billt

There's an enormous variety of safety footwear including shoes and trainers, see the Screwfix site for a confusion of choices. You don't have to use boots if you don't want to. The most recent pair I've bought are these https://www.screwfix.com/p/site-slate-safety-chukka-boots-black-size-9/59707. They're quite light and comfortable, although the laces don't last long. Not wearing safety shoes on site is pretty foolish.

Yes to the first part, watched many of the TV programmes the fitsy time round. Our phone line came down in the snow we had before christmas and I didn't see the Openreach men doing anything like that. The only PPE was what they were wearing when they arrived. They worked on their own and climbed a ladder to reach the top of the pole, which I understood was supposed to need 2 men, one to foot the ladder, but they didn't seem to be bothered. Maybe you have taller telegraph poles in Wales!

Electricity meters are cheap too, e.g. https://www.shmmetershop.co.uk/shop/elster-a100c-100a-single-phase-direct-connection.html (No connection, just the first price on a search.)

Could do with a few of those in our finance industry!

Prefabs periodically reappear as solutions to the "housing crisis" since the second world war, if not before. They aren't a solution as the problem is the availability of affordable land that is in areas that people want to live, closely followed by the enormous bureaucratic delays. Actually building things isn't a problem.

That should be OK. Storage temperatures can be quite high.

As LEDs are semi-conductors high temperatures will greatly reduce their life expectancy, so it's not a very good idea to fit them in areas were the temperature will be high. GU10 LEDs in ceiling fittings are notorious for having a high failure rate and that's just self heating with inadequate ventilation. However, have you checked the temperature on the hearth lower than the stove? It always seems quite cool there to me, unless you have the burner running full blast all day.

I'm curious about why you think the system will need to be replaced. If it complies with the general binding rules now I can't see why it will not comply in 2020. If the leach field is adequate there's nothing wrong with a septic tank / leach field treatment system.

The Hoselock is to fill and pressurise the system on commissioning or if it needs topping up for any reason. (It's a sealed system and not directly connected to a water supply.)

Possibly. If it has been stagnating for ages the anti-freeze will have deteriorated. For all I know it could have turned to jelly. In your case it's probably worth flushing it out and putting new glycol in, when you've found out why it's not working.

If the system doesn't leak it shouldn't need any periodic flushing. My system with twice as many panels has been running for getting on for 8 years and has only needed refilling when I've modified it and never been flushed. (25kWhr harvested today!)

At most he will have supplied a bit of Cu pipe and couplings. The IDA invoice (page 1) shows that they supplied almost everything, including antifreeze. There's a picture of the first panel frame in situ on the blog, probably doesn't help much, but tells you it's a roof mounted system. The collectors are 30 x 58mm evacuated tube types.

Well, I replaced the drum bearings on my direct drive LG machine, but it was 8 years ago and I can't remember any details. It wasn't that difficult though, apart from working in too small! As generic guides I've found the espares ones useful. https://www.espares.co.uk/advice/howto/how-to-replace-washing-machine-drum-bearings

Re the solar installation. The parts were supplied by a company trading as Economical (http://www.eco-nomical.co.uk/). They sold relatively inexpensive Chinese evacuated tube panels, not the most efficient but perfectly OK, my system was mainly supplied by them. If the system was turned off the anti freeze is likely to have degraded, can't say if it will solidify or not but even if it has it will only be at the top of the collectors which is a straight tube and should be easy to clear (apart from getting on the roof, of course!) The pressure gauge reading is OK for a sunless day, when the sun comes out it should increase. If the pump (the circular thing under the controller) is warm but no water is circulating it is possible that the pump is seized. Should be easy to fix if that's the problem. Solar systems are fairly simple so there's no reason why it shouldn't be fixable.

Yes. We've got 3 plus a coal Rayburn (our house needs heating) and they are almost unused - one was lit twice this winter. They are messy, wasteful of space and will almost certainly overheat your rooms if you have reasonable insulation, when run hot enough to minimise pollution. Although I understand the appeal I'm completely bemused by people with near passive houses insisting on installing them. (And they're stupidly expensive for what they are!)

A tape and water level should be perfectly adequate for setting out, but laser measures are brilliant tools. I bought one of these https://www.powertoolworld.co.uk/bosch-glm50c-professional-laser-rangefinder-0-05-50m recently and wish I'd got one ages ago. They're not wonderful outside as it can be difficult to see the spot in bright light, but you can measure things single handed that would be very difficult with a tape. E.g. I'm rebuilding some outbuildings and I wanted to check that I'd got the rafters parallel over the length of the shed. Standing on a ladder 2.5M above ground I could measure 9M quite easily with the laser measure, not at all easy with a tape. It also has an inclinometer so easy to confirm the roof slope is right.

