MrSniff

They may need to be patient builders... my experience with ours is that even with fast internet and a strong WiFi signal (it seems most are quite picky about the signal) there's a fairly long period of time between the bell being pushed and the app opening and connecting. Most visitors have walked away by the time mine has connected. Sometimes that's not such a bad thing... As ProDave I would think a mobile phone and skype would be better.

We have been running a NAS with two 1TB disks for a few years now. It wasn't cheap (but is the lowest cost Synology) but was a cost effective way of having a networked Time Machine disk for Mac backups as well as centralised file storage and music server. (I had been using an old computer with extra storage running headless but running a dedicated NAS just proved easier and the router we had at the time did not have a NAS server built in). I guess that a USB 3.0 desktop drive (with its own power supply) would be the minimum spec plugged into a router. We do also use cloud storage as backup for some key documents: these are saved as password protected zip files: not foolproof, but better than nothing - and slightly more efficient on storage as well.

So, ethanol it was - quite happy with the effect with the rain lashing down the river outside and a medicinal glass of Fursty Ferret to hand... FullSizeRender.mov

Maybe some more information would be helpful: this is for an extended 1920's 3 bed semi (UK) with two radiator zones and 1 zone underfloor heating (12 year old kitchen extension). Hot water usage is not overly high. Boiler is currently mounted in the loft and with a small vented cylinder in an airing cupboard below - there is not enough room in the cupboard for even the smallest UVC. The primary circuit is closed with a pressure tank set to about 1.5bar. Incoming cold pressure is very good (although I don't know the actual pressure). I saw a post recommending the Vaillant EcoTec 938, which seems to have a built-in hot water store, but I don't think that's the same as a buffer which I understand I may need for the UHF? Although I've used BG for the previous boiler, I'm not sure their service is that great and getting a "proper" set up for the house seems from an independent sounds like a better long term option. Any thoughts much appreciated. Ian

Hi all, Our 15ish year old British Gas system boiler is now fairly regularly giving us problems, so although I think a boiler should last rather longer than 15 years I'm thinking of replacing it with a new combi boiler. Are there any brands I should look to and anything else I should consider, such as a buffer tank? Many thanks!

++ see an accountant: inheritance tax has quite a lot of nuance and looks not only at the estate on death, but also the value that has been removed from the estate over the previous 7 years, and can also interact with capital gains tax. High level (and simplified), a sale at undervalue is still a gift for inheritance tax purposes: it is a potentially exempt transfer which means that if the donor lives a further 7 years the gift is not counted as part of the IHT calculation on death. However, if the donor dies within 7 years, inheritance tax is payable on the value of the estate plus the value of the land gifted (less the amount paid) over the threshold of £325,000. A sliding scale applies on the tax rate from 3 years to 7 years.

I can’t comment on the Aluclad, but we used Allan Brothers for timber flush casements and a stable back door 10 years or so ago. Very happy with the product and good customer service and delivered on time, although part of the stable door had to be replaced for a reason I can’t recall now - this was done with no fuss.

Looking at our UFH system I suspect it has not been looked after so well in the past, so at a minimum I guess I need to check the pressure, bleed and top up as necessary. The entire circuit from the heat exchanger is in plastic (apart from the manifolds obviously), so running a cleaner through the system and then adding inhibitor seems unnecessary: is this a false assumption? Heat is provided by a district heating system. On the subject of bleeding, I think the knurled bit on the top of each rail on the right is a bleed valve, but before I undo something I may regret does that seem likely? Is there anything else I should consider? Many thanks Ian

I like Dulux Trade Quick Dry Gloss, which has a decent gloss level and pretty hard wearing (although still a little behind traditional oil paints) and brushes out nicely. The others I’ve tried tend to have a sheen that is closer to satin as well as being difficult (for me anyway) to get a smooth finish.

Might be worth checking if the BC department has a tame certifier, either in-house (becoming more unlikely) or a firm they use? Our BC sign-off after replacing the bathroom included the Part P checks and certificate for the electrical work I did, although that was fairly simple (lights and bonding etc).

Thanks, that at least confirms my thoughts (unfortunately). So electric or ethanol it is then, do any Buildhubbers have experience of these, or thoughts on pros and cons of either (and the longevity or otherwise of the Dimplex Optymist fires)? Many thanks.

