Jeremy Harris

Dead easy to use, and not very expensive. I have this one: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Network-BT-Telephone-Socket-Insertion-Multi-Punch-Down-IDC-Faceplate-Krone-Tool/251360544028?hash=item3a8641851c:g:AJYAAOSw0e9U1IDh which has been fine for wiring up all the sockets in our house. When you get into it, there's more work in fixing all the back boxes than there is in terminating the cables. I also agree with the comments above about fitting a patch panel at the router/switch end, it makes life a lot easier. Final tip, as you run each cable, label where it runs to (room, position or whatever) at the patch panel end. I didn't, as cabling up all the network stuff was last-minute decision, and I ended up making up a pair of widgets to enable me to trace which cable went where, and then labelled the patch panel. Worth thinking about things like network printers (I have runs across the same room, from one side to the other, just to give me locations for printers). Also, have a think about network CCTV, and if you think you might want it, run some external Ethernet cables for them, ideally with PoE capability, so they can be powered over the same cable. This is another thing I regretted not doing - WiFi cameras don't work well through thick walls.

To wire the house you fit Cat 5e/Cat 6 sockets in the walls wherever you think you may need an Ethernet connection in future, plus a few extras for good measure (as it's relatively cheap). The cable has to be solid copper core Cat 5e or Cat 6, avoid the copper coated stuff as it's a pain, and doesn't save anything worthwhile. All the cables need to be led back to wherever you are going to fit your main router/switch. To terminate the individual wires to the sockets, use a punch-down tool. Not expensive and pretty quick and easy to do, as you don't need to strip the wires, the terminals are all IDC. There are some videos around showing how to do this, like this one:

Somewhere I archived all the publications that were on the now defunct BESA website, back when I was a member. I'm not sure where they are, but will try and dig them out. The only remnant of BESA still around seems to be this old blog page: https://greenandnaturalbuildings.wordpress.com/2012/08/14/the-british-earth-sheltered-association-besa/

https://www.stromamembers.co.uk/downloads/fsap2012/publish.htm Should work OK, I think

The pipe's probably fine, the most likely issue when not using the inserts on low pressure pipe work, where the fitting hasn't been over-tightened, is that the seals can be damaged, as the insert has a smooth chamfer on the flange that covers the cut end of the pipe, to help ease the pipe into either the O ring or lip seal (some MDPE fitting use O rings, some use lip seals). My experience is that it's quite hard to damage these seals, unless the cut end of the pipe is rough (which is why you shouldn't just hack through it with a saw, but use a proper pipe cutter, which has a very sharp blade).

That looks pretty good to me!

I can't see why there's any logical reason to ever drain anything down below the height of the lowest fitting that needs to be accessed, with the sole exception of protection from freezing. It's pretty rare to have a drain cock lower than the lowest point in an UFH system, for example, just because it's often impractical to fit one lower than the manifold.

The inserts have two functions, and are, as mentioned above, essential. They do provide a bit of additional stiffening, not for the area where the O ring or lip seal bears, but the bit further up where the grip ring bites into the pipe to hold it in place. The other reason they are essential is that they provide a smooth entry when pushing the pipe in, because there is a chamfer on the flange part of the insert, preventing the sharp cut edge of the pipe from damaging the O ring or lip seal.

Thanks, will do on Monday. It seems daft that you can't just easily buy these fasteners, I'd have thought they were the sort of spare part that would go missing on a fairly regular basis.............

My recollection is that the weather swings in winter can be far more severe over there than here. I can remember driving to work in Dartmouth, across the Macdonald bridge, in sub-zero temperatures, with ice on all the bridge decks, having heavy snow by lunchtime, then driving back home to Halifax in pouring rain with the temperature up around 10 deg C. It seemed that 15 to 20 deg C swings in temperature in a day were not that uncommon in winter, which seemed to play hell with the surfaces of the roads. My guess is that the windows may well be fitted out flush to make it easier to keep the weather out of the siding as much as anything else. As most of the houses are made of timber, the style and design has probably evolved to deal with all-timber construction, with conventional timber siding or shingles as the rain barrier.

