MarkH

Ah, my mistake - I was searching this topic only! Thanks!

That is a Willis heater. Can't find anything on here using search, will have a look on the general www.

My nieces were round recently and whilst they were here we climbed the big oak tree behind the house and then later set up a slackline before finishing the evening firing my parsnip cannon into the woods... Safety glasses were worn for the parsnip cannon. All points accepted regarding railings!

Update on this - I built the frame and deck without footings, posts resting on on slabs on clay with weed-fabric and aggregate. All seems good - no movement at all. I think it was important that the ground is clay and rock and therefore less prone to move. No balustrade. The drop is over a meter at the highest point but a safety rail would really ruin the view when sat inside on the sofa. I've taken the view that anyone who wanders off the edge should have been looking where they were going.

Hello everyone, I was thinking - during the coldest months when my house temperature is sometimes a touch colder than ideal - of using the excess solar I often have to run an inline water heater, something like this: 1kW inline water heater I can set up my Victron system to run that heater when the batteries are at 95% SOC or above (which is quite often). Currently the UFH isn't used much - maybe 20 days out of the year. It runs through my combi boiler and works really well just utilising a room thermostat to activate it early in the morning if the house temp drops below 18 degrees. Any thoughts on issues with me doing this?

Completely worthwhile as a toy! I think the best use of a turbine is just steadily contributing energy to a hot water tank - no batteries needed, simple set-up, cheap... Ideal. But only if it's quiet, low maintenance and looks after itself in a gale.

Partly due to it's size (not so big) and partly due to the unclean airflow from anything except the South my turbine was pretty loud. The house is massively insulated and triple glazed but the turbine noise was quite un-enjoyable during any significant wind. I'm glad it's gone.

Thanks all. I might dig shallow holes and concrete them in that case. But just to be clear - the ground was scraped down into the clay level some time ago and the area I'm decking is not topsoil, that would be daft. It's clay and rock, lots of rock. It's a massive pain in the arse to dig in. It would not be a day's work. Ballustrade, structural engineer - I don't want a ballustrade as it'll get in the way of the view and without that there are no difficult structural considerations.

But why?

Absolutely. But it would still have been a noisy pain in the arse! It was an LE-600 with a nominal 750W max output. I'd have a turbine in the future, but I'd want it to be much further away from the house (100m at least) to cut the noise down.

The planning permission element isn't a consideration at the moment, just the practical things.

Just to re-update this - a few more years down the line! I went with Pylontech US3000 Lithium units, initially 3 of them and then added 2 more. They are absolutely great - zero maintenance, zero hassle. With a 6kw PV bank I'm sorted for the vast majority of the year with a generator being required for a top-up 6 times this winter. I expect that when I get round to moving the PV array to the roof and doubling it's size I won't need the gen at all. I'd have no need for the generator if I hadn't ditched my wind-turbine but I don't miss that howling beast when it's windy (there was no easy way of making it play with lithium/Victron). My time with flooded lead acid batteries was educational but I do not miss it! Less of my clothing has small acid burns and the monthly maintenance schedule has become an occasional glance at the Victron App.

I'm planning a large (14.5m by 3m, elevated by a maximum of 800mm) decking outside the back of my house. The ground is solid, rocky clay - not fun to dig in at all. My thought was to cover the area with a weed-membrane and a few inches of aggregate, compact the aggregate and then rest the posts on paving slabs, on the agg. The house is solid wall + 250mm EWI so the decking won't be attached to the house. Is this madness? I really don't want to dig holes!

Just to update this - a few years down the line. My 345ah@48V flooded lead acid bank has done the job for over 5 years now but a very busy recent work period and various other factors have contributed to some shoddy maintenance and FLA doesn't like that. They need tending and every bit of neglect takes it's toll. Anyway - the bank of twelve 115ah FLAs is now a bank of eight battered, prematurely aged sulphated hulks. I'm probably going with lithium - Pylontech. The price has come down, the warranties are long, they play well with Victron kit and will do what they're supposed to without me having to mess around with sulphuric acid once a month.

Velfac (surprisingly, considering Velfac) provide a really very good guide to installing their windows. But when it comes to their external 'Ribo' door there is nothing. The usually helpful YouTube has a stack of videos on how to change the handle but none in door installation. It might be that this is just a basic building technique. If anyone could give me a quick walk through I'd be very grateful. I've got the frame in place and some long screws with plugs to go into the wall. I intended to remove the hinges and strike plates and drill through the frame there, so that the screw heads were hidden. Drill, wall plugs, frame back, screw, door on... Is that about right?

No, the ridge beam appearing off center is an optical illusion - a few people have fallen for it in real life too. The beam is precisely in the center of the small section of roof and therefore the wall plate on both sides needs to come up the same amount. Padstones - because the walls are dense block on flat no padstone was specified. Purlins not-plumb - they're well oversized from spec so deflection shouldn't be an issue.

They're screwed at the apex but I haven't cut off the surplus yet.

It's the obvious solution, thanks. Didn't even enter my mind, I think I'd just mentally put blocking behind me... ah well. I bet the cement mixer won't start.

I suppose I could. Honestly that didn't occur!

Due to a slight screwup in the design stage the small part of my house requires that the rafters are joined to upstands in order that they tie in with the 40 degree main roof. If anyone could take a look at these photos and tell me if this is ok that'd be much appreciated. My intention beyone what is in the photo is to join each rafter with noggins just above the nail-plate. Incidentally the roof in this section is supported by a (substantial) ridgebeam allowing the rafters to join the wallplate with no collar, we asked for the beam to allow usable headroom in that part - it'll house boiler, sunamp and mvhr.

Lap joints currently in construction. The purlins are joined at the trusses, both are notched for longitudinal restraint. 24 lap joints... I'm six in and already cut myself twice and dropped a beam on my toe.

3M guide to VHB tape surface prep

I used VHB tape to stick the curved Lexan portlights (windows) to our boat and much to the distress of some bolt-minded friends I did this without any other fastening method!!!! "Couldn't you just use a couple of machine screws?", I remember a worried friend, baffled by this fancy newfangled double-sided sticky-tape, asking. But I researched correct usage of VHB, read about some of the applications and became convinced it was a decent alternative to a ring of bolts that would, inevitably, eventually leak. @Calvinmiddle - I'm sure if you use a sufficient area of the correct tape to take the static load those cabinets won't go anywhere. Bear in mind though they might NEVER go anywhere... The key to using VHB tapes - as with all sticky stuff - is prep, 3M do products specifically designed to clean and then prime the surfaces to which you wish to stick things but isopropyl alchohol and a clean cloth should do it. Gratuitous Caribbean boat shot below, you can see the lexan panels (just) - still firmly on after 15000miles and a mid-Atlantic battering the likes of which your cabinets are fairly unlikely to experience unless you have a very serious plumbing failure. The boat's new owner recently replaced a scratched panel, removing the old one required an angle grinder...

Could you post links to any interesting/good ones? Solutions to this I have devised are very Wallace and Grommet.

I can't find a sensible place to ask this... What are 'B of Qs'? We're too busy working til September to make any progress on the house so have started to think about getting people in to stick the foam to the walls - we'd be good to go roof-wise come the autumn then. A local(ish) company has been recommended and when asked for a quote replied: "Please provide me with any drawings or B of Q’s that you might have"