vivienz

I would guess that it's also dependent on the size of the room it goes into and the proportional dimensions of the dropped section. My celings downstairs are mostly 2.7m but that's to maintain the proportion with the size of the large open plan room. I reckon that if you exercise some restraint on the dimensions, you could do it. Don't forget, either, that things look much smaller as bare plaster compared to when they are painted, particularly if they are white.

Sorry, no. Professional services, BCO, architect etc. aren't zero rated.

It would still be worth going back to the service companies and asking them to refund the VAT. For the sake of a letter or two it would be a worthwhile outcome.

They should have been zero rated. You can't reclaim VAT on labour, only goods (to which eligibility rules apply). Any labour for the new build, including service connections, is at 0%, so you will need to go back to the service provider and reclaim it from them.

My vents are on the north facing part of our roof. The prevailing wind is from the south west but it blows in from the north with reasonable frequency. The position of our vents was largely determined by the location of the unit itself and not wanting the vents through walls.

Panic over! Until the next one, anyway. The bit I'm after is called a support block, should anyone find themselves in a similar predicament.

Our downstairs lav is one of the things that my plumber left unfinished and I've finally got my correct flush plate for the cistern. After tearing my hair out trying to fit the thing, I've realised that there's a bit missing from the cistern. I don't know the correct term, but it's like a linkage between the push rods and the lift up bit in the water itself that causes the flush. The part itself is nowhere to be seen and I can't fit the flush plate without it as the push rods don't have anywhere to go into. I've looked at the tech drawing on the Geberit site, but it only shows the box with the flush mechanism in it, not a detailed diagram. Can anyone advise where I can get a diagram and or part number, and where I can get the individual part from?

I've had the UFH on for a while now as we are in an exposed and very windy spot. The MVHR helps but to maintain a steady temperature somewhere between 21 and 22 definitely needs some heat input in a twice daily basis. The common feature that I'm aware of with the houses of @jsharris and@mvincentd is that they both receive a lot of shelter from being in the pocket of a hill side. Ours is the opposite and behaves very differently as a result. We still have no functioning UFH upstairs but it currently holds steady at about 19C. A little on the cool side of things for me if I'm working but an oil filled radiator sorts that out until the UFH gets connected up in January.

Speaking as someone whose MVHR was broken down for a few weeks in a highly insulated and air tight house (0.25 ac/h) I strongly disagree on the ventilation aspect. You've also largely ignored the HR part of MVHR. My MVHR is now fixed and I'm very pleased.

Our hedge that runs parallel with the lane needs pruning this winter so I made a small early start. Not wanting anything to go to waste, I channeled a bit of Scandi chic, grabbed my spray snow and baubles and set to. Eat your heart out, Pinterest!

I had some electrical installation work done yesterday that involved the power going off a few times but my stats (same as yours because I copied you!) seem fine with the time. I've only just checked it this morning and it's correct. It would have been a couple of hours behind without a memory. Is there a flat internal battery?

Update My MVHR is fixed now, finally. Earthsave sent out a load of spare components and my electrician came out. We had already spotted a loose wire in the box that sniffs the air, situated between the control pad and the unit. Using the Occam's razor theory and rather than go through a lengthy replacement procedure we decided to try this multi-strand connection first. 5 minutes later, all was well and the humidity in the house is falling nicely. Here's a photo of the offending loose wire, it's the yellow one. I'm not at all sure that the fault was related to the power cut, but coincidental and vibration from the staircase caused something that was barely attached to finally pop out.

I have a PIR sensor in my hallway this is meant to switch on some low level lighting. Photo of the box attached. Can anyone tell me what kind of outet cover/face plate needs to go on this? Ta muchly.

Noise. You will need plenty of sound proofing in there if you don't want to hear it in the rest of the house.

I would be very cautious about letting any utility company put anything across my plot without a written agreement. Once it's done and situ it's far, far harder to change anthing compared to when they want something, i.e. access to your property. Utilities are quick enough to invoke their rights (even if they don't have them) but uncooperative at best when matters are the other way around.

Wow, that's expensive. A small claim court procedure for the maximum £10k costs about £450.

Always handy to have a bit of spare charcoal for the bbq.

Oh well, looks like the standpipe outside for me, then!

A footnote to this thread with a bit if unscientific follow up research. A couple of buildhubbers visited yesterday and we were chatting about the different qualities of softened and filtered water. My main house water is softened but the kitchen sink tap is a Quooker that provides filtered water. A glass of each was poured and a taste test completed. The softened water had a pronounced salty tang to it but the filtered water was neutral. 3 out of 3 voted for filtered as drinking water on the basis of taste.

Get it drawn up properly by a solicitor. It's not worth scrimping on a few hundred when there are many, many thousands at stake. One of my biggest regrets of our build was taking the word of a trusted main contractor and not having things in writing, only for our verbal agreement to be reneged upon in the final stages. Hope for the best but plan for the worst.

Well, that describes me. We even have 2 cats in residence although their kittenhoods are long since gone. I'm not sure about the cannon, though.

The mystery continues.

It seems that the most likely common factor is a highly insulated house with only a couple of occupants, so each loo only gets used a couple of times a day, on average.

No doubt at all. We've never had off mains sewage before so I've been going easy on the various cleaning fluids for fear of having a worse mess to clean out of the treatment plant. I've only recently noticed the mould and snotty cistern and we've been in since early August so it's not too bad, really, more a case of adapting to a modified cleaning regime.

Ours is mains, not well water. I suspect that it may be more to do with well insulated houses (not quite pun intended). Because the cisterns are recessed into 300mm blown cellulose they are maintained at a toasty temperature, ideal for encouraging this sort of thing.