PeterW

Cat will pick up pretty much anything metal - to find water sometimes you need to put a tone generator on the pipe but some pipes it doesn’t work with. The difference is that if you hit a water pipe, you fill the trench with water .... hit an 11kv underground cable and you fill your pants .....

Firstly I would get a report off DigDat to see what’s in the lane. Then the contractor needs a Cat scanner to do a mark up of all the services on the lane by both the map and the Cat scanner to confirm what’s there. And then once they have confirmed that lot - they start digging ..! Half a day to mark out is not unreasonable. Also check they have good PI insurance ....

How will you drive over a door threshold without damaging it..? Surely another roller door would be better ..?

@Nickfromwales it’s the utility room stat that has the DHW programme in it .... just the way the Heatmiser system works.

This one has industry standard motors https://www.bes.co.uk/motorised-mid-position-valve-3-port-28mm-17392

I’ve done both but the flow is to two open circuits (DHW tank or Buffer) so it means that the bypass should only be ever needed when the diverter valve is at mid position. For £8 it was a no-brainer.

Yep - PM me your email address

@joe90 which stat is it ..?

I would start by draining down and seeing what crud comes out of the system. Removing the rads and flushing is more likely to introduce leaks into the system as you break and re-seal the valves. Adding a decent system cleaner may also help when you’ve drained down, but some sort of system filter would be preferable.

I think the only issues with the water blade system are that it needs a deep flow - over 600mm - and it needs clear water free of debris. Does the spillway run 365 days a year ..?? It will only be 150mm at most I expect too so you will need to put some sort of pond system in to get the depth for the blades. Most if not all ASHP can do 50c, the HT versions go to 55c plus, usually using an immersion or direct element. The downside is the CoP drops to near 1 so unless you use it on E7 and,as has been said, have a big store then you may hit problems.

Council tax varies - some try it on and it’s from “Substantially Complete” and basically say it’s going to be done in 3 months so you need to pay up. Others don’t charge until it’s done - the key utility is a water connection so do that last !!! CGT isn’t an issue if you sell within 18 months of completion - transferring land, even with planning permission doesn’t count as a dwelling.

25mm EPS is quicker and easier to use as blinding than sand and it adds a thermal layer too. Also stops any DPM getting punctured.

Floor you could go EPS but would require double the depth to get same uValue. ExtraTherm is another round here, as it Reticel. You can always look at seconds of PIR under the floor slab.

Double sling if you do go that route with the end through the loop and the 2nd loop on the forks. Keeps the slings a metre apart and a looped sling will tighten on the beam but it will roll as it tightens so you will have to right them. I’d do what @Russell griffiths did and run them in from one end - or get a 15m Manitou..!!

Its not that popular - the 12th edition is due to Mark keeping it in line with regs and wanting to ensure that the pricing and building regs compliance was as accurate as possible. From memory, he used to self publish and up to about the 9th edition it was plagued with issues around the index amongst other things not being accurate. Fabric first is not “a typical self builders compulsion” and I think you have a very odd view of typical if you think that spending £3-4K extra on taping and sealing joints to form an airtight membrane to make significant long term savings on running a house is a frivolity. Moving a uValue down from 0.2 to 0.15 isn’t expensive, neither is reducing air leakage to limit heat loss - it’s common sense and has a significant impact on the liveability of the house too. The Irish market has it right in many ways and is trying to stop crap build quality with a zero carbon build spec. If you read @JSHarris blog you will see that his end price was 10% lower than an architects expectation for a standard build; this is for a house that actually pays all its own bills and had a £20k borehole and extensive groundworks. HBB has its place and I like it as a “read this to understand” type book, but it comes up short in where it could help with improving building fabric and raising standards.

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Problem is the book is based on a main contractor build, not a subbies build and it’s also based on rates around the eastern counties. Some of the pricing is well out of whack as @nod says, and some of the “£17k kitchen, £6k per bathroom” stuff is a joke as they are well off spec. The other issue is that the bible only builds to regs or a little beyond and doesn’t go all out on a fabric first approach even for a traditional build method, which is a shame given it’s the go to starting point for a lot of self builders. I now prefer Spons as it has a much wider depth of costing and estimating, and you can pick up Kindle copies for £25

I don’t think you understand how a register plate works here - can you take a photo of the fireplace and stove so I can draw on the photo .?

Ideally you want forks as low to the ground as possible and tipped back to stop the beams sliding. @epsilonGreedy Strops would be a faff as you would need to loop them round the beam and then hook over the tine - not something that is quick or easy and it means working around the tines too which isn’t ideal from a safety perspective. I would measure the beams, find the mid point and put a spot of marker paint on it. Then measure your forks, find the middle and then marker lines left and right. Driver then has a target to hit, easy to see from the cab and will keep it balanced. @recoveringacademic the heavier the unit, the longer the full load reach. Regularly see 12m and 14m reach units that can put 600kg at that lift. The bigger challenge is the arc is measured from the back of the unit so a bigger/longer unit can’t get as close to get as high - it can cause problems when you want a heavy load close up (tiles onto scaffold etc) so it’s worth hiring a unit to lift 2m more than the maximum you need.

Smoke may well be being drawn upwards as is air - through the wadding. Sealing the bottom means all the “draw” is through the stove, when it’s hot there will be significant draw from the chimney, when it’s not you’re reliant on the stack effect and the breeze over the top to make it draw and opening the door may mean the pressure is just too low as the wadding is not sufficient. Bear in mind that a register plate is the correct installation method and what you have would not pass building regs or a Hetas inspection.

The wadding could be your issue - it’s drawing past the wadding rather than through the chimney. A register plate should be there to seal off the bottom so only the flue can draw up the chimney - pumice lining is fine but it needs to be a sealed straw ..!! Imaging poking 4 or 5 holes with a pin in a drinking straw and trying to get it to suck properly and you will get the idea ..!

Cold brick chimneys take a while to heat up and it could be also leaking - do you run it as a multi fuel or just wood ..?? Liner isn’t expensive and it should only take a sweep half a day to drop a liner into the chimney and use a pot hanger to secure it. At the bottom is there just a register plate - a flat plate with a hole in it where the stove pipe enters the chimney ..?

@zoothornlooking at the pictures on the web there is some sort of direct draft mechanism at the top, inside back of the stove - is this open or closed..??

Is this for a bathroom ..?

What sort of radiators are they ..? It’s likely that you have all sorts of crud in the system and I would be more concerned that a flush will dump muck into the boiler heat exchanger and block that so I would think a bit before flushing. Assuming it’s a one pipe system, you may need to do some clever work with the pump to get it to clear through these sorts of rads as it’s not designed to do that - do you know where all the drain offs are on the pipework to start with ..? Initially you may be better draining the lot down and putting a magnaclean or similar in the feed to the boiler first and then adding a central heating cleaner. It will allow you to drain and dose the system too - easier than working in an attic in the header tank ..!