Del-inquent

I phoned SW again to try and get a clear straight answer, they sent a different inspector out. he said the suggested route by his colleague wasn’t acceptable and asked me to reroute the pipe completely. The route he wants me to take is contrary to the preceding inspectors advice on what was acceptable 🤦‍♂️

We did look at thermaskirt originally, I might even have asked about it on here, but Ive read very mixed reviews on its effectiveness.

That was with the Omnie system? All the feedback I’ve read on them was about the quicker warm up and lower thermal resistance, which was what got me interested in the first place! alternative is reds throughout but it’s a chalet bungalow with next to no wall space upstairs

As we need to replace most floorboards I was looking at Omnie’s Torfloor 2 structural boards. I like the fact they’re printed to stop idiots like me putting a screw through the pipe and also not needing to glue the cover plate down. initial “rough” quote was £5k plus tax which although higher than we wanted wasn’t too bad. Then they sent the proper quote and it’s now suddenly £8.5k plus tax. 80% of that price is the boards. It’s £1.2k inc tax to put down standard 22mm caber without some pretty grooves routered in… So are there any alternative but well thought out structural UFH systems that don’t take the piss on the board prices?

That’s one of the things I found, but it wasn’t for Southern water. I found another water company that said HAD to be 110. If Southern water are not so strict it could save a lot of effort but it seems they don’t even know themselves what their requirement are…

The bloke that came from Southern water said otherwise, he said anywhere it’s being run under the floor or slab, it has to be in a continuous ducting. The bit from the house to the meter was a suggestion as it’s only a couple of metres extra and saves any backfill requirements on the trench, but the bit under the floor is compulsory. He’s the one that has to sign it off to get it reconnected but of course, I can’t get hold of him to discuss further 🤦

Had Southern Water round the other day as we have a suspected leak, bloke agreed it needs a new supply pipe fitted. He made suggestions on easiest route and what he’d want to see for site inspection prior to signing off, his recommendation was “continuous ducting from meter to consumer stopcock, sealed at both ends”. Didn’t really think about it much at the time as he then went on to something else immediately. I phoned today and asked if there was any specific spec for the ducting. Spoke to two technical support people, neither could give any specification whatsoever for the ducting. One just said “well it’s just something to run the pipe in”. They can’t put me in touch with the chap that did the site visit for clarification. other water companies put technical specs for ducting on their website, I can’t find any mention for Southern Water. anyone shed any light on it? If I can get away with “anything” I can use a 50mm (ext) duct that will fit through existing ducting that goes nearly all the way under the slab. Anything like a twin wall won’t fit and I’ll either have to rip up the floor through the entire house or be without a water supply for 2 weeks

I thought about that but then realised any condensate will do that anyway as the cavity tray is above the top of the slope, so if it’s condensing on the top of the box it’s already past the tray!

Follow up to this one... I've cut the holes, test fitted the electricity box, got lucky, the cavity is wider on that wall than on the others I've had to do anything to do, so just slotted straight in. I'd like to get some third / forth opinions though... Cavity tray. Is there any need as the box isn't bridging the cavity? Space between back of box and internal leaf is 15-20mm. Seems a bit of a waste of time and effort to pull out another couple of rows of bricks above the hole to fit one. I know they fit them on new builds but would you bother on a retrofit with no bridging?

You got lucky, ours stank for 3 months of airing out and that was just from the cistern water leaking on to the floorboards and joists!

Cheers, unfortunately it seems that there is only one price for it, I think they are strict with that aspect! I'm more than happy to install it, I will be replumbing the whole house eventually, just don't have time yet and too much else of this project needs to be done first.

Oh believe me, it really is. We're replacing the joists in the toilet, as that was similarly skilfully done. 3mm of the flush pipe pushed into the back of the toilet and at the cistern, the seals had been used but they'd been put in both backwards and inside out. Then had PTFE wrapped around the whole joint, over the outside of the clamp nut. On the plus side it has resulted in a good cushioning affect - sit down too heavily on the toilet and the entire floor gives to absorb the shock... My favourite so far is the 4Kg glass and brass light fitting in one room, suspended by 3 or 4 strands of the live and neutral wires. No earth fitted, the chain to hook it to a proper fixing tucked inside the cover. It fell off in my hands. Most of the lighting circuits have already been replaced, professionally by the look of it - when we took the ceilings down I found a 10m length of the original, no insulation left burnt to a crisp so I guess he'd done some work on that at some point and realised he maybe should get help when it started smoking... Hopefully explains why I'm not keen on disturbing too much until we absolutely have to and are in a position to do a permanent fix!

