Carrerahill

Go 16mm² 2 core SWA XLPE. Don't trust the TLC calculator it doesn't add in enough variables, only volt drop in clipped direct installs.

I am so tempted to make one of these out of sheer interest. I have an old boiler that I can strip the pump from and I am sure an old kettle can be found!

Hang on a minute, how long is the cable? What is the route? Do you have a proper load analysis for the pool house? Lighting, heating, water heating, pumps, small power, ventilation, any other electrical loads, then realistic diversity added. Post up some details and if need be I can run a cable calc for you.

What sort of attitude is that? Every customer should check trades work, the workmanship is clearly poor and the OP is right to question it. That is the sort of thing I would expect a disgruntled, careless, job price trade to come away with. So if I came to your house and put things up a bit squint you would not be upset? If the grey spacers were taken out I would want to know why, and investigate it further as it may have been the installer bodging them in and creating some wriggle room by letting the frame flex to get something to fit. Scratched fittings and fixtures and squint installs are not OK.

Gas is really going no where any time soon and it is not actually being taken out of new builds, you can still have gas in them for cooking or a CHP for example. Basically they are making the SAP targets so strict so that it will be difficult to make a gas boiler work, however, if you loaded up on enough PV (or other renewable) you could still have a gas boiler. Things may be different in Scotland though as the inept lot that are the Scottish government make brash moves without proper consideration and consultation.

I believe you can close or partially close a right of way to carry out repairs or works. Why don't you start a long term project with many environmental and ecological hurdles and dig bits up so that the ROW is at a point, near impassable? It is difficult to understand how the ROW works across your land and what other access they may or may not have is. If this ROW was closed would they still be able to enter their property, is the ROW only being exercised because of the necessity for them to bring contractors and equipment/materials to the rear of their property? I am sure you could do something, just make sure you can back it all up and justify it all. I would put up 2 notices, 1 facing each way, very soon, stating the ROW will be closing on the 7th of October for critical safety and upgrade needs. I'd perhaps install an annoying fence across the ROW with a small opening in the middle, like they do at the end of footpaths onto main roads to stop kids running out onto roads etc. What about a stile? What about that much needed drainage project you had planned. You only need to do a bit of the trench... In the first instance I would briskly investigate legalities and rights and seek some help from your solicitor simultaneously or shortly after I would then go for a project.

In this situation I'd tend not to disagree with people based on what I have witnessed. It is a bit like the old, "But he did it Miss". Maybe so, but it is not right. In your case you have witnessed the worst, a large house developer! We all know the build quality is awful and they get away with murder. If we all built houses like large developers we would not need much cement, much insulation, good workmanship, quality fittings and fixtures, quality brick and block work, straight and plumb walls and openings... the list goes on. Large developers self-certify/pay an independent firm who just want to get the fee's so don't tend to find too much wrong. Show those flues/exhausts on any warrant plan and you will be knocked back every time. This is not my discipline, but I believe it is 600mm for boiler flues from a boundary and same for fan exhausts. It is also in the Gas Safe regs - if your boiler was reported, then technically, it would have to be moved but no one enforces these things sadly.

I made a lot of my own custom fit furniture, under stair drawer system, alcove shelf and cabinet units etc. and I always spray them with industrial 2k epoxy paints (same as auto paint really). Result is cabinets that looks like something from a showroom for not much cost, but certainly a good number of weekends in the garage! I spray paint everything that can be sprayed and the results are far better, before fitting all our window sills I spray painted them in a 2K while satin paint and they are tough as nails and if they do scratch you can buff it out with something like Farecla rubbing then finishing compound.

Maybe the caravan had a 10kVA diesel genset in the back!

Out of a matter of interest, why did they offer just to re-felt and batten? Not just replace the roof at that stage? It strikes me as odd that the membrane needed done but the tiles were OK or had someone retiled without a re-batten and felt at some point?

Sounds like you hate it... demolish it?!?

There are loads of them around now I think. Very cheap TV to make.

Walk away! All I can see is something akin to chipboard flatpack furniture, possibly screwed to a wall and a batten scribed to the wall/skirting. Save you pennies or spend the same and get proper wooden furniture. It looks a bit like a student dorm room or budget hotel if I am being really honest.

Maybe this is one for one of those cowboy builder shows... its that bad!

What a mess, the sad thing is that I have seen really bad DIYers make a better job than these total pond-dwellers. It looks like they really don't know anything about roofing at all.

