SimonD

I think this is the thinking, even if it is a disastrous one - it fails to consider the material impact of over-sizing power generation to such an extent, which is likely to cost us all dearly in the long run.

The problem is that this might not resolve the issue. If these peeps have deemed the problem to be "insufficient gas," (which actually isn't particularly meaningful) it may just be down to a supply pressure problem rather than a gas flow problem. In this case, if they still see too low pressure at the meter test point, they could still 'fail' it - e.g. a 24kW boiler still needs 19-23mbar at the meter same as a 32kW one. This is really why gas rate together with inlet and operating pressure should be taken and used as part of the overall risk assessment. And they need to make sure they're referring to the Manufacter's specifications as to what the boiler needs at its inlet.

Cadent holds a lot of statutory power to enter property where it deems it necessary - but only with good reason. So it firstly depends on how the problem has been classified, if at all. Did you, or do you expect to, receive a warning notice from either Cadent or your installer? This will tell you what you need to know in terms of rights to rectify the problem. If it is deemed to be merely "At Risk" there is more flexibility as some At Risk installations can just be left as they are accompanied with just a warning notice, others need intervention. If it is deemed "Immediately Dangerous," then your boiler/installation would need to be capped off by your installer and rectified before going back on and is the kind of situation where Cadent can take action it deems necessary. If they haven't turned off your boiler and told you not to use it, nor isolated the gas supply, I'd just wait for someone from Cadent to get in touch and have an adult conversation with them. I'm sure they'll do their own risk assessment too. Unfortunately, the training in this area is not set up to encourage independent thinking but instead a fairly rigid binary mentality which some in the industry don't seem to be able to shake even after real world experience.

This sounds like a load of buck passing going on. We need figures here. What was the inlet pressure at the boiler? What was the operating pressure at the meter? Technically, if the inlet pressure was too low, your installer should not have commisioned the boiler and should have raised the gas pressure issue at the time of commissioning. So in essence the view that his work was fine but the supply pressure is faulty doesn't entirely hold water if it means the boiler isn't getting sufficient gas. I recently completed an install where the manufacturer had to attend due to an incorrect jet having been put in the boiler during manufacture. The inlet tests following repair showed a low gas pressure but one above the manufacturer's minimum - no problem at all. I've even had low pressure during a Gas Safe inspection (not my installation) but as it was above MI minimum the inspector said not a problem there too. The key determinant is whether the boiler is receiving the minimum pressure allowed by the Manufacturer. If it is, then everything should be fine. Gas pressure across the whole system varies, as does supply pressure depending on network demand. This means that you can't necessarily rely on a single test on a single day to determine whether the supply pressure is okay or not. Most manufacturer's will permit a very low inlet pressure for a small period of time for this very reason. The other issue with pressure loss across a gas system is that the design figures are theoretical - you can design the pipework for a 1mbar drop but in reality it could be measured as almost zero, in some cases it could be 3mbar or so for instance. From the perspective of the network provider, it needs to supply minimum of 19mbar but there can be a loss of up to 4mbar across the meter. This scenario obviously doesn't match the theoretical numbers and figures often bandied about - but it is uncommon. Unforunately you're at the mercy of a collection of people who don't seem able to figure their way through these rather simple steps in a pragmatic way. Or maybe something is missing in the data provided?

Most of these routers will have a 1/4" collet in the box - I think this one does, as well as a 6mm collet.

As @markc says 🙂

Thanks for the post, you reminded me I needed a new palm router! I've just gone and bought the Triton 880W Trimmer Router which basically does 2 jobs in one -might be worth a look for you? I have a big Erbauer router and a bigger Triton. The erbauer is cheap, chunky and absolutely does the job. The bigger Triton is much nicer to use but more expensive. The Triton trimer router is relatively cheap IMHO.

My home site is also a mess and it's depressing, but I can't somehow get a handle on it - same as you ever since covid/brexit/materials supply issues have caused some materials to pile up while wiating for others. Sometimes I think it's because of the scale of doing a whole house as a one man band and that there ar constant family pressures hanging over me. Meanwhile... somehow, while my self build is a mess, I seem to be able to tidy up everything everyday and as I go at my customer's sites, but on sites where I've worked with other trades, I'm constantly having to move their (expletive deleted) crap out of the way! On one site, I'd asked them and the customer to clear a whole load of space so that I could drill a few cores and run pipework through and area ready for next day. They cleared it all out for me and when I arrived the next morning, the builder had stacked all his sh1te in the very space he'd cleared out for me and left site for the day, plus all I did was move materials, tools and mess out of the way for the entire 5 days I was there!!!!

Gotta love the look of his workshop!

Isn't it just. It's one of those few things in life where you can't just jump off when it gets too much, you've just got to continue taking one step after another, hopefully getting you in the right direction eventually. And yes, you're absolutely right about standards, and the risk of paralysis by perfectionism. My only question has to be; why do so many in the trades set their own bar so low? Doesn't that just add to the misery of what they do (or don't do). I just wonder how they derive satisfaction from delivering below par standards of both workmanship and customer care?

