Alan Ambrose

The different voltages are a red herring, ignore. Yeah, I tend to choose German ones if I want best quality.

Sounds a bit odd. Hard to tell whether you have a good new electrician vs. a very sloppy old one or just new electrician looking for business. Maybe post up a picture of the board here and also chase the certificate? £6K would normally pay for quite a lot of electrical work. I would think that sound basic building electrics should be provided by the landlord, no? Even if you wanted to add a few circuits after.

I think that really means a minimum 25mm back box. Suggest deeper boxes are generally easier to deal with though as there's more room in them. Always handy to have a few longer screws around too - when a bunch of stiff twin and earth and a flimsy back box don't want to play ball. M3.5 I believe, which is a weird size. If you don't have them already then better quality back boxes make installation less of a PITA. I've been buying MTMDLB2/4 etc from TLC, but others may have better recommendations. https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Boxes_and_Enclosures_Index/Boxes_Dry_Lining/index.html#Dry_Lining_Plasterboard_Mounting_Boxes

I like the MK 'logic plus' (they are just standard sockets). I've found over the years that MK has better quality products than some others. https://www.screwfix.com/p/mk-logic-plus-13a-2-gang-dp-switched-plug-socket-white-5-pack/8458r

@Susie Hi, I'm on the Part O/TM59 warpath again as it needs to be resolved for my designs. >>> security on ground floor bedrooms Can I ask what you used for this, presumably not prison bars? p.s. from memory you had some rooflights? How did you handle these in the simple method? As though they were standard vertical windows? TIA, Alan

@Gus Potter >>> you are removing huge amounts of the building that are stopping it blowing sideways, called horizontal stability This is because of the big hole for the doors? And the steels won't provide that strength to prevent 'racking'?

Unless you can inspect the finish in person, I don't think you can really tell and it's possible they all get made in the same 3 factories. Maybe quality of installation instructions and whether the wall supports are steel or plastic can give you a clue.

Suggest a quick solicitor’s letter saying that you will hold them liable for any damage. Note the lack of pw agreement, seismometer etc and anything else you or the lawyer can think of. May be work getting a surveyor around pronto to record the state of your structure before and after, together with note of potential expected and approximate damage amount. At that point they move from potentially negligent to potentially grossly negligent. You’ll want to do this pronto too if you”re concerned.

>>> I picked up some heatmiser/grant stuff for the ASHP. Be nice if there was something similar but for electrics... There is - and we use that to control towel rails etc.

Maureen from accounts will like it Actually I was wondering today whether something like this would be good for a very functional basement.

>>> they have both claimed is that 'all' insurance companies won't cover you if you don't have an MCS certificate and you also can't sell your house either without one. Stating the obvious: they see a threat to the future of their business, which presumably been quite profitable over the last few years. Not that many customers won't go MCS just as a precaution. The MCS guys will be practicing and finessing these arguments over the next year or two. It would be interesting to know why Octopus changed their policy.

>>> He is a wee bit bonkers though - he made a lamp out of a pickle by sending a current through it Someone has to nudge us all into using pickles to their full capacity...onion? cucumber?

>>> We found that it was very important to have the fall on the clay below as well. @Marvin How did you do this please - by taking off the topsoil, grading the clay and then re-instating the topsoil?

>>> pins are pretty low cost but stretched, oval holes in boom or arms are an expensive repair if needed Your local machine shop may be able to fix these btw. For some diversion, watch Cutting Edge Engineering on YT to see how the Aussies do it .

Is this a reasonable wholesale comparison with Terry's kWh price above i.e. about 10p per kWh? Don't shoot, I know the electricity market is complicated...

>>> It surprised me how cheap the setup was for timber kits. The only technology was a computer driven machine which printed part marks and cutting points onto the timbers. That's an interesting thought - there's plenty of CNC companies that will cut boards to a CAD file. Some of them are very reasonably priced. Then you need I-joists and fill. You also need some big tables and a bunch of storage and probably a travelling crane and a 'cad monkey'

>>> That wouldn’t work with xxxx ... They way they operate is ... I think saveassteading has demonstrated above that it is not impossible to negotiate terms that suit all parties. The formal escrow route btw actually gives the supplier an advantage in that it demonstrates up-front that the customer has full funds to complete the contract. I think it would be interesting to hear more payment terms from some of the main players.

The economic price is the cost of the extra admin plus the cost of the extra finance they have to raise plus whatever the supplier thinks they can gouge from the customer for the service minus a portion of whatever extra business they think they can get by offering the service. They can't really insure because of asymmetric information - this it, they'll know they're going bust long before an insurer catches on.

