Jeremy Harris

It's almost certainly leakage current. If these are Chinese, then please disconnect them and take them apart to make sure that they have an earth connected - my experience is that very often they don't! If the earth wire is properly connected internally, then check that the line and neutral are the right way around - again it's quite common for Chinese stuff to have them swapped, I've seen this on power supplies in particular, and once on a battery charger (not nice, it meant that the negative battery connection was sat at mains voltage................). It's also possible that instead of a proper LED driver they may just be using a capacitive dropper, sort of OK if everything is properly insulated internally, but again Chinese stuff can be poor in this regard. If you find that the light does have a proper LED driver inside, that the line and neutral are the right way around, and that the internal earth wire is properly connected to the alloy case, then you can still get leakage via the interference suppression capacitors fitted to the supply side of the switched mode LED driver unit. The problem is generally current flowing via earth in this case, not enough to cause an RCD/RCBO to trip, but enough to make the LEDs glow. If that's the case then the best fix is a double pole switch, but please disconnect the light and look inside for earth or wiring faults first. Sadly there are a lot of these that are just bloody dangerous. I bought 4 very similar flood lights and all four had the earth wire loose and unconnected inside the case, and they were all sold by, and badged with the name of, a UK company.

Rolec do a fairly wide range of charge points: http://www.rolecserv.com/ev-charging/product/Wall-Mounted-EV-Charging-Options I have a 32A Rolec charge cable (J1772 to IEC 62196-2 connectors) that I keep in the car to use with public charge points (the car doesn't come with a charge cable for public charge points - it's a £450 extra......................) and am impressed with the connectors, they are better made than the £55 Dostar J1772 plugs that I've bought for the 15 A charge points I've made. Unless you want to give away data to all and sundry, then I'd suggest staying away from the OLEV grant-funded charge points, as they communicate via a mobile phone signal and sell user and usage data to anyone interested, which is why they are relatively cheap. I only found this out when the grant-funded charge points were still "free". I asked for one, the company came out to do a site survey and told me I couldn't have one as there was no mobile phone signal. A bit of digging around showed that the government deal was that free or subsidised charge points were provided on the basis that the supplier could do what they like with your data. You can tell these charge points from the others, as like the public ones, they are activated by an RFID card, which has your name, address etc encoded in the account information. If a charge point doesn't need an RFID card then the chances are that it doesn't send data to the supplier, but it's worth checking, if you're concerned about data snooping. There's no practical requirement for a home charge point to be like a smart meter, and dumb charge points work as well as smart ones. Edited to add: Here's a table of EVs and their charge requirements/capabilities, that indicates what each model can accept: http://ukevse.org.uk/charge-points-chargers/charge-point-compatibility/

EVSEs need to be connected to a dedicated radial, because they draw a high current for a long period of time, so shouldn't be connected to a ring final, unless they have a BS1363 plug. The AC charge point standard requires that a double pole RCD and MCB (or a double pole RCBO) be fitted, and this is usually built in to the commercial, after-market, EVSE units. My own view is that it is better if the radial is fed from a DP RCBO, and this is what I've had done. My 15 A EVSE is run from a 16 A DP RCBO, the 30 A one is run from a 32 A DP RCBO. The EVSE has an additional layer of protection, because it has a DP contactor, that only supplies power to the cable after the low voltage pilot signal has received the correct "command" from the car. There's also additional fault protection built in to the EVSE, so that operating the latch on the car plug commands the EVSE to turn off the contactor, so the lead is always "dead" when it's not plugged in to the car. The Tesla fast home charger unit needs a 3 phase supply, but the connector to the car is DC, as the car doesn't have a 3 phase AC charger built in, as far as I know, only a low rate single phase AC charger like other fast charge EVs. DC charging has the big advantage of not needing a big charger in the car, as the battery is DC. This means that simple pulse width modulation of the DC from the fast charger can be used to control battery charge current, with no big inductors to take up space and get hot.