Sorry, I could have been clearer. We have one of the houses on the development, which consists of terraces of six houses along the river Moselle and blocks of apartments about 10m behind. So although the house is three stories, the apartment blocks behind are five stories, so in direct line of the top of the flue I guess. We love the ambiance of a real fire, but would not want others breathing in the by-products of course. Outside of the bigger conurbations, and certainly Luxembourg City, which have quite a high housing densely, most Luxembourg housing is in groupings not much larger than villages - our development is on the edge of a town, but we face the river and open space (German vineyards mostly, producing some quite agreeable wine) beyond.

As autumn threatens to come calling, I’m looking into installing a focal point fire/place. As an end of terrace we have the opportunity to run a flue for a solid fuel fire, as some others in the development have done (concerns over the health impact of wood burning haven’t reached Luxembourg yet), but the flue would be at a height where I suspect it would affect the top couple of floors of the apartments behind us if the wind was in that direction, which is not what I want. So unless there are stove/flue combinations that are so efficient that simply wouldn’t be a problem (I doubt it, but would be so very happy to be proven wrong), I’m looking at electric or ethanol (no mains gas here), but I’d like it to look real. What have people’s experiences with these been? The Optymist fires look do good, but I’d heard there were some issues with reliability? Thanks.

I believe they can although I haven’t tried it, but I also understood that a Tradfri item needs to be set up on Tradfri hub first. The reason for the two hubs is that the connection between the Hue hub and lamps on one floor and lamps on the floor above was intermittent at best, with nowhere to put an intermediate device to daisy chain it all together, hence a Hue zone and a Tradfri zone pulled together using HomeKit.

Three UniFi access points (one for each floor - concrete construction is not conducive to WiFi signal), printer, NAS, Hue hub and Tradfri hub.

Where we replaced the kitchen adding a return, I laid out polystyrene insulation under the cabinets with the aim of at least keeping the food waste bin from simmering gently. No idea yet if this will make a difference...

We've had a Corian worktop in the bathroom for more than 10 years without issue or stain. Not sure I've ever left a wet copper coin on it though...

Net return is after deduction of costs, commissions and usually taxes. It would normally be used to refer to net return on capital, so excluding the repayment of principal. In this case, I agree with @SteamyTea's interpretation that to me this really looks like total return such that not all the principal would be repaid. Parts of the HAB Mini Bond page on the debt platform seems to imply in a couple of places that 100% of the principal would be returned, but to be fair there is also a warning that there is no guarantee of this. The FCA has a page on mini bonds https://www.fca.org.uk/consumers/mini-bonds. Not something I would go for - the higher headline (unguaranteed) return reflects the higher risk.

I keep starting to document the various rather disjointed bits of home automation - which sounds rather more impressive than it actually is, but nonetheless everything is in my head which is not a lot of good to MrsSniff if anything happens to me. With our Luxembourg heating system instructions in German (which I have taken a long time to work through), and having upgraded our home networks from the provider routers to Unifi stuff, these should probably be my priority I suspect. I'm impressed by @JSHarris's wiring diagram - did you do it on a dedicated application? Is there anything accessible available to make this easier?

Luxembourg, by the river at the German border...

Lots of cuboid contemporary houses here - the planners (if there are any, I'm not entirely sure sometimes) seem happy to mix old classical houses with crisp contemporary designs, even as semis. The cuboid is often broken by inset balconies and protrusions (for lack of a better word) giving a kind of layered look, often further broken up by areas of cladding or a feature render colours. Plenty of white around, but also other colours for render and cladding such as timber, often at interesting angles rather than vertical or horizontal, zinc and even rusty steel (largely due to Luxembourg's history in steel production). I suspect that the UK planners are more conservative, so much may not be relevant, but at least here they seem able to think outside the cuboid...

One of the surprises here in Luxembourg was how much is recycled. We don't have a permanent local recycling centre where we live, but once a month one of the local car parks is closed and the recycling centre comes to us. There is no charge, and although my Luxembourgish is non-existent which causes some confusion, there seems to be no limit and trade waste is accepted - I think they view this as better than fly tipping. Pretty much everything is taken including, tyres, lithium batteries, old oil etc. And every sort of plastic that is recyclable is taken - rather different from my Sutton recycling centre, which takes very limited amount types of plastic - including polystyrene packaging. Seems a very good way to help people recycle more.

Not bean to cup, but we have a Senseo coffee maker - it uses teabag-like pouches of coffee rather then the aluminium pots. You can also get empty bags to fill with your ground of choice, albeit a bit fiddly... The machine itself is quite convenient and easy to clean.

There’s a song about that... for any blues fans:

The brand is Osmo, and yes this does apparently include a drying agent, although it still takes a while before it's properly dry. I also tried and liked their decking oil, which I found out the hard way also seems to take longer than I thought to dry thoroughly...