I can just imagine a new thread on shim stock - with or without holes and what material! 😁

Yeah, you're not the only one. It's a lonesome journey and worse when you get in your own head. I've just got into the same situation because as soon as I decided to put my trust in getting in some trades and paying someone instead of doing it myself, the carpenter has cancelled to sets of dates and gone awol when we had an agreed timeframe - now I'm stuck with a load of internal doors about to arrive and figuring out a load of bleedin' logistics and work schedule with me doing the stuff myself again. (expletive deleted) trades! As for the hole situation, I think it's easiest to drill a larger hole, adjust the fixings and then use an epoxy cement to set them correctly. Even with a press, if your drill bit is long and fairly thin, you're going to get some wander through a thick wall. I have a 1m 16mm sds drill bit for getting through my walls and it flexes like crazy. Even a 22mm diamond core drill rarely gives me a clean enough hole to insert a 22mm pipe afterwards either. But then maybe I'm just rubbish at drilling holes.......

Try telling teenage boys that. They only know how to turn it all the way and don't realise you can actually have it at another setting 🙄

Look elsewhere? Plenty of options on the market. We have one where there is a pack of regulators from 16l/min down to 6l so you can test and select the best option. Mine runs absolutely fine on 6l/min and it's a drench head, but only about 200mm diameter head.

Building reg G2 stipulates a reasonable provision to limit wholesome water use to 125l pp/day. But there's also the argument that flow regulation saves water so good for the wallet and good for the environment.

A technique I learned from Germany with thin coat render (especially on ewi) was to apply a first layer of basecoat which you apply with a toothed (8mm usually fine) at an angle. Let this set and then apply another coat within which you embed the mesh.This way it's easier to ensure the mesh is at the correct and uniform depth, especially if, like me, you're not well practised at it. But it also makes it easier to avoid this situation by applying by the meter with each application of mesh. I've also found that this second coat seems to stay wet for a little longer too.

Yes, why use 400mm when 600mm will do. Usually specified by structural design. Whole timber frame in 600c/c here but intermediate floor was 400c/c due to span and a little bit o space saving.

Don't bother trying the change cans between one gun. That's a recipe for disaster. Go and buy yourself 3 of these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Roughneck-ROU32310-Professional-Foam-Gun/dp/B00FAKP5Z0/ref=sr_1_4?crid=2U0OL2C490E3Y&keywords=roughneck+foam+gun&qid=1683373150&sprefix=roughneck+foam+gun%2Caps%2C78&sr=8-4 They're very reliable, highly controllable and last for months and months and months with can attached. They clean well too. What you also need to make sure you do is close the adjustment valve everytime you've finished using the foam gun.

Have you considered blockboard? With longitudinal central blocks, it's a good strong material for shelving and can be bought in lots of different thicknesses. It's also usually faced with a good veneer. A local sheet material supplier, like the one I have near me - https://sydenhamsplywood.co.uk - would be able to cut everything down to size for you. Even the battens. I wouldn't even think about cutting by hand, nor would I go and buy a circular saw to try and do it myself without good practise and a proper straight edge to cut along. With unsupported lengths of 1405mm you'd have to accept a pretty low load, definitely not bookshelves as max recommended span for ply and blockboard is usually about 700mm.

I buy packs from here: https://www.ukdrills.com/sds-drills good value and last absolutely fine with most of my holes being 6mm dia too. I did use the Bosch bits for a while but for some reason the tips kept on shearing off them so stopped using them. All used with a Bosch SDS 18v with 2.6J impact but it has a fairly slow rotational speed with a 70% switch for soft start and slower speed.

I shall sit back and wait for a super @Nickfromwales and @PeterW special which could involve a large diameter mains supply, a mega accumulator, minimum 500l uvc and whole lot more besides - hot water recirculation maybe? In my case, having gone through that kind of design from the kind help here on this forum and costed it up in terms of price and my time, I went down a slightly different route. I only have me,my wife and 2 teenage boys to contend with but still a lot of hot water demand. I currently have limited 15mm mains supply but great pressure and decent flow (I will be trenching and laying upgraded supply pipe at some point), so I opted for a 210l thermal store and have then used relatively small diameter pipework to showers and bath. I've also used flow regulators allowing max 6 liters flow through showers etc. Sounds like too little but is actually fine even with a drench head and allows simultaneous use of 3 outlets without pressure or flow loss and plenty of hot water long enough for showers. I did do a lot of pressure loss calcs with the pipework so flow can be increased when mains is upgraded but so far so good and it has my wife's approval...

Exactly and that does require a complete shift in training approach as to my mind most of the the training industry is targeted largely at the lowest common denominator. It's worrying when you come across trainees who don't know what 10% of 20 is but this is not their fault, it's down to their education. I think the whole industry is guilty here. It has aimed at taking away any indepedent thought by trying to dumb down all the systems - e.g. trying to make boilers and controls plug and play and not letting anybody touch them once they're on the wall or in the boiler. This is now coming back to haunt them.

To an extent - OFTEC's recent push was a 70% discount funded by government through a small number of approved training providers with a time limit of 31st March. Very well subsrcibed but overall not enough. I think what's happening is a market test to see what price entices the punters in and the funding will settle around there.

