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I'm a bit late to the party on this; I made a ladder hoist some years ago when tiling my roof I used a 7m ladder to get to the height I needed. A friend borrowed it recently for his own place, assembled onto a 4m ladder this time. I'd happily out 100kg on it. Wouldn't need much extra work to take more weight. Hoist was a 125kg jobbie for sub-£50 at the time.

I went for emmeti,manifolds and controls but will use the salus auto-balancing actuators. I chose them mainly because I could use a local supplier, anyway the emmeti zona thermostats are supposed to be connectable to the internet/smart phone app, but I do not plan to use that function.

Don't think all heatmiser thermostats and wiring centers will work with the salus auto balancing actuators. (According to wunda's website) You could wire one thermostat to control two channels in the wiring centre. Each channel can them control say 4 actuators.

When I looked into 28mm plastic it was quite a bit smaller internally and only came in 3m lengths so you have lots of joins anyway, I have used copper

The other point that have conventional tanks a bad reputation was poor hot water pressure/flow especially on a shower. With a mains pressure (unvented) cylinder that issue goes away. Personally I have a cylinder and wouldn't have it any other way. You also have the back up emersion heater if the primary heat source fails.

No idea on how successful any of these will be but here's all I can think of, I'm a little north of you. Verdon sawmills- barwell Whitmores - claybroke Harlow timber- hinckley Outwoods timber -hinckley Brockwells -nuneaton Sykes-atherstone

I was going to suggest a. Engineering background, nob-on or cock-on is an often used term. Made a conversation about weights of babies rather funny the other year, one lad suggested he was 10lb at birth, 'what?..... cock-on?'. Came the reply. To which the reply was 'well.....I'll have to check with my mother..but I think so' ?

Thanks Nick, I've just checked, it does have a bypass, so I guess that's good. Item 2 and seems to be adjustable. Not sure the difference the setting would make, there are 5 settings

@Nickfromwales How does the emmeti TM3-R pump set compare to the IVAR? It's a bit late as it's just gone in to my place, but interested on your thoughts, the TMV with capillary is graduated from 20-60c so I'm hoping that's a positive.

Board it over and pretend it never happened...

@Omnibuswoman There's a Lewis badger to consider, this is a small wheeled loader a bit like @joe90 has. Just seen one pop up on eBay, if the listing is legit and it's not knackered, might be worth considering.

I used reclaimed hand mades around 200yrs old, cost about £1 per tile and were a tight pain. Look great, but consider it an 9000 piece Jigsaw puzzle, each tile has its own twist that means you have to mix and match carefully so they don't rock all over the place. With no nail holes you need them to nest nicely. On a good day I'd do 4m² (240 tiles). I made a hoist to take 60 tiles up, but often brought 25 or more back down without suitable places for them.

Why don't the fittings seal on the pipe bore, like UFH pipes do, this would solve the issue and also for re-use where the gripper ring has dragged a mark down the pipe wouldn't be a concern

Consider solvent weld, fittings less bulky Or make stand offs with some pipe and longer screws

One thing that stand out once you've done a bit is when the purps start drifting, never noticed it before I did a bit of bricklaying, but a house behind my brother-in-laws now makes me feel like I'm falling over, they're all over the place.

? True, but it was the wife's credit card.....

If it's a long run, you might want to bed a brick in the middle, then use an old credit card cut in two places to create a three pronged fork, use this with your line weaved through the prongs and a brick placed on top to support the line and stop it sagging at mid span

You don't, you get each brick to look 'about rightc, but generally a spirit level when placed across the face of several bricks will be plumb. If you're using engineering bricks it would be easier, but don't sweat it too much about individual bricks. Build the corners plumb, work to a line and the rest should follow.

Can't you hire a tester and get building control on site to witness it? Looks like hire of a tester is around £100 for a week. You need building control to define what a pass will be? Is it pull out to failure and record the force achieved, or load to a sensible value and prove it can withstand it. I'd do a test before getting building control on site. Is it a case of that if you added more fixings they'd be happy , might currently look like it's not got enough and doubling up makes the issue go away. Have you a picture?

Bought by businesses, who claimed the VAT back when they had them. When sold to the public have to charge VAT. If you are VAT registered yourself, you can then claim it back, if not - sadly it's tough luck. If you buy secondhand from a private individual who has paid the VAT then yes there should be none to pay, likewise when you sell it.

A JCB 2CX (smaller version of @joe90's monster) is just under 2m wide, and might be a better bet, but there are a lot on the market that don't have a digging arm on the back, they have an air compressor for highway work such as jack hammers.

Get the gas piped to the property, you don't actually have to get the meter fitted and it made live. My parents did that (along with ducts for all the other services) to one of the outbuildings when we did some sewer works.

Cheapest I found was here: Item no 322318329373 on ebay About £8

Looking good, I aimed for 3mm in height and positional on my foundations, guys who erected the oak frame building were shocked and were used to nearer 10mm, especially if their own blokes had done it. My Lotus S1 is trashed by sitting unused for 4 years outside, it's indoors now, but almost as big a project as the house to recommission. Is yours an S1 or S2 Elise? I did a load of work on S1s back in the day. Keep up the good work, kind of gives me a kick up the bum to see people progressing while I'm plodding away at seemingly endless tasks that'll never be seen.

38 degrees would match the roof. But I would say the same, shallower stairs or could you fit a supporting wall either side of the stairs under the purlin and then chop the purlin out, probably cost more in structural engineers calcs than its worth