A while ago I bought a Schneider steel enclosure, a NSYSBMC303012, 300mm x 300mm x 120mm, Spacial series. It houses the power supply and switch gear for my lathe brushless motor conversion It's a long story, but the crappy brushed motor and speed control fitted to my Chinese lathe has been nothing but trouble from the start, I've burned out two motors and one controller and it was clear that the piddly little brushed motor is nowhere near its supposed 450 W rating, so I've fitted a 4 kW rated brushless motor and speed control unit, de-rated to 700 W, which has made a tremendous difference, the lathe seems to be at least three times more powerful now, with loads more torque. Anyway, I mounted all this stuff inside this nice strong steel enclosure, which is screwed to the wall, and fitted with a new no-volt contactor etc. When I bought the enclosure, there was a plastic bag containing all the various grommets, seals, fasteners etc, with each set in a different zip lock bag within the outer bag. Somehow I've managed to lose the bag that had the 4 off half-turn fasteners, that hold the lid on. These are large cross headed 3mm shaft diameter fasteners, that fit through the grey lid grommets (which I fitted to the lid, so I didn't lose them!). They have a coarse half-turn thread affair at the end, that engages in a specially shaped cut out in the main enclosure. I've hunted high and low for a source of these fasteners, none of the electrical factors seem to stock them, neither do places like RS or Farnell. All I can find are the replacement triangular head security fasteners for this enclosure range, but they are £10 EACH!!!, http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/enclosure-accessories/7839460/ , or this even more expensive type http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/enclosure-accessories/7839467/ . Having seen these, I was motivated to spend a couple of hours searching everywhere I could think of trying to find the ones I've misplaced (I'm sure I put them somewhere safe - I just can't remember where). Does anyone know where I can buy just 4 off of the standard Schneider fasteners, please? These are used on a wide range of Schneider enclosures as far as I can tell.

Is there any reason why, if you can't get a signal with an internal aerial, that you can't just run the cable through the wall and fit an external aerial? We have a similar wall build up, 300mm of cellulose with board skins either side, and although it took an hour or so of work to get a bit of plastic conduit through the wall and then feed a load of cables through it (we opted for a Freesat dish on the back of the house, which has four cables) there was no real problem in doing this, it was just a bit fiddly to do. The airtightness of the house isn't impacted, as the cables are easily sealed at either end in the conduit, and the thermal bridge in negligible. Also, having a bit of conduit running through the wall makes replacing cables in future pretty easy.

Our landscaping guy did a great job on all the sandstone we have on our patio and pathways. He used a very dry strong mortar mix, barely wet at all, so it was still crumbly, a bit like damp sand. He literally brushed this over the joints, where it fell in, then went around compressing it and repeating the process until it was flush, finally lightly brushing all the excess off. The result was no staining of the sandstone plus very well filled and pointed joints. We've had no cracking or signs of grout failure at all. Far quicker than going around with a grouting gun, I think, and less likely to stain the surface from any accidental splashes or spills.

Great news, I hope all goes well.

@Moira Niedzwiecka, I've just dug out the old email I sent to the BCO, this is the text of it: I included these two drawings: Elevation - Section showing foul drain stack - A4.pdf Floor Plan - Services - A4.pdf This was the reply I had back from the BCO (actually his full title was Building Control Area Manager): I hope this, together with @PeterStarck similar arrangement, helps. In essence there is no practical difference between the requirements for ventilating the foul drain leading to a treatment plant and those for a foul drain connecting to a main sewer. The issue here is that building inspectors are far more familiar with the combined SVP arrangement, where a single vent pipe has two puposes, one to prevent the creation of a partial vacuum in the vertical soil pipe when a toilet flushes and the second to equalise the pressure in the foul drain and connected sewer/treatment plant to the atmosphere so that there can be no pressure build up. The single SVP solution is cheap and easy, so is very commonly used, especially on mass produced houses, but having two separate methods for dealing with each of the ventilation requirements is perfectly acceptable within the regs.

Yes, I I've seen the Winkhaus lock, more than a little bit pricey! Our doors are structurally timber, and PassivHaus spec. They have an aluminium external skin, but this is not structurally a part of the door - the door is hung and fastened from the timber frame. It very definitely needs the latches and rollers, no question about it. Our main air leaks during the blower test were from two doors that were not adjusted properly and just adjusting the pull-in rollers and the alignment of the front and the French windows removed these leaks. The latches were all operating, but these do not pull the door in to the frame at all, the rollers have that function. When you look at the latches, it's clear that they only move up and down and are a clearance fit in the latch slots, to allow the rollers enough room to pull the door seals tight. This does need a fair bit of resistance to movement, as if the wind blows against an inward opening door there is a pretty significant force that is trying to push the door away from the seals.