Hi Terry, that's very interesting. Can you give approx %s - looks like 20& reduction for OVO->Agile move and a few % for a bit of load shifting? Would it be fairly easy to do an approx 'daily time shift using battery' calc? By eyeballing it looks like a rough shift from 35p electricity to 15p?

No need for a union although why not have an organisation that represents self-builders? You just need a contract with clear stages, a contract administrator to sign off the stages and a lawyer to sit on the cash and to send it to the supplier when the stages have been signed off by the contract admin. I suspect that's what happens in grown-up construction projects anyway. The supplier may well book a proper sales increase (20% maybe?) by offering this facility and their competitors may lose out by the same amount. The customer can regard it as the insurance premium for guarding against the risk of the supplier going bust with their money. What's not to like? And, if you're a customer who likes to take risk, you can probably save yourself 3.5%, send all the money up-front to the supplier and keep your fingers crossed. Otherwise everything stays the same unless someone decides to dig their heels in or convinces a sales manager that escrow is in their self-interest. I estimated 3.5% (see below) when we all discussed this before.

>>> It is an option but seems to be resisted Obviously it's more complex to administer and reduces the supplier's cash flow - so, of course, suppliers resist it. Once a few self-builders insist, a supplier with good cash flow is going to figure out that escrow gives them a competitive advantage.

"“They just bodge it and leg it"

As you pointed out in your summary, there seems to be some grey area. In my case, as we knew we wanted to use the 'Suffolk barn' trope, I've done the 'look-and-feel' design for planning. Thus no architect (and maybe that makes me PD) but note that architects are not automatically PDs and, to that end, RIBA is 'launching [its] Principal Designer Register'. I have not completely wrapped my head around the implications of the new regulations, but these sentences from the article stand out: "The client, meanwhile, must take all reasonable steps to satisfy themselves that the dutyholders are competent..." "Under the new definitions, the client is the person responsible for commissioning the building work. They have overall control over the project and, therefore, it is appropriate that they are ultimately responsible for the golden thread information...." "A provision that applies to any building work is that if at any time after a building control approval application is made or a building notice is given, the client appoints a principal designer (or sole or lead designer), the client must give notice to the relevant authority." "Where there is more than one contractor, or it is reasonably foreseeable that more than one contractor will be working on a project, the client must appoint in writing (a) a designer with control over the design work as the principal designer for the purposes of these regulations, and (b) a contractor with control over the building work as the principal contractor for the purposes of these regulations. These roles are also referred to as the principal dutyholders." "For domestic clients, the client duties will be carried out by the contractor (where there is only one contractor for the project), the principal contractor or principal designer (where the principal designer agrees to fulfil those duties with the client, agreed in writing). If a domestic client fails to make the appointments the designer in control of the design phase of the project (most likely an architect) is the principal designer, as under CDM." "Where the client fails to appoint a principal designer (or a replacement principal designer) the client must fulfil the duties of the principal designer under these regulations until they appoint another person to that role." re: ‘golden thread’ "It is not an 'end of the project’ activity, but an ongoing ‘live’, electronic record of the building information throughout the lifecycle of the building. This includes up-to-date safety information regarding the building design, build, and management.""This information will be stored and transferred electronically ... and recipients must acknowledge receipt.

@ToughButterCup Sorry I only just saw your reply. Yes, I have read that and a few similar. I'm a bit vague on the details but I remember there seemed to be two sets of opinions: (I paraphrase) (a) 'domestic clients don't know jack and can't be expected to do CDM, that's for the professionals' and (b) 'it's your site and project and you are legally responsible for H&S'. I talked to an SE recently who pointed out that the rules changed Oct 1st. The reason I started this thread is that the ground seems to be shifting onto putting responsibility on the customer / project owner and from there all along the chain. Presumably this is to stop (as I said above) the 'not my responsibility mate I thought x was taking care of it' stuff going on most obviously at Grenfell.

@SteamyTea - are you a physicist? - you 're always on the button with materials calcs etc, and now Excel minutiae? I'm also interested in whether Agile gives the customer a proper reduction for taking on / managing the risk. I've seen that, for instance, the tiers of premium reductions for various excess levels when buying car & house insurance often don't. I still don't quite get why the prices go like that in the winter. Also, why the 4-6pm hump - I would have guessed that industry / offices would be using power during the day. Lastly, it would be interesting to plot against wholesale prices.