an internal screw and O ring seal. This top fitting does three things. It supports the bladder vertically, so that is cannot fall to the bottom and get creased and wear, it stops the bladder from twisting in use, again to stop wear and it allows access to the water inside the bladder, so that an accurate measurement of pressure can be made. When you buy a replacement bladder there isn't a hole in this top tubular bit, you cut it to size after fitting. There's a description in the replacement membrane fitting instructions that gives an idea as to what these things look like inside: http://www.zilmet.co.uk/uploads/documents/38/Membranes___Flanges_V5.pdf Worth noting that the general rule is that blue tanks have potable water EPDM bladders, red tanks may or may not have potable water bladders - best to check, as some manufacturers use a different material for hot water EVS, that may not be suitable for potable water. Having said that, one of my tanks is red yet has an EPDM membrane, so is OK for potable water. You're right @Nickfromwales, the top fitting is usually 1/2" BSPF, with a sealing screw at the bottom and a plastic cap over the top. It's also externally threaded on the bit that clamps the top of the bladder to the tank and maintains the seal. I fit a 1/2" BSPM to 3/8" BSPF adapter to the top fitting, using PTFE tape, then screw the pressure gauge to that, again with PTFE tape. I'll try and remember to take a photo later.

25mm MDPE is probably fine, ours runs on that and when I was testing I had a full 100m roll of pipe connected (didn't wan't to cut it as I wasn't sure what lengths I needed) and our pumps easily flowed in excess of 30 litres/minutes through it. Your final suggestion: Seems fine, but 25mm MDPE should be OK - with the sort of pressure you'll have 32mm will be overkill, IMHO. When testing ours I ran the pump through a full coil of 100m of 25mm (didn't want to cut it, as I wasn't sure of the lengths I needed) and the pump was still flowing well over 30 litres/min. It makes sense to leave the pressure switch at the lower end, just remember to set it for 1 bar higher than you want, to compensate for the 10m head loss up the hill. If you want 2.5 bar to 3.5 bar at the house (a reasonably good pressure) then set the switch to cut in at 3.5 bar and out at 4.5 bar. It's a good idea to fit a pressure gauge on the port on top of the pressure vessel, just remember to remove the blanking screw in the bottom of the switch/gauge port first.

They are usually reasonably good, about the right size, and they have ball bearing swivel thrust bearings, but they are welded on and not easy to re-purpose. The same size and type of castor with a flat plate mount and four bolts to fix it is better. If you have room I think it's a good idea to have two of the four with brakes, as it's often handy to be able to lock a trolley in place. I have a metal band saw mounted on four 100mm diameter swivelling castors and have brakes on all four castors, which does make it more stable, but nine times out of ten two of the castors will be at an angle where I can't kick the brake lever down, and I'm sure it would be just as stable with just two castors fitted with brakes, as most of the time only two of the brakes are used anyway. One thing to watch it how much higher the trolley will be with your chosen castors fitted. Castors with brakes may well be a bit taller, and in my experience the lower you can make a trolley the better. I made a pallet truck to move heavy pallets of stone up our paved drive, and for that I nused sections of channel with solid nylon rollers around 3 1/2" wide at the ends. Although those rollers are only 2 1/2" in diameter, I was able to move ballets weighing around 1/2 tonne with it OK. I just jacked the pallets up at the roadside with a car jack and blocks, slid the trolley/pallet skate underneath, lowered the pallet using the jack and blocks then towed it up the drive using the car. It was a lot quicker that unloading that pallets and handballing the stuff up to where I wanted to stack it.

Get castors with the biggest wheels you can, that have ball bearing thrust bearings on the pivots and that are rated for around 2 to 4 times the maximum you think you may load them with. My experience has been that castor load ratings from manufacturers are very optimistic, and that small castors are hard to move even on a smooth surface. 100mm is the minimum wheel size I'd use for something like this. The dollies I made for moving our airframe and wing jigs around use 150mm solid rubber tyred castors, and they worked OK on an dead-level epoxy coated factory floor, moving steel jigs that weighed around 100 to 200 kg. By contrast, my toolbox has solid rubber tyred castors that are around 50mm in diameter and it's a pain to move around on anything but a dead smooth floor.

