Alan Ambrose

>>> My builder assistant thinks that dowelling and glueing will be sufficient. I am minded to use stainless steel threaded bar and nuts/washers. Traditionally a dowel or two only, no glue - say, 20mm. Huge oak buildings used to be built with nothing but woodwork joints and dowels. Taper it a bit so it's a tight fit when it's malleted in. From memory, you can do something clever with a slight oval so it pulls up even tighter as the oak dries out and shrinks (although that looks like dried oak already). Or sure, biggish SS bolts, threaded rod, coach screws etc. A4 SS because oak is quite corrosive. Anything of the size that looks right (M10-M16 say) will be crazy over-specified for the shear load.

>>> don't buy Stuart Turner! We have two ST dual monsoon pumps, one 30 years old, one 20. Both run off and on all day. No problems at all except for a few pressure cylinder replacements over the years. Last time one failed, I replaced them with cheap off-the-shelf vessels and they’re lasting well - last time was 10 years ago. ST had got a bit smart-arsed about the ‘maintenance kit’ costs. So, at least for that product, at that time, they were good.

That’s tough, one of those hardscrabble jobs that needs thinking-on-your-feet skills. Is the angle of the vanes important or just an aesthetic choice?

>>> Can you self-cert/install Yes, I did. Sent drawing beforehand and a short doc with installation photos after. Suspect much more ‘professional’ than a typical HETAS install - maybe they don’t supply anything to BC.

Thinnest cement board then which will give the fire rating? 6mm I’m guessing. £16 a sheet.

Sounds BS to me. Ask them for a copy of the standard or reg?

I’m guessing NZ? FYI Mine water could heat thousands of Welsh homes: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0l867k70p8o Between. 10 & 20C though. That doesn’t sound so encouraging .. according to PHPP my average ground temperature in 9.6C.

I have a similar-ish problem - both the PTP and the SuDS rainwater will be draining into a non-flowing ditch which is now a covered culvert. I was planning on joining them at an inspection chamber just before the culvert.

I walked past a kind of modernist design in Nudura at the weekend near Middleton. Half-completed. Looks like a self-build but I don't remember it mentioned on here.

@marshian - that counts @DIYHacker kidding me? We're in Witnesham and another BH guy here lives in Otley.

Probably doesn't help any, but I'm leaning towards a transit, preferably with a high roof ... and getting all the aggregates delivered.

Call me dumb, but the PD won’t actually be designing anything in that case?

Whereabouts in Suffolk are you? We may be winning the county race 😄. We have: me, @LSB, @GaryChaplin, @zzPaulzz, @Nick Laslett, @G and J, @JohnnyB Apologies if I've missed anyone.

Well looks like they have found a useful niche...many thanks.

>>> I found EA good to deal with directly in the past both for advice and site visits. Jeez, I'm on 18 weeks and reading their acknowledgement letter more carefully it says: "Your application should be allocated within 6 months..." !!! FFS. This is for simple output from a treatment plant to a ditch that the rest of the neighbours are using.

That’s interesting re safescope - do you have a sense what they will actually be doing?

>>> the chat bot is talking sh*te Yes, for a random lvt: https://s3.amazonaws.com/a.storyblok.com/f/231903/x/e64b397b14/amtico-signature-technical-specification-sig-ts-20240731-12-en.pdf it says: 0.014 m2K/W (underfloor heating suitable) - for a thickness of 2.5mm i.e. conductivity of 0.18 W/m·K, u-value of 71. A random web site ( https://www.vcalc.com/wiki/thermal-conductivity-of-porcelain ) gives porcelain as 1.5 W/m·K and porcelain flooring tiles are 12mm from memory, so u-value of 125. i.e. not a lot of difference in the scheme of things and they're both v good thermal conductors in building material terms. The big deal with chatgpt et al is that there is no deductive logic there - in fact no logic at all. I'm tempted to suggest that is similar to the quality of your salesman. If it finds the word 'Alan' close to the number '125' often enough it will be happy to conclude that most 'Alans' will be 125 years old. Ask him to do the above calculation to verify his thoughts?

>>> the process of getting planning permission could cost more then a cheap shed The cost of householder PP is £258, so I'm thinking the OP is thinking of something not a million miles different from this: https://www.screwfix.com/p/shire-6-x-8-nominal-apex-overlap-timber-shed/644TJ Given this will last 5-10 years max, @DevilDamo are you suggesting the OP needs to apply for PP every time he wants to replace it? Even if it is identical to the last one?

PV panels are often fitted with little screens on the side for exactly this reason. You can probably find some to retrofit..

I think if the old shed didn’t collapse in the last century, and the old one didn’t look crazy different to the new one … then you’re just ‘replacing the old one’, which is fine. I think I might just do this and see if anyone objects. If you’re in a conservation area, I might be a bit more circumspect.

Welcome. You’ll find nearly as many opinions as subscribers here. And boy do we like to drift off the subject of the original question.

Mostly bollox. For UFH, it’s useful if you have good insulation below and good thermal conductivity above - think tiles, lvt etc. You can use e.g. solid wood flooring, but it’s more of an insulator, so slower to warm up. Amtico and most ‘R11’ is pvc, so fairly thermally conductive. The ‘cost to hear a house’ is a function of the overall wall/roof/floor u-values, you would need the whole build up to tell. Actually, I revise my opinion - total outrageous salesperson BS. Ask him ‘what u-values would we be looking at’ and see him flounder.

Of course, you could add another 100mm of insulation and use the 25mm battens.

+1 to try out on something close to the material you're going to use. Try and round the head and see how hard it really is. Also, you don't have to use any of these drivers like The Hulk. A bit of gentle finesse, feel the torque and back off the power if you hit a knot or something. Proper pressure along the axis of the screw helps a lot as well as high quaity bits.

Don’t see why not. Worth drawing out to make sure you have all the ventilation, vapour barrier, drainage, critter guard, drip edge etc details right. Does the increase work ok with your eaves detail?