Carrerahill

Just put in an application via the developer portal (this is what developers use to put in applications for plots of land that have no infrastructure at all). I could even do this for you if you want. PM me if you want.

Soundproof toilet room?

I would dig a big hole, pour a concrete box in it, waterproof it/tank it, then backfill with clean stone. This is how they do most basements in North America then build a timber house on top. I would consider things like a sump pump etc. I wish I had done something a bit like this when I built my garage. Too late now really.

Would be good to hear why it doesn't work as advertised, always good to have a reference for this sort of thing.

260mm sounds pretty serious, are you expecting a hurricane? Remember the fixings are just the start of the fixing "system" the fixings are in shear so don't need to be particularly long to achieve a good fixing to the building. I would probably use 75mm Fischer fixings but to be honest, if the framing, silicone, external treatment (i.e. fully rendered in solution or full silicone) then all of this adds to the fastening solution.

Agreed, I have probably had a shock more times than I have fingers to count them on. Luckily each time it's been a fast pull back of the, usually hand, and an OW! That hurt. Clearly you have had your fair share of shocks too. As you know, not a nice thing as it is happening and leaves a funny feeling after the rumbling/throbbing energy running up your, usually arm, but I've forgotten about it pretty damn quick and thought, "what an idiot" and continued on. It is usually my own fault, most recent I can remember was fault finding a motor on live electric mower, that was one of my not so clever moments, in fairness I was doing live testing of the circuitry and sort of forgot it was still on when I pulled at a live spade terminal! My earliest belt was as a child, I was feeling up to the switch on a table lamp which in fact had no lamp fitted, my fingers found their way into the bayonet socket and I prodded, what was clearly, the live pin!

Call them? https://www.blum.com/gb/en/contact/contact-persons/

I think what you are actually paying for is the Ted Todd, hence the higher price, a bit like saying I can get a Miele washing machine for £1000 but I can get a washing machine from an online retailer for £400 and the online retailer is selling you a Beko or Candy or something. We put Ted Todd throughout the ground floor of our house, love it, even some 5 years on I look at it and admire what a beautiful floor it is. We looked at a lot of flooring and ended up paying the extra for the TT. I think it was worth it, when it comes to wood flooring, I am going to say they are not made equal. As for imperfections, I would say no, you cannot just sand it, they are usually treated with hard waxoil or other oils or waxes or some are a lacquer so you would need to refinish - do not get an untreated floor, my brother got untreated beech and the result was a nightmare as the essentially sanded floor finish just gathered dirt and marks, I am not sure if he was meant to do something with it but he assured me it was ready to use as laid.

Are the little black/grey tabs locks? Do they push in?

Pull up at the front and they will unclip - certain I have these ones too and they are a swift upward action and they pop out a clip.

Messy work, that is about the only downside I can see. PVA (or SBR but I see that used more externally only), as I see it is the secret step to towel trades getting stuff to stick. I know of a planned, temp bodge, of a tiled wall that was PVAed with plasterers sand in the mix, the skim was put onto tiles as a stop gap, it ended up on the wall for 30 years. You now get stuff called Blue Grit (IIRC) which is an out of the tub solution to this sort of thing. My plasterers reckon they can plaster anything that is solid enough. They usually spend day 1 tweaking everything, checking screws are down, taping, beading and then PVA the lot, then they go. Next morning bright and early they come and plaster. We had some odd walls in our house that someone had painted with bulletproof gloss paint, I was worried about them and I was going to overboard, the plasterers took one look at it and said no we can make that work, 8 years on things are still good.

Every plaster skim over plasterboard, or any other substrate for that matter, I have had plastered across multiple projects and properties, be it renovation or new build, the plasterers have always PVAed the whole lot before plastering. Even on a new build with brand new plasterboard the team I usually use would always PVA it to lock up any dust on the board from the building process and ensure the surface was good to go. I assume by too dry he thinks the issue is going to be high-suction? In which case I am surprised, you would expect a plasterer to be familiar with plastering on all sorts of substrates from low to high suction and know how to deal with each appropriately? Even I would have a good idea how to plaster onto most materials as a DIYer. If you apply PVA/water mix with a roller it will be good to go.

Aim for about the 430W mark, they are the same size as the old 350-375W panels.

Why are you using such low power density panels? Mid 400's are common and 500-520W are common now too. 2 ways to go here, about same no. of panels (they are a bit bigger), much greater generation, or less panels and same level of generation.

That is the ideal way to do it, but you can, in certain circumstances, use the BS7671 433.2.2 reg which states that the device protecting the cable against overload may be installed along the run of the conductor after the change occurs, that change is something that de-rates the cable, in this case the reduction in cross section, there is also a limit to 3m (this is interestingly where the DNO 3m tails rule typically sort of stems from) and there may be no other connections into the cable before this device etc. It also states that it should be installed in a manner so as to reduce risks. @Spreadsheetman - If I was going to, I would split the 6mm using suitably rated terminals so I could get single 6mm² wires into my FCU or socket terminals. You could also, come in on 6mm² into a terminal, then go out on a piece of 4mm², then take 4mm² into socket 1, then back out and into socket 2 so you have a little 4mm radial. The protection would then come from the 13A fuse in the plug-top as the limiting factor, in fact I would probably fit 13A FCU's then come out of them into a single un-switched socket or cut the plugs off the appliance leads and wire in directly into my FCU's (what I did for my Bosch oven). I cut plugs off appliances quite a lot, and on the occasion I needed to return a faulty oven I just removed the cable and installed a new cable c/w moulded plug of similar looking style to that which I had removed and Bosch were none the wiser. Another option may even just be to see if you could get an FCU that you could squeeze 2 x 6mm wires into each terminal and just run a 6mm radial. Essentially I can think of about 10 ways I could do this and comply.