Ours were around that size, and those look to be around the same size as given in the standard details: http://www.mitek.co.uk/Products/Posi-Joist/Standard-Details/

If it were me I'd fit them, or get a sparky to buy the trade-only ones that have been mentioned before. No reason at all for anyone to refuse to fit them. The electrician I worked with thought that me insisting on an all-RCBO board was a good idea, and couldn't understand why the compromise had been made with the 17th Ed to introduce the split board, with just two RCB zones. The big advantage of an all-RCBO board is that only the faulty circuit trips, all the others keep working as normal, which is not only more convenient, but it helps to pin down where the fault may be.

Regardless of the regs, it's both a poorly executed job and done by someone who lacks a bit of common sense. Being able to safely isolate anything without having to climb on chairs etc is just good practice, let alone what's stipulated in the regs. It just makes sense that you don't put a fitting like this where it's hard to get to and will probably be subjected to conditions that fall outside its design parameters, be they products of combustion, water vapour concentration, oils and fats or whatever. I don't like switch clutter either, but it isn't hard to locate switches and sockets in easily accessible, yet out of view, places. For example, the DP isolator for our boiling water tap in inside a cupboard at the top front, where it's protected from water, steam etc, far enough away from taps, yet very easy to reach.

As an alternative, you could misuse PVGIS ( http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/apps4/pvest.php?lang=en&map=europe ). It's intended to predict PV panel output, but it also allows the solar radiation to be estimated for any given lat and long, azimuth and elevation. You could use this data to calculate the solar radiation striking the outside face of any window, then work back from there to get the solar gain. It has climate data for the whole year, too, so with some work you could probably work back to get the solar gain at any time of the year reasonably accurately. The advantage of PVGIS over other models is that there is a fair bit of supporting data from those with solar PV systems that shows it's pretty accurate, certainly better than 10% in the majority of cases, I believe. It's also flexible enough to accept any elevation or azimuth angle, so could be used for vertical windows or angled roof lights. Use the monthly or daily radiation tabs to get what your after, rather than the PV estimation tab.

And nearest the camera are also the joists with the apparently missing steel webs - could be a clue there.

Quite a long time unless you get some fresh soil/rubble in the hole that re-establishes the natural balance of aerobic/anaerobic bacteria. The main problem with septic tanks is that they operate anaerobically, and their effluent has an extremely high biochemical oxygen demand. After around 10 to 15 years of use, the area around any effluent drains/leaks will become highly anaerobic, killing off all the aerobic bacteria that live in the upper few feet of soil. The give away sign is often that this soil looks black. Soil at depth is usually anaerobic anyway, hence the unusual smells you often get when digging deep trenches and releasing some of the gases that these anaerobic bacteria release. Backfilling old tanks with rubble and a layer of soil usually works pretty well, and I suspect the natural balance is restored within a few years. The main risk factor is that anaerobic bacteria are the most common form of bacteria that cause disease in humans. To put that into balance, our bodies host billions of the things, so generally the risk is low. However, almost all problems we have with antibiotic resistant bacteria come from anaerobes that have developed resistance, from farmed animal antibiotic use, from human antibiotic use or the use of antibacterial cleaning agents in the home. Clearly a septic tank is going to be a very good breeding ground for a wide range of anaerobic bacteria than may well already be resistant to antimicrobial treatments and some of which may be dangerous to humans; it's one reason we call them "septic" tanks. The sure fire way to disable or kill the majority of anaerobes is to subject them to oxidation, hence the reason that modern treatment plants run aerobically and oxygenate the effluent. To some extent, draining and filling an old tank with rubble and covering it with fresh soil that contains a lot of aerobic bacteria will help to reduce the population of harmful anaerobes around the area of the tank.