Gone West

I did all the circuit design, first and second fix myself. The BCO told me they didn't do electrical certification so I sorted beforehand for my son in law's friend to carry out the required checks after each stage and issue the Part P Certificate.

It could be a Weeping Hemlock. They look like council kerbs. Not the prettiest edging and they weigh a lot. I would go for it, just ram down 200mm small rubble or type1 for a base and brick on top. Lay it all out dry first to see what it looks like. Good luck.

If the quoted 250% increase in efficiency of light conversion proves to be correct then perovskite panels would be significantly better than silicon. I can't see it happening in the near future though.

IIRC in the PHPP the default temperature is 20C throughout the house. We actually ran our PH with a temperature of 23C. I think, unless it's a typo, that you will need active cooling for a lot of the year, in order to keep part of the house at 10-12C unless you live a long way north.

It would be interesting if there was historical data going back over the last 50 years. IIRC many years ago the lower Thames was so polluted there was no wildlife in it and then years later they were saying salmon were seen in the Thames.

+1

We have a hose pipe ban and can only use drippers. We bought two master units which have a filter and pressure reducer in them. We have two areas and one has around 100m of 13mm pipe which feeds two rows of new hedging, and a few newly planted shrubs with the 2 litre per hour drippers screwed directly into the 13mm pipe. The other area uses around 15m of 13mm pipe with 4.6mm pipe 'T'eed off to sixteen pots using a mixture of adjustable and 2l/h drippers.

I've just installed two Gardena irrigation circuits in our garden. That was something I never thought I would have to do in Cornwall. https://www.worldofwatering.co.uk/

I would have thought the flints would whack down better with chalk in the mix as it will fill in the gaps like having fines with type1.

I may have misunderstood, but you seem to be saying you should only use a raft if it is required by the ground conditions. I chose an insulated raft because it was the best fit for my design of PH. Whether it was over-engineered for my ground conditions I do not know, as I am not a SE.

We built an Isoquick insulated raft thirteen years ago when we started building our PH. The SE was employed by the company installing the raft and didn't attend site. With my lack of experience I thought the raft was massively over engineered but I knew very little about insulated raft foundations.

We had an insulated raft foundation and the SE only wanted a soil plasticity test from the centre of the slab area. He told me what was required, I dug a hole, put a soil sample in a plastic bag and took it to the laboratory. £50 for the results, it was thirteen years ago though.

For our next gabion wall I've decided to make the baskets myself. I have the crimping tool and clips, I've seen how they're put together, so I'll just buy the appropriate mesh sheets.

When I had my 9m x 3.5m concrete slab laid last year I had it floated with a bull float and it had a good finish.

We didn't use a decoupling membrane and didn't have any cracks in the concrete. We used BAL flexible adhesive and the tiles were 750x450mm. I had a Vitrex wet diamond bridge saw which I also used for the roofing tiles and patio tiles.

We had all our roofing materials loaded onto the second lift by the delivery lorry hiab.

The government gave the BoE independence over monetary policy in 1997 setting a target inflation rate of 2%. This was to stop years of governments using interest rates to suit their needs. I don't think we should return to the old ways.

I finished the build in 2018 and was able to use the local tips (East Kent) before they introduced the charge. I reused and gave away most of the waste so never had to use a skip.

I use both Cornwall and Devon tips, so far no problems.

Councils have been banned from charging for accepting DIY waste at refuse tips. That's great for me. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65977938

My first mortgage interest rate was 8.5% and within a year it had increased to 17%. It's all happened before, we just have to suck it up, what's the alternative? I also remember when mortgage tax relief was stopped and the fuss about that.

It's best to cut galvanised steel sheets with hand tools only. Power tools heat the metal too much for the galvanising. If it is cut with hand tools the galvanising will creep over the cut edge maintaining the protection. The instructions for fitting Lindab guttering have the details.

It was just a bloody worm 😁

We drove past this place the other day. Stuff looks good and the prices are ok. Will do bespoke as well. https://yellowduckpine.co.uk/

Better get eating plenty of tinned spinach then 😁.