Onoff

So for my next unfinished project I picked up these bits tonight. Removed working. My mate was convinced by some snake oil salesman his kit needed "upgrading": Along with 3 of these batteries: Haven't got a Scooby Doo what it all is or what I can do with it but I've got all the manuals. Best I get reading and learn. Then maybe some surplus panels...

The room is not heated...yet. There WAS a continuous VCL on the inside of the pir but I've cut lots of holes in it for spots, speakers and the body dryer. Not to mention a number of conduits open to the cold loft space.

I've 6" of pir above the ceiling. On the one external 3m, cavity wall, I've 50mm of pir one end tapering to about 150mm the other.

I have 150mm pir + 25mm eps under my bathroom floor and the room is still bloody freezing... ?

Chippy mate mentioned he's helping out on a new floor job in an extension. Original builder has been given the push. Build up is: 100mm Type 1 50mm sand blind DPM 125mm concrete with A142 mesh 75mm pir Membrane 70mm screed with UFH I said I thought the insulation should be a minimum of 150mm pir. He reckons it's being done to proper drawings and all the bco was worried about was the original builder using broken roofing tiles instead of Type 1. All I can find ref floor insulation is this and it says to use 75mm "foam" or 150mm wool: https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/advice/floor-insulation/#:~:text=The U-value is a,floor type%2C shape and size.

Picking up the free storage batteries and controller tomorrow. No ideas what I'm getting! ?

Must be some storm damaged tin buildings round your way? Aquapanel cement board is ideal but nearly £40 for two sheets! Wrinkly tin for me.

Also, modern petrol can go off unless you put in an additive.

Quite amazed we didn't lose power here over the last couple of days. I was TT but I'm now apparently PME according to the sticker the DNO applied to my head last time a tree took out the overhead to the house.

Stuff he's given me off the top of my head: -2200W dust extractor. -His old uPVC front door is my new back door. -Picture frame guillotine. -Velux he never fitted. -Elliot pillar drill -Wet tile cutter -Various steel sections -Garage shelving -1983 Ford Capri I think often it's stuff he gets hold of and doesn't have the space for! Works both ways. When the main switch in his vintage skeleton cu burnt out one night I was there in the early hours to repair. Always giving him steel, little leccy bits and latterly 3D printing stuff. We go back 45 years.

If it's all wired up ready for it can't you just add batteries now? This reminds me I must phone my mate, he offered me his "old" battery system a while back. When I say old it's more a case he got mugged off as he always does. Had a PV system already then was sold batteries basically by door knockers. Someone only has to say "new technology" and he'll stump up. Can't be that silly as he's on the high FiT rate but paid through the nose to start with.

You could get busy with a jigsaw and metal cutting blade to scallop the edges of metal sheeting. Make it look pretty etc. Would two bits of corrugated iron roofing sheet work? Stood off the wooden walls a bit. Could look quite good even if old and battered.

They are indeed but the surface needs special cleaning and prepping.

Each to their own. It will likely rust of its own accord for the next 5 years then stabilise. In that time you can get runs that stain window frames, patio slabs etc. Eventually it stops. Do not under any circumstances paint Corten steel. Depriving it of exposure to air will accelerate it's rusting under the pain and it won't stop. I posted this a while back. Done by a chap in NZ I know well from when I was working with them/out there for a bit. I'll ask him what screws he used.

Never heard of using wax paper. Why?

I think a couple of galvanised chains could look a pretty cool feature as well as serving a practical purpose.

Yep, it's a worry!

Credit to whoever suggested it in the first place I say...

A couple of sheets of 1200 X 900 Aquapanel but that's circa £16 to 18 a sheet. 6 or 12.5mm thick. Grey too.

For his metal sheet how about the sides from a suitable white goods appliance like an old abandoned washing machine etc? Tidy the edges with a slitting disc in a grinder, rough up the paint and refinish in a heat resistant black.

Lovely. Is that your banjo?

Over the weekend I just volunteered my "union jack", tile cutting services to help my niece with her shower area. It's about 1200x800. Her tiles are a tad over 600x600. They imo had the opportunity to get it so right but don't "plan" hence make it up as they go along. The shower "tray" is concrete cast to falls like mine but not as flat. All goes to a long linear drain. Should have set it lower but instead have formed an upstand with houses bricks they now have to tile over / around. Considering they dug down and built the floor back up...doh! The two 800mm, facing walls are normal plasterboard but plastered and painted. Not even the green, moisture resistant stuff either! The 1200mm wall is rendered Celcon block. She has tanked the tray and internal corners but not done the rest of the walls. Two big tiles together won't quite cover the "tray" length". For the sake of adding another 12.5mm thick plasterboard they could of sorted it. Using a 10mm multipanel with edge and corner trims. God nows how well that will stick to the pb walls now they're plastered and painted! She's got tubes of white, Sticks Like Sh!t. Told them to ditch the bottom trim and bed the multipanel on loads of clear CT1 then run a bead of silicone that can be periodically renewed when it gets tatty. Best I could do. 3mm spacers. Just laid loose. Really think she should tank that big wall and tb the returns. I'd not have bothered plastering and painting: Took her half a tub of Aquaseal tanking membrane I've got left over and the rest of the tanking tape as she's only gone halfway up one internal corner.

Even if you have witnesses when you both agreed on the position of the new doorway, you will be in the wrong when it's done and she doesn't like it. Then you will have to move it. Ask me how I know.

Yes, potentially. I debated which way round to have the bath. This way would have put the pump reasonably accessible but you'd have had to climb over the taps: So taps are against the wall but with a "quick release" kit: With hindsight I could have perhaps lived with just blanking off the tap and waste holes with chrome caps. Better still would have been to have ordred the bath un-drilled! To get at my pump I will have to remove silicone, remove half the bath surround and lift out the bath. All doable, considered beforehand but still a mission. The original bath conrol box was mounted right undermeath the bath (go figure!). I removed it, extended all the cables and mounted the box in what will be a cupboard in the adjacent room. This room is to be gutted as in walls, floors, ceiling.

Oh yes! A cheap set of Bluetooth speakers in the ceiling. They sound really good. As the kind soul above pointed out we do lack heating in here. The UFH pipes, towel radiator and body dryer are all in place...just not connected to anything... (There may be movement on that front, SWMBO has FINALLY cleared the adjacent room, maybe I'll be digging it up soon!)