puntloos

This is where my confusion came in. I *think* both: A/ the connection (so digging cables into the ground, wiring it to my consumer unit) as well as B/ the actual kwh to run the 5000 space heaters my builders used to make the paint dry faster..

So during a new build, am I correct that the power company should charge zero VAT on the provided power for a construction project? I've looked at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-on-fuel-and-power-notice-70119#electricity and https://www.gov.uk/guidance/buildings-and-construction-vat-notice-708 says "first time gas and electricity connections ― rate of VAT 0% (read Fuel and power (VAT Notice 701/19))" but it is a bit vague. THoughts?

Thanks gents, I assumed as much but wasn't 100% sure. And indeed if the pressure is gone, can I expect to have that 200L of my pressure buffer to be available while the outage is happening? Of course the pressure will slowly drop available water to a trickle, but could I get a good amount of that pressure vessel water (50%? 90%?) for practical use?

This is my basic setup - my question is: If Mains water pressure falls away - which components (if any) would prevent water flowing from accumulator back into the mains grid? Will the pump prevent this, or is every standard house stop cock built to prevent this flowback? Putting the question slightly differently - if mains pressure drops to zero, how much water can I get from my accumulator before my house water also stops? (the acc is 200L in my case) Maybe the answers are obvious (200L!) but I find often there are sneaky things that change the answer dramatically

One thing I was thinking of is asking to install a one-way valve on these outputs? Would that solve some/most of this issue?

Well my current setup has made it visible, and it .. visibly overflowed.. once already. (due to pipe not dropping steep enough, fixed that now) Are there official "separators" in plumbing? Types of one-way valves that will make sure that water can 'never' go up the wrong way? This is a super newbie question but I imagine that just demanding to put 2 of those in the two lines of the softener will address most concerns?

Ah that sounds like a fun story.. but ok, won't ask. OK so the picture I showed is "too common", but having two pipes that at some point down the line join is better somehow? Sorry I'm not a plumber so I don't exactly know when there is 'sufficient separation'? Does that mean, for example, that the lines have to run at least - some distance (2m? 3?) by themselves, or the lines have to have a drop of something? (5cm? 10?) by themselves?

The softener I picked (somewhat arbitrarily I admit) is the Monarch Midi HE - https://www.bathquest.co.uk/Monarch-Midi-HE (manual) In the manual it says: "Under no circumstances should the softener drain and overflow share the same pipe. This could lead to foul smells entering the salt cabinet from the main drain via the overflow. Also if the common drain ever gets blocked, the regen water can re-enter the softener via the overflow pipe." And, in my house this is how the plumber has done it: So.. yeah. My questions: 1/ How can 'smells' can really come in, let alone affect the water? And importantly, can we not install eg a one-way valve on this drain to avoid such smells? 2/ It doesn't sound _great_ that regen water comes into the softened water, but presumably that's just brine water, so while uh, drinking super salt water in that eventuality is not ideal it sounds like a one off... 3/ The drain they installed, ok it is one pipe, but even if you would make two pipes, surely at some point those have to come together into the same drain? Or are they expecting me to route the two pipes to different drains somehow? Doesn't sound realistic.. Basically, I don't want to be too difficult to my plumber, but just want to figure out how to handle this.

So - I have a rainwater harvesting tank, and to my knowledge all my rainwater drain pipes, both roof and french drain, are led into this storage tank. Great in theory, but one crucial problem is that any chemicals I might use to clean my patio will end up sprayed onto my plants Not ideal. How are you all solving this, and/or theoretical solutions welcome: - Are there cleaning products that don't harm plants? - Are there ways to shut off, or bypass the rainwater tank (into soakaway direct?) until we're done cleaning? - Should I just empty my rainwater tank into the sewer after my bi-yearly patio clean? - Can I somehow pump my 'chemical contaminated' tank contents into my soakaway? What would you do?

So my house is in the final stages of snagging, but I have this (s)nagging feeling that there could be hidden defects that will be much harder for me to detect or dispute if I don't find them 'today'. Of course(?) I do have the full new-build building warranty of 10years I believe so maybe this is not as urgent, but in March 2025 the year is up and the final piece of money is due designated for 'snagging deductions'. My concerns are, eh just a few examples: - ASHP COP turns out to be unreasonable during winter - Underfloor heating not working properly - Water flow rate upstairs not reasonable - UFH clogged, only heats part of the floor.. etc. To be clear I don't have an actual reason to doubt about these, just saying there could be hidden-ish things I might not notice. Does it make sense to hire some team to do a full 3rd party check on the house or shall I just leave this be?

Instructions unclear, am now tarred, and birds are eyeing me funny. Should I crawl inside?

Council builders just came by and finished my driveway (kerb lowering but they redid most of it). But no note left - what guidance do we have for how long this needs to dry/set? 3 days? 5? week? Depends on how rainy? With a previous (poor) job, I had some paving that when you put your foot on it and twisted, you could easily twist loose stuff 1.5-2 weeks later, but maybe that's normal? Suggestions? When can I drive my car over this? (not to mention: people in spikey high heels?)

