jack

You're right to get off the long term use of painkillers, but repeated cortisone injections are also a big no-no. They do nothing to help the underlying problem, and in fact can make the damage worse (from memory, repeated use weakens connective tissue). In my opinion, cortisone should only be used once or twice, and only to relieve pain so that rehabilitation exercises can be done. Shoulder rehab is particularly difficult due to the complexity of the joint and the amount of freedom of movement it has. I'd encourage finding a physio who's an expert in shoulder rehab and planning to spend at least several months exercising daily to get back strength and, as importantly, control of your shoulders. I went from being unable to lift a 10kg dumbbell overheard without pain and impingement to doing the same for reps with a 25kg dumbbell without any discomfort at all. Part of it is improved strength of both primary and stabilising muscles, but a lot of it is about control of the scapulae and upper back. As for surgery, ask your doctor for a referral to a surgeon. I can't see why a serious longstanding issue like this is being managed long term by a generalist. Personally, I'd be looking for another GP.

I've done a lot of reading on low carb, ketogenic and even carnivorous diets over the past few years. There's a lot of evidence - well, anecdotes - about people who have cured or drastically reduced the symptoms of immune-system related conditions like eczema, arthritis and colitis by making drastic changes to their diet. Not science, but for anecdotes, see https://meatheals.com. From memory there's a tag list that lets you filter by condition. A bit extreme, for sure, but the guy who runs it is 50, can deadlift a quarter of a ton, holds the world record for rowing 500m for his age group, and 90+% of his diet for the last 5 years has been beef. I'm increasingly of the opinion that diet science has been hijacked by zealots with an agenda. Dig into the recent Lancet article on meat and cancer, for example, and you'll find that it's literally laughable. They can get away with this because there are serious difficulties in doing proper research on diet. Partly it's the difficulty in doing double blind studies when it comes to food, but there's also inertia, special interest groups (farmers, animal rights activists), ethics (difficulty in testing unconventional diets), compliance (who wants to eat what they're told to eat for months or years?). It's little wonder it takes decades for food science to advance.

The lack of hot water circulation pump is in my "top 5 things I'd change if I were doing it again". We have a 45 second wait for warm water at our main bathroom sink, despite it being almost above the plant room, and the shower less than a metre away taking a mere 5 seconds to get warm. We have over 20 seconds' wait for hot water in the kitchen, and the downstairs toilet is about the same. It depends where the manifold is as to how well this will work. I guess if you have one for, say, the bathroom that's relatively close to the bathroom, that'll help a lot. For long individual runs that can't be run from a local manifold (like my kitchen and downstairs toilet), you probably need circulation on a per pipe basis,

You also need to factor in the cost of changing out the fluid in the brine loops of the GSHP - I seem to recall that that's a couple/few hundred quid every few years.

Agreed. I haven't experienced any issues with our 5kW heat pump getting our 250L tank to 55 deg C, regardless of external temperature, even early in the morning on the depths of winter. it manages this while keeping the house as warm as I can bear it (my wife would have it warmer). What I haven't checked, though, is how long it spends defrosting to achieve this in cold damp weather. We did have the circulating pump go in ours after only 2.5 years. The guy who repaired it suggested only heating to 50, as it takes a lot of time to get the last few degrees, which might have put undue pressure on the pump.

I read The Housebuilders' Bible twice, cover to cover, pretty early on in the process. I found it a great general introduction, and I learned a lot about sequencing and timescales, in particular. That said, I found it light on actual detail, so ended up using it as a high level guide and filled in the detail from other sources. Edited to add: I did find some of the pricing optimistic for my area. There was (and still is) a shortage of trades and builders, so all the good ones are expensive and/or unavailable for months.

Interesting, thanks Jeremy. It's actually easier for me to do as you've done, as I think I have exactly the same manifold as as you, but I was just wondering about whether I was overlooking some major factor about the choice of location. I ordered one earlier today, as I can see us turning the heating on occasionally in the next couple of weeks (I'm fine but my wife is starting to get cold as of this evening!)