Keith is the name of the chap that runs the GBF, not Ebuild. Contact links were taken down from Ebuild, so I very much doubt if the owner would allow one now. He's still getting advertising revenue from Ebuild, as it still attracts viewers, even now.

A 13 A BS1363 plug/socket shouldn't be used above 10 A continuously, according to the standard. For this reason, the portable chargers that are supplied with EVs, or plug-in chargers are all limited to 10 A. Longer range EVs usually come with, or have an option of being fitted with, a 6 kW to 7 kW single phase charger, and some now also have fast DC chargers, either CHAdeMO or, in the case of Tesla, their proprietary Supercharger connector. I suspect that DC charging will become more common, as it has the advantage for the car manufacturers of losing a fairly hefty AC charger. The AC charger in my car takes up room under the floor that could usefully house more batteries. What doesn't seem to have taken off here is the option of using an AC three phase charger. The connectors in use at the moment support 32 A, three phase, but I don't know of any EV that can use this. I charge at around 10 A from the 15 A charge points at each end of my daily 16 mile commute. Two to three hours of charging is enough to make my journeys around 70% EV, 30% hybrid, meaning the car does around 115 mpg in winter and around 155mpg in summer.

The maximum charge rate from single phase is usually around 30 A or so, for faster charge rates (which only some EVs accept) you either need to have a three phase onboard charger (not very common, but the IEC 62196-2 and J1772 connectors do support it) or a DC charge point, like CHAdeMO or the Tesla-only Supercharger, that needs a three phase supply. The charger in my car is only about 2.5 kW, so a 15A charge point is ample, but the car sets the charge current, after reading the available current via the EVSE J1772 protocol (there's bi-directional hand shaking on a 1KHz pilot signal that controls the DP contactor in the charge point and tells the car what the charge point can deliver).

I'd just get your electrician to fit a charge point that has no data transmission capability. There are several suppliers of EVSE equipment, and they are easy to connect. I have two, a 30A one at one and of the drive and 15A one at the other, with the 30A one having a standard IEC 62196-2 socket, rather than a fixed trailing lead, so visitors can use it. I designed and made both my EVSEs, but there are kits available from people like http://evbitz.uk for those who are competent to build them, or you can just buy a ready built EVSE on it's own from someone like Rolec. There's about £100 worth of parts in an EVSE, including the (expensive) connector cost, so not a great deal to be saved over the price of a kit, but a fair bit to be saved over the cost of a ready-made unit. Be aware that you need to know the type of connector the car uses, though. Most still use the J1772 connector, and a lot of charge points are supplied with a tethered J1772 connector on a lead, but I foresee a time when there will be a switch to the IEC62196-2 connector, so a charge point with an IEC 62196-2 socket instead of a flying lead may be more future-proof.

The deck of a boat I owned years ago was just waxed gel coat with a bit of sand added, painted onto the roughened fibreglass deck with a roller. I owned the boat for around 10 years and that surface was still in good condition when I sold the boat. You could choose to paint the gel coat on a fibreglass roof with a tough floor paint if you wanted an alternative finish. I've only done one fibreglass flat roof, and that was on a friends garage, but it was pretty easy to do. We used a kit from CFS that had prefabricated mouldings for the edges etc, which made the job a fair bit quicker. You just need a dry day that's not too hot, and make sure you get the resin out of the mixing bucket and spread out onto the roof pretty quickly, as it starts to cure a lot faster when it's in a bucket, because of the heat build up.

Would that be "ex", as in "out of" and "spert", a "leak under pressure"?

Very dodgy! False address in "Derby", but a (probably) Chinese member, shipping from outside the UK, who joined Ebay on 18th March and has zero feedback. Very definitely a scammer, I think.

Looks like a pretty standard topo survey, but the odds are that the positions of the trees are only approximate, as the surveys main objective was to determine the ground levels and boundary locations, I think.

