Alan Ambrose

Sad that the Germans make better British sockets than the British...

>>> does a roof … need to be fully watertight? Suggest ‘no’ (the membrane is meant to handle the drips, condensation etc) but it’s all a matter of judgement. There’s probably a standard somewhere, but realistically the desired level of water and wind-tightness depend on the house location, orientation etc. That is, if you go off-piste the responsibility is on you (it’s probably on you anyway). Jeez those instructions are hard to read.

Hmmm, assuming you’re not in a conservation area etc, these are the permitted development rules: No outbuilding on land forward of a wall forming the principal elevation. Outbuildings and garages to be single storey with maximum eaves height of 2.5 metres and maximum overall height of four metres with a dual pitched roof or three metres for any other roof. Maximum height of 2.5 metres in the case of a building, enclosure or container within two metres of a boundary of the curtilage of the dwellinghouse. No more than half the area of land around the "original house"* would be covered by additions or other buildings. Are you ‘breaking’ one or more of these? What kind of roof is it?

You don’t say how you’re measuring, but you need a fairly accurate measuring device (not cheap) and to measure just under the stat at the inlet where the air runs past the built-in thermistor. The effects you see are probably due to room variation, thermistors don’t drift much. I’ve installed a couple of Heatmiser set-ups and I usually commission by going round to each stat, measure the temperature by the stat with an accurate device and use the in-stat menus to make the stats match the actual reading. As others have said, maybe the difference is air movement, sun or humidity.

That’s starting to look like ‘electricity for grown-ups’. Nice. Think it would handle Agile properly?

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.