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Everything posted by jack
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Yeah, there are plenty of other cock-ups for me to look at instead! 😁
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Sounds like our painters. One of the young guys stood on a pile of cardboard boxes so he could reach something (we didn't expect them to be in that room on that day or we'd have cleared it out). One of the boxes included the blind box and motor to go on our rooflight. He snapped off the solar panel and cracked the housing. Of course, by the time I realised what had happened a few days later it was too late to do anything about it.
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The "perfectionist" subbed our cladding to his usual team and they were doing a great job. Then there was a break and the three guys who'd been doing it were replaced with two new guys. They weren't terrible, but an indicator of their attitude was the fact that they started a huge cladding job with a completely blunt blade in their saw. When they cut through at 45 degrees for the corners, it left noticeable splinters sticking out all the way along the sharp edge, which looked ridiculous. I can still see the point in the cladding where the team changed.
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I have a home automation system and I haven't bothered using it to do anything other than act as a thermostat for our ASHP. It works fine in our highly insulated house with a single downstairs UFH zone. The only thing I currently wish I could do (without having to hack into the ASHP's external temperature sensor to make it think the weather is colder) is to bump up the UFH supply temperature when energy is cheap. With an Octopus EV tariff, I can get 6 hours of cheap energy overnight. I use two hours of that for DHW heating. It'd be nice to bump up the UFH temperature during the other four hours so I can pump as much energy into the slab as possible. I understand that's possible with more advanced controls, but for my Panasonic Aquarea unit, they were hundreds of quid more than the standard controller.
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Our electrician did a great job. Plumbing was okay - not brilliant. The polished concrete floors are good and the painters were pretty good (at painting, at least - they were bulls in a China shop and repeatedly broke stuff by standing on it rather than asking us to move it). Everyone else was passable at best, and absolute dog5hit at worst. I initially thought that maybe we weren't paying enough, or weren't being clear enough about what we wanted, but eventually I concluded that the people we were engaging weren't actually capable of doing excellent work. Even people who'd been described by friends of ours (who'd used them) as "perfectionists" turned out to be pretty poor. The problem is compounded by an order of magnitude if you ask them to do anything different to what they usually do for clients who don't know or care. This is the major reason it took us so long to complete. We had so many bad experiences with trades that I eventually refused to hire anyone else and just did it myself. I certainly didn't always do a great job myself, but I'm certain it was better than a lot of the people I'd have hired to do it.
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MVHR mouldy and full of water
jack replied to haddock's topic in Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery (MVHR)
Good luck @haddock, fingers crossed it works. -
MVHR mouldy and full of water
jack replied to haddock's topic in Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery (MVHR)
Ah yes, sorry. I said I'd take a look and get back to you but I didn't! The fix was to lay a strip of flexible plastic over the top of the polystyrene "hump" that guides the heat exchanger in - something like this: You slide the heat exchanger back on over this, and the channel under the heat exchanger holds it in place (this pic is from your previous post about the problem): The fix from Brink was similar, although they used very thin aluminium tape that tore badly the first time I took the heat exchanger out to clean it. I used some spare DPM I had lying around and it worked really well. The idea is to have it extend far enough out from the sides that any condensation is directed away from the hump to the drain. Also make it a couple of inches longer than the heat exchanger and bend the ends up so that everything is directed away from the ends. I think doing this avoids water passing over joints in the internal mouldings that wick it away to where it shouldn't. I haven't had any problems since I did this. It's also worth checking your drains are clear and that the unit is level. Also, spray around some dilute bleach after you've cleaned it out. -
Heat recovery performance
jack replied to LinearPancakes's topic in Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery (MVHR)
If you swap the supply and exhaust temps it looks about right: Extract 21.6 Exhaust 16.0 Outdoor 14.7 Supply 20.3 Is it possible the temperature sensor leads have been plugged into the wrong sockets on the control board, or have otherwise been swapped? -
Did you contact one of the mods or admin about this? I didn't see anything about it but I've been away for a few days. Either way, you've been around long enough and contributed enough that there's a bit of leeway with this sort of thing. For other members reading this (note: speaking generally, and nothing at all to do with @FM2015), please remember to do your due diligence when interacting with any BuildHub member on commercial matters.
