ToughButterCup

Thanks very much folks. Much appreciated Ian

Has anyone had an offer of a fixed rate ?

Thanks @JohnMo, I've had a quick look at the Lancashire County Council website. There's no guidance . I'm almost sure the regulations are different here ....

We'd like to make a driveway apron from cobble sets (100 * 100 *60), about four cobbles deep. Since our land borders directly onto the road, I'd like to make a durable sub-base for the sets. I'm trying to find out what the specification for the apron sub-base concrete should be. I'm guessing ST5, about 150mm deep - and possibly reinforced. (defined here). I've looked in loads of places to see if there is a relevant Standard to which we should work, but can't find one. Here for example is the relevant NHBC Standard which mentions, but doesn't cover the issue in any depth. Can anyone point me to a set of Standards, or Design Guidelines, please? Thanks

I'm going to be dead before I work through my snagging list ...

Ohhhhhh, folks, he's shy.... blesss

Ok big boy ... which one...?

Ya got me hooked Dave. Come on man, photos......

21st June. 3.8kWp array - appears to have shunted 13.42kWh into our SunAmp ( its max capacity is about 13.7kWh). Luckily the SunAmp was 'empty' at the beginning of the PV generating period. I say ...appears to have... because I don't trust the Eddi data-reporting system.

I wouldn't know the difference between crushed concrete with reduced fines, and crushed concrete. ( Isn't that -reduced fines- 75mm to dust ?)

Yes, MoT 3 for a permeable substrate.

Hello. Has a competent MVHR designer designed your MVHR system? If so, could we have a look at the design please? The reason I ask is because the designer will probably have answered questions 2, 3 and 4. 11 extract ducts the same number of supply ducts seems a bit out of kilter to me. We have a good few supply ducts and 3 extracts. The extracts have twin hose piping. How much work have you done on air-tightness in the property?

HI there! You're very welcome. There's loads of innocent fun to be had reading about everyone's experience. We even have a BuildHub Bodger In Residence. For fun try and work out who he is. He's a very nice man, a very very nice man. He has a problem with walk-on-glazing. (You have to be prepared to take some stick here.) Ian

Had a test yet?

Hello, welcome. To lower the risk of misunderstanding, the one thing you will not get here, is proper expert advice. Some of the contributors here are indeed expert , for example @Nickfromwales, @nod and others, but none of us - expert or otherwise - can actually see the bit of work you have in hand. Your job might need more than the recommended nail spacing because of factors we can't see. Or less, perhaps. It would appear from your other posts elsewhere that there is another agenda here: one in which we simply can't involve ourselves. May I suggest you ask a properly qualified tradesperson?

I thought for a minute there you were talking about a manufacturer of an altogether different item : the one that is at the bottom of the market, as it were. There but for a vowel .... (bowel?) go I Eye-test Monday then eh? Yeah, good idea.

👍

Welcome. Second learning eh? Hmmm... might want to extend that number by a good few hundred. Trust your gut after having done too much Due Diligence . And you can't do enough Due Diligence. The trouble with this place (BH) is that we talk a good talk. And take absolutely zippppo responsibility for what we write : and the Mods take care of that. (Thanks Mods) . Its good to feel your fizz for your build. I'm at the other end of the process - may I offer the following Persistence. Guts. Compromise. Budget. Systems and people show themselves for what they really when the soft and smelly hits the fan: not when everything is ticking along just fine. The systems and the people will test you. Self-building hardens you off.

Ordered. '...a framework ...' (above) like a coding framework - say JQuery [ I suspect that's an inadequate analogy ] ? I'm beginning to think, now that I'm likely to make myself make time for stuff other than building, that I might just dip a toe into stuff I found hard at skool: like maffs. I'm beginning to be more able to take a joke than I was in the last few years. But, @SteamyTea will disagree I suspect.

That there is one of the reasons I keep coming back to BH. I have not got a clue what QE is, but I'm going to have a nice 10 minutes finding out. Now, coffee and toast ....

There's loads of online guidance about SUDS schemes. Choose one and adapt it to your plot. Our BCO could not have cared less about what we did. Didn't ask, didn't look.

The guidance is all online here

Really? I mean .... honest? I think I get through 5-7 kWh every shower. Yes, I could do it in 2kWh: but our shower head is one of these massaging things - it does wonders for my shoulders. So I linger. The key is is self-consumption. There is by turns no incentive to save hot water (because there's loads of PV) every incentive to save hot water (because there's no PV) And thats the point of the post: how does a SunAmp owner optimise self-consumption in the context of the expected amount of solar PV and potential demand on hot water? Given that there's both no indication of how much energy left to heat water and the vagaries of local weather patterns, I think its too difficult to guess accurately when to boost the energy level in the tank (by importing power from the grid). But its good fun trying. And clever folk like you could maybe make a gizmo that would satisfy that demand.

Exactly right. But sometimes the fuel cost is pre-paid (upfront purchase, and maintenance costs ) or import from the grid. And when - by accident - (I try hard to self-consume) 'my ' power I export it , it makes me cross ( @SteamyTea's right, I get cross about loads of stuff these days) Today is an excellent case in point. Fully loaded yesterday evening : then 1 bath, and 1 shower - at a guess 10kWh's worth of PV self-consumption . So, there's a bit left in the tank (13.7 - 1 [heat loss o/n] - 10 = say 2kWh) Have I got enough left in the tank to have a shower this morning using PV alone? Depends on how much PV is generated between dawn and .... when I get back. Doesn't look too good does it? Off to the gym now, so I'll tell ya wot happened when I get back......

CDM 2015 does not apply to self builders. Because self-builders are domestic clients.