Carrerahill

Probably more like 77A as PF would not be 1. You are now beginning to see the issues that the network operators are having to contend with. There is a document called ESDD-02-012 which gives the SPEN ratings for supplies for various house types, for clarity this is not fuse size but supply rating, in other words how they work out how many supplies they can give from a given substation. A 5 bed property with gas heating is given as 2kVA - that is about 8.7A at 230V - that is what they are allowing. They used to give you 18kVA - but they realised that at that figure they didn't have enough capacity on the grid, so they just decided to drop the rating. This 2kVA is known as the After Diversity Max Demand. ADMD. They apply this city wide and sort of hope everyone is not charging EV's in the evening when they get home or making dinner... no wait... they are... why is no one talking about this? Oh, I remember because they are banning gas and petrol and diesel and the facts don't suit their narrative. Electric future... maybe in 2060 but not the next decade. They will start to make U-turns soon. Gas prices are only high because they want to use gas for electric generation as coal is too dirty, that is even before we all ditch petrol and diesel and gas domestically.

It depends to be honest, but unless you are planning on sitting at high current for a long time you would probably be fine on an 80A even for 100A unless it was for days straight. You really only have a big issue after about 120A where even then you would get about 1000seconds before it goes. However, your main isolator would now be overloaded unless you happen to have a 125A - doubt it. So you need to be careful here, but the cut out and the cable are probably not going to be an issue for you, more your own electrical equipment. When they joint an LV lateral cable which runs from your cable head to the LV street network there is no protection at the joint, the local upstream protection will be at a substation outlet and could be 1250A or maybe 3000A, sometimes more in cities, so the cable might be jointed in the street and be say a 10m run of cable, so the BS88 fuse needs to sort of work in reverse to protect the lateral cable. Often in new builds I have spotted 80A BS88 but I suspect you could slip a 100A BS88 in no sweat, i.e. if the cable is 25mm, which will be concentric. It would be possible to draw about 150A for a limited time on the cable without any damage, it is all about current x time. Here is a quick protection study I did for an 80 (red) and a 100 (green) fuse and a 1250 (blue) upstream fuse - note that it would take over 1 hour at 100A really for both the 80 or 100 to trip - you will note that the 1250 would even allow 5000A to pass for about 100s.

M is over the top yes - German indoor mounted ASHP's for example, two 50kW gas boilers. More pumps than a cruise ship.

Yup, and it just increased this morning as he wants a centralised ventilation system. Full KNX systems, multiple gas boilers and heat pumps, with full commercial level changeover and redundancy, chillers and air handling units, sub-panel power distribution with local DB's each with power monitoring and control, fire, CCTV and alarm system of spec and quality I would expect in a high end office complex. Digital door locking and access control to external doors, the list goes on.

Depends on so many things, how big is your house? What do you want it to do? How lazy are you, are we talking turn the lights on and off, switch on the heating? Doesn't exactly need a nerve centre to deal with that. I have a level of smart home control in my house, mainly for external and internal lighting circuits. I was going to tie the boiler into it too, but I stopped when I realised that I have a system that works and works well. So I decided not to be so stupid and leave it all alone. I might add some more stuff, we have blinds in our living room that when we change the blinds I would like to automate so that when we are on holiday we can create the look of presence. I like toys if I am honest, but I am also wise with my money so I draw the line, it needs to give be real benefit. I am working on a clients house at the moment, they want toys, so we are designing in about £750K of M&E toys. He doesn't need much of it, but he can afford it and it will be good fun I suppose as he is an tech specialist who likes toys.

All of them or you will have too big a spacing for fixing PB then will end up with sagging plasterboard! You are beginning to sound like a contractor trying to cut costs at every turn! ?

So start there and sister them all with level 2x4's - quite a common way to level a ceiling. You can also counter-batten and shim but that is probably more work, but cheaper.

If it was me, and I had gone this far, I would attach 2x4's to the side of the existing, levelled throughout. Find the lowest point and measure everything from that. A laser level would be your friend here.

Get it professionally designed and follow the design, when the neighbours garage starts to collapse or settlement issues cause bad cracking or some other structural disturbance you will wish you had spent the £800 as it could easily cost £8000+ to fix something that goes wrong.

More or less every toilet in the land is connected with a piece of this - they are sold as flexible pan connectors, ideally it would have been dead straight but these flexible pipes are to allow flexible fitting like this, even in a bang on install I would expect a piece of flexi to go from the soil pipe to the pan. When I took our old toilet pipe out the flexi was remarkably clean, what you think of as solid doesn't' remain solid for long...

Get a washing machine saddle drain kit - basically it clamps onto your existing pipe, comes with a tool to drill it, clamps up and gives you a spigot for an appliance. Something like this (check sizes - this one will do 32mm): https://www.screwfix.com/p/washing-machine-drain-out-kit/75883?tc=IB4&ds_kid=92700055281954514&ds_rl=1249404&gclid=CjwKCAiAz--OBhBIEiwAG1rIOuiK91cRQElwKOv1jY3ZPU8g53_G_WA6lEV8otmElobXLBxm-1RxIxoCnGAQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds I installed one of these for a neighbour, sort of a temporary solution but it's not actually that bad as a long term solution either, quite well made and has an optional NRV built in. Or, if you feel adventurous, remove a section of pipe, solvent weld in a T, and add a new waste, you get pipe end versions which are designed just to go onto the end of a waste pipe.

