Barney12

Depends on the type of window you are fitting. Tolerance's are shown here: http://www.velux.co.uk/professional/products/installation-instructions

The industry is reporting no changes to mortgage availability in the marketplace since Brexit. If anything rates have lowered and the Bank of England easing certain restriction on liquidity will help further.

Sort of! Its like this........... We have one domestic supply (albeit carried on a 3 phase cable due to the distance from the nearest supply point). From there we have three SP&N switches to consumer units: No.1. House CU (although currently a site supply) No.2. Bat Roost / Workshop CU No.3. Garage/Flat/Coach House CU (which also has a sub-feed to an outside consumer unit by the chicken house) So the solar is (or will be from Thursday!) connected as follows: 6 panel array on bat roost is connected to a single inverter into the Bat Roost / Workshop CU. The shed and chicken house arrays are on micro inverters with a 240v SWA between the two sheds. Then connected to the outside CU. I've lost count of the meters of trench and SWA we've run so far. My most recent effort was running a 4mm cable from the outside consumer unit up to the electric gate control panel at the end of our drive. Close to 80m of trench dug by hand and re-filled by hand. I REALLY need to buy a digger. Now I bet you wish you hadn't asked BTW. Huge plug to this and the past forum. I worked all this out from various previous posts and help from the collective here! I knew nothing about Solar before that. This place is just great!!

If you want a cheapish biscuit jointer then the Screfix own brand jobbie is really not bad. I've used mine in anger and its stood up well. My only criticism is it's fairly noisy but as Peter said its just a 4" grinder with a fancy head http://www.screwfix.com/p/erbauer-erb372bjc-860w-biscuit-jointer-230-240v/33513

They are just two small solar arrays connected to the main house circuit. Those roofs face South so it seemed a no brainier to do it. And yes they are indeed battery hens Well actually ex-battery hens (now called colony hens as more than one is kept in each cage to get round the rules) as my wife re-homes chickens from the Hen Welfare Trust

Oh and we are currently having "shed wars". SWMBO has decided that the shed next to the chickens is "her" shed. A shed for a woman, have you ever heard anything so daft

Yes, I think I did post it on eBuild. It's currently looking a bit tatty and is in desperate need of a coat of stain and the weeds have taken over! We now also have a "recycling store" (aka shed!) next to it. Both have been fitted with 500w solar arrays now. You can just see the other "shed" in this picture which is our shipping container!

It's been named "Batmoral" we already have "Cluckingham Palace" where SWMBO's prized girls live.

So more progress this weekend. PV panels are all ready to be wired up by the sparky on Thur. Slates all finished. Anyone thinking of using the GSE panels and all black PV's should definitely do it. They look so smart. They're also incredibly simple to install. Still numerous jobs to do inside and out but on we go

I'm always impressed with the ingenuity of such ideas but at the end of the day.......... A skip and a dumpy bag of top soil might be a whole let less hassle? Perhaps I'm just lazy?

I've had a very similar experience.The last two properties we did were all Bathstore. good design, good quality and good discounts. Its worth remembering though that they are a franchise so desire to discount will vary by owner.

I bought a Synology NAS and have never looked back. Everything on devices backed up to one central point on RAID volumes. Mac and Windoze access no issue. Various IOS apps for numerous functions. But in addition the ability to link to cloud services for backup of critical files. Full remote access too, it really is worth every penny. Mines this one https://www.amazon.co.uk/Synology-DiskStation-DS215j-Desktop-Enclosure/dp/B00OZ0CTAU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467838216&sr=8-1&keywords=synology+ds215 but there is a newer model available now.

I don't see why not. The park just insist it's dark. We used fairly cheap pressure treated feather edge boarding. Less than £2 per 4.2m length. I'm not sure if that would have been suitable for scorching? It would have been nice to do the various outbuildings in something more cosmetically appealing but we're trying to conserve budget for the main house. We didn't even want to build this workshop but we had no choice under the terms of our mitigation strategy for the bats

In short; yes but I'm not at all surprised! In our last place the "official" map from SWW showed our surface water and foul drains going up hill to join on to the main sewer. When we queried it they said "its only a guide".

We got them down to a little under £19 each. All the flashing trays, clips etc do add up though.

They are indeed. We battened and screwed down those trays in a matter of a couple of hours and had never done them before. The flashing is very similar to the slate flashing kits you get with a Velux.

The joys of the national parks planning department. Doors have to be vertical boarded and dark brown or black. All cladding to be stained dark brown or black. In fairness they do have a point. Our plot is visible from the open moor (although from a point very rarely walked by humans (plenty of sheep and cows) and the new workshop and shed are currently very visible and yet the existing garage which is already stained dark brown blends in very well.

Quick update: The doors are painted and on. The GSE roof trays started tonight.

The inverters suggest no requirement for earthing due to an integrated ground. I'm not sure how bonding could be relevant/needed in this scenario?

On the last house refirb I did i had loads of downlights so I did as other suggested and loosely coiled the feeds and boarded over them and skimmed. I actually mapped all the layouts for the lights on the chipboard floors and then used a plumb-line lazer to place each cable point. Each point was marked on the floor using a small screw. Once the plasterer was gone I then found the points on the ceiling (Again using the lazer) and cut them out. Worked rather well! The screw was probably overkill but didn't want to lose the marks. I guess a thick sharpie and some lines would have been equally effective.

The police helicopter budget will be cut to fund the overspend. Oh the irony! Which by the way is the opposite of Wrinkly

Not cynical its exactly that!! Many of the trade groups are incredibly powerful political lobbyists. They spend huge sums of money ensuring their view is heard to their benefit. Probably the most powerful of them all being the CPA. They make no secret of their lobbying and have HUGE influence: http://www.constructionproducts.org.uk/our-expertise/political-engagement/

I thought that must be the case. Especially as the metal frame effectively is not connected to anything.

Quick question: I'm just planning my cable runs for the PV array. Our panels are in the plastic GSE trays. Does that negate the need to earth bond the panel frames? If no, what size earth cable should I allow for (2 arrays of 500w and 1 array of 1500w)? I would ask my spark but he never answers his flippin phone! Grrrr!

I did slightly worry for a moment that those pictures were in "before" and "after" order But being serious; fantastic result and darn good looking property. P.S. Just put a level on that whirly gig, I think its a bit out