vivienz

I prefer their buns, myself. Cinnamon and cardamom - mmmm. They even have a national bun day in Sweden - kanelbullar day.

Thanks both, that's really helpful. The house will have 3 gable ends as it's a sort of stunted L-shape, but there will be some shading on the south facing roof from the other roof axis. That's a really useful widget, @ragg987. I put in our details and it seems that pretty much the only direction that will receive any sun in December is the southerly aspect. I suspect a combination of east and south will be most effective for us.

We're getting pretty close to applying for planning permission and so I'm thinking more about our energy supply in the new build. If the submitted design gets through more or less intact, we will have pitched roof areas that face to all 4 points of the compass and the scope for fitting PV to all/any of the roof surfaces. I've come across a few comments that say although all south facing will give the maximum amount of energy, it gives a day time peak whereas having east/west orientation will give a lower but more useable amount of energy throughout the day. As our roof will be shaded only by itself, does it make sense to distribute the panels between east, south and west oriented roof areas? Is there anything likely to make this more difficult than just south facing?

It won't be easy to apply any changes like this to small-scale industrrial use, either. For example, we work from an industrial unit in Dorset and use a fair amount of 3-phase power. A few years ago we looked at having solar panels installed on the roof, thinking that as we are south-facing, it would make a lot of sense. However, because of the angle of our roof and lots of adjacent trees, the panels just wouldn't have been able to capture enough energy to justify the cost. Our unit isn't all that old, but if you wanted to apply and expand the idea just to this one industrial estate, you'd have to demolish and rebuild a large proportion of the units and take down the adjacent trees on surrounding farm land.

When I first heard the headline this morning, it was a 'hooray' but then closely followed by a twitch when I heard about internet enabled washing machines and freezers. No thanks to that. Besides, what about all those rural areas that can't get broadband or only receive a poor bandwidth? I love the idea of all the micro generation, but I'm a super-cynic when it comes to smart home tech. @jamiehamy - I think that the biggest elephant in the room is the problem of poor battery technology that just isn't moving on enough.

Nah, it's cruel to persecute creatures of lower intelligence. It is true, though, that women often have poorer spacial awareness than men. It's also true, though, that men generally have poorer communication skills so when their sweeping over-generalisations are heard, they lack the proper verbal reasoning skills to dig themselves out of the very large hole they have just put themselves into whilst being watched by a woman gleefully waiting to bury him. Having spent quite some time marking out dimensions on a factory floor to demonstrate to hubby why I think the architect's proportions for one of the bedrooms in the new build plans, I can confirm that there are also exceptions to most rules.

It is indeed! There is a fully connected earth as well but also the 'spare' one just hanging around.

Parts all ordered and on their way. Thanks again, all.

The tank model is a Regent 150VMI up to 6 Bar and 230v, it appears to be a French model and the manufacturer appears to be LCIE Electicite. I have tested the ohms and got zero, I then tested the voltage as instructed. and got 230v, so I presume that is indicative of power going in but a dead thermostat. The red dial is the temperature setting. The picture of the immersion is looking at the base of the tank and the 5 bolts seal against a rubber flange and individual rubber washers. I was assuming that with the removal of the nuts this would free the thermostat/ heating element, after draining the tank I hasten to add. Thank you for all the help so far, sorry I haven't been as clear as I would have liked but I hope the information above will help..

We've put the meter across the contacts into the immersion and there's no current, resistance or much of anything so it appears that the problem is with the immersion, not the consumer unit. There is nothing to unplug at the top of the tank, just a slight raised circular area at the centre, which I assume is something to do with pressure, but that's it. We need to get a different size socket in the morning as ours aren't quite large enough, and then we'll drain it down and see if we can remove the offending part. There is a label near the connection points that says in various languages that the reset button can only be used by the installer; I guess that's because its inside the unit. Thanks again for the help, everyone.

Thanks, Dave. Off to Monsieur Bricolage now.

I've attached a photo of the electrics point into the immersion and the consumer unit. The immersion doesn't appear to have a test/re-set button, just a temperature and the connections going into it. The consumer unit does have a test button, but I'm not sure that it will make any difference if we can't re-set the immersion.

Thanks, chaps. Have located the electrical connections and it does have a re-set button. Will give that a go first thing in the morning before getting a multi-meter. The cold shower wasn't so bad - cooled the sunburn nicely!

