Russdl

I want to extend my broadband/WiFi about 20m from the house to the garage. Poor planning on my part means I only have one duct going there from the house which will house a 10mm2 cable for power to the garage and I’m guessing that putting a CAT6 cable alongside that for 20m would not be a good thing? Is ‘point to point’ WiFi (WiFi bridge) the answer? It looks like a neat solution but I don’t see any mention of it here.

Can you not disconnect it inside the house and then cover the inlet and exhaust pipes with a plastic bag and a bit of tape?

No idea at what stage of the build you are at but our sliding doors are sat on a GRP angle which pretty much eliminates the thermal bridge. The GRP angle is tied in to our slab so may not be feasible for you.

I’m no roofer but surely those tiles will be gone in the next storm?

We used these peeps. Choose a finish, specify exact dimensions, where you want hinge holes etc and then wait for the delivery. We made a built in wardrobe and got all the doors and infill panels back panels etc from them for around £500.

It's a bit difficult to see exactly where that water is. If its inside the sealed glazing unit then that's a definite 'fail'. It looks more like its got behind the silicone that seals the glazing unit in the frame which to my mind is a definite 'fail' as well. That's what the silicone is there for, to stop water ingress.

@alexo Sorry, I can’t figure out how to adjust the blinds (without too much experimentation that might screw ours up!) They do come out really easily though. If you want to take a closer look yourself. There are two black plastic catches that turn through 90 degrees to release the blind. Turn those towards the hinge side of the window and the blind plus motor/solar PV etc will drop out so be prepared to catch it! Here’s pictures of the catches in the locked and unlocked position. I can’t see where the adjustment would be, maybe someone will pipe up with a good idea. Where exactly is that water you’re talking about? Is it between the hinged pane and the 3G unit?

I’ll have a look at ours in the morning see if I can figure anything out.

@alexo Regarding the blinds, can you open the outer leaf to access the blinds? Ours are effectively 4G. A triple glazed unit with a separately hinged outer pane of glazing that protects the external blind. Are yours the same?

@alexo I guess you’ve already paid up? Or have you something you can withhold until they fix everything and install correctly as per the quote?

Rest easy. I suspect the ‘platinum installers’ were cowboys with shinier hats.

Mighty frustrating. High spec windows fitted by low interest installers. We had numerous issues with our supplier/fitter. I’d throughly recommend the windows but never recommended the company that supplied and fitted. I suspect the issues you’ve highlighted are all DIY fixable. My main concern would be that what looks like transit packers left behind may mean that the window/s aren’t closing properly. I’ll have a look through my stuff when I get home if @craig doesn’t leap in first with some knowledgeable fixes.

We have similar windows, may be the same, with the internal blind. 1. Those plastic bits look like transit protection, at least we certainly don’t have them, so I would have thought they should all have been removed. 2. It must be possible to adjust the blinds but I don’t know how and never had to, the instructions should give a clue. 3. The water, that’s got to be wrong as well, at least we’ve never had that. You need to go back to the supplier/installer and raise all these points for rectification, I’ve no doubt you paid good money for them and the sales of goods act says they should be free from minor defect. It doesn’t look like they are. Best check everything else while you’re at it, I suspect you have already.

@Strawberry here’s a couple of pictures.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Not everyone beholds the beauty we see hence we call it Marmite House.

@Strawberry still not made it home yet but I’ve found one of my drawings detailing the cladding/render join and the zinc drip. It obviously doesn’t have to be zinc, or metal. Just anything to stop the water going directly from cladding to render. It’s not that clear but our zinc drip is a stretched out ‘Z’ shape. It may be possible for you to do something similar to the drawing below and slide something up behind your cladding so that it can be firmly fixed in place and then project out over the render.

Yeah, I reckon pretty much anything would do provided it kept the drips that will be running down the cladding off the render.

@Strawberry I’m away from home at the moment and I don’t have any photos with me. I’ll post some when I get home tomorrow. Ours are zinc made on site by the bloke who did the rest of the zinc work on site but if you’ve got a metal fabricator nearby they’ll be able to make whatever you want (probably out of aluminium) and powder coat it to whatever colour you want.

That sounds like a load of tosh. No one would render anything if wind blown rain stained it. We have Wood Plastic Composite cladding above our render. The WPC doesn’t leach tannins to the same extent that natural wood does but I’m sure it would stain the render if it weren’t for the zinc drip we have between the two. (I’ll try and find a photo). If it were me I’d get a drip between the timber and the render, restore the stained render and then sit back and relax.

That’s bad news. It needs a proper drip flashing to stop what’s happening in the pictures above, which I guess you don’t have. I suspect one could be retrofitted, but at a cost. Can you go back to whoever installed it all in the first place and get them to rectify it and then fix the render? Is the work guaranteed? Got a photo?

Interesting. @RedRhino hopefully your thread bump will generate feedback from the previous posters on how their strategy has worked over the years. We’re inching towards completion of a 55m2 detached garage/workshop which has no ventilation in the plans, building control made no comment. I was going to use dMEV but decided to see how we get on first.

That is nuts! 30p/day difference between the highest and lowest standing charge. It baffles me how those figures are calculated.

Not answering your question @Adsibob but it’s the standing charge that perplexes me. Apparently set by OFGEM? If so, why are there such large variations? We’re electric only and our standing charge is 61.27p/day - why not 61p or 62p? Are the decimals there to make it look scientific? And then you look at Adsibob’s quote and the standing charge for electricity is 47.85p/day, around to thirds of ours - thats not fair! (Wait, I’ve not finished.) But then you look at the standing charge for gas and his quote is 28.95p/day for that, total daily standing charge of 76.8p/day! That’s not fair - to Adsibob. I believe the standing charge has been ramped up to fill the hole in the Government/Energy Suppliers coffers caused by recent events but why is there such a variation? Is it to keep us all permanently perplexed? Certainly working for me.

I was a looking forward to importing nothing in May but we’re off to a bad start just under 25kWh already, the sun has bid farewell for a few days.

It’s ace isn’t it. We imported just under 27kWh in April the solar and battery combo sorted the rest. It seems like a good chunk of that import was the constant too-fro of energy between the grid and the battery.