FarmerN

We have a lot of farm sheds with Fiber cement and cement asbestos rooves. Most of those built after 1994 have been tested asbestos free, though odd sheds still had it in. No idea what era the garage pictured would be, but roof sheets look in very good condition for a shallow pitch. I think the ban on asbestos use came in, in 1999, but the change away to other fibers started in the 1980's. Not suggesting working on it without testing first.

As said above , get a sample tested, fair chance it's fiber cement not asbestos.

Still floundering a little but had to make a decision, on track lighting. Ordered 6 meters of 3 phase Eutrac tracking from SLV, for each side of the beam , I am told SLV/Eutrac is reasonably universal in accepting other makes of fittings. Aim is to have the 3 phases ( 3 separate circuits ) switched independently with dimmer switches, giving me plenty of options on zoned lighting , it’s a big multi purpose room. I have been told that there is far more choice of light fittings for 3 phase compared to single, I just hope the track is not too bulky and obtrusive. Not ordered the light fittings yet but hope to have a couple of more powerful wide angle spots as well a number of smaller spots. No Pendants of track at this stage. My main worry is that there will be too much glare as they are spot lights at about 3 meters high, and that I am just making the lighting far more complex than needed.

Widow company fitted factory painted wood windows , tape internally with Contega SL after installation. Reveals then hard wall, wet plastered. Combination of wavy taping, and not quite thick enough plaster has left a lot of tape showing through. It’s a mess. How do we get excess tape off.?? The taping is definitely over generous , coming too far on to the window frame. The plaster is definitely a bit thin in places, not covering enough tape. Solutions proposed so far. Remove tape , Seems almost impossible without damaging paint More plaster in reveals. Would leave very thin exposed frame. Beading over tape. May be easiest, but not quite the look we hoped for. Sand down, to remove tape residue and repaint that part of frame. Am I the first to hit this problem. The tape appears to do what it’s designed for. Stay on. Lesson take care taping and plastering. Make sure the tape is covered!

Hi All Posted very little on here but found forum a great help over the last couple of years, Thanks. Coming to the final stage of a new build bungalow and need advice on track lights. We have a large kitchen /dinner /family room, 7M x 6M with a vaulted ceiling and Oak Beam/ Truss across the middle . I plan to put track lighting on both sides of the beam but am totally confused by what to use and what lights I can fit to track. Power supply to one end of beam only. Are many tracks now genuinely universal taking other makes of lights, or should I stick to one make? How do I know which lights fit which track? What I think I want is Black can spots, some with wide angle bulbs, warmlight (3000K? ) plenty of general light when at full power 3 meters from beam, rather than narrow glaring beams spots. All Dimmable, maybe 6 meter track with 6 lights, lights each side of beam. Lights direct mounted on track , not pendants off track. Any suggestions welcome. I am Old! No prior experience of modern lighting, and running out of time. I’m not particularly techie either. I’m making little progress with Google searches, so floundering. Earlier Threads suggest Eutac for Track but can’t work out what make of lights will fit on this.

I've just had connection in a temrorary box moved into the house by SPNetworks. They cut the temporary supply cable put an underground joint in and ran it to house, so the box is now completly redundant. I am no electrician and my school boy electrics is now clearly redundant. The cable used is single core + the armoured sleve, so two stands only !! I have no idea how that works. We have a large all electric range cooker, 3 to12 Kw GSHP, ( seems to use under 1 Kw when running) MVHR and a car charger is a condition of my planning. I wait to see what happens when we finally live there. The bit that will make it really interesting is SPNetworks keep telling me I have a 25 KV transformer, even though the plate on it says 15 KV. ! It also supplies one other house

Trying to do exactly that at the moment, I want to run DHW at 43-45 C but told its almost impossible to buy a thermostatic shower mixer valve that will give me a hot shower at that temperature. I want to stick to a thermostatic valve, not manual, to deal with the 55-60C temperature of the weekly sterilzation cylcle.

@PhilT In another thread you posted this. Please can you tell me what shower tap you use, is it thermostatic? I'm having very little luck asking manufacturer which valve to use for a low temperature hot supply to shower. The replies I have had so far seem to want a big differential between hot supply and shower delivery temperature.

How did you go about finding the leaks during these diagnostic air tests, and how long to allow? We have a 215qsM bungalow under constucion, with large kitchen living space with vaulted ceilings.

Thanks for replies. My feeling is to do something at junction, either foam or paint or both. I'm bothered if I follow nods advice and leave it until airtight test, after fitting skirting, it will be much harder to rectify any air leaks that I may find. I really don’t know how much the wall floor junction normally leaks air, especially with beam and block. I keep wondering how much time it would take to make a rig with fan to depressurise the house, so I can go leak hunting with a smoke pen or whatever. I am guessing the professionals want to come, do test and go, without really looking for source of leaks.

Screed has gone down today over UFH , next is wet plaster on block walls, how do I deal with airtightness of plaster to screed junction. We have a 25mm perimeter upstand and an expansion strip between screed and block wall, so plenty of opportunity for air leaks down to the beam and block floor. How should we deal with the wall floor junction? Neither the builder nor plasterer are keen to plaster right to the screed, they both want the traditional gap behind the skirting board. Builder of course says “ stop worrying , the DPM is well taped to the DMC , of course it will be airtight”. I on the other hand have a major concern. We are having MVHR. How should we deal with the wall floor junction? Plaster to screed? Airtight paint? Blue foam in gap ? ???? Thanks

Good to hear. Could you tell me make and model of shower mixer Please ?

Thanks for replies. Sounds like a real issue, I'll email a couple of manufacturers and see what response I get. I came to another shower mixer valve ,on line, with a minimum hot supply of 60 deg C! With an ever increasing proportion of water heated by heat pump , sounds like the shower mixer valve manufacturers need to up their game. Am I nuts even thinking I only want to heat the hot water cylinder to low 40s Deg C ? Like a lot of things in my new build , GSHP, UFH, MVHR, PV, Batteries, triple glazing, I have no experience at all and will only find out what we should have done when we have been living there a while. Live in a huge old farmhouse now, damp but extremely well ventilated ,no central heating just log fires so a bit of a change coming for retirement.

I hope,my DHW is to be heated by GSHP as far as possible, so I think I want to run at as low a hot water temperature as possible in the cylinder. The plumber suggested today that a lot of shower mixer valves would not work at a low hot water supply temperature, he said some will not turn the cold off completely within the mixer. Is this true, do I need to chose a mixer carefully ? It will be surface mounted mixer due to wall thickness. A lot of the time there will only be two of us using water off a 300 litre tank , so thought I would be running it at a temperature in the low 40s. Pushing it up if we had a house full. I did look online at mixer valves and one cheap one specified a minimum hot supply temperature of 55C . I was horrified ! There will be a sterilisation cycle.

Furness bricks will send you a list of sites in your area of recently built houses , useing their bricks. Good to see how they look when built. Mortar and pointing also has a bit impact on appearance. We had a slightly coloured mortar, looks great but a real pain to match when you want a small quantity for odd bits at the end.