As Dave says, fit a new one. They aren't that expensive, (around £10 or so, at least down here they are around that price) and with luck you may well be able to get one locally tomorrow (not sure whether you have a plumbers merchant on the island or not, though). The one you need looks like a 7" one, best measure it to make sure. They aren't repairable, unfortunately, as the failure is usually either the contacts burning out or the bi-metallic element that actuates them failing.

We have two different films, as we also wanted to add some privacy at the front. Both are equally effective at reducing solar gain, but the almost clear film on the bedroom windows is clear enough that you'd not notice it's there from inside looking out. The films are both made by Solargard : http://www.solargard.com/uk/

We have solar reflective film on the South-facing glazed gable and on the East-facing bedroom window. It's very effective indeed. Before fitting it the inner pane of the glazing would get pretty warm, which in turn would conduct and convect heat into the air in the house, and was the most significant cause of spring and autumn over-heating (the overhead shading works in summer to reduce it). With the film fitted the inner pane of the glazing stays close to room temperature, and the house no longer gets a bit warm from low-angle sun. For us it is sunny days in spring and autumn that are the worst case, as the large glazed area has a fairly big roof overhang that was intended to reduce summer solar gain. What I failed to take account of was the fact that the sun penetrates more deeply, and has a greater heating effect on vertical glazing, during spring and autumn than it does in summer.

Well, as an update I borrowed a Flir camera on Friday, to try and see how it compares to the Seek Thermal camera I already have. There's no doubt that the Flir is easier to use, but the resolution is a fair bit poorer, and something that's disguised by the way the thermal image is overlaid onto a visual image. The latter is a useful thing to have, as it makes it a bit easier to see what the camera is looking at, but overall I'm not that impressed, particularly as the Flir apparently cost around £800. The main downside with the Seek Thermal is that the user interface isn't as slick as the Flir, but that's not really a significant issue for something that's only used occasionally. Overall, the sub-£200 Seek Thermal seems a better bet for non-professional use, particularly as I bought mine for around £150 from Canada, before they were released here by Seek Thermal (it annoys me that official UK prices are always so much higher than North American prices). The BBC haven't got back to me, and I suspect it's not really worth doing this until next winter now, as ideally we'd need to do it on a cold night, when people have their heating on.

Interestingly, Iresa are now cheaper than SSE (SSE haven't increased our tariff yet), whereas a few months ago they weren't. I've just checked and they are now quoting a standing charge of £0.156/day and a unit price of £0.114/kWh for us, making them a bit cheaper overall than SSE (SSE are charging £0.148/day and £0.144/kWh at the moment). Whether it's worth switching to save a few pounds a year I'm not sure, as recently SSE customer service seems to have improved markedly (they were a bit of a shambles we found, as our FIT is with them). I'm not sure what value to put on customer service, TBH, but I think I'd probably pay a few pounds a year more to have a supplier that didn't need chasing all the time to correct their own errors.

My experience was that the trees on our topo survey weren't that accurately marked, but the base data set we were given (as an AutoCad dxf file) had notes by some points indicating that they were approximate. I emailed the surveyor and he told me that as this wasn't a tree survey he'd got as close as he could to the two big trees that were on the plot at the time, but couldn't "see" the centre of the tree, because of the canopy and undergrowth, so estimated their location on the data set. I don't know how big the error was, as the first thing we did when we bought the plot (before applying for planning permission) was get the trees cut down, so that no one had a chance to get a TPO on them once our plans were under consideration. The boundary locations seemed to be very accurate, as we used the same reference nail in the lane to set out the plot with a Total Station, and everything lined up very well, certainly within about 50mm.

The topo survey we had done was accurate to within +/- 20mm 2D, +/- 50mm 3D, using an OS reference nail that happened to be in the lane next to where our drive now runs. I'm not sure how accurate OS spot height reference is, as everything is referenced from that, but I'm sure it's good enough for things like boundary location, as the boundary survey we had done used the same reference point.

