MikeSharp01

Daft but cheaper to buy the whole box again by the looks of it.

Actually I am going out to the pictures - Death of Stalin, the Hw in my equation thinks it would be good for us. Catch you later!

Discuss.... Although the definition of 'happy' and 'easy' are difficult to define cleanly in this context specific space it is superficially possible to see that this idea has some merit if you are the 'wife' (please be aware that I make no allusion to gender here or in any other part of this discussion - any inferences are at the readers discretion) but that for the pleaser, the one trying to bring about happiness in the other, at least there must be effort involved. Let us assume that Happiness (H) is proportional to pleasing (P). However the whole equation might be drawn thus: Hw = El where Hw = some function of P. So Hw = f(P). One is therefore forced back onto what economists would call the cost / value equation at least in this first portion of the factored equation where the proportionality function needs very thorough understanding. This because the units deployed on each side of the basic equation (expressed as a function here) seem to have the propensity to be very different. How much 'pleasing' is required to bring about a quantum of happiness and in what units EG radiators drained / doors stripped / etc is this quantum measured. Inevitably this is set against the notion of 'easy' and it's unit's of measure EG new tools purchased, meals prepared, hours of TV watched, undisturbed time in the workshop or perhaps conjugal favours offered. However on this latter point and expanding now to the full 'Hw = El' equation one might, in particular circumstances, find similar units of measure on both sides of the equation - making the wife happy might actually be enjoyable for you and thus defeating the base sentiment of the starting equation. Where it true it would require some adjustment to the equation to ensure that it was reversible although doing so has difficult overtones IE El = Hw. From this standpoint of common factors (units at least) on both sides of the equation one might further argue that that if it were possible to find and undertake sufficient activities common on both sides of the equation with - of course, adding in the concept of a fully reversible equation that the problem might be made to disappear as the spiral of bliss moves all parties into a state of ecstasy. There is evidence that this occurs in many partner based relationships know colloquially as Love. Given this we can conclude that draining the radiators is a function of the easy life and the happy wife only asked you to drain them because they want you to have an easy life - QED.

Good question Steamy.

I think he meant costings!

How uncivilised.

Welcome to the Forum. Sounds exciting. . Loads of people on here have used MBC so you will get bags of support and info. We are building an architect designed passive house and we looked at MBC but could not quite get what we wanted from their construction method. Soooo many others will be along shortly. Looking forward to hearing more.

I am not allow household porcelain on site (its all Emma Bridgewater) I have £1 mugs from Lidl - but lots of them so when one gets dirty I just pile it up and have a wash up at the end of the week - oh hang on have I reacted to the first part of of this post and missed the contextual confirmation at the end.... Anyway I have some stuff that eats concrete but not mugs so if I get any splashes I can clean it off...

Now there is a word to conjure with - what could it mean - why would anybody use such a word, first known in the 15th century, as in beatification to describe a blissful smile - oh now I get it.

800mm (80cm) are the widest of those shown in my study, I don't have any of the wider ones.

What is going to force the bottom few cm out? Only water coming from behind, air might do it but not sure how much air you can move with the circulation pump and running it dry is probably a big no no. Best thing is to cut the pipe and install a drain cock at the lowest point. PS I suppose you might such it out of you have a wet vacuum cleaner. PS crossed in time with @ProDave

Not sure anybody would want to buy my study - here is a corner, best I can get without a fisheye lens, of what I think of / know is a typical academics (Retired in my case) study. Looking at it you can tell a lot about me from the books, although as there are 2.5 other walls so you would need the whole thing to get a complete picture.

Yes, as I said I was not sure I understood this at the outset - when he did the test in the Garden room I mentioned that I did not understand why it was so low, he said that is can vary and repeated the test but the max reading was 0.27 the electric board people gave Ze (They called it Earth Loop Impedance) at the PME junction box as 0.1 Ohm so maybe the 0.3 at the distribution panel (350mm of 16mm2 earth tail away from the PME earth) was out because 4.1 and 0.1 can get to 0.25 I suspect even down 45m of 16mm2 cable.

Ikea - Billy, everybody's favourite book case. Available in oak we had loads of them for the several thousand books we own and they are, well 12 of them, all behind and beside me lining the walls of my study - I stacked them two high in here and have a ladder to access the top ones - its 4.6 Meters to the ceiling! Needless to say they are bolted to the walls.

