canalsiderenovation

The Solic is going to be the death of me after we had issues before and then them honouring the warranty after the previous unit broke. Is this the same with any alternative to Solic or just their units? I'm getting a call off Segen to quote for the items (trade price) and then hopefully get them fitted separately (which may be a challenge as we need a knowledgeable sparky and the limited number of companies that deal in batteries round here I suspect won't want us to supply our own kit). For comparison I'll ask one of the renewable companies to quote too.

Slug deterrent, you can borrow our garden visitor . . . .

We are considering adding batteries to our set up to avoid the peak time rates with Octopus and to hopefully make it as cheap as it can be in winter where we can charge up the batteries. We have our ASHP (Samsung AE120), 12 X 320w panels and Growatt 3600 and our Solic diverting excess to immersion and are also exporting any extra. I'm just curious what sort of size battery others have and how easy it will be to get an electrician to retrofit and where batteries will need to be situated? I'm hoping it doesn't need drilling into places we have had decorated because that really would be grounds for divorce. In fairness I've been going on about batteries for ages and the other half has finally agreed!

TBC yet, but it will only have lavender in it so not massive. This was sort of how we are hoping they will look (not with steps, just an opening). Bricking is starting tomorrow.

Thanks for that, it's helpful. We were playing with table sizes and looking at our dining table. As we have the other patio area too I think I need to relax a little!

Argh the concrete is due today and en route, mesh all being done now 😕 but actually the width is slightly more than 3.3m at 3.6m as the porcelain will be slightly overhanging than the soil end. It's not a metre more but it's almost a chair width more. I'm hoping it will be ok. We are going to make the other patio area slightly larger than originally planned so there is additional options here - the gazebo and extra space for table chairs at the side.

There is no border anyway as there will be rendered planter walls and then lawn. Good luck with the landscaping, I'll update on a blog post as we progress. At least my dad didn't come up with any motorway barrier plans for this - if you know you know 😁

Decision made - when the builders get here we are going to ask them to extend it by 1metre width and hope this will be doable. That should give us enough space to comfortably walk around the table. I think that extra metre will make all the difference and look more proportional. In fairness this is what we had marked initially (around 4.3m plus the planter not including the planters)!

That's exactly what the wife was doing yesterday! She keeps reminding me that it isn't just the width of 3.3m but we have the length too, plus an additional patio with a path leading to it as well. That's without anything else - it's just making sure the proportions are right.

The chooks love it, and the builders gave them lots of treats too. The patio outside the sliders is partly north facing so we don't get sun until afternoon. Your size of 3.5*13 is very similar to us. I think I may speak to the builder this morning. My main concern is if it looks proportionate to the house and too small. I think I'd be happer with an extra 1 metre max. The old septic tank area is in the sun all day (it faces the side of our boat so it's a nice area to sit and watch the boats go past). At 14ft*16ft that is quite a bit of space. @crispy_wafer 5m X 10m as an additional patio? That sounds huge!

We tested it and could get around OK but that's what I was thinking too. Hmm, decisions.

Thank you. We are getting there now! We are on the Llangollen canal. If you're on Instagram our_canal_home

Arghh I need to be like that!

The other half is playing around with furniture. Yes as we have the other space which will have the gazebo and space around it I don't want it to look too heavy on the porcelain and a path will connect both areas and with the rendered planters it may be ok. I think I'm just struggling to visualise it.

I'm having a bit of a wobble about our patio and the sizing. Need some opinions please. The length isn't an issue as it spans the length of the sliding doors of the kitchen/dining and bedroom/ensuite/office. It's the width I'm having issue with and I don't know if it's just because the footings are dug and it looks smaller! From the doors to the start of the footings is 3.3m. I think originally we had it down as 4ish metres of patio plus the planter but I think the builder took it as 4ish metres WITH the planters and I can't make up my mind if it's too small. From the kitchen looking out; Side view It isn't our only seating area as we will have a path going to this other bit which will have a gazebo and extra seating which will be around 14ftx16ft (it's our old septic tank now not in use). This area is more of a sun trap and is nice to directly look out onto the canal facing forward rather the patio in front of the sliders looks down the garden to the canal on the side rather than front on. With the price of porcelain we don't want to have more patio for the sake of it but at the same time it needs to be practical and obviously we have the length so wouldn't just have seating just where the sliding door is (the other side is our guest bedroom/ensuite which will also be an Airbnb room).

Thanks everyone. Looks like I need to get the plasterer back and then the decorator again 😕

Nope. Nothing.

I don't know really but we have lived in the house 3 years since it has been plastered so any movement or expansion and contraction should surely have happened already. It just seems odd that since he has sanded, prepped, filled and decorated etc we now have screw pops we didn't have before. The sander on a stick thing surely would cause movement/vibration?? If I'm being unreasonable I won't raise it as we have paid up and he's finished but its just frustrating we have a situation where the ceilings are even worse than before he touched it. Yes the right screws were used and the plasterer was highly recommended too and the decorator even complimented his work (it probably wasn't helped by the fact the house was plastered initially in November so we had dehumidifiers etc drying out and this is why we left it so long to have it properly decorated to give things chance to dry out and settle properly). Just annoying we are going to have to pay someone to come back and do it again!

We lived with our house plastered with just a white mist coat sprayed on (which the decorator did) for 3 years as we wanted everything to settle before having it properly decorated. In this time we have some cracks and we had quite a bit of popping (I'd say about 12 screw pops) on some of the plasterboard ceiling in the kitchen (this is where we have a glazed gable and very high ceilings). About a month ago the decorator did our kitchen properly and did a lot of prep, sorting out the pop marks where there was them. We have started to notice that we have a lot of pop marks - infact more than there ever was before and certainly not ones that were there before he started decorating when we look back at photos. I wonder if in his sanding/prep (he had one of those huge sanders on a stick and had scaffolding) he actually caused more screw pops, had to fill them and with the very hot weather this past week it's caused them to pop again but we now have probably in excess of about 20. The decorator is well established with an excellent reputation and we have generally been thrilled with his work but the ceilings are difficult in the kitchen as they are so high but am I being unreasonable to raise this? Here's a couple of pics of some of the worse ones (it's hard to capture on camera).

That's what it is at the moment so I'm going to turn it down a bit.

Ah ha, I can see numbers 1-5 under the label which says factory set do not break seal. Question is how do the numbers correspond to temperature of the water. Ideally we don't want the Solic to heat the water beyond 50 degrees (anything that would heat the water beyond this we want to export). And do you have to pic a definite number - can't you have between 3-4 for example. It's between 4 and 5 now which heats to up to 56 degrees.

Ok here are the pics... @ProDave @Nickfromwales

Yes, I understand flux I understand is a little more at about 22p export but the cheap rates are only 2-5am where with Cosy the times work better for us with the heat pump (more so in winter). If we can get batteries sorted this will sort out any use in the peak times.

Thank you! Job for tomorrow.

The pic didn't upload but I think it is this @Nickfromwales. @ProDave is this the same as your pic? Think you guys have solved it. I'll tackle it tomorrow.