jack

In my experience, it's at least as much about rain as sun. There are parts of our cladding that get plenty of sun but have hardly faded at all because they're protected from the rain. You can see a very uneven/splotchy diagonal line inside the deep reveals that marks where the rain gets to. When you take overhangs out of the equation, the north side of the house isn't far off being as faded as the south.

Re: Cochrane and its independence, there's been some issues at the board level lately, resulting in this: https://nordic.cochrane.org/sites/nordic.cochrane.org/files/public/uploads/moral_crisis_in_cochrane.pdf

I may well be overthinking it. My electrician is insanely cautious and meticulous (to the point where I really can't afford to have him come and install all these lights). Some of his attitude has rubbed off on me! Sounds reasonable. It's a metal fitting, so grommet required for sure. I found that a few mins ago, thanks. Unfortunately, it doesn't really help where I have two cables looping and out!

Hello Just about to install some exterior lights. At the moment, we have lengths of twin and earth coming out at each location (in pairs, where the light is part of a ring). They exit some PVC conduit close to the wall, having come from inside the vented cavity behind bricks slips on cement board . How can I best connect this to a floodlight? Slip some conduit over it and then make the connection in an exterior junction box? What about where I want to install a rear-entry light without a visible junction box? Any reason not to just connect straight out of the wall and into the back of the light? How well, if at all, will a cable gland seal to the non-round cross section of T& E? And how do I handle this when there are pairs of cable? Unfortunately, the conduit that comes through the wall has been cut off almost flush, or perhaps I'd have been able to put that through the gland. Thanks as always.

We had a guy come onsite to set ours out. He was an utter bellend. Spent half the visit moaning about how architects use relative rather than absolute references and that it was a huge effort to straighten out, but not to worry, he'd sorted it. After he left, I realised he'd made a complete ballsup of a couple of points. They weren't even in the ballpark of where they should have been. Everything else was perfect, but I don't know what would have happened if this hadn't been picked up.

Or vice versa.

When we did this, we went in with the approach of it being a done deal, and didn't ask for their feedback. We just said that we were about to apply for planning and that we thought they might like to see what was going on before it was submitted. We also explained that we were building to live in it permanently with our family. We then focused on the build process and explained that it would be a kit build, so the main structure would go up fast. We also confirmed that we'd be on site every day and would be very mindful of the impact the build could have in terms of noise and dust etc. I don't know whether it helped, but in the end had no objections, one letter in support, and an offer of a letter in support if we wanted it. In contrast, two other nearby builds (our neighbor and another family a few doors away) faced organised objections from several of those who didn't object to ours.

There's no way that anyone in the house except me can control temperature at the moment. I do get reminded if things start getting a bit chilly. We've had little solar gain here over the last few days, so the house is definitely a bit cooler than it was. If this doesn't change in the near future, I expect my wife will mention this and I'll have to consider turning the heating on for at least a couple of hours a day to take a bit of chill out of the floor.

As a result of my personal experience with the company that took over the Immersun brand, I would not buy an Immersun or the other unit they manufacture. I found their attitude to customers of the company they bought out pretty poor (I know they would argue otherwise, and maybe they're great with their own customers, but this is my opinion based on my interaction with them).

I think you'll find that it's the clients that preceded you that have given them this impression, not you!

Ouch! The guy who ran the crew who did mine wouldn't have had the mental capacity to pull this off. We didn't get a schedule, and I think I'd have baulked at it if we had. In the end, it took us weeks to get them to take it down. We quickly realised that the reason they were happy for us to keep it for nothing when I asked for a price reduction is that they just used our site as storage. No point disassembling it and dragging it back to their yard if they can just drop by and pick up as needed for the next job. I think they took over a month to take it all after we asked.

He should be hurling these. Unless this is his way of planting spuds, of course.

I can't remember where I read it, but I believe the limitation is on panels, not inverter. You can't install more and limit with the inverter. Putting up a bit more than you're allowed isn't likely to cause any problems to you or the grid. On sunny days, your voltage may be slightly higher, but not enough to cause any issues for your stuff. I don't know how likely it is that the network provider would even find out. However, I'd be looking closely at the fines for getting it wrong before going any further. You'll also find that installers will be all over this and are unlikely to install something that isn't allowable.

Keep a look out around your area for scaffolding companies doing commercial work. While certainly no guarantee, there's probably a better chance that companies working for larger jobs will have the required paperwork in order. Another potential idea: have a look through the insurance section of the scaffolders' forum (and maybe other subforums) and see if there's anyone local to you who seems to be making the sorts of comments you'd want to hear.

That's the sort of thing I've been looking at. Obviously not ideal for long or bulky items, but okay for most day-to-day stuff.

This is similar to the willingness of many in the trades to modify scaffolding when its current layout doesn't suit them for some reason. Despite asking people not to touch it, we had boards moved/removed, heights adjusted, horizontal poles moved further from walls, etc.

The difficulty with buying (especially "regular" scaffolding that's just poles and clamps) is how to get it assembled, if you aren't experienced, and how to make sure it's covered by insurance. I can't see an easy way around that risk, as no scaffolding firm is going to want to install someone else's scaffolding cheaply, and there's no way on earth I'd install it myself. I suppose if you're the only one using it, you might feel okay with the risk, but I'd be terrified of having trades clambering around on it if I'd done it myself.

Perhaps he/she is VAT registered, and whoever was telling the story confused ordinary business VAT reclaim with the self-build reclaim? Other than that, it's as @PeterW says. If you look at the form for the reclaim, it needs to be filed by the self-builder. I can't see how the project manager could get around that, unless, as Peter says, there's some sort of agreement that the PM's final fee includes the refund being paid to him/her. Seems an odd way to do it though.

Welcome back, glad you found us again!

I've looked into these too. They aren't perfect, but they're okay for small parcel deliveries.

Genuine question: why do ASHP manufacturers require the use of glycol if Sentinel-type inhibitor is good enough? Are you sure that a couple of bottles of inhibitor is sufficient to prevent against freezing to a low enough temperature? I should say that we had a circulation pump failure on our ASHP after just over two years. It failed after having been off for several weeks, and possibly up to three months, over summer last year (our PV diverter basically kept the tank hot for most of summer). At the time, we weren't running glycol, because we were trying to get around to finalising the installation. I had it from a couple of sources that this shouldn't have made any difference, but it cost me hundreds to replace the pump and board (it's strongly recommended that they be replaced together). The only thing I did that was out of the ordinary was not to use glycol, so I'm reticent to recommend running without.

Thread locked as original question was posted by a spammer. We'll leave it here, as there are some useful replies.

Ignore the thread @recoveringacademic, it was started by a spammer - see my post above yours.

There are some useful replies, so we'll leave it up, but this thread was started to allow posting of a spam response (which was deleted before it was posted due to an eagle-eyed mod).

Welcome to BuildHub. I'm not sure what you mean by "overwhelming". Do you mean too bright? We have a 5.5m long, 2.2m high sliding door on the south side of our kitchen, several large windows to the east, and a small window to the north, but it's rare I feel we have too much light coming in (shade from a tree to the south east, and external blinds on the eastern windows help). Can you be more specific about what you're doing and what you hope to achieve? Photos or plans are often helpful.