jack

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!

But what the client did was clearly intensely stupid, and they (not you) ended up paying for their actions. Yes, some inconvenience to you, but they could just as easily have manipulated a PDF produced by the earlier architect to remove a note about a survey not being complete.

I've made it something of a mission to defend architects on this site, but in this case, I agree with you. Unless there's some legislation or caselaw supporting his position, the PI excuse is lame, imo. I appreciate why an architect would contract to retain ownership and control. It gives you a lever if you haven't been paid, for example. But if the client doesn't want to use the architect beyond a certain stage, and they're paid up, I can't see any reasonable basis for not releasing the CAD files. I also don't follow your conclusion about an architect being legally responsible for downstream modification and manipulation by others. How is that possible? If you email the files, you have a cast iron record of the form in which they were sent. Any modifications after that are clearly outside your control and responsibility, and therefore surely can't be your or your PI's responsibility? With suitable disclaimers (not that I think they're even necessary), what's the problem?

We mentioned to our architect that we were tired of being asked by everyone who saw his (very modern) plans whether we were going on Grand Designs. He said that if we did that, he'd be out the door immediately!

The alleged discounts were a large part of my wife's interest, but I wasn't convinced there'd be that many.

My wife worked at a small film and television production company when we met. I've seen a few bits and pieces of the process - definitely not glamorous!