Timedout

If there isn’t a liner it will leak. Even with a liner the typical 15mm and 22mm plastic plumbing is prone to leak if used compression joints. We learned the hard way in this with a plumber on a large barn conversion a long time back. He left us with a legacy of leaking compression joints on the Hepworth plastic pipe. I don’t know why he used so many but he assured us it was ok. It was not! We continued to use plastic on other projects but never used it in compression fittings again except for stem fittings which are ok. It’s more reliable to put in a connector and shove in a short piece of copper to bridge to the compression or use a push fit if that is available. Push fit isolators exist. .

Just checked and found the emailed invoice. Was 2016. Am I allowed to post the supplier? try searching on pipe lagging but all one word.

Yes. The usual suspects don’t do it but you can buy it on line. I bought a batch in 2016 or 17. It was in 2m lengths and was not split. The nit split bit was a surprise but I just pushed it over the pipe prior to connecting up. I think it came from an air con type place but it was just regular pipe insulation and nothing fancy.

As PeterW says. Go for a vented thermal store, one of the combination types but avoid the ones with a plate heat exchange. You can have 3bar feed on your hot water and you do not need a Part G certified installer, annual inspection and you can put it in yourself or any plumber. Plus you won’t be replacing those crappy T&P valves when they fail as they frequently do. The thermal store costs more though. I am just about to do it on the place we have recently bought. I need a new boiler though as mine is a 1976 model.

Why? .... My understanding is that bending rebar should be done in a controlled way by a suitably equipped and qualified contractor following the BSI standards and codes. Perhaps discuss it with the designer of the reinforced structure. If the designer is happy, then just fine.

Whoever is certifying the build will not be impressed if they think you are doing DIY bending.

No not the 2006 install. I can think of a couple that I know were installed 2018 and 2019.

I would not criticise anyone for refusing to have a blower based treatment plant near their home. The things are a menace and the noise level should be regulated. My personal preference would be completely non electric but when I investigated last year they really were only an option if you were fortunate in the site levels so you could rely on gravity. Without that you still need to install an electric supply for a lift pump to expel the outfall. those treatment plants with the blower on the lid are dreadful. It doesn’t have to be that way. We installed one in 2006 and we located the blower in a semi submerged chamber with the blower hose running through a duct to the plant. It was barely audible. If we can deduce the potential problem, work out a simple solution and install it just as a matter of course during a build, I can’t see why the lazy treatment plant manufacturers can’t do a similar thing. As it is neighbours all over the place are cursed with a constant drumming from badly designed sewage plants. If people can whinge about ASHP noise what’s wrong with complaining about treatment plants or, my other personal subject of intolerance, oil boilers. 50W? The blower on our plant was 80W for a single 4 bed home, population of six. What about a population of five times that?

I think your kit must be different to the one I did in 2017. Mine was certainly Eclisse and the 8mm glass door. Either side of the door there were brush strips to disguise the gap. mine worked ok as long as no one slammed the door hard. If you did, the kinetic energy of the heavy glass door being stopped abruptly tended to knock the adjustment of the hangers out of tune a bit. The door kit was expensive and I had to more or less rebuild the wall. Ours was the 75mm kit and U.K. wall stud tends to be 70mm so I had to make it all match. Hence a bit of extra and a bit of packing. The steel frame is all a bit wobbly too. Without the reinforcement of the wall studs and the wall boards it would be a bit doubtful. I see you have lined the wall with osb, I used Fermacell. I agree about the kit and the instructions. Not the easiest to understand and strange bits left over. I’m not sure it would do it again. It looked good but a bit like wall hung toilets, I am not sure it is worth the cost and effort.

Oil boilers make a terrible racket too. Particularly the external ones. And they stink of kerosene.

Disagree on the container question. We have used them several times. All of our stuff has been in one for over two years now. It’s down in Devon where it does rain quite a bit. Our stuff also spent 18 months in another at Launceston some years back. If the container is good and it is correctly levelled it will seal just fine. Use common sense and take care not to allow moisture in. Do not go in when it’s raining, do not put anything wet in it. Hang up some of those damp buster things you can buy in the pound stores. I was in our container and few weeks ago and it was ok. I brought all of our clothes and some bedding up to Lincolnshire and it was all perfectly ok. I am going back at the weekend with truck to get the rest, sofa, everything. It’s all ok. Cost us £96 a month in a place with rigorous security. We are happy enough having spent most of the last two year, excepting lockdown, touring in the campervan. if the container looks anything but new and perfect just reject it and go elsewhere. Do not use the plant hire outfits, they generally only scrap standard containers. You can buy a good one and it will pay for itself in a year in saved rental if you have your own land. A long time ago, over 20 year, I rented a container as a workshop from a chap. It was a one trip container in perfect order. He had it sitting on 100mm thick sheets of polystyrene insulation. It was nicely levelled and was perfectly ok. He had put power and lighting in and lined the walls with timber. I did a lot of work in there while I was doing a barn conversion.

Yes transposed a word there. Thanks for your rude comment though.