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VAT reclaim pitfalls?
jack replied to Tony K's topic in Self Build VAT, Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), S106 & Tax
1. I understand I can submit till receipts from Wickes, B&Q etc. How do I distinguish between items on a particular receipt which I am claiming for, and those I am not? - I put a line through items I wasn't claiming for and wrote in the new totals with those items excluded. 2. If I accidentally claim for something I should not, will it foul the whole claim? If so, what happens then? - Probably not. It's impossible to tell with HMRC, but generally they will just disallow things that they don't believe should have been claimed for. 3. I know have three months from BRegs sign off to make my claim, but getting BR sign-off and actually finishing the house are not the same thing (or will not be in my case). If I get BRegs signoff on 1st November, then buy further SB materials on the 2nd Nov, can I still claim the VAT back on those materials on the 3rd Nov? Or am I limited to items purchased before the BRegs sign-off date? - The three months from BR signoff is a guideline at best. For a long time, HMRC ignored their own guidelines and were using any evidence they could find that people had moved in, and started the three month clock from then. The easiest point for them to show is the property's entry onto the valuation register for council tax. I get the feeling that things might have eased off a bit since the peak of their bad behaviour maybe three years ago, but I'd still be wary of relying on the sign-off date as triggering the three months if I were in a position to file within three months of entry onto the valuation register. - I believe you can include materials up until the time you submit the claim (including after sign-off). If anything, late purchases may support an argument that the house was not yet finished. 4. Has anyone had any serious problems with their reclaims? If so, what caused them? - Mine went through fine, no issues. I'm sure others can comment on their experiences. -
Is it possible to lift a right of way?
jack replied to success1980's topic in Party Wall & Property Legal Issues
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If they're in a garage and regularly charging and discharging, it's possible that the temperature inside the case may rarely if ever fall below 12°C. In our garage, the air temperature rarely falls below around 5 or 6 degrees, even during a long period of very cold weather. Also, is your garage attached to the house? If so, there'll be some heating from the house through the common wall. And finally, I'd try and find written confirmation of what you were told. At the moment you just have someone's say-so.
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Wow, nice work. It just shows how ridiculous builders merchant pricing is for people walking in off the street. Even with an account and my missus being pretty good at negotiating, they were still almost never the cheapest way of buying things. We mainly used them when we had no choice (time or availability).
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Commissioning MVHR
jack replied to Ambaz79's topic in Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery (MVHR)
Hi Vas (and welcome to BuildhHub). The link becomes available after you have a certain number of posts (10, I think?) and it isn't possible to access it before then. There's short queue of people for the tester in front of you, so it'll probably be a few weeks from now before it's available. If you work on getting the required number of posts in the meantime, I'll add your name to the queue now so you keep your place. -
I can't help, but I'm interested to hear whether you get an answer. Ours died a couple of years ago after about 4-5 years of pretty infrequent use. I haven't had time to look at it (well, I had a quick look and concluded, as I nearly always do, that it was a bigger job than I had time for at the time, then never got back to it!)
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Commissioning MVHR
jack replied to Ambaz79's topic in Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery (MVHR)
Yes, follow the link @Bonner posted above and I'll add you to the list. It's been stuck with someone for a while but I've sent a reminder this morning. -
Advice on the Right Subsoil for My London Garden
jack replied to ronald_1978's topic in Landscaping, Decking & Patios
Hi @ronald_1978 I'm not sure whether you're aware (and hat-tip to @ProDave who spotted it), but this post can't be replied to by members. I can only reply because I'm a moderator. I think you may have clicked on the circled box when you set it up: I don't think the mods can change this after posting, so if you'd like answers to your questions rather than just poll responses, I'd recommend re-posting your question again as a new poll, without checking that box. Once you've done that we'll delete the first post. Thanks Jack- 1 reply
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Every switch in our (Loxone powered) house is a simple spring loaded switch. Two-way for blinds, one way for lights and other things. Works perfectly well. The main issue for me is that the return spring on the Definity Click switches we have is quite aggressive, to the point where it can be hard to click (and particularly to double-click) quietly.
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We did this. I left something like 40 mm of height between the doorframe and the wall frame, and lined it with a strip of something like this: (The orange line is where the strip is cut - I cut it slightly narrower than the studwork.) We aggressively chamferred the inner top edge of the door frame along the gap to maximise transfer. I've never particularly noticed any sound transfer through these openings. Noise-wise, I can't see any reason why it would be any worse than a 10 mm, unlined gap under the door.
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Please continue the conversation here rather than duplicate the topic in this forum:
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Just to be clear, satellite cable is one type of coax cable, so don't necessarily be put off if you see the word "coax" used in the description. Yes, I think that's right. Good discussions here:
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TV, game console, and sky box wouldn't be an unusual combination.
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I should add that the blinds that are under overhangs (800-1000 mm) aren't rained on and they're much dirtier than those that are.