Possibly - i will check with a neighbour in the morning, although they're not great for DIY around here. Off to find out the French for a multi meter!

This is a bit of a cheeky post, but I'm hoping that someone can give me some pointers. I've just arrived at our little home in Brittany, France, for a week's holiday only to find the immersion heater not working. Other than the kettle, this is our only method of heating water and I really, really hate cold showers so I wondered if anyone can give me an idea of what has happened before I have to ring an outrageously expensive plumber/electrician on Monday morning. We have relatively modern electrics, the place was renovated about 12 years ago. It has a consumer unit with all the standard trips for the circuits in the house, one of which is dedicated to the immersion. All other circuits are working normally, but the immersion is drawing no power when switched on. It doesn't cause anything else to trip when it gets switched on. We were last here in May and everything was working then. When we left, we switched off the water and the electrics for the immersion and the downstairs circuit with the fridge. As evidenced by the dust and cobwebs, no one has been in the place between now and then. When we arrived today, I put the water back on, followed by the electricity for fridge and immersion. The consumer unit is a French one, IP40 from LeGrand, if it makes any difference. I've switched off the mains a couple of times, tried emptying and re-filling the hot water tank before again trying the immersion. Nada. Or should that be 'rien'. Can anyone give me an idea of what may be wrong? I don't propose fixing it, but just want to know the correct point to interject with 'your having a laugh' in my very best French at the appropriate point during a conversation with a plumber.

Lovely. Out of interest, what is the internal area of the house? Also, what is the depth of the balcony?

Ah, the shangri-la world of health and safety. Where were they when I had to shift 750kg of stainless steel wire off a pallet in the pouring rain at work last week? I think the lightest reel of wire was 13kg, and I had to crawl around to stash them under the work benches - that blew any of the 'twisting' restrictions out of the water.

Thanks Ferdinand, very helpful. I will give the people who wrote the report a call and see where we stand. None of this is an attempt to dodge needing to cater for the bats, but having an eye to timings of everything and to make sure that we're in a position to proceed as and when we get planning permission. Of course, it may take a long time in the end, but there's no harm in getting things in place with the hope that it all goes smoothly.

I guess that the one upside of this is that if I get the roof removed in order to relocate any bats, then the property is uninhabitable and I won't have to pay council tax any longer. That alone will save £150 per month. Off to read the ecology report.

I understand that I need to get the bats removed and all that it involves - I don't think I expressed myself well as I include their removal as part of the demolition. Again, this is why I am wondering about commencing under the existing PP rather than waiting for the new application as all this will take time. My concern is that if things really drag on, we may face having to wait until next spring before we can do anything. So, the original question stands - can I commence with demolition, removal of bats, etc, under the existing PP? I should add that the original PP process had an ecological survey which confirmed (?) that there may (?) be bats using the roof space.

I can't remember where I saw it on the forum, but I thought someone said something about having to give 6 weeks' notice before demolition commences, but this could have been to do with something else. Also, there is an old concrete garage block and a septic tank that need to go, as well as possibly having bats removed from the roof space.

We bought our plot in north Dorset with planning permission already in place to demolish the existing bungalow and build a new house. The PP was granted in June 2016. We will re-apply for PP as we want a different house to the one that was granted permission, but will still need to demolish as a first step. We have engaged an architect but things are taking longer than I anticipated to get the house plans together; this isn't a criticism of the architect as I've never worked with one before and don't know how long these things should take. Given that once we are at the stage to submit for PP we will need to wait for at least 8 weeks and this seems to be a way off yet, is it worth getting ahead and proceeding with the demolition in the meantime, under the current PP? I read somewhere that a notice of 6 weeks has to be given before demolition can start - I'm not sure of what this and any enlightenment would be appreciated. Any thoughts, anyone?

I heard the last few minutes of this in the car and have just listened to the whole programme, well worth the 30 minutes that it took. Most of it was nothing new given that the subject matter is discussed all the time on this forum. What did take me aback was the figure about how much energy could be saved across the country as a whole and that this equated to the power generated by Hinkley power station. I supposed I shouldn't be astonished, but I was. It's really good to hear content like this on a Radio 4 programme, but I don't know how much influence it will have given that the most likely listeners will be those who are already interested and/or converted to the cause of energy efficiency.

Congratulations! I thought you could only get cheese and onion flavour in Tayto crisps. Delicious.

Very exciting! How do you plan to keep the skylight clean?