Trw144

Well this one eventually panned out last week. After several calls and emails from the planning officer over the last few months, they got to the point they said I needed to put an application in within 7 days. To support my application I said I wanted to know what other similar fences (well not actually similar as mine will be hidden behind a hedge once its established) in my village had planning permission, were under permitted development, or did nt have planning. I sent in 9 examples for them to investigate and said I believed I believe I was being victimised for reasons unknown to me. The next day I had a long email back that effectively said what I d said all along, in that I don’t need planning permission as the fence will eventually be behind a hedge. What a waste of everyone’s time.

I had one window where they had nt drill the drainage hole in the base of the frame - as an inward opener it built up until the point it over ran into the inside of the frame and into the house.

@nubbins My parish council objected to mine and it made no difference - the planners were happy with it and that’s all that counts. As far as I can tell, if the planners support it and believe it follows their policy/criteria, then whether the locals like it or not does nt have any sway.

Hi, they are metallic finished tiles. I think the Tiler’s cursed a lot when they had to cut them around the stair treads!

Just had to take a meter reading for my gas - I ve used 1900kwh in the last five weeks so pretty pleased with that. I know that’s enough for some of you to heat your house for probably a year, but I m quite happy with £2 a day for heating and hot water for 300m2 house (more like £1.50 if I get my ass into gear and change supplier).

Thanks @JSHarris so I should be condensing a lot of the time then, how is this affected with a narrow delta t when not much heat is being pulled by the ufh (say one or two small circuits open)?

One question I have regarding condensing a boiler - you always see that you require a low return temperature, but is it dependent on boiler/flow temp also. For instance, I run my boiler at a temperature dependent upon demand, so my boiler temp tends to vary from anywhere between 40 degrees and 70 degrees (when recharging the cylinder). So most of the time I would have a return temp below 56 degrees (probably more like 30), but at the same time the flow would be at a lowish temp.

@Ferdinand I have a similar issue on the horizon, taking a recent purchase - a ground floor flat, part of an old building with about 8 other flats. I ve put in new windows, and replaced the old night storage rads with straight electric radiators with time and temp control (not sure they get me any points but much better for a tennant). I ve moved it from 34 to 50, but where do I go from here in the future - it’s a solid floor, and solid walls, and in a conservation area, plus the complexity of all the other owners to contend with.

I ve just got around to expansion foaming around the pipe work in the garage where they had to hack the air tightness membrane for the plumbing pipes. Will check it again once it has expanded and see if any gaps remain. Be interesting to see how much difference it makes - I reckon t must have constituted a good square foot.

The 50b would potentially be ok if it means we get what “we” want (free trade, stop movement of people etc.) but, as I see it, they are trying to keep the elements of the divorce bill and future relationship separate - to me they should be connected “Ill pay you 50b but in return we want x,x, and x”.

No, but then solar panels can't produce vegetable oil either and, whilst they could power a deep fat fryer, you d potentially be lacking both the potato and oil to fry it in.

Whilst I am quite happy to see fields of solar panels, I would say that the benefit of the other two are that they can be stored for use later. I think the reality is a need for an energy mix - solar, wind, tidal, nuclear. Edit - I do wonder if the reason they can do it without fits, as well as lower panel prices, are that they know electricity prices will be increasing over the next 5 years or so. The figures agreed for Hinckley point would also suggest this.

@Nickfromwales Yep that's what I feared. The ones I have have an Allen key adjustment in the middle, with a nut on the outside for bigger adjustment. I ve done the fine adjustment for now and will run through them again tomorrow. I should know if at working shortly - have these circuits now on.

@Nickfromwales So, been out all day at a kids party, just got back and had a chance to take a closer look. Have adjusted all the actuators so they all have the button pressed in - basically it's like a bleed valve for bypassing. Explains why the kitchen floor was always warm. Moving onto the rooms without heat - I think it may be flow rate as I ve managed to adjust the valve so I am showing a flow, so presumably it can't be an air blockage. The manifolds I have have two elements to the balancing - I ve done the adjustment I can but did nt want to risk attacking it with an adjustable spanner on a Sunday evening - will see if it has helped and will get plumber to run through the balancing when he is here in the morning.

@Nickfromwales it's one of these ..... https://uk.giacomini.com/sites/giacomini.uk/files/Giacomini R473 Actuators_Data Sheet.pdf

Is this what could be letting the trickle past?

@Nickfromwales Nick, what does this button do on the back on the actuator - i don't think it's a swap between normally open and close but the ones with it pressed on look like the pin is slightly further protruding? Its pushed in on one or two (not corresponding to circuits with problem though)

I ve tried running just these one circuit on their own and still not getting hot so don't think it can be flow settings. The plumber set flow settings - is it worth resetting them all tomorrow after he has flushed it and start over again?

@Nickfromwales I was thinking that if I turn everything on, and it doesn't get hot then it must be air? I have a laser temp sensor at work somewhere - it can be quite tricky determining if the ufh has been on, especially on the wooden floor upstairs

@Nickfromwales well I did wonder if one of the loops isnt allocated to the right actuator, but they are off different manifolds. Downstairs my office is nt getting warm - I suspect it never has as it was only two months ago we emptied the storage boxes out of it and started using it, so it's the first time I have used the heating in their. Upstairs, I have one bedroom that is nt getting warm (I m sure it was ok last year) so again am assuming its air. I might switch all the circuits on tonight so everything is open and see if they heat up then just to rule it out.

Is it normal for UFH manifold to "let by" a little bit sometimes (ie small flow rate even if actuator is nt open). My kitchen floor feels like the UFH has been on during the night, even though I m pretty sure there was nt a call for heat (there was elsewhere so the manifold would have hot water to it)? I have the plumber coming by in the morning to flush two circuits where we seem to have air stopping any flow, can get him to look at anything else that might need sorting to.

One of the reasons I went for the home automation was nt so much that I have an issue with using a switch on the wall (ultimately that's how all the rooms listings work on our house, with the option that I can do stuff from either my phone or the tablet in the wall if I wanted to), but for instance in our kitchen/dining room we have 12 different zones of lights, and I certainly don't want 12 switches on the wall. I have one switch and 4 preset scenes that I can cycle through.

We bought that item just before we moved in - we felt had a great meaning with us as a family (of pebbles!), the house, and the year we built it.

No, no interior designer. We did use a lighting designer which I m glad we did, as we did a lot more feature lighting this way. My wife buys the bits for the house so I guess I should credit her for that. A lot of it is just gradually picking up nice pieces over the last year since moving in - we ve found quite a few nice bits in Homesense (they seem to have lots of one off type things)

Have you looked at the pre treated new age Gris cedar from Vincent timber. It has a pre weathered grey finish, which given yours won't get much sunlight or rain, should stay the grey colour. It's what I ve used in mine if you check out my postings.