You're absolutely right. I was given training years ago, by my employer, before giving evidence at a fatal accident enquiry (in Scotland) and that focussed heavily on the impartiality of being an officer of the court. I've carried on since retirement, really just for the intellectual exercise, although I can't deny that the extra income is useful. The worst for me was a double manslaughter case, where the defence barrister asked me to give evidence. I was incredibly grateful that the case was dropped (by the direct intervention of the AG) on the basis that it was not in the public interest to proceed to trial. I was not looking forward to giving evidence at the Central Criminal Court at all; there's a world of difference between a criminal and civil case.

Sounds a lot to me. Everything I submitted to building control is here: http://www.mayfly.eu/2013/09/part-fifteen-the-site-is-finally-ready/

I don't know much about Howden 6 bolt heaters, other than they are expensive to replace when compared to the more common threaded ones (around £80 to £90). They do use a fairly standard short thermostat (the block where the line connection runs to) and you can check that with a meter, as my experience with immersions is that if they just stop working it's often the thermostat, if the blow the trip it's often the element itself. Isolate the power, disconnect the cable and check for continuity between the thermostat output to the element and the line connection. The thermostat switch should be closed when it's cold. Try adjusting the temperature setting to see if you can hear a click, as very occasionally you can unstick a stuck one like this. You can probably get a replacement thermostat that should fit the Howden sense pocket OK, I'm pretty sure they use a standard short thermostat.

Still worth looking at the whole cost, though life, of a wet versus dry system, I think. An electrically heated towel rail is a fair bit cheaper to install than a plumbed in one. I reckon a temperature controlled electric towel rail, on for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening, probably costs around £10 a year to run.

The challenges of trying to reclaim modest amounts via the courts is something that annoys me. The small claims procedure is OK in principle, but is flawed because you cannot claim for the costs you incur, in time and effort expended in bringing the case to court. I've used it once, and won, but it was a bit of pyrrhic victory, as I spent tens of hours preparing the case and putting together all the evidence. In recent years I've been working as a part-time expert witness, mainly for insurance companies, and I'm amazed at the number of claims that are settled, not because they are justified, but just because it's cheaper to bung someone a few thousand pounds than it is to defend the claim in court. I get paid either way, but it's frustrating when I've put together evidence to defend a claim, only to find that the company that's "hired"*** me settles out of court. ***"Hired" is not really a good term, but I can't think of a better one. When instructed by an insurer I'm not acting for them, even though they are paying me, I remain an officer of the court, so am bound by law to give impartial evidence. It's an odd situation to be in sometimes.

Also worth factoring in the heat pump start up energy consumption when you get down to the sort of low power that a towel rail uses. A heat pump may well have a longer term COP of over 3, but for the first few minutes when it starts the COP will probably be below 1. If you then look at the lowest power output that the heat pump can modulate down to (for our unit this is about 1.5 kW) and compare it to the towel rail demand there will be a fairly large mismatch. So, unless the heat pump is on for some other purpose, it's unlikely to run very efficiently at all for such a small load.

My experience was that our solicitor did nothing with respect to boundary checks, other than get the Land Registry Title Plans and pass them to me for accuracy checking, both times. I could have saved the fee and got the Title Plans myself for a few pounds and done the same as I ended up doing. Rights of Way were another thing not adequately checked for the first plot; I had to drive over to the council offices in Newport and inspect the records myself, a round trip of around 250 miles. The fact that there was an underground power cable crossing our plot at 45 degrees, right under where the house was going to go, wasn't picked up by the solicitor, either; that was spotted by our boundary surveyor (who we paid directly to convince the vendor that there was a large boundary error) when he found a couple of markers, partially hidden by undergrowth and suggested it might be useful to hire a CAT and check to see if it was a live cable. I did and it was live, plus there was no wayleave recorded for it. I did all the running around and passed lots of information back to our solicitor, but really only used them to get a legal opinion on what things meant or what legal means we had to resolve the boundary problems. Overall I was not impressed, I think I did around 80% of the work and the solicitor acted as an expensive correspondence service a lot of the time.