PeterW

This one is a bit more user friendly... https://www.bench-marks.org.uk/

Find an ordnance marker and work from there using a stick and a spirit level ..? or someone with a Citroen C3 Cactus as the sat nav does a pretty accurate level as long as you want the closest metre...

If you have the MS stack then Visio is good

They are less than £100 now ... decent size platten too 3D Printer

It possibly is ... was there any water on the top of the sink when you did this ..?? If there is water under there it could be coming from one of the tap flexi tails that is not done up tight ... do not over tighten these as they have O Rings in them..!

Warm up time will mean that your slab will respond quicker if the pipes are in the top 1/3rd but also cool quicker. The deeper the pipes, longer the heat up but also a slower swing to cold due to the slab acting as a big storage heater. This is relevant if you want to use ASHP and off peak electricity as you heat up the slab overnight and the heat is lost to the building during the day. If the slab is going onto the foundation blocks then you may want to consider either changing the design slightly to just have the slab inside the blockwork and insulate at the perimeter and underneath as currently as designed you have a cold bridge into the foundation blockwork.

That’s a 10mm brass nut on a standard stem. Long reach socket is best, or a 10mm spanner. Depending on where it’s from though, it may be nearer 11mm as tolerances aren’t good on those if they came from overseas..! Brass bit needs nipping up to tighten the tap in place but don’t go mad ..!

Don’t forget that the cable has to be heat proof 2.5mm and not ordinary cable. If you only need a short length, believe it or not Wilco may be your best bet as they sell it by the metre.

Just for those who do use Combimate units, the U.K. Importer of the siliphos balls sells direct on eBay ...

OK so the M-10 M-60 rainfall values are what you are interested in. If you assume that M-10 is 600 seconds, then you will have to store 0.35l/sec or 210 litres. If you took the exceptional M-60 rainfall (ie 3600 seconds) you need to store 1,260 litres. I would expect that you could use the M-10 to calculate the minimum and then suggest that using the M-10 +200% would be a reasonable factor, so you would need 630 litres. I can write this up properly, and based on your quote above will charge you an attractive £150.... This may help...

Errrr why...?? BCO should not be spec-ing anything !! They should be confirming that the engineers spec is correct and meets building regs. Is the edge of the slab thicker than the rest then..? If it is, it should be engineer designed as the interface between the thicker and thinner is the crack point. Fibre reinforcing is much better as it makes the whole slab reinforced. Ask your local concrete company about it - its tiny 30mm glass fibres included in the mix. Warm up time is irrelevant here ..! Building heat loss is the key- is this new build or refurb..?

@Big Neil for reference I've just checked an email I got this morning. Given most of the perk leases are around 10% of salary, this is from the £350-450 band from Nationwide (other lease companies are available...) Ford Mondeo Vignale Estate 2.0TDCi - £292 BMW X1 sDrive 1.8d - £293 Toyota Rav4 2.5VVTi Hybrid - £293 Mercedes C Class C200AMG - £294 BMW 4 Series Convertible 420i M-Sport - £294 Renault Zoe 80Kw Signature - £294 Alfa Romeo Giulia 2.0 TB Super - £295 BMW i3 125Kw Lodge - £295 Hyundai i30N 2.0T GDI - £299 BMW 520d M Sport - £300 Audi Q3 35 TFSI S Line - £303 Jaguar XF 2.0d R-Sport - £304 Renault Scenic 1.3 TCE 140 Play - £308 Range Rover Evoque 2.0D - £312 Nissan Leaf N-Connecta - £314 So if you look at that list and compare to a Ford Focus at £256 from the same list... you can see why there is little uptake on the Nissan Leaf when for £20 less your planning officer can have a BMW 420i M-Sport Convertible..!

@Roz who has specced the reinforcing in the slab...? If its the engineer then it has to go where they say. If its the builder then consider fibre reinforcing ! Pipes can be anywhere but suggest its below half way as it slows the rapid swings of the floor/room temperature and allows the floor to act as a heat buffer. For example I'm in a building where its 100mm slab with 25mm limestone flooring, and the pipes are in the Wunda trays at the bottom of the slab. If you open the back door and leave it open for 20 mins, then close it, the room recovers reasonably quickly as the slab is heated through so probably only drops 0.5c or less even though the room drops by 6-8c. Depending on layout needed, you can install the A146 or whatever reinforcing and zip tie the pipes to the mesh - standard RC25 will not damage this at all, and if its pressurised during the pour there is a school of thought that makes it harder to crush still. If you don't have any spec on the rebar then you could use the Wunda or Polypipe trays, put the pipes in then lay the rebar over the top. Either is fine, one is a little more expensive but easier to DIY.

Actually it’s a bit odd... A lot of the lease cars are higher end as the depreciation values are better from an accounting perspective for the lease companies. They also look at TCV and lifetime values - my current list has no full electrics for example and the hybrids are more than the diesels. Discounting in the car industry is huge for volume vehicles hence why you see so many BMW and Merc repmobiles against the newer hybrids that are still recovering their R&D costs.

A lot of the new cars are perk cars - the lease deals on them are ridiculous, we see regular offers on 5 series BMW for £259 pcm on a 24 month lease. This means you do see people with cars that seem “out of place” with roles - nothing more than good finance management ..!

Search Hilti Mag - fits on the front of the SD range of drywall drivers.

Glad it’s not just me ..!!

Me ...

Depends what you do tbh. The old rule used to be that more than 3 changes made something not the same for copyright so it depends what you keep ..! I wanted a paper copy at A2 of a set of plans that an architect had drawn for planning and the permission had been sold with the land (as part of the price) and he wanted £500+vat for the plans ... Suffice to say, the whole lot got redrawn from a scabby image off the council website, but only to get the original dimensions as it was resubmitted with a shiny new set with different floor plan, windows moved, doors and dormers changed etc. The architect never came back to me after the original discussion sp obviously it was just a punt for money.

Love my laser as a rough estimating tool as it does area if you measure both dimensions but wouldn’t rely on it for something I want to cut .....

Micro Inverters allow you to convert the output from a single panel. If they are in different levels of shade, the micro inverter itself regulates just the panel it is connected to. Dual input inverters take two panels but potentially limit to the lowest output panel - If you know how your shadows fall across the roof from fixed structures, it can sometimes benefit from staggering the panels so you lose less output. I would go with micro inverters any time as you don't need optimisers etc and routing the power becomes one of a lower current AC voltage rather than a higher current DC.

@sam is this MCS..?? If so, ask them to price micro inverters instead as they work out cheaper usually. You can also be clever and you don't need to pair up adjacent panels with dual feed micro inverters so you can spread the shading effect.

Firstly @zoothorn that kitchen looks brilliant - you should be really chuffed ! That hole... I would look at blocks rather than brick, and you could do a quick fix using cheap thermalite blocks. They are easily cut with a handsaw and you can cut them with a slight taper to fit into the gap. Then foam any gaps or edges, smear of repair plaster over the top...

I use the laser reflector from my laser level - it stands up and the measure bounces off it.

Looks like the government want them gone .. https://apple.news/AsILutVF3TuqQAzQYdHfX5Q