I bought some heating mat and insulation from them a couple of years ago. It all arrived in one piece, so no issues with them as an online supplier.

The sensor is at the same level as the boiler about 10M away. Most of the particulate peak will be due to spill from the fire box door.

I bought a purple air monitor a few months ago. I doubt that JSH would be interested; apart from the cost it's very much an IOT device. It demands an internet connection so has probably got lots of security holes and it uses Google maps. They're system isn't setup to let you store data locally easily, which rather surprised me. I scrape data from the devices web-server and store it locally, but, for some bizarre reason, the data gets flaky if the internet connection goes down. Having said that, it does give quite interesting results and useful comparisons to other sensors; there are about 10 in the UK now. The main reason that I bought it was to check pollution from wood burning; our house is heated with a log boiler. Apart from lighting and refuelling there is no measurable increase in particulate levels over the very low background. The peaks when starting are usually less than the particulates I get when roasting coffee, and they are over much more quickly! IOW, burning wood doesn't have to be a source of pollution. Another thing that I've noticed is that sometimes you get an increase in particulate levels over a wide area (most of southern England) which has no obvious cause, but stops quickly if you have an air cleaning event like rain. I guess that this could be pollution imported from abroad. This shows most of the English sensors. https://www.purpleair.com/map?&zoom=8&lat=51.98340589327153&lng=-2.0000451278685887&clustersize=30&orderby=L&latr=3.271820379132471&lngr=6.2567138671875

Heating costs are actually a pretty small part of the running coasts of a house, so, even if you are one of the tiny number of vaguely rational people, it's not going to come high on their house purchase agenda. It's still location, location, location (and then kitchen!) EPCs have no good relationship to heating costs. Our house would have an EPC of D or E without the PV systems, however the PV systems bring it up to an A. Having PV doesn't reduce the heating costs of the house. We still have several single glazed windows, which will be looked on with horror by other forum members, but it makes no economic sense to do anything about them as the extra heat loss is relatively trivial and the aesthetic implications aren't trivial.

You don't recall correctly. There are various actions that a LA may take in a breach of Building regs, jailing someone is not one of them. The local authority may take enforcement action under Section 36 of the Building Act 1984, which is the most common action taken. Building Control may serve a "section 36 notice" requiring rectification of works which do not comply with building regulations within 28 days. If the building owner does not comply, Building Control can carry out the works themselves and recover the cost from the owner of the property. The section 36 notice must be served within 12 months of the breach. In addition, or instead of serving a section 36 notice, Building Control can also apply for an injunction to require work to cease or to compel the building owner to undertake specified works to rectify a breach. Because the costs associated with the application process are so high, injunctions tend to be reserved only for the most serious or extreme breaches, for example where a building is dangerous to occupants or neighbours. An injunction can be sought at any time after the carrying out of the works if they are deemed to be dangerous. A minor breach is highly unlikely to result in action by the LA, it's to expensive and time consuming to be worth pursuing. Which is not to recommend proceeding with substantial works without getting the right bits of bureaucratic paperwork. Not having it is likely to lead to further bureaucratic problems in the future, for instance, when you try to sell the property.

That's Pembrokeshire not the Ben Law woodman's house in Sussex! I can't see where the £500,000 comes from either. They seem to be trying to raise £20,000. Of course, if you were to get either the Lammas or Ben Law house built by a builder, either could easily cost £500,000 to rebuikd as the labour cost for such bespoke houses would be enormous.

Apparently our exchange can offer FTTP on demand, which sounds a good idea, the catch is that you have to pay the infrastructure costs, which for 2.2km would be considerable. I'd guess that's how it would work, in the highly unlikely event that such legislation came into being. "You can have FTTP as long as you pay £10,000 for the installation."

I haven't done the sums, but I installed hot water pumps when I revamped our heating system. (About 15M pipe to the kitchen.) You don't need to run the pump continuously, unless it's in a hotel. We insulated the hot water pipes and have found that running the pump for 2.5 minutes every 70 minutes during waking hours is enough to keep the water at the taps warm enough. I doubt tat the losses are much greater than just running lots of cold water off.