andyscotland

Seems like their systems need to apply a bit of "does that seem plausible" validation to incoming readings!

@gaz_moose Electric Unit rate 27.84p per kWh Standing charge 49.38p per day Gas Unit rate 7.33p per kWh Standing charge 27.22p per day This is for Edinburgh

That is surprising. Not 100% certain but as far as I know: * BS1363 only applies to 13A square pin plugs and as you say the current version requires them to be sleeved. * BS546 is the (older) standard for round pin plugs. There was a later update to allow for sleeved plugs & shuttered sockets but for whatever reason this was optional - unlike the equivalent update to BS1363 which was mandatory. * BS7671 allows for use of BS546 sockets on lighting circuits, it specifies in a domestic setting the sockets must be shuttered. However of course this standard only covers the fixed installation, so plugs on lamps etc are out of scope. * The "Plugs and Sockets regulations" only applies to domestic use, and it allows either BS1363 or BS546 plugs so long as they comply with the relevant BS. Interestingly the second part of that legislation only allows manufacturers to supply (domestic) appliances fitted with 1363 plugs, which is why if you want a lamp with a round pin you have to fit it yourself. My hunch is therefore they can sell them because they comply with BS546, and there are some circumstances where a BS546 plug can legally be used. They are presumably some fraction of a penny cheaper to make. There are of course general provisions in various electrical safety legislation that require taking reasonable precautions and IMO if someone was injured it'd be hard to argue good reasons for fitting a new plug with unsleeved pins. It has been good practice to use sleeved BS546 plugs for new equipment even in industrial settings for a long time. Round pins (mostly 15A) are very common in theatre and in the early 00s we'd use sleeved for most new kit & repairs but still sign off unsleeved when inspecting existing kit. IMHO in a domestic setting unsleeved plugs are unsafe, regardless of the legalities. I would return them and get sleeved versions. 6 amps is more than enough to kill a person. In fact you could probably kill a human chain of several people. Risk of death for an adult begins around 50mA. Of course in a modern install you will be protected by the 30mA RCD in the consumer unit - the fuse (circuit breaker) is there to protect the wiring from overheating and fire. But I would not rely on the RCD alone, particularly as @Adsibobsays the pins are more likely to be touched by a child, if at all.

Just to say @ProDave kindly gave me a code for Octopus today. The website does look like they're not taking/are discouraging new customers. However if you click the "I know I want to save money, I want to switch anyway" you get through to the option to phone up. I phoned this afternoon, got through pretty quick and spoke to an extremely helpful & friendly agent. Call took about 15 mins all in including holding & a bit of chat. He was able to set me up over the phone - prices on the variable tariff basically the same as Shell (standing charge about 0.2p cheaper) as I'd expected. He also added the referral code to my account, worth £50 each for me and @ProDave so worth having! Less than an hour after dialling the number I've had the email to provide Octopus with closing meter readings so although the official switch isn't till next week I've used my last Shell-supplied units which feels brilliant 🤣

In principle, yes it would be possible. The actual cost/practicality will depend on quite a few variables e.g. to do with cable sizing, earthing arrangements and where/how the supply is taken off the distribution at the house. There are also some regulations/considerations specific to caravans which differ from those for buildings and there's a few different options for tackling that. It may be possible to reuse elements of the existing supply to the barn, depending on what that was originally designed & installed for. Really the only way to get an accurate opinion would be to get a suitably experienced electrician on site to take a look.

Well indeed. But given this is quite a future-looking project, & a major investment, I'd have thought it was a good opportunity to start positioning themselves as a major solar energy exporter as well. Sooner or later the oil will run out and/or be less valuable.

I'm also confused why it is entirely mirrors rather than PV. I guess mirrors looks more fancy in the renderings, but surely it would be worth having at least some of the wall surface generating power?

That is indeed poor data then!

Odd that they show it reducing your monthly payment (implying your direct debit will go down when prices go up). It would surely make more sense for them to show your DD staying as-is and then take the £400 on top, would give a much more realistic picture and make the debt balance look a bit less scary.

From a quick skim my immediate question is how are you defining the "halfway point of the scope of works" for the second payment? And have you already discussed these stages/instalments with the fitter / have they given any indication of their normal practice?

Indeed, I have experienced all of those. Hence my usual temptation is to take the most pedantic read of the regs I can and crack on. Although if they reply in writing saying something is ok then I think it would be challenging for an inspector to reject that at completion unless the advice was very obviously wrong/dangerous. Which is probably why when I have asked they have often been non-committal/said it's up to me to comply and they'll only give a view if I apply for an amendment to warrant... 😒 I'd probably go that way tbf.

