ProDave

Our house is built with ridge beams like that, in our case Kerto beams (think overgrown plywood) which are smaller for a given strength than say a glulam beam. It makes for a very open roof space, one of the better design choices we made.

What are the measurements of your rectangle? I suspect those stock rectangular to round adaptors are way too small. I like the idea of a re purposed drain hopper. Take some measurements and visit a builders merchant to see what (nearly) fits.

Simplest form, cut a piece of say plywood to fit the rectangular hole then drill a large round hole to match the ducting. It will probably be noisier than the proper bit as that would have been some form of tapered transition. Some more inventive people here would make something on their 3d printer.

Yes there is a part missing, almost certainly specific to that particular hood and not available as a spare part. If you have just bought it, take it up with the supplier. If this is an existing old hood, time to get inventive and make something.

Hi and welcome to the forum. Cutting your heating usage to 1/3 what it was originally is very good, and shows what can be done to older houses. If you wanted to get better hot water performance while keeping to a lower boiler flow temperature, you might look at changing your hot water cylinder for a "Heat Pump" version. These have a very much larger surface area input coil for better heat transfer. I have one (heated by a heat pump) the maximum flow temperature of my heat pump is set to 55 degrees. My sweet spot is DHW set at a tank temperature of 48 degrees. That is hot enough to get almost uncomfortably hot water for the kitchen sink and washing up and plenty for everything else. Some of the boffins on here would be pulling their boiler apart, fitting a second thermostat and a relay to switch between them to give different temperatures.

I like "Yacht rigging" wire for an almost invisible balustrade, as long as BC are not involved.

Just turn it on. the slab won't go straight to 40C the laws of physics means it will heat up slowly. I turned ours on yesterday. For all the southerners basking in unseasonably warm temperatures, spare a thought for the north of Scotland where it had been raining hard non stop for 48 hours and the temperature outside was about 7C

Every "tap" I have joined to, which includes the inlet to say a WC fill valve has had a flat end and so would need the flat washer in this case. So I don't know why they would fit the tapered one as the default. A proper plumber will be along I am sure to advise.

Tap connectors are supposed to be a square edge. If you need the tapered one, you are probably joining onto a fitting that is supposed to have a nut and an olive? @Nickfromwales ?

That is looking a whole lot better.

I found the 4 way stop worked well, everyone seemed to know when it was their turn. But I can't see the average British driver doing that, some would just try and barge in. And yes they don't understand "traffic circles" I think the overtaking a school bus is different in different states, where I was you were not allowed to overtake if it had some flag to show it was carrying children, you just had to wait while they got on or off.

Thanks. I am sure we would all love to see the pictures when re worked.

So I would not be paying him yet and telling him to come back and re do the job as you both agreed with the packing behind the timber in the joist and the additional work is at his expense.

Mini digger. Not only is it useful for digging it is also handy for moving stuff and can be used as a small crane within it's limits for licking stuff up. Without doubt the best purchase.

Then the joist detail of PS1 does not look right to me. the end hanging on the hanger off the steel I would expect the solid timber between top and bottom chord to go tight to the end not recessed as the plans show it. And agree with others it is the infill timber on the steel joist that is wrong. I am also very uneasy about a hanger that does not wrap over the top of the timber it is hanging from.

Mine tried to apply a 90 metre visibility splay which would be hard to meet, until I pointed out they had approved another build in the same road with only 60 metre visibility, so they agreed to that. It does seem to be a random number generation scheme,

So the council planner for visibility splays used a different stopping distance to that in the Highway Code?

I would halt all work by the guy until a solution is agreed. And make it clear not just the other houses but THIS one to be corrected. I am no structural engineer but I would not be happy with the entire weight of a posi joist and all that it is supported being supported on a total of 22 nails passing through a bit of plywood before they barely reach what they are supposed to be nailing into. And isn't the top chord of the posi joist supposed to extend further and rest on the top of the steel? There might be more wrong here than the joiners poor excuse at bodging it, the joists might be made wrong for the application. I would be wanting the designer, SE, Architect or whoever did the design to look at it and for him to specify the resolution before any more work on these joists proceeds.

This is a non habitable structure and not going to be subject to inspection. So reading the above, the joint can be assumed to be no more than 75% of the native timber strength. In due course (i.e. not straight away) I will start sketching some possible joist plans, and we will see if anyone here is able to calculate how close I am to the maximum strength of the joists. Thinking about reinforcing the joint, a full steel plate would be inconvenient as I will probably be attaching other joists to the side of these. But those other joists would be smaller. I have some lengths of thick 2" wide steel straps. Working on the basis that the top of the joint will be in compression and the bottom will be in tension, it would seem logical that I bolt a 2" steel strap across both sides of the joist at the bottom through bolted with stud and nuts.

A quick google tells me the stopping distance of a car at 20mph is 14 metres. So if you are able to see 25 metres I would argue you have plenty of visibility. At last we have found a way where these new 20mph limits may actually help you.

It has to be some form of water ingress either in the wall cavity or from the plumbing in the shop. The mouldy wall is not exactly an outside wall so I would not expect that wall to be cold.

I worry about their integrity when wet. As soon as I can after this current wet spell, I want to empty the storage under the static caravan (mostly ladders) and try and get these under there in dry storage until I use them. Then in use, I will treat them with something and they should be mostly dry under the box profile roofing.

My thought is the twist release mechanism you are hoping for is unlikely to be standard between manufacturers so even if you could release it, would you be able to find a replacement that would fit?

What's stopping you unscrewing the whole thing from under the cistern?

Or do as I am doing with my pantry, use screws that I KNOW penetrate less than the thickness of the flooring used