Argh... who resurrected this ancient post!?

Assume long cable runs or something? Tricky install? If all short local runs and easy install, then it's about £350 too much.

Don't. Simply don't. There is no such thing as an hour of work. I am a consultant engineer, the minimum we charge is 1/2 a day and even then we need to be pushed to offer a 1/2 day. Work in days, unless you really cannot justify a day for something but then we usually just lump it in with something else. We were asked to update 3 cable lengths on a site distribution design schematic this week, I had to review all the info, run the model again to get the new cable sizes (which also impacted switchgear and sub-mains further upstream), passed the drawings to CAD for updating, I then checked them, CAD updated the drawing issue sheet, created an issue folder, made a share link, I typed a cover email and issued. The client would see that as 3 cable sizes being increased, and a drawing tweaked, it took us about 4 hours all in. Generally we allow 1 day per typical drawing, obviously that might sometimes change if there are very little details or loads, i.e. a small power drawing might take 2 days, for a larger office, or you might get 3 floors (3 drawings) of a small office done in 1 day. That is based on locked GA's being issued to us and design development tweaks are included, anything bigger is a variation which we hit as a fee all together and work out how many days it might take to do them all. We then allow 1 day for say calcs package for a service, 1 day for schedules etc. Another example, if the architect changes things and issues new GA's even updating all the xref's (properly) so we can reissue drawings on up to date drawings, even if we have no changes, it can take days by the time you strip the architects drawings, clean them up (most of them are a total mess and drawn badly at a CAD level), convert them to a single colour (we use a mid grey ACAD colour 8), save them off as new Xref's with date and issue details registrar on them, then up-rev all the drawings can take 2days even on a small job. The first thing you need to work out, are what your deliverables are, then work out how long each stage will take you. We often issue a drawing issue sheet (DIS) early on populated with all the drawings and schedules we expect to issue, energy modelling we usually work on weeks not even days. That doesn't really answer your question, but I would think depending on your overheads you need to work out what you need to make. A consultancy these days, day rate, is about £400 for a junior engineer, £600 a day for a senior engineer, £750 for an associate, £850 for a director. Typically a project will be priced on a senior engineer day rate. Assume you will have CAD, SE software, Tekla or something, etc. Get your monthly costs for them, + insurances and running costs, then work out what they cost you per day. Then include them in every day you work. If you only work 3 days a month that will be skewed but you get the idea.

I am going to work on that! I have some unconventional ideas. I am now thinking I need a little cylinder which I would use to preheat water going into the combi, or I might use it to charge a battery bank in a more unconventional way, i.e. a battery charger that gets powered up when export meets or exceeds typical charger demand - that sort of thing. I have a 24VDC PV system in the garage which as of yet has no load on it (only got the solar charge controller 2 weeks ago) which I am going to use to feed a small inverter and run all my garage lighting and garden/house external lighting from, so I have options. It is as much about tinkering for me as anything else.

It has all these things and live monitoring via a portal etc. so I suspect that can be used indeed. Just need to tie it all up.

I know some members on here have done things like this before, so I am looking for a little guidance. I want to make a sort of PV traffic light system which I can in turn use to control some loads. We do not have a cylinder so an iBoost is of no use to me, but what would be of use to me is a monitor that can switch on outputs or give us a bit of a heads up we have some spare PV to make use of. My thinking is the best way to do this would be an Arduino monitoring a CT meter or meters (mains incomer and PV), it can monitor what is going on and I can then write some code to carry out different tasks at different thresholds. Let's say I had a spare kW, I could kick in the water heater in the garage or something. I am aware things can probably be bought to do this sort of thing, but there is no fun or learning in that and as I see it the less I spend on the PV related components the better the sooner the payback!

Many replies and lots of info, forgive me if I do not respond to each directly but to respond to some comments, yes it seems many of you have got the typically combustible surroundings that so many PV inverters have, I think I have decided, well I have, because I only bought enough cable to do it this way, I will put the inverter into the eaves space, it will be mounted onto a Unistrut frame on a brick wall, I will line the roof above with 2 sheets of plasterboard to make myself a little happier. I am going to monitor the temps this summer and see how hot it gets out there, if the temps get too high I will add a duct to cover this area for ventilation.

I am certain your concrete will crack over the pipes, however, does it really matter in this makeup, probably not, you could throw some mesh in but you will then struggle with your 50mm cover. Stronger mix with fibre in it... but then again, thinking about what it is doing and the fact the cracks will be adequately bridged by the PIR, I don't think you will have an issue.

They called poor John, "Really old" he doesn't even look that old!

We are going to be oversized on the inverter but within efficient parameters as the start-up voltage is quite low, so it should never get too hard a workout.