@Hastings it does occur that in the activity space drawings @TonyT mentioned, the loo is shown in a corner of the room (wall behind & on one side) & the shower is in the middle of a room with only one wall at the back of it. So arguably if they could be sited with no wall at all, they could have a wall that's not robust... May be worth asking BC for a view...

They show both : plan drawings of the available activity space and then the elevations @Hastings posted in the OP showing the area that should be "robust" with a section showing either ply over studs or ply between on battens. https://www.gov.scot/publications/building-standards-2017-domestic/3-environment/312-sanitary-facilities/

First read I'd thought you were asking if it was needed on both sides of the wall e.g. the side facing bathroom and the side facing corridor/outside/whatever. I see now you meant one or both sides of the shower/WC. I'm not an expert but strict read of the wording & drawings fairly clearly suggests both walls e.g. "walls adjacent to any sanitary facility" not "one wall adjacent to each sanitary facility". I know that it's quite common to need rails both/a specific side of a WC or shower depending on nature of a person's disabilities. So I would assume all round. Assume this is timber frame and/or plasterboard on battens? Obviously if direct masonry that's fine as-is. If the plasterboard is hollow behind then my read (and again, not an expert) is you would need these to be robust. You probably have 3 options: * Ask building control for an opinion (and be willing to do whatever they say). * Take a loose read that the wording means one robust side, do the walls that are easy, leave the others, hope that's correct and/or not noticed. * Strip and do it now. Depends I guess on how much more work it'd be to strip it later (will you have to damage tiles etc) if building control pull you up on it...

As I understand the issue is there is no "correct position" in Scotland, the regs are concerned with future proofing to allow installation of "grab rails and other aids" anywhere within the marked zones at any time in the future. Hence why they show zones not specific provisions of numbers/locations of rails etc. My mother in law was, however, recently asked for photos showing the wall met the robust construction requirements. So it does depend on the inspector/local authority. @Hastings reading your post again it sounds like the issue is the bathroom side is already plasterboarded but the other side may still be open? If so you could possibly retrofit ply between studs using the bottom option here (from fig 3.33 in the technical handbook). Mount the ply to battens then slide into the gap & screw/nail to the studs. May be less work than stripping and reboarding? Also, may be a daft question but a strict read of 3.12.3 would be that the robust wall is only required if the bathroom is officially required to be "accessible sanitary accommodation". If you have other accessible bath/shower rooms you may have a bit of wiggle room here?

I'm pretty sure it's only required on the bathroom side - my warrant drawings were accepted on that basis anyway. Makes sense as the purpose is to provide secure fixing for fittings and ply on the opposite side of the wall would make no difference to that.

Wow!

Yes, broadly, although it is probably less prevalent than on Android etc due to the Apple app store review process. However it's not infallible. Third-party apps is one major route of compromise but another big one is older devices that have not been patched with more recent security updates. Apple's very hard cutoff for supported device/software versions can be an issue there as there will be people (e.g. older relatives) with old devices that appear to be working fine, say "this is up to date" when you check for updates, but in fact have not been patched for years. It's quite common that exploits rely on vulnerabilities that have been widely deployed but only semi-recently discovered. To be honest though in a normal home network I would probably worry more about security of "internet of things" devices (some of which are woefully bad out of the box) more than a visitor's phone of any brand.

It's not just about trusting the person, also trusting the device. If they bring a device that - unknown to them - has malware, having that on a separate network gives you a lot more protection. Although of course it falls apart a little if you need to give them access to smart home stuff that's on the main network as although that can be solved the easiest and therefore most likely thing is you just give them the main network password.

The Scottish equivalent of Stamp Duty & second home tax is the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax and the Additional Dwelling Supplement. https://www.gov.scot/policies/taxes/land-and-buildings-transaction-tax/ LBTT applies to all land and property but only to transactions e.g. change of ownership. The Additional Dwelling Supplement applies only if you are buying a "dwelling" - it does not apply if you are buying an empty plot, even if it has planning permission https://revenue.scot/taxes/land-buildings-transaction-tax/lbtt-legislation-guidance/additional-dwelling-supplement-ads-technical/ads-legislation-key-terms#LBTT10015 - NB it might apply if the plot has a building to be demolished/refurbished, and costs more than £40k. If you already own the plot, building a house on it that you will also own is not a "land transaction" so there is no LBTT or ADS. The only tax that will trigger when you build the house is council tax. As others have said there may also be CGT when you eventually sell either your existing or new property, depending which has been your main home. You will be able to offset most of the cost of building the house as well as the original plot purchase, so you're only paying tax on your "profit". It would be worth keeping good records of your build costs so you have evidence for CGT deductions later. Assuming the rules don't change, you will not pay any LBTT if/when you sell either : it is paid by the buyer. Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer or an accountant!