I had to jump through this hoop! It seems that there may have been a right for our church to levy chancel tax, as the old orchard that our house is built on was owned by the church as a part of the church estate in the village, going back to medieval times, with it being unclear as to whether the right to levy chancel repair tax had been revoked or not, as it seems that this can be an inherited liability for successors in title. It was all a bit odd, as the church is a long way out of the village now, and our land was right on the boundary of the land that belonged to it, or rather the abbey and then estate that took it over. In the end we took out a single premium insurance policy against chancel repair liability, as the premium was modest, as there is no history in recent times of the church ever having levied this tax. As an aside, it puzzled me as to why our village is so far away from its church (well over half a mile). It seems that the village started to move away from the church shortly after the plague, and that the original village had been grouped around the church. A coaching inn was then established on what was then the main route to the West Country, at the edge of the new village, so gradually over the next couple of hundred years the village migrated even further away from its church. Our church dates back to 901 AD originally, it's believed and there's some interesting stuff on it here: https://www.achurchnearyou.com/fovant/

It looks to me as if you may well have scope for a low level vent, higher than the top of the foul drain run (shall we call it mini-Crossrail? ) perhaps suitably hidden somewhere, to deal with the pressure equalisation issue in the long foul drain run. You can then fit an AAV high up in the house to deal with the separate issue of the possible partial vacuum caused when an upstairs toilet is flushed. I had to make the case to do something very similar to the BCO, rather than my building inspector, as I knew that it was a bit out of the ordinary. In our case we have a treatment plant, that incorporates a low level vent (just a few hundred mm above ground level) that performs the requirement of equalising the pressure in the foul drain. I did not want to fit an SVP through the roof or out through a wall, so I wrote a carefully worded request directly to the BCO, with drawings, explaining how I proposed to deal with the two different vent requirements in the regulations. I also explained why I needed to avoid running an SVP through the wall or roof, and the consequences that doing so may have on the thermal performance of the house. He accepted this without question, and agreed that, although this was not a standard means of addressing the requirements, as suggested in the guidance in the approved document, it was OK and did comply with the building regulations themselves. It's important to note that the approved documents (in this case Part H) are not regulations, they are just methods and guidance that MAY be used to comply with the building regulations, but equally they are not the only way that the regulations can be complied with.

One thing struck me from the description - there is an existing foul drain to the church, it seems. The details describe a kitchenette with sink, and as you can only legally drain a sink to a foul drain of some kind (usually!) that implies that there may well be a foul drain, but that there's just no WC connected to it. I would urgently investigate this, best bet would be either the agent or go directly to the relevant water company and ask. If asking the water company, and if they reply that there is no foul drain connection, then ask them where the nearest main sewer is. They will usually email you a map showing where the sewers are in that area, with their depth. I think there is a reasonable chance that you can get a main drainage connection, either via an existing foul drain that runs to the kitchenette, or via a connection to a nearby sewer. You may need to be creative, as I doubt the church would allow the graveyard to be disturbed, so you really need the map from the water company to see what options you have.

The problem is one of overcoming engrained habits, rather than looking logically at what the vents actually do. The vent or AAV at the highest point is to prevent there being a partial vacuum in the vertical soil pipe drop when a toilet is flushed, that's all, nothing more. The vent at the end of the foul drain is there to prevent a pressure build up and ensure that the foul drain is at normal atmospheric pressure. The regs actually do make this clear, but the approved document doesn't, really. This means you can comply with the regs by having a low level vent some way from the house, at the end of the foul drain, ideally in a hedge or flower bed, plus an internal AAV above the height of the highest pipe feeding to the soil pipe. Both have different functions, and you may need to tactfully explain to the building inspector how you are complying with the regulations by having these two separate vent systems, that each address a specific, but different, vent requirement