Ok its all done, installed and connected. Just thought I would update with a few pics and the test results. The panel as finally complete, rewired to remove all vestiges of single insulation as suggested by @ProDave with split Henly blocks and using the piranha nuts as suggested by @JSHarris and others. All the earths are connected together here both the PME supplied earth and the rod earth I installed. The gland, lower left is screwed into the top of the piranha nut and allows me to shrink wrap (still to be shrunk ) the three cores of the SWA feeding the Garden room and maintain the double insulation, inside the gland, while allowing them to split out. Installed - the earth rod for the utilities centre (This will eventually be inside the building once it gets its frame and cladding): The rather fetching main meter cabinet with the new meter (reading 000000) installed and connected to our main isolator: Interesting to report the readings: Ze for the earth rod was 4.1 Ohm, while Zs was 0.3 Ohms, prospective Fault current 811A and Sort Circuit current of 1324A Down at the Garden room CU (without the local earth rod connected, still to run the cable) the figures were: Ze 0.25 Ohms (Not sure I understood this immediately but think I do now - why is it so much lower than the 4.5 Ohms of the earth rod down the 45m of cable at the utilities centre) Zs 0.37 Prospective fault 693A and short circuit of 928 I am told these reasonable to good!

Ours is pea shingle, so not realy blinding I guess but to keep things flat I laid a 50mm strip, the thickness desired, of timber around the periphery of garden room slab, got that mm flat and used it to tamp the pea shingle to then tried to avoid walking on it!

Your better off buying one i paid £120 emptied twice in the last ten month due another on Friday £30 a time i bought a 25 lite of toilet solution and added some each week and hosed out the muddy boot prints each week probably sell it for the same as I paid when we have finished +1 although I pay £50 for a service last one was yesterday but before that was - June I think - very thorough and professional.

Many thanks for the offer but he tells me he has the gear and will run the tests on Friday.

How can starting soon ever actually result in starting? "Tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace" In writing these few, now famous, words it is well known that the bard was having a bathroom installed - one of the first in England, as it was known at the time, by an infamous mate with whom he was having an Onoff relationship because the pace was lente and the confabulartio between them, in the form of sonnets sent by post horses, helpful, exciting, inspiring and supportive just grew and grew.... but, inter alia, no bathroom was forthcoming. Mox, Mox.

Use an IR beam set at hight above cats/ other animals it detects people as well as cars.

Ah - the brother in law. Ok will await his test.

Is THIS the perfect test device for my new earth rod driven in today? It's the trip device in the old house. Although it has a weakness, it basically protects nothing much, the trip is based on leakage to the earth wire and the test button does not work of you remove the earth and behave very carefully. I connected it to the new earth rod and it works perfectly so the new rod must be working at a basic level. No certificate though! Won't UKPN have a test device I can blag a test from / with?

Yes - luckily we are on clay, I will drive the rods tomorrow in readiness for Friday.

Makes perfect sense but I am now a little more confused than I was when I started this topic - drawing the threads together: @ProDave said: "There is nothing wrong with you connecting your own earth rod to the main earth terminal to supliment a PME earth" Also the consensus appears to be that the local earth rod required for Caravans, metal cased plant etc is just to protect the 'local' users from a Neutral fault on the DNO network as it ensures that there is an earth connection beyond the DNO network in which the fault can occur. @JSHarris said - in terms: that the the RCD that protects his Commando socket will trip if there is an in-balance in the L / N beyond the device and I think he implied that this would happen even if the earth were not connected as it is one of the 'any arrangement's and makes sense because the earth is not part of the in-balance. So it seems to me that: In drawing up the 'regs' diagram for a site supply the powers that be have erred on the side of safety by drawing a break between the incoming DNO earth and the site supply earth, connection via an earth rod, so as to ensure that an earth rod is provided and not ignored because 'the (PME) TN-C-S earth did the job'. If it looks like double bubble someone will cut back and use the TN-C-S earth thus rendering the thing dangerous. Any earth rods you have can be connected together across the 'property'. This means that: In our case we have the garden room, about 45m from the electric incomer and fed with a 3 core cable (16mm2). The Garden room also has a local earth rod which I will now be connecting to the earth cable exported down the garden - it was going to be isolated TT as Jeremy's workshop. For the GR the exported erath becomes the backup earth, protected from a rising voltage by the other local earth rod at the utilities centre end. Our earth rod local to the utilities centre, where the incomer is, will be connected to the earth connection provided by the DNO, assuming they supply one. That way I will have three earth connections any one of which should keep the place safe if the RCDs are out of the loop (pardon the pun).

I guess this is the reason the earth is separated in the regs but is it the confusion over 'site' as in caravan 'site' or building 'site'. I have no caravan, it is all fixed buildings but it is a building site although one building - the garden room, is in place. For caravans, neatly insulated from ground by rubber tyres, I also guess the DNO don't want to be responsible for how far their earth can get above ground potential depending upon distance to a good earth in their system. Does that make sense?