Yes.

Work out what the relay operates, whatever it controls is almost certainly your faulty bit. Good troubleshooting! What is the current rating of the relay, might give us a clue as to load type. Could be a heater coil, when they break down they can leak to earth, could be a motor, circuit issue, you might be lucky and find only the start/run capacitor has failed and leaking to earth, which is quite common actually. Could of course be worse and a motor issue though. I would try another cap first.

It worked fine for 12 years so unless a motor has seized or about to die, which I don't think it has/is, then I cannot see the current suddenly increasing above the rating of the 12 year old MCB. If a higher current breaker was the fix then I would be more concerned about what was actually wrong further down the line and could the associated cabling then handle the increased current. As the OP said it ran longer with the earth pulled off the RCD this indicates leakage due to a failing components or moisture ingress. This fault, therefore, does not appear to the current related. Current and earth leakage are two different things.

Photo please, make and manufacturer, type B, C... has no impact on the physical shape and size just the breaking characteristics. Could it be that the manufacturer has altered the styles and you have an earlier and later one. Wylex changed theirs a year or so ago and the old ones will fit the new, but the new not the old, but the old boards are no longer sold so shouldn't be a big issue. Things like that.

The BBA certified it, then pulled it, I believe they would owe it to you, as a duty of care to tell you why. I would contact them for comment and explain on the back of their cert you used it. Now have issues. Although, as I type this, I think, actually it would be advisable not to tell them you have installed it as per that cert, because, if it turns out they screwed up, they might be scared you come for them. I might play the "I proposed to install it as per the now revoked cert, what were the reasons so I can avoid issues" - a lie but probably worth telling it!

Seems a bit lacking in bedrooms for me given the size and scale of the house. Maybe it is just for a couple and kids moved out so technically loads of spare but thinking to the marketability of a house of the value of this, I think at least another bedroom would be good.

It sounds like it just can't hack a Northern Scottish winter! Especially given the BBA cert was pulled. How certain are you the application was to the book by your chap? If this stacks up (maybe hard to prove though) then the manufacturer should really offer to get it sorted at their cost.

Are they on screw heads?

So he was... my bad!

I would use fire rated penetration seal. Google fire sealing penetrations and you will get plenty of examples of products and methods to use. Mortar would work but might be a bit permanent and difficult to break out without damaging services if repairs or upgrades are needed. The stuff we spec is envirograf.

It won't be an issue as long as you fit a compliant metal recessed box and fit all the correct glands and grommets and or use fire sealant where required. If it was me, I would call Wylex or MK and have them give you the model and details of the consumer unit you will need to mount into a timber frame. These boxes are made for this application.

Just fit one - photograph and remove if you want - sometimes it is better just to play their game rather than argue or debate, even if you are right. Our warrant drawings clearly showed vent bricks which ventilate the solum and the wall cavity. BCO arrives, inspection goes very well, which for many of us, is very important as we build a lot of these things ourselves. Anyway, he left with basically one site related comment which was cavity vents. This came about like this, BCO - "You don't have any cavity vents within the lower portions of the walls." Me - "No, just the vent bricks which ventilate the solum and cavity." BCO - "But you will need wall vents too." Me - "Oh, I thought that the brick vents would be far in excess of any air volume the little vents could deliver". BCO - "But they are ventilating the solum." Me - "They are not sleeved directly across, like a traditionally built cavity wall vent they are open to both the cavity and the solum so they allow air to pass between all areas, they are sleeved through the inner leaf but not sleeved across the cavity." BCO - "I will need vents." Me - "OK, I will fit some drill vents every 1200mm about 600mm above FFL." BCO - "Thanks, that will work." I order a pack from ebay and cut the tube off 2 or 3 of them, I stick a little piece of black felt to the back of the vent to create a shadow, i stick a blob of clear silicone on the back and stick them to the wall, photograph it and pull them off, and using the same blobs of silicone stick them to the next wall, photograph and pull them off... do you see where this is going. I submitted the photos and later that way I had completion certificate. Is my build any less well ventilated because of these little things? No! Is BC happy? Yes! Job done.

You must submit the format you want the quote to come back on then in a clear and concise blank template. Have them fill the blanks basically. Quite often at the end of specifications and tender package documents on bigger projects there will be pages which show the quote layout, by doing this you are asking the builder to follow your format and submit in a way that suits you. However, this will likely make some smaller builders take one look at it and ignore it. The other option is you just sit down and extrapolate from them all the detail yourself into your own tables and charts to allow comparison. It is a bit like asking that 5 builders merchants all submit a quote in the same format and line by line standard. Not happening.

It has been internally sleeved at some point. Possibly quite good news for OP as it means his soil pipe is probably in pretty good working condition and will be for some time.