Welcome, Stuart, and good luck with what sounds like a very interesting project. First off, I'd try to establish whether you can get a foul drainage system that will meet the regs before going any further, as the lack of a compliant scheme could make the project non-viable, strange as that may sound. Cess pits are practically forbidden now, and it's pretty unlikely that you would be granted dispensation to fit one, plus they are very costly, as they need emptying very regularly (several times a year, at around £120 to £150 a time). The only real option if you can't access mains drainage, is a treatment plant, to EN12566-3, that will normally be expected to discharge to a suitable leach field, and will have to be located 7m away from any dwelling or highway. The size and area of the leach field can cause problems, but there are alternatives, like using a pumped system and a raised sand bed, or, if you have a watercourse nearby, even a field drain, that runs all through the year, then the EA can grant a discharge permit that allows the treatment plant effluent to flow to the watercourse (we had to do this with ours). Septic tanks are also shortly to be outlawed, I believe, and they have even more onerous requirements for the leach field, and as they cost about the same as a treatment plant they really aren't worth considering, in my view. There's a good chance that even if you were allowed to fit a septic tank now it may well have to be converted to a treatment plant in the next few years, as that seems to be the governments intention. One other option is to fit a pumped sewage system, that uses a small bore (typically 63mm MDPE) pipe that can run uphill to a main sewer. They can work very well, we had such a system in a house in Scotland and it was trouble free and looks like it was easy to install. So, before going further, look carefully at foul drainage, and see what your options are.

Instead of wasting heat and creating a thermal bridge through the wall for the SVP, have you looked at an external low level vent, in a discreet place in the garden? These can work well, and rarely give off any odour, especially if located close to plants. Low level vents are quite commonplace in sewer systems, especially in older urban areas. They are also very commonly used on septic tanks and treatment plants, too. If it were me then I would try and remove the need for such a relatively significant thermal bridge as this, not just because of the small additional heat loss, but because it may well be a condensation risk. The air flowing up that pipe will be cool, probably around 8 to 10 deg C, so will be below the dew point of the water vapour in the air in the house, and the chimney effect of vent air flowing up that pipe may tend to cool down the whole foul drain network of piping inside the house, too, creating cold spots. Normally the soil pipes inside the house (with no vent) will fairly quickly warm back up to room temperature after flushing, but not if there is a flow of cool air going through them from outside.

As above, it looks very much like asbestos cement board, which isn't a massively high risk. You're also right, asbestos cement board was used as an external rain screen or roof covering, whist raw fibrous asbestos was mainly used as pipe insulation, often around steam pipes. Our lungs are pretty good at cleaning stuff that we breathe in, out, especially when we are young, so the risk of fibres remaining lodged after a one-off, short duration exposure will be extremely low.

If you're in a very good signal area, then you might get away with an indoor or loft fitted aerial OK, but I suspect you may struggle. We've found that our house, which has a very similar construction, attenuates high frequency signals a fair bit, so, for example, DAB radio won't work indoors, but FM radio does, just about. Mobile phone signals are very weak in our area, as are terrestrial digital TV signals, and neither can be reliable received. Terrestrial digital TV frequencies are quite high, and may well be attenuated to the point where an indoor or loft aerial won't work. You can feed cables through the wall for an external antenna, but it's a bit of a fiddly job. I did it using a specially made up long 6mm diameter drill, to drill the pilot hole right through the wall, then a 20mm hole saw either side. With a lot of patience and a bit of plastic turned up to form a pointed bit that was a tight fit in the end of a bit of 20mm plastic electrical conduit, I managed to fiddle around and get a bit of conduit through the wall, and sealed it on either side. I then ran antenna cables through this, and sealed it up around the cables at either end. This worked OK, but was a bit fiddly and time consuming, as it's not easy to feel for the hole on the other side when poking something though 300mm of cellulose filled wall.

Our local authority wanted paper copies of all the plans and maps and HMRC insist on paper copies of them, together with the planning approval, when you submit your VAT claim form and receipts, so I don't think it's correct to say that plans can only be in PDF form. In addition, our ground works team needed paper plans at large scale to use on site, as did our electrician, who needed printed copies of the internal floor plans with the wiring details on. Additionally, the landscaping chap needed a large scale plan showing the details of things like the patio, pathways, drive fencing walls etc. I think it's completely impractical to turn every drawing into a .pdf and expect all the people on site to be able to work from some sort of electronic device. I found that A3 laminated, printed, plans were about the best size for site use, not too big as to be unwieldy, but big enough to be able to see and read the details OK. Some drawings needed to be multiple printed A3 sheets, to show all the required details, like the electrical installation drawings.