Small followup, while my measurements turned out to be.. uh.. not great (with all the tricks in this discussion I arrived at about 0.5%) - but I bought myself a calibrated level, pretty cheap too from vevor. Reality: - 0.2% (the level is more accurate in degrees mode, this particular tile is 0.10 degree which is about 0.18 % I think it's safe to say this patio is flat. But if I get my builder to re-do the patio (they will be very excited about this).. should I still push for angled towards my french drain, or angled away from the house? I think french drain is probably still the better idea, it catches the water (for my underground rainwater tank) not to mention that the grass is on clay, and not great at absorbing water. Or?

Just a discussion I had with my wife earlier, but I'd love the BH opinion and stories - how many "major" preventable mistakes happened with your build. Back story: Not talking about tiny snags, small mistakes that can be fixed with a strategically placed nail or a lick of paint, and also not talking about things failing because sometimes stuff comes from the factory semi-broken. The 3 that I have: - Water leaks from fan coil units not connected properly (condensation drain installed without a dry trap, if I recall correctly) - Patio mostly flat, doesn't drain - One room is consistently too hot (thankfully only 1 room) The common part here is that they seem preventable, and an experienced builder would (probably?) have known that this was coming, but well, humans are human, things get rushed, things don't get double-checked, sometimes communication problems (person A expecting X, and person B doing Y..) cost-cutting or rushing might play a role but I never got the impression this played a major role with my builder thankfully... My house is built to a high standard overall but just wondering what is a normal/common amount of issues that could have been avoided if the builder/architect 'paid more attention'?

Even when ACO drains are present? I somewhat see the point but I have a full rainwater harvesting system (big tank underground etc) so presumably catching all the water I can seems reasonable.

I think you're missing the point that indeed the current paving is effectively flat but was certainly intended to be sloped. Instead, IMO, the paving should have sloped towards the ACO. Or would you disagree?

Well, this would be true if we weren't trying to catch the water in the aco drain?

Borehole soakaway

Yes, this is indeed a concern for me, I'm pretty sure the aco drain (I keep saying french drain, not sure of the difference) goes to the rainwater harvester. Should certainly be careful with 'cleaning liquids'.

Interestingly though, I don't think I've ever seen my french drain be wet at all, even during downpours. This suggests that the direction of the patio fall wouldn't influence this either way Well, I somewhat have the choice, currently the patio is basically flat (to my best guess maybe 1:200 angle away from the house..) so assuming we do something at all, I might get a choice.. but for now an additional issue for me is that the turf and underlying clay right next to the patio really don't want to absorb any water, not to mention I want water to be sent to my harvester tank..

Just reviving this thread one more time to make sure my brain is set out straight. Would you agree that: - If the house has no drains, it's reasonable to angle patio away from the house, to prevent standing water to seep into the foundation - If the house has a full french drain around its perimeter (that goes to rainwater harvester), it's reasonable to angle the patio toward the drain to catch the water? tx

Many sources on the internet (...) eg https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6467233/patio-slope-towards-house seems to claim 1:80 away from the house seems reasonable, but it might be somewhat old knowledge, in particular if people don't have french drains. 1/ You don't want water pooling against the house, so angling away makes sense, but we specifically have french drains to catch water, I can imagine angling toward the house would be logical in my case? 2/ As far as we can tell the patio is essentially flat. Some angled a little one way, some angled a little the other. (strange). 3/ Our grass is a little high 'above' the patio, perhaps the soil of the turf is 0.5-1cm above the level of the patio. It sounds somewhat 'sensible' that this might push water back but on the other hand wouldn't it literally act like a sponge and possibly even suck water in? End of the day, still trying to figure out what's reasonable, my best guess is that "flat" is unacceptable, and the choice of angle towards, or away from the patio both has some pros and cons, but given I have a french drain that's directed to my underground water tank, it would be reasonable to expect it to go into the french drain. Given that (and given the concrete, then clay foundation) it seems like drilling a few holes wouldn't make a big difference. Would re-laying the patio be the only solution?

Basically, yes. I would say easyPV was a waste of my time, because you can't get things accurate enough to be both sure you put a "sensible maximum" of panels on your roof as well as not overdimension and suddenly have over-paneled or miscalculated. I did some table/spreadsheet a while ago with the panel sizes and worked out the power, one thing I can say is that 95% of panels in a particular "year" have equal power-per-m2 so the size/form factor doesn't really matter, and therefore more expensive panels do not give you more power.

Sadly I think the underlying clay will have a different opinion on that one...

Just a quick update, I had a garden guy over (not really an 'architect') but to his understanding patios should be angled away from the house and 'into the grass'. Of course with my grass being on top of pretty serious clay he wasn't 100% sure. My contractor says they did a "1:80" slope (which is 1.25 percent) away from the patio, but as far as I can tell at best it's flat. So I am certainly still confused. The patio is porcelain tiles though so it wouldn't be a huge problem with eg weeds/fungus taking hold.