The airtightness might be solvable if you took your airtightness layer round the inside of the outer skin to a post at the corner of the door pocket, then made the outer edge of the door an L shape that could be pulled tight against a compression seal on that post. That would probably have to be assembled in situ to get a good seal. So less pocket door, more sliders with a false wall inside to hide them. Could be a pain for maintenance though, and a lot of detail to get right on the build. I never like using the word "impossible" as there is always a way to solve a problem, and in my experience it can seem lazy & undermine trust. If we can build bridges across the sea, we can put big sliding windows in a house. I prefer to say something like "It'll be very challenging to achieve that, off the top of my head I can think of X,Y and Z but there may be other issues too. I'd be happy to look at how we could make it work if you have the budget for me to spend time on that. But from experience I think it's very unlikely you'll want to pursue this when you see the cost and compromises involved, so my recommendation would be that it's not worth spending money on." It's more words, but it's more honest, and it leaves the client in control of their own value judgements. On occasion they have taken me up on it. And once, to my surprise, they saw the detailed costings and went ahead anyway!

You may have already, but I'd suggest double checking the hire company pricing on the nails : I've often found getting consumables with the hire can work out more expensive than getting them from Screwfix/Toolstation/online/etc. Depends on how many you need of course, especially if the hire co will supply (or sale & return) quantities smaller than a full box as gun nails tend to come in quite big packs.

Hi everyone, I'm self-building a garage conversion and small extension in Edinburgh as the first phase of updating our house. It's not been going entirely to plan - now about 4 years in to a "six month project" 🤣. In my defence I wasn't expecting to be getting a puppy, homeschooling through lockdowns, several months of recovery from a concurrent sciatic nerve injury & badly sprained ankle, and various other things that have come up. So maybe I'm actually doing ok! There have certainly been points I wished I'd never started - probably not as many as there have been for my wife but she's still here for now 😂 - but I think it'll be worth it in the end. The structure, glazing and external cladding is all done now, just finishing battening out the ceiling and approaching first fix. I originally trained in theatre production and through that as a City & Guilds qualified spark, plus a bit of joinery, metalwork etc. Not done that for a living for about 15 years though. The rest I've learned from previous DIY projects and of course the internet! I was on here a bit earlier in the project but drifted away as life took over, so I just thought I'd say hello again

Was looking round my MiL's almost-complete extension yesterday and spotted a cladding plank that has quite pronounced shakes/splits compared to others. I've not seen enough cladding up this close to know if this is reasonable, I know timber is natural and will split a bit but this one looks quite pronounced, it's the only board like it so really sticks out if you actually look at the wall. Obviously just don't want it to develop into a bigger crack. Would I be unreasonable asking the joiner to replace it? There's also quite a lot of nails that are not fully home (head sitting a few mm proud of the surface) - they gun nailed it and I think under-drove them. You can see two examples on the left hand board. Is it fair enough to ask him to tap them in?

Well there sort of is an equivalent to Part P in that you can go on the Approved Certifier register in which case you can bypass Building Control approval. Similar to the scheme for structural engineers, where if you use an approved engineer all you have to show is that they're on the SER register and that's all BC need. But of course it's meant to be an optional thing that gets a discount off the warrant, and you are meant to have the freedom to go the traditional route and just get the work/competence inspected (which is of course what the non-discounted fee pays for). But in practice down here that appears to be a nonstarter. It does continually annoy me that I've got both qualifications and years of fairly varied and complex experience (including temporary installs indoors and outdoors with generators, 300A three phase distribution panels, the works). And yet I have to try and tap up an old friend of a friend to do the paperwork for a socket radial and a pair of lighting circuits. Which wouldn't even need BC involved at all if they weren't going in a new extension. Not to mention the City & Guilds I did focused almost exclusively on domestic for a good chunk of the time, despite that not actually being that relevant to the kind of work I was doing at the time. So I spent a year learning safe zones and bathrooms and how to test a ring main to get the bit of paper I needed to run around a field smelling of diesel. And now I need the stuff the bit of paper actually covers the council aren't even open to a conversation about it. And annoys me even more that I'm allowed to do all the other bits of the build, for which I have not a single qualification on paper, without anyone batting an eyelid! As with @ProDave it's a load of nonsense to me too.