The compressor starting current is too high for the supply circuit breaker. Perhaps the compressor has something wrong with it or it’s just too big. Easiest solution is to ditch it and get one that has an engine if you really need a big one or get a smaller one. If I recall the issues when I had one, the direct drive compressors have a lower volume delivery but higher starting current than the belt drive compressors. My twin cylinder direct drive compressor would stall my generator if the engine was not fully warmed up. My planer thicknesses did the same. Both had 2.2kW induction motors. The generator could run them well within its parameters but the starting current was a problem. You could look at the supply. circuit breakers come in different types denoted by a letter, B or C . Some sustain a higher current for longer before tripping. Look to see what’s there and get advice from an electrician. May be a cheap swap of a circuit breaker.

I agree completely about the deleterious nature if burning wood. It’s another factor that should be weighed. Health considerations should have to banned. we will probably end up sticking with the old oil boiler until it stops running. I’d go for gas if there was any but the village is not on the grid. Lpg is somewhere between impossible and very expensive due to tank installation limitations. Hesitations over ashp are to do with fabric energy efficiency. The building is in good order but poor insulation levels. It is not due a total refit by a long way. Floor and cavity wall with no insulation. I think ashp will struggle. We could blow beads into the cavity but that will only make a minor improvement. I am not going to EWI. Possible room by room IWI. I have done that before and it works much better than the EWI acolytes would have you believe. There is no chance of me breaking the floors out. hence a brief flirtation with the idea of pellet boilers. I have thought a bit more and read about the cleaning and maintenance. Now dismissed it as too risky.

I am also considering ASHP I do not want to get in in RHI or Green Grants. MCS equals exploitative pricing. I just want to harvest opinion and experience of pellet stoves and boilers

I have left these things well alone for a couple of reasons. I lived in a barn conversion for a short while on a small a district heating system that was fired by pellets. It was only any good when it was working and only if you could mentally block the hideous noise of the feed auger that occasionally went into self torture mode. The system failed frequently, and I do mean a lot. Things move on though. What is the current experience of pellet fired stoves and pellet boilers? do they still exhibit unreliability? Do they all have feed augers that go wrong? Is the cleaning as frequent as I used to hear? why do the simple stoves have such small hoppers? If it can only run a few hours what’s the point of programmers etc?

Your sellers want their cake and to eat it. Who wins, highways or planning? Both of them and the self-builder always loses. Do not exchange until your sellers come up with a genuinely approved and viable solution for access and services. make sure you have a solicitor that understands building plots.

Warm roof always for than application. Insulation on top of the deck

Whoever it is may want to be assured any volume change in the ground between the bearing point of the piles and the surface will not lift you piles. They may just want a slip plane between the piles sides and the ground to reduce friction. Perhaps a sleeve around the pile. This is not my line of work but I know this is not a delusion on my behalf.

Try Chestnut. The brand, not the tree. Lemon grass oil is used as a wood finish often for internal surfaces of cabinets. I don’t like the smell of tung oil. This time I have forced my iPad not to alter my words. Lemon grass oil does not resist finger marking as well but does not make the house smell of rotting vegetation. I think I bought mine from Axminster tools but I may be wrong on that.

Emperor’s new clothes in reverse. Exposed galv ducting and pretend it’s fashionable? It’s on trend for shop fits.

About 25 years back I made some ledge and brace internal doors for our house from larch but I don’t know its nationality. We lived there for four more years. I used lemon grass oil on them. Could have been better but I hate the smell of thing oil. The larch seemed happy enough.

The air test can be useful. On our last project we did two. One before lining the walls and one final when everything was done. The aim was to find our where we had leaks and fix them prior to the lining out. It was a timber frames house with dry lining. First run was 2.3 final just over 1. We fixed lots of things but the real problem was and remained the windows and doors. They were custom British made timber. Never again.

Zen. if you are inexperienced take care please. Ceilings like this are common in 20th century buildings. In particular in Devon and Cornwall. Usually I find they are a board that used to be called insulation board. It is really a low density wood based fibre board. It is not mechanically strong so was held in place by the timber strips. However I have also found some that are hardboard and a few that are cement asbestos board. I bought a 1935 bungalow with such an asbestos ceiling back in 2005. More recently I have found them in Devon, usually somehow connected to farming. Farmers are great at bodging. Get someone with a bit of building knowledge to look at it. If you can’t do the following 1. Try to see how thick it is. Insulation board was generally 3/4” (19mm). Hardboard 3mm, cement asbestos usually 1/4” (6mm). Try removing a ceiling rose but wear PPE including a good face mask FP3. Don’t inhale any dust. If the power is off, dampen the area with a plant sprayer first. 2 Insulation board is softer and make a dull noise if struck. 3. Hardboard is harder but deflects easily if pushed against in the middle of a panel. 4. cement asbestos is hard and at that size does not deflect so easily. It makes a sharp noise if you tap it with the edge of a coins. 5. Do not drill any holes until you are sure it is not asbestos. Occasionally I find internal panelling of a material called AIB but it does not tend to have the timber strips. It is called asbestos insulating board. Much worse as it contains a more dangerous form of asbestos, amosite. It usually turns up in commercial buildings but is also common in soffits and integrated garages of 60s and 70s housing. I suspect you ceiling is a repair of the original. I doubt this bit is L&P.

Demolition is notifiable to building control. Check the requirements.