I wouldn't bother. Think about it logically, why would a wall pull apart and leave the top piece unsupported? The building above this "issue" mortar bed is bearing down on the rest, wall ties are not going to support an outer skin of brick, you would be seeing some pretty serious issues if that bottom visible courses plus whatever is below ground level had dropped.

I agree with the above, you can see the DPC, it looks like the mortar below has just failed and fallen out, it doesn't look like anything has moved. I would do some other investigations such as look round openings and things but if the house was otherwise fine and I wanted it I would not be put off only by these issues, there would need to be a sign of structural movement for the red flag to fly. Look at it this way, if the bottom of the wall had moved down, the top of the wall would move too, its not being suspended on skyhooks.

It could be a good precedent to set if they stopped asking for the MCS certs. It would open things up a bit and as long as approved equipment was being used, which it should be if sold in the UK for UK use (I know some will not) then it could encourage others to get solar without feeling railroaded into a MCS approved contractor. That would perhaps reduce costs for all. I did know that payments were possible without MCS cert, but it was more difficult. Maybe finally they are coming round to the whole thing and being more sensible.

Buy whatever is the most economical for your SWA then, especially if it is in relative isolation unlikely to be burning, such as in a ceiling/floor/wall space. Unless of course you want to use the LSZH stuff.

When it was about double the cost, if I am honest, probably not, but I see the difference is £13 for 2.5mm² PVC vs. LSF, so yes at that price difference I would. Even if I only did all my 1.5mm and 2.5mm and say had 1 x 6-10mm PVC cable, it would be better in a fire having most of my cable LSF. If your house is on fire and the cable is burning, you would hope in a modern house you would be long out of it before it got bad enough, however, if something happened, and I did not get out of it, me and my family, pets too, would have a much higher chance of survival. So even if I needed a good few drums, I would probably use T&E LSF. As for your SWA, how much of it is in the house/outbuilding, if 95% of it is in the ground then, maybe I'd take that risk.

I wondered the same, brickie looked at them it and said, "that's the top" after rolling them a bit, all I could see that he used to differentiate it was that the top was a vibrated, or simply a naturally settled finish but the bottom and sides were smooth from being in formwork. From what I can remember, the prestressed wire/rod is biased towards the bottom, so when loaded that steel is in tension and gives the strength, however, you also get plain ones... I think if the steel is mid, then its plain and can indeed go anyway. I have been left scratching my head looking at them too. Where is @Gus Potter - he will know for sure!

Basically low smoke, zero halogen and various variants are used in every commercial building and indeed most new residential developments it is not in BS7671 but is spec'ed as a standard now and oddly seems to be one of the things that everyone just accepts and rarely value engineer out (also because I think contractors buy so much is is cheap enough anyway), they now sell more of the low smoke variants than normal PVC, I also think the time will come grey T&E will go and we will just have low smoke variants as it will become more of a hindrance to make the normal PVC version. They always kept the low smoke variants more expensive because it was a premium product and it was on every spec up and down the country, but a shift may see this change soon. So on your costings, the price difference will be driven by the market. I have terminated both types of SWA cable and in all honestly I cannot see the big difference, knife to ring the sheath, slice it down the length, that pulls off, normal hacksaw or armour tool for the armours, internal bedding is fine too. Commercial boys have no choice really anymore and they get on with it.

Is that mortar onto roof felt? Seriously, this is a shambles.

You will rarely get anything like even 2.8kW from a 3.1kW string, it is common to add about 20% over max - all it means is that on the rare day you get perfect conditions (and if your install is perfect) then you will only make use of the 3kW, but the other 364 days you will get the benefit of being a bit closer to max input. It is only 100W, chances of you ever getting the 3.1kW are slim. So, not knowing the full story here, I could be wrong. Can you not just put all 10 of them on a string? Or 5 + 5 in a series/parallel string if voltage too high.

It can be done but you need to know specific technical details of the cells to check compatibility. Generally, you should not really mix different panel sizes, even if you were to do a parallel/series mix it would not be great. Best bet is 2 smaller inverters or one with dual string. It would be a bit like mixing different battery sizes, one might pull the other down etc. PV panels are made up of smaller cells, the cells in most panels are usually open circuit, 0.5V - so a 1 V panel would have 2 cells, a 60V panel would have 120cells, however, cell efficiency's and things improve, so a cell from 10 years ago will be far less efficient, i.e. less peak W than a cell from today, so your then mixing apples and pears.