I completely agree. Whenever the opportunity arises I sneak a normally closed 2 port motorised valve into an s-plan and do a simple re-wire. All my system boiler installs go in priority hot water. On installs I always leave the system with a return temperature below 54 degrees and tell my customers to run the heating for longer periods of time instead - in small properties with combi boilers, this can be a challenge mind you and definitely not perfect. I also only install boilers that have separate ch/dhw temp capability. There does seem to be increasing awareness here where Ideal's Halo heat & system controls support PDHW, for example, which is a great thing, but they don't seem to make a deal of it.

However much you want to wriggle and twist this, it comes down to training and standards whether or it's MCS or otherwise, which goes back to my point about not relaxing the standards to permit easier access. Yeah, you're always going to get variations but as I've said the standards and training need to be enhanced to provide better quality outcomes for all of us. Really? According to whom? I haven't suggested middle aged plumbers are incapable. Perhaps too subtly I've suggested that they should be asked whether they want to or not. Gas Safe did and only about 32% I think said they intended/wanted to train in heatpumps. Locally I know quite a few in their 50s who have good established businesses who just want to retire and are currently kept from retiring because they're still so busy. As it happens I have some personal direct experience here too. A few years ago while building my house, I got my quote for a heatpump. My response to the price was to half fall off my chair and complain about the price. However, I then looked into it and decided to embark on the training myself in order to design and install the system myself. So I found out what I needed to do and became Gas Safe Registered as the first step. I've followed this up with low temperature heating system design and a few other things. I happen to be in my 50s now and I've established a part time business with this recently too. My view is that if I want to affect change within a system I need to know how the system works from the inside, and be on the inside. This does give me a particular insight into the current training regimes and standards and I can categorically state that your assertion that existing plumbers and electricians are somehow excluded is wrong. Like I said, a friend of mine in his 60s has just got the tickets as it's just about signing up for the training and completing the tests. Probably the most problematic part of getting into the industry right now is caused by dogma of existing plumbers/heating engineers as they tend to be reluctant to employ trainees doing their managed learning programme and so they can't complete their practical portfolio. So many trainees give up before starting or drop out of the training specifically for this reason. When I embarked on my training I was insensed that I couldn't just go and do heatpump certification without going through Gas Safe or OFTEC training first. However, I've now realised this has provided me with invaluable experience working with a wide range of heating systems that will serve me well in the heatpump world. It wasn't what I wanted but I'm now very much better than I would have otherwise been. But there is something about the training that existing and highly experienced plumbers/heating engineers will not have recieved. That is in how low temperature heatpump systems need to be approached differently. This has got to be taken into account. Therefore they will all need further training and not just be let loose on these systems. Yes, I am. And the proposals put forward here I don't think would do anything. That's because of serious and fundamental structural problems (including political will and action) to support a transition of that scale; a current lack of suitably qualified and experienced people to do it and a lack of production capacity and resource. To scale up to this kind of installation capacity will take years, possibly decades. The amount of investment required to support it would be in the 100s of billions of pounds, much of it required by government, but also a significant amount by the private sector which is going to be unwilling to invest in such a transformation when there is essentially an unstable policy base such as ours has been since 2016, but also since the tories killed off a load of insulation companies ad solar companies due to policy whims - 'cut the green crap' was one of the more stupid ones I think. The direct cost to consumer in the purchase price of the heatpumps is actually a fairly small proportion of the total cost of this scale of operation. Again, I was perhaps being too subtle. My point was that the Tories have had a tendency over the past few years to make policy announcements without actually talking to anyone outside their little bubble. They didn't bother to ask if people actually wanted to go back to work from retirement before casting assertions about laziness, for example. They didn't talk to anyone about the announcement that we're going to install 600,000 heatpumps the week after next (yes, that's a bit of sarcasm) without actually bothering to do anything bar set up a failure of a grant scheme followed by a totally limp one. Not only does this tendency unfortunately put off investment, it also erodes trust such that both companies and individuals are less likely to engage in that sector. Currently lots of people are put off training for Gas Safe which currently is one of the feeders for heatpumps because they think boilers will be banned in the next couple of years or so, which is in effect hindering new entry into the industry. The MCS is not the whole world here. Do your research in the industry and you'll find increasing murmurings about the use of hybrid heatpumps as a transitional step. In particular how it would approximately halve the installation costs, possibly more, but provide a significant proportion of the benefits without the extent of disruption of full blown heatpumps. To me it makes sense as it is more in line with the 80/20 rule which often has dramatic impact, sometimes better than a reach for 100% With these, the manufacturers could easily circumvent the MCS by providing warranties directly and with manufacturer support you're likely to see the relevant changes to PD too. There are also proposals to provide mini heatpumps that can be added to existing gas/oil boilers so reducing the need to throw them away while they're still working. I know you're keen to ask for specifics about how to install 1.4m heatpumps a year in the next few years, but the answer, like all answers to systemic change is a highly complex one. It's neither simple, nor is it cheap, and nor is it to do with protectionism.