ProDave

Weather compensation on a resistance heating boiler is not going to make any differnce. As it is only a 6kW boiler and it presumably has enough output to heat the house, I would be looking at replacing that with a similar sized air source heat pump. That will roughly cut your heating bill to 1/3 and in principle should be an easy swap. Then with an ASHP weather compensation might make sense which most of them offer as standard.

That's why you need to speak to them, to make sure they are doing what the schedule says not making it up. Express your concern that until it is shuttered or the retaining wall built, it is very vunerable in it's present state.

So likely the foundations for the retaining wall poured on Thursday then they will build the wall. Once that is up the danger is over for your garden.

What does the planning permission say? Are they building an extension right to the fence?

Why have they dug so close to your fence there, where further back the excavation is further from the fence? What will fall into their garden if it collapses? a bit of lawn? or your house? Even a gale at the moment would topple your fence. I would go round and speak to the neighbour immediately, or if the workmen are there speak to them and make your concerns known. What do the plans show here? How do you know building control has not been approved yet?

I would say the relationship is already soured. I would have been livid at an £11K charge for being 1 month late. Is there a similar clause that allows you to charge similar if they are late? no I did not think so. I would be calling a serious meeting, telling them it is their issue as you contracted them to do the package, tell them the best technical solution is wider battens so the cladding lines up with the outside of the base blockwork and that will require deeper window cills which they will pay for.

It it's like Australia, it's where you find the washing machine and tumble dryer, right next to the shower cubicle. They manage without killing themselves.

Personally I would have (I do have) zone valves feeding each manifold, each one sited next to the manifold for easy maintenance. You will need one for the hot water tank.

Does the blockwork need to be a cavity there? I have only ever seen the blockwork on a TF house solid below DPC. So I would say they need to knock down the outer leaf of blockwork to below ground level and rebuild with it stepped in and no cavity. Agreed it should the the contractors problem (cost) not yours. Another thought. How are you getting enough insulation just in the thickness of the timber frame? I would look at external insulation over the frame before the battens and cladding which would widen the whole structure and improve it's performance, then you are back to changing the window cill depth.

This is a symptom of the UFH being too hot so the room is warming too quickly, and the excess heat in the slab continues warming the room. If you have reached they physical stop on the blending valve and it won't go any lower, try removing the knob and seeing if the splined shaft will rotate a little more beyond what the stop (usually part of the knob mechanism) will allow to get the temperature lower.

WHEN they stop burning mostly imported wood on an industrial scale at DRAX and telling us it is carbon neutral and green, then I might, just might, start thinking about my own use of a small wood burning stove occasionally in the middle of nowhere.

Instant heat is the last thing you want in a passive house. You want a very low level of near constant heat to match the very low level of heat loss.

Ask the IET, I suspect it is their estimate of the average length of flex on an appliance plus the reach of a person?

When you get to a really well insulated house, the concept of "heat a room quickly for a short time" does not work, because once heated, it takes hours or even days to cool down again. and it becomes near impossible to even have rooms at different temperatures, e.g our unheated upstairs was only 2 degrees lower than the heated downstairs when it was -10 outside.

The wiring regs don't define a utility or a kitchen, the special location is a "room containing a bath or a shower" So whatever name you give it, your bike shed is a special location under wiring regs and needs to be treated as a bathroom. And it's too small to get a socket in there, anywhere. This caused me a headache when doing a conversion where the owner had fitted a shower cubicle in the corner of a bedroom. That whole room is now a special location. The room was just big enough to allow a couple of sockets in the opposite corner of the room to the shower cubicle, which were of course not where the owner wanted them, so plugged in there is an extension lead to power the tv sat on a dressing table right next to the shower. Bath or shower rooms I guess assume you are likely to be naked and standing in water so don't want anything touchable from there. In a kitchen you might have wet hands but you are unlikely to be naked and standing or sitting in water (I could think of one on here that might)

A lot of us on here found buying our own min digger, using it for the job then selling it was the best way. You have the digger on hand whenever you want it not constrained by hire deadlines etc so you often find you are using it for small jobs, just moving stuff about site etc that you would not have considered hiring for. And it's fun. Your garage is as big as my house so it definitely sounds like it is worth it. As a novice digger driver I found the easiest way to get the final bit level when stripping an area was do the final scrape with the dozer blade on the digger rather than try and scrape it level with the bucket.

To make it easier for readers, here is a link to the original article, rather than just a picture of a screen grab https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/homeowner-who-built-house-drive-29107023

Mot familliar with Forma Plus, anyone care to explain? Mine are Aura Plus.

The blue wall that is clearly out of square at the bottom of the door frame. What is is like at the top of the door? My second house, was much worse than that but only upstairs. It was a set of over stressed joists due to an upstairs load bearing wall not being above the downstairs one. The process of alterations to the house the wonky door frame upstairs got moved and re built and it never moved again, at least in the time I owned it.

This is not advice but..... It has been reported here before that OR are difficult to deal with and at least one member was told by an OR employee to accidentally pull the wire down, report the fault then the men come and fix it with no fuss. It would be very easy to accidentally damage the phone cable while removing the redundant power cables if you were not very careful. And then the (obviously rotten) pole fell down. That would be when the issue of the (now missing of course) private pole can be discussed. Offer then the chance to run the cable underground around the perimiter of your plot.

If the wall is leaning it will have been a gradual process and the foundations will be leaning as well. If you push it back upright with brute force, you will likely just break the wall so when you remove the force it might all just fall over. Then who do you expect will be expected to pay to repair it?

Yes that is loop at switch. the blues in the Wago are the neutral, so if your smart switch needs a neutral that is where it connects to.

When our pump failed we got a soggy lawn. I learned early on to keep a (cheap) spare pump to swap over if the main (expensive) one failed.

If there is literally a 2 core cable connected to the switch then you have "loop at light" wiring. I assume this is one of your HMO's? Most people wire new builds loop at switch now.

Mine (LG 5kW) is nosiest heating DHW then usually nearing the end as the tank water approaches it's 48 degree target and the HP is having to deliver water at 55 degrees to make any meaningful input to the tank. If you are not using up surplus solar PV could you time it where possible to do the DHW heating at night when people are not likely to be outside? Just heating the house it is very quiet.