PeterW

These are both second hand of unknown origin - the biscuit cutter has a full stack of PAT stickers and looks pretty lightly used. Not bad for £15..! The screwdriver has had a squeal for a while - plasterboard dust seems to dry out bearings like nothing else and it's a pain that you have to strip something right down to just oil one bearing !

Decided that I would take apart a couple of the newer purchases (auction stuff..) and check things like bearings and gearboxes. So after a pleasant couple of hours I've learnt three things : 1. Senco stuff is designed to be taken apart and serviced. The collated driver was easy to strip and clean, and a drop of EP90 on the motor bearing stopped it screaming like a chav on a moped. 2. Senco gearboxes will run without all the bits in them... The sinking feeling when you look down to see the separator plate sat in the parts tray when you go to get the case screws..! Refer to point 1... 3. Bearings don't like degreaser ..!! Took apart the biscuit jointer, which is just really an angle grinder with a posh bit on the front, as I wanted to repack the grease in the gearbox. Quick squirt of degreaser and found the main bearing getting very stiff...! Had to disassemble the whole sodding lot and knock the bearing out to soak it in EP90 before it would spin freely ..! No idea what was going on there but it's all greased and back together ... Now let's see how long they last !

Nope ! Can you split out the rainwater into a soakaway ..? That will just fill and dilute the cesspit and you'll end up having it emptied more often. Sounds like the treatment plant is next on the list ..! Good job you know someone with a mini digger ..!

I've got a very cheap android phone that if I need to do anything that is likely to get the iPhone damaged I just use that - think it was £6 on eBay ..??

Grey water from the shower and basin to a soakaway ..???

It's another one of those "experience" things the manufacturer never tells you that makes this board so valuable ..! I plan to put the inlet (with additional inline filter) on a north facing wall under the eaves and the exhaust into the roof surface using either a lead or plastic vent cowl. Using an additional inline filter means I can get away with a bigger mesh at the intake just to stop large insects etc getting in, and the finer stuff can get caught at the next filter, hopefully reducing the amount of times the heat exchanger filters need swapping.

There was another on YouTube that was an angled wire sheet with a motor and a concentric weight by the looks of it - was being loaded with a front loader on a tractor.

The converse is the commercial ones appear on eBay quite cheaply but they're not SAP-Q listed so you end up going with lower efficiencies in the calcs. I will post the quick and dirty calculator later that may help you with flows etc

You need one of these !!

Thanks both - issue is (as usual..) the 50 degree pitch so everything has to be engineer sign off and not straight from a table ! I'm going to drop him a note and see if he picks it up before Wednesday - we've ended up with using "normal" timber much to my annoyance as I've struggled to get the off the shelf I-joist manufacturers to warrant their products at above 45 degrees, and I can also over engineer without the need to go to steels if I use 47x195 which also gives the depth for insulation. All in all we will end up the same roof depth as with a 225mm I-Joist as instead of 225+15mm OSB Sarking, we have 195+40mm PIR insulation. I also save on the external counter batten but move it inside as a service batten ! BTW the Trada tables can still be downloaded from here - not a Russian scam site !!!

Quick Saturday afternoon question. Engineer has asked for "structural drawings" of the roof joists and I've sent the quite detailed section drawings over. He's replied saying he needs the structural detail of the wall plate, joists and collar ties but I was expecting that a simple "A" frame drawing would be enough ..? He is semi retired and only works a couple of days a week so I've got til Wednesday to sort - anyone got anything as an example that I can use as I'm lost, or has been asked for anything similar ..? He's calculating the collar ties so I don't see what I need to add to the party as he's doing the calcs..! Even an architect friend has said he isn't sure what is needed either ..!

Wait till he gives you the bill ...!! They were about £6k IIRC for the 11kw Ecodan and a 250 litre UVC

Ok so you need to do some moving about on that roof and some new slates. Taking the partials out (thin ones) and moving things about will give you some room to get a proper overhang which can be rendered up to. If the rest of the roof is in ok condition then you may find it can be done off a gable end scaffold and you can sort the render at the same time. If the battens are too short then you may have to take the first 3 slates off each row to get to at least two rafters to replace the batten ends.

Go nuclear.... make a statement and ask for a reference from your wildlife officer, you don't want it "noted" as its pretty pointless unless it appears on someone's statistics. And give the council 14 days to respond to a registered post letter then go via the complaints procedure and threaten legal action to recover costs incurred - always sharpens the mind. Finally - just check the law hasn't changed ..! It's damned annoying but regs change and what was deemed mandatory when you applied now could be advisory now. Planning consultant could help with that.

Couldn't possibly comment...... Wanna buy some soil.....??

I've got a duct sizing calculator that does the flows etc - admittedly it doesn't calculate the last ones (exhaust/inlet) but most of these are either 160 or 180 mm

OK so these guys do sample testing - think what you may be asked for is a TPH (Total Petrochemical Hydrocarbons) test, and looking at their list its £16 per test. You do the sample and post it to them, they do the test. http://gstl.co.uk/price-list/lab-tests/Contamination?cat_id=253#rate_253

I can pretty much categorically say it will not be to the benefit of the consumer !!! The technology is fraught with issues (it was built to the lowest price contract...) and its being rolled out against a set of standards that aren't fully agreed....

We're on our second set of solicitors and for something that should have been simple (no chain...) its taken 6 months ! The first delay was actually defining what was being sold, the second was about getting the ownership of the lane agreed and we now have a permissive right of way agreement to be signed too, along with a nice insurance policy "just in case..."

Currys had one - a Neff one - when I checked in store last. IKEA have all of theirs and you can get to them to measure properly. We have the Ikea one and I'm really pleased with it - very simple to fit and a 5 year warranty too. Most of their stuff is Whirlpool rebadged from memory.

Try IKEA - they have 3 or 4 that are not cheap but are very good and do different size units. http://m.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/functional/10379/20815/ Most of the built in ones come with their own surrounds etc so matching into an old frame would be nigh on impossible I expect unless it's a direct replacement.

Thanks Ian

Sounds like we have our first candidate for a vlogger ..!!

Thanks All ..! It confirmed my thoughts - I am slightly reluctant to ask anything of BCO currently as I've ended up deciding to swap from one to another due to a lot of "advice" I was getting seemed to be along the lines of "you could do this but I would possibly not accept it...." I've just been pleasantly surprised by the the local council BRegs charges though - £522 vs the £900 from Buildzone..! May give them a call tomorrow and see how receptive they are to a few queries. Out of interest, what is a reasonable charge for the as built SAP with no tests etc ..? Assume it's a paper exercise ..??

Last time I checked the Vaillant buffer was some ridiculous price (north of £350...) and it made sense to go to Newark Cylinders and get myself a custom cylinder made for about half the price. I may still do this but it's dependent on whether I need it or can get the HP if we go that way to cope with the volume of water in the UFH as being enough.