Just bumping this one @JSHarris thanks

It's spelled "Grindr" isn't it?

Out of curiosity, what was your thinking in putting the Salus valve on the return side rather than using it in place of the thermostatic valve on the flow side? In my system I can't see that it makes much difference which side the Salus valve is installed, as long as you leave the thermostatic valve open enough to allow the Salus valve to work properly.

That's right, I had to go into service mode to access this setting. The installation manual didn't describe what you had to do to get into service mode, but I found out how online. From memory, the unit also came with a slip of paper in the box telling you how to access cooling mode, but I couldn't find that when I went to do it!

This is very useful info Jeremy, thanks. I'd been scratching my head about how it worked so well with such a large temperature differential when supplying relatively low temperature water from the ASHP (or buffer). In my system, at 25 deg C supply temperature (the lowest my ASHP will output) this valve wouldn't open until the return temp is 18 deg C, which would be way too low. 4 deg C is a lot more sensible. A version of this valve with an adjustable temperature differential would be excellent.

@Ashandiamo, this is true, but do check what "complete" means in this context. You don't, for example, need a completion certificate. You just need your as-built EPC. I don't know whether it's feasible to get your builder focused on getting everything needed for the EPC - for example, I don't know whether you need a kitchen and bathroom for the EPC. Worth checking...

What happened to "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's"?

Welcome to Buildhub - looks amazing!

Sounds like a good outcome, and more importantly, you haven't been jerked around for weeks (months, years...) to get to it.

Welcome to BuildHub! It's a long old road, so take your time, read everything you can, and then start asking questions. A good starting question might be what you're likely to get planning for on that site.

All boards are exciting! Typo maybe?

Core bracing and a neutral spine is what's important. With a bit of training, it's possible to safely deadlift surprising weights with nearly locked out knees.

Done. Couple of very minor things: The survey finished quite abruptly with an ad from Survey Monkey asking me to join. There was nothing to say I'd reached the end, and at first it felt like something had gone wrong. One question per page and an "okay" needed after every question before clicking "next" meant an awful lot of clicking for the amount of information given. For future surveys, I'm sure that with some planning you could cut the number of clicks by two thirds without affecting the substance of the survey. I hope you get lots of responses and that they're helpful.

Exactly the kind of supplier testimonial that's not only allowed but encouraged! Please do report back your experiences, both with the install and (in due course) the film's effectiveness.

A penis?

You have my sympathies. I had a similar, albeit lesser, back injury during the build due to me lifting something well within my capacity at an awkward angle. I'd encourage you to look beyond chiro to physio. The best ones are worth their weight in gold. Ask around people you know - athletes or builders will both know who's got the midas touch in your area. I do various types of compound lifts at the gym I go to - deadlifts, squats, cleans, that sort of thing (incidentally, got an 80kg power-clean PB today ). We're regularly reminded by coaches that injuries are as - if not more - likely to come from lifting light as lifting heavy. A classic one is picking up the empty bar to put it away at the end of a session, and tweaking your back. Partly it's because you're tired from the lifting, and partly because you assume it's a light weight so you don't square up properly. I managed to re-injure my back returning from the above injury on the first swing of a light kettlebell. I don't think I fully braced, as it was only light and I was only doing a partial swing on the first one. Added another 2-3 weeks to my recovery. Anyway, all the best for a speedy recovery. As I'm sure you've been told, the best research says that moving as much as you can tolerate is preferable to complete rest at this stage.

A labourer working on the house next door to us in fairly sandy conditions dug about 15m at (at a guess) 400-500mm depth from first thing in the morning to mid afternoon. Depending on how fit you are, and how difficult the ground, you could in theory get your job done in a day. This was a fit, experienced labourer though (no offence ). The chances of a herniated disc and other injuries increase drastically as you fatigue though. Personally, if it isn't urgent, I'd break it into smaller chunks and do it over at least a couple of days.

Careful of survivor bias!