ProDave

We just got a standard lousy BT wet string copper connection for barely faster than dial up speed "broadband" That was all that was available. We stuck with it in the mistaken belief that "super fast broadband" would be available to all. But that promise never happened. Eventually a private wireless delivered system became available that gives us about 60 MBPS which is faster but I would hardly call it "super fast" I am still bitter at the promises of super fast broadband to all was just a pack of lies.

Anyone thinking of switching to Octopus, PM me for a referal code to get you £50 credit.

There is nothing wrong with a diverter once working, it is something you just leave alone to do it's thing. You say you had it fitted. Call the fitter back to check it is working and show you how to understand the information displayed.

I think you need to give details of which diverter? and if you have it a link to the users manual. Immediate questions are HOW does it know "water hot" Does it have a temperature probe? What other connections other than the current transformer?

Is this a structural floor (spanning between joists) or thinner planks overlaid over some other structural flooring? It doesn't look like an expansion gap issue to me.

Where is the temperature probe? i.e. how far up the cylinder. Where is the probe that the heat pump uses?

I guess the old poor housing stock issue could be tackled another way. If you really can change all our electricity generation to carbon neutral, and provide lots of it, then perhaps the thinking is, it does not matter if old houses use a lot of energy to heat them, as long as it really is carbon neutral generated energy.

Shop around. SIG gave me by far the best price for Frametherm.

It CAN'T. The sooner the politicians accepted that, and then set about what CAN be achieved, the better. We have a well insulated low energy house but I don't kid myself it is carbon neutral. It NEVER will be until ALL the electricity generated comes from renewables. I doubt that will ever happen. But it does annoy me how some people are completely disinterested in at least trying to make things better. I have wired several new builds where the owners / builders were trying, and generally going a good job of well insulated and air tight. I have also done 2 that were notably complete rubbish (same builder) lots of insulation but installed so appallingly badly with gaps for air to bypass much of it rendering it useless, and no understanding from the builder at how bad it was. But building control do not seem to check these things. And the mass market builders still build to the absolute minimum that will pass building regs, the only solution for that attitude is make the absolute minimum standard acceptable a bloody good standard. But the issue of what to do with the old houses, nobody has a clue or has the courage to talk about it. The best we have is rip out the boiler and replace with an ASHP and that will solve it. In your dreams. I really wish some respected think tank would pick up on this, spell it out, that we are NOT going to reach carbon neutral, so now lets focus our attention on doing the best we can. One that made my blood boil, i saw an advert for some of these posh electric panel heaters, advertised as something like "heat your home with zero carbon" NO THEY ARE NOT and won't be until ALL electricity generation is carbon neutral. People are being conned, they will buy those and think that is all they have to do and not bother doing anything else. If only they understood or were advised properly.

How is your hot water heated now? I am guessing combi boiler if you don't have a HW tank? What are you expecting? To stop using the combi and just use HW from an UVC? Or fit a pre heat tank to soak up some of the surplus PV (some combi boilers can take pre heated water in, but someone else will have to advise if yours is one) That's only about 3kWh per day average going spare, that on it's own won't do all your DHW needs.

Best of luck with that. They would not supply glass only to us, even as part of an order for the windows for our sun room. The only choice we had was the 2 local run of the mill window companies and were less than impressed by what they offered. You might be lucky and find a glazing supplier near you that actually understands windows and will make you a decent pane.

You biggest challenge will not be the cost, but finding someone that can actually make a 3G pane as good as the original one supplied.

So how does just 2 skylights comply with being a means of escape?

There is a house near me, roofed with some plastic coated box profile roofing, about 20 years old now. Almost all the plastic coating has fallen off, I assume a UV problem, but interestingly the steel it has left behind has not rusted yet, so assume galvanised.

Yes definitely fit isolators in flow and return, will save you a lot of grief if you need to change or replace anything.

If you moved it to the right slightly so it aligned exactly centred on that window, I bet it would look a whole lot better.

Interested in the bedroom (last picture), I assume there is a normal window as well as the roof windows? Looking all very nice.

No home automation here and bathtub cost £300, another self builder nearby bought it then changed his mind so we got it less than cost price.

It was at least a different take on self building, but I bet the £100K did not include services etc let alone buying the plot. One think I did not like about the old series was the wacky ideas like cladding walls in strips of old pallet wood to save (at the time) about £5 per sheet of plasterboard. If you take out plot price, services, legal costs etc our build was about £140K just a little under £1K per square metre. I doubt with inflation you could replicate that cost now. But we didn't scrimp on quality, we just shopped around a lot to ensure what we bought was the best price we could find.

If you are in a dip in the road, then it would probably still flood even if the neighbours ditches were cleared. Water does not flow up hill. There is a lot of advantage to living on a plot with a clear downward slope where water can escape "if all else fails"

We have a hybrid roof, 100mm above the roof and 200mm between the rafters. No problems so far and it is a very warm very effective roof. Why would you not want to full fill between the rafters to get as much as you can?

At the end of the day id is not up to you, it is what building control will accept. You could just tell BC you have installed X square metres of crates, and forget to mention the overflow to the ditch. When the ditch overflows, I take it it just runs down the road? or does the road fill up and flood? Or try digging a deeper hole and see if you break through the clay into something more permeable?

Standard in Australia too. Usual to have sockets right next to the shower and that is where you usually find the washing machine and tumble dryer. I told my Australian BIL that we are not allowed such things in case someone is stupid enough to plug the hairdryer in and take it into the shower with the water running. His reply (think Australian accent) "If they are that bloody stupid they deserve to die"

So why did they ask you to sign that ? It looks to me like they are expecting you to submit the design to your building control and for your building control to sign that they accept the design. What they are wanting to avoid is getting into an argument with your building control at the end of the project when he refuses to issue a completion certificate because of a staircase issue.

That is why you should have formally submitted the staircase design to building control and got them to either sign it as acceptable, or state what alterations they would need, BEFORE you spent your £30K It's not as if you were not advised to do that. An extra glass panel covering the first 2 steps down after the turn would do it, leaving only the bottom 2 without a handrail.