Crofter

Yeah maybe I should have done that. It'll almost certainly just go to landfill anyway 🤷 I seem to have managed to persuade the bot to escalate my complaint to a human. I'll see what happens.

Our induction hob went on the blink so I ordered a new one from Screwfix, and seeing as we're not at home just now, I got a mate who is a sparky to fit it. The new one had a plug attached which he cut off to hard wire it in, same as the old one. Unfortunately, when he turned on the power, it beeped once and then died. Now Screwfix are refusing to give me a refund or replacement, because it's been 'tampered with'. Their own website says it can be hard wired. It doesn't say that doing so will void the warranty! I can't get through on the phone and their chat function is like talking to a brick wall. I asked for the contact details I will need to file a small claims court application and they promptly ended the chat. Anybody had any luck with getting a refund out of them?

We never bothered with a bracket. Ours lives on the deck of our boat with a bit of string tied to it in case it decides to jump overboard. We've covered about two thousand miles of the Atlantic like this, including thunderstorms in the gulf stream. Precise alignment really doesn't matter very much!

Maybe it was %. The slope has never been a problem. It's the almost imperceptible little bumps and dips that stop it. These mower companies should sell a little radio controlled toy car that has the same ground clearance as their mowers, then you could drive it around and find all the problems on your lawn. Much quicker than standing watching the mower bumbling around.

Just to update, I did eventually buy a fairly cheap robot mower... can't quite remember the model off hand. It was rated for something like a 40⁰ slope so I thought it would get up to the job. Well, it turned out to be a lemon. For my lawn anyway. I suppose it was too much to expect that what into recently was a field full of sheep would be flat enough for this to work. The ground clearance on the mower is very small, and the slightest bump or hollow would have it spinning round on the spot, or even worse, just getting stuck. I put a fair bit of effort in to levelling up the perimeter so that it could always make its way home, but it never once managed to complete a full lap, let alone actually cut the main part of the lawn. I think the longest it would run without problems was about ten minutes. So in my experience, you really do need a billiard table of a lawn for this to work. But it's possible that some of the more expensive models are much better than mine.

It's not that hard to hit the studs when going through 50mm of PIR. I had to go through 100mm to hit my rafters and that was a bit of a pain, but it was manageable. Wool is cheap and breathable but you'll end up with a thick wall build-up, and a lot of the money you've saved on insulation will go in to extra timber.

Today's XKCD seems relevant.

I designed my place with 50mm PIR on the inside, which allowed me to use 145mm studs whilst eliminating thermal bridging. You want your wall build-up to be progressively more moisture permeable as you move outwards. So mine goes VCL, PIR, mineral wool, breather membrane.

Here you go! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pB2tPqTm3Vs

Yes will do. It glides nicely. The only thing I would say about it is that with the weight of 3G it has a fair bit of momentum so if you put too much oomph in to it it'll reach its stop with a bit of a bang. Oh and thanks for all your advice and help!

It's a smart slide neo door, and I got one window too, not sure of the name there. Fabricated in Poland, I had to wait a couple of months for them, which was over Christmas and New year.

Just to update and conclude this, I went with Aluplast in the end. Just finished the installation. Early days but I'm very happy. The new units are quite slimline, I was worried about switching from a timber finish to uPVC but against the white walls they're basically invisible. The top hung window is a massive improvement on the old side hung one. No saggy hinges. And the simple sliding door is a joy to use. Just effortless. No signs of any air leakage, even when it's blowing 50mph outside. I'm in a very exposed spot so this was a concern. The old units had started to leak air quite badly. It's harder to shut the front door now because the house is airtight again! U Values are claimed to be better than the old aluclad units- substantially better in the case of the door, 0.74 vs 0.96. I paid a bit extra to get the glazing delivered separately, which was money well spent as it meant that installation was much easier. All in all, very happy with the choice. Not the cheapest, but I've got about as good a thermal spec as I could get anywhere without going to truly silly money and krypton filled units. And it's come in just over half the price of the cheapest aluclad.

Nobody says you have to put them on a balcony. I think it's just a term that's used to show that you could do this if you live in a flat. How often do you actually see people using their balconies anyway?

How does it work in Germany? Do they have to notify anybody?

This is a good example of why we need a bit of nuance in the debate. You can quite truthfully say that China are building a large number of new coal power stations every year. And if it suits your agenda, that's the end of the sentence. The bigger picture is that these plants are in part replacing older, less efficient ones, and are acting as backup to an increasingly renewables dependent grid. So that China's emissions are actually falling. Good luck finding that level of analysis in the Daily Mail or GB News.