Tom

Looks like the installers are going to pull their fingers out and install insulation around the intake pipe. Does the exhaust pipe need doing too? There's no condensation on it, but I would imagine it would be below room temp.

The smell means the digestion in the unit is not working as it should, so the effluent coming out of it will no longer be treated properly. We've had our Conder in for 4 years so far and have yet to have it pumped out. I keep the pump running 24/7. I regularly drink the effluent to check and all good 👍

If you mean Conder, then that's the one we have. The pump is there to keep aerobic bacteria alive, digesting all the cr@p, switch it off and the digestion starts to be anaerobic which isn't what you want. Tends to get a bit smelly after a week or two.

Ah yes, birch, not beech. The quote's I got from stairbox etc was about £500 for the sort of closed stringer/standard bullnose sort of stairs as per your pic. The cut stringer, box-profile stairs as per my pic were a shade over £2k! As above, the cut-stringer type stairs were £2k each from stairbox (and weren't in birch ply)

Hi All - I need to install two staircases that go up to a mezzanine. Up until now I was just planning on getting something really basic from one of the online retailers (stairbox etc) and then possibly cladding it in ply myself to make it look a bit better. I've been getting quotes of about £500 for a single run, closed stringer with pine treads/risers. A simple staircase like this would be "OK" but now it's actually coming to decision time I'm wondering if there are better options. I would ideally like a cut stringer with a square-edged tread/riser detail - see pic. This looks quite simple (famous last words) and I'm now thinking perhaps I could make it myself out of beech ply. Perhaps I need to take a cold shower instead, but is this feasible? Has anyone on here made their own stairs before? Re balustrade etc, I was thinking along the lines of the scaffold pole stuff that is used for interiors.

Stick a barn on it, allow the neighbouring farmer to use it for ten years after which apply for change of use to residential - and then knock it down and build a house?

I know. They said they could come back and do it but there would be a charge - merry f'ing Christmas!

Oh, and the installer said it wasn't their job to insulate the external feed duct, ffs. It's only a short run, guess I just need to wrap in rockwool?

Many, many thanks for all the helpful advice. I've turned the humidity limit up to 85% and the the thing's as quiet as a mouse. I might have to go and check it's still on...

Well that was a fun evening, managed to get the c9ndensate all hooked up with 22mm pipe, dropping through the floor and connecting to a McAlpine trap:

What sort of trap do I need? If the drain hose is sucking in air then would it allow a dry trap to open?

The pipe along the floor would form the U bit of the U bend, as long as the downstream end of the U is lower than the upstream end, then water will flow through it, like any U bend I guess. I can drill through the floor closer to the unit and drop the pipe through though, which seems less of a bodge.

The unit is only ~100mm off the floor and I have a ~50mm high piece of trunking for the hose/pipe to go over before it can drop down in to the plant room, so not much wriggle room.

My idea above, with the hose running along the floor then up and over some metal trunking would effectively make a trap - and this is unavoidable as the metal trunking is between the unit and the hole the hose needs to go through. I could add a trap nearer the 32mm pipe I want to T in to, but there might be an issue with having two "traps" in series?