It’s not the cost, it what needs pulling apart to do the job, and fix the multiple problems with the dodgy plumbing when it was installed.

Funny you should say that, I had to replace the stopcock last weekend, so I T'd a valve in the line as well ready for when the postman drops off the gauge!

I think it's more my wife having to wash with a B&Q bucket and yoghurt pot every day that's testing the patience, but I doubt my smell would help. I had a look at putting one elsewhere but it's honestly like they got a delivery of copper pipes thrown in a cupboard and just decided to connect them up wherever they fell. Under the bath isn't accessible (because they built it in, badly) so I'd rather not end up having to replace the bath as well for a short term measure. I've attached an image of how the sink trap was fitted, just to illustrate the quality of work I'm dealing with here. I think my favourite bit is the single layer of PTFE tape on the outer plastic threads. No rubber seals were used in the construction of this waste fitting (which is why I'm now lifting the floor to replace joists...)

unfortunately not, the new system is going in the new part of the house, which doesn't exist yet. If I wait that long to get the shower working I'll be going through divorce #2 I think...

Vented bodge job done by someone incapable of basic soldering skills... The pump that died was very old, very odd and very badly (and awkwardly) fitted. These little pumps I could have fitted in 15 minutes in a far better place and bypass the pump circuit (which also leaks), replacing the pump will involve a massive amount of work involving the tank (equally badly fitted) coming out. As it's all going to be ripped out completely in the not too distant future it would just have been nice to go the simpler route.

That's what I had on my last place, and is amazing for sure. Tank here at the moment is vented but as I said to Johnmo, it won't be for *that* long as it's a complete hotchpotch mess. We've actually given up trying to shower now it's just unusable, we've gone to a large bucket and an empty yoghurt pot, so need to do something short term as ladling cups of water over yourself gets very old very quickly 😆

They do a twin pack to do both hot and cold, which is £220, or they do a double-boost for either/both to take it up to 1 bar at £170, so if you've got reasonable cold pressure (we do) then in theory you can get roughly equal to mains on hot. Part of the reason I don't want to spend too much is what we have at the moment is a complete mess of an install of a vented system which will be coming out in 12-18 months time when we extend the place. We're not sure if we're going to go Combi or unvented yet, but if their blurb is believable then these could be transferred onto the new system.

That’s exactly the first thing I thought. They are only 0.5 bar boosters though so not as powerful as many pumps, but I’m not so worried about standing under a jet wash as having any water come out the shower at all, only have 0.4m head so it’s a bit like having a hamster pee on you 😂 The pump that’s failed, which was plenty enough for the job, was an ancient DC one and only ran 150w They seem to get a lot of rave reviews but it’s a fair bit of cash to gamble, hence looking for some real world experience.

Pretty much said it all in the topic title really. Our pump packed up in a big way, came across these tiny Shower Power Booster pumps while looking for a replacement. seem to get excellent reviews but I dunno, it seems so small and simple (but not cheap)

That looks ideal, cheers! Stuck a camera down and had a good look and all damage seems to stop above concrete. By my thinking this only serves the single toilet and the pan connector itself is going to restrict the bore as much as that adapter. id really like to have taken the clay pipe out completely but toilet has to be out and back in again within a (short) day, and the chances of that are zero with the concrete- I dug a test pit outside, the concrete around the pipe is about a foot thick round the clay 😂

Just looking at putting in a slightly more modern (and less leaky) toilet than avocado horror currently in the downstairs WC. The collar on the clay pipe (which goes through concrete sub-floor) has been damaged in the past, about 1/3rd of it is missing and a crack runs down to about 1/2 inch from the top of the concrete. The previous owner / tradesman decide a few tubes of silicone would make it good. What would be the best way to overcome it without taking the entire clay pipe out? Going on a nearby bit of sub-floor I had to remove, I think they had a few dozen spare bags of cement during the build and decided to chuck them in the mix, so if I can avoid having to remove it that would be great. I'm thinking cut the whole top off the clay pipe to about 1/4 inch above the concrete so all damage is removed then an adaptor that goes inside the clay pipe? Any tips on such an adapter?

That should be possible at the weekend when I get my new phone, my old one apparently felt that falling through a gap in the floorboards to the floor below was justification not to function anymore. Such a marvellous week I'm having!

Okay tried the steamer... the paint laughed at me. Only place it worked was because the plaster fell off with the paint attached 😆 The hot air gun went and cried in the corner, I think I might join it...