LnP

If you're concerned about the planet and you think your gas utility are going to put hydrogen in your gas pipes, you should definitely install a heat pump. Let's hope someone can explain the second law of thermodynamics to our politicians so that this never happens. Burning green hydrogen for home heating would be madness. It will be expensive and bad for the planet. Getting a kWh of heat into your house by burning hydrogen will require six times more renewable energy generation than doing it with a heat pump. That's six times as many wind turbines and PV panels. The priority for green hydrogen should be to use it in applications where there is no alternative, e.g. fertiliser (ammonia, urea), chemicals manufacture (methanol) and oil refining which currently get their hydrogen from natural gas. If all of the existing renewable electricity in the world were used for those industrial uses, it would not be sufficient for the current industrial demand. Before we even think about burning hydrogen, we should use it first for those applications. If you're interested in reading more, check out Michael Liebreich's Hydrogen Ladder.

I was with Eon when I wanted my 3P meter installed and they were hopeless. I switched to Octopus and they got it sorted.

You could try playing around with this demand calculator. I don't have an EV, but assume that if I did, I'd want something faster than a 7 kW charger. I'm guessing I'd want a 22 kW charger?

What are the pros and cons of natural slate vs artificial?

A good article. Carbon Brief have good people writing for them. Interesting though, in the context of myths, The Daily Telegraph gets 13 mentions, the Daily Express 5 and the Daily Mail 8. Funny that, eh?

I've got a 3 ph supply and my electrician recommended this kiosk from Meter Boxes UK. W800 x H1064 x D320 mm current price £684 incl VAT and delivery. It seems robust enough and will be big enough for all the 3 ph stuff - don't have everything in there yet.

Since you will be self managing, you will be the Principal Contractor. There’s a nice summary what that means in the examples section towards the bottom of this guidance from the Self Build Portal. You’re responsible for the matters in Part 4 of CDM, which shouldn’t be difficult for you as you’ve managed building sites before. Regarding the Principal Designer role, it’s nice that your architect agrees that they have been responsible for that. Once the construction phase starts, the PD’s work is mostly done. The PD now just has to hand over the H&S file to the PC. Ask them for it.

@nod Please share it in the forum rather than DM. I imagine there's nothing confidential about the size of your plant room!

I wish I (or my plumber!) had known about manifolds on DHW systems. I've got a boiler which is a long way from the kitchen and it takes ages for the hot water to come through.

That's a pity. Are they 2G or 3G?

Update - I had paid PWC with a credit card, so I made a Section 75 claim against the credit card company .... and they have refunded my money, all £905!! Very happy😁.

It's a good point. The safety requirements apply also to residential/domestic situations and also to gates which swing. The place I bought my equipment from gave me good advice on what I needed to do to comply.

Same as Onoff, I cast 100 mm galvanised steel box section posts into the foundations (1/3 in the ground, 2/3 above) with a bracket on each one welded to it for the top hinge - possibly over engineered but these gates were pretty heavy! I then had the stone pillars built around the posts, with the top hinge bracket projecting out. The stone pillars didn't have to take any of the load. You'll need to lift some of your blocks to set the motor boxes in the ground. As Nod says, a lot of the weight of the gate is taken by the motors at the bottom, so you might be OK fixing the top hinge to the brick pillars with the right kind of fixings. I brought the wiring for the infra-red proximity sensors up the posts and out through the stone blocks, so the wiring would be hidden. Before you laid the blocks, did you put in the conduit for the electrics and control circuits? Btw, I think a pedestrian gate is essential if you don't want your Amazon parcels lobbed over the gate when you're not home.

I just checked back in my receipts. In 2018 I did a shower with two sheets of Versital, 2250x900 and 2250x1200. It was £1600 incl VAT. That was just supply of the sheets. The plumber had to fit it including drilling the holes for the shower. It's very easy to install though, provided the walls are flat and square. It's the same kind of material as kitchen counter tops, so if I was doing it again, I might see if one of those could supply it. Might be cheaper from them? So it is expensive, but we were happy with our choice. We didn't like the feel or look of the laminate panels.

I've used stone filled resin panels like this one from Versital. IMHO it has a superior quality feel to it compared to laminate products like Multipanel. Probably more expensive though.