ProDave

I just think it has got to the point that nobody believes a word a PM says. Any PM of any flavour. For too long they have said lots of good words and not delivered. So until we see electricity prices actually coming down, however they achieve that, a lot of people will think like me, that it's all building up to another broken promise. I hope I am proven wrong this time.

No, but telling consumers more wind turbines = cheaper electricity prices, yet with no plan to restructure pricing so it is not set by the gas price, is setting consumers up to be let down when electricity prises do not fall. No wonder people want to do the opposite of what they are told, they simply no longer believe what they are told.

We can only guess until what they are actually going to do is known. It is no surprise they have to raise more tax from somewhere and "those rich home owners" are seen as an easy target. Except an awful lot of people are now "those rich home owners" As with most things this government do* , it would result in unintended consequences, like people not moving house and a whole section of commerce (estate agents, mortgage companies, removal companies, builders etc) grinding to a halt. * whoever would have guessed placing more tax burdens on employers would result in them employing fewer people for instance.

Given the door is a rectangle, if the bottom right (outside) corner was 5mm too low then if that was down to the hinges sagging then the upper left corner would have pulled about 10mm away from the frame. If that had happened, then the 10mm gap would be obvious, and the door top right would be carching on the frame. So although you don't want to believe it, the issue is caused by the door frame no longer being a right angled rectangle but the frame has distorted. The basic problem is the actual door frame is not very strong. So if the weight of the glass was evenly distributed along it's bottom edge, it's weight would distort the frame over time as it has done. So the heel and toeing thing is to try and pack it so the weight of the glass sits almost entirely on the hinge side. That would make the glass want to tilt away from the hinge side, so that's where the top packers come in to prevent that. There is only one way this is going to be resolved by having the glass removed and re fitted properly after squaring up the door frame.

I will add my thoughts to this thread. I have an ASHP and am happy with it. It was really my only choice on a new build. Mains gas is not available here (if it was a gas boiler would have been given serious consideration) and I did not want an oil tank to feed an oil boiler. I paid for my ASHP myself and self installed it and cost was similar if not perhaps a bit cheaper than the oil option. It;s been running for something in excess if 5 years with only 1 fault, a bearing on the fan motor, which I replaced myself. I am yet to be convinced it is actually any cheaper to run that a modern condensing gas boiler would have been and still of the opinion anyone being "sold" as ASHP as a replacement for an existing system expecting much lower running costs might be in for a disappointment. It is the insulation levels and air tightness that give my house the low running costs. So you might think it is a good idea for everyone to swap their fossil fuel boilers for an ASHP. Lets think about that (ignoring for the moment if we all did it straight away the electricity grid would collapse) What is not to like about an ASHP. Well nothing when they are working. BUT I doubt they will all keep working forever with no repairs. Your gas boiler goes wrong, and there are plenty of people that can come and fix it, they understand them, parts are available and easy to swap. All very good. Your ASHP goes wrong. Who is going to fix it? Not so many people around that can do that. I consider myself educated and understand electrical things so a lot I could do myself, but not everything. So your ASHP fails, it's a critical part, part not available or nobody willing to fit it? Oh you will need a new one sir. Now most people will probably have received a grant (and still paid a lot of £££ on top) to have the first one installed. I bet if it has failed out of warranty they will be offered a replacement, but oh sorry no grant, this replacement is going to cost you even more ££££. If you change for a different make, it won't be like swapping to a different make of boiler (where controls are fairly standard) you will likely need a lot of electrical alterations as the electrical control scheme from one ASHP to another can be very different. I don't know how we resolve that, but where we want to be is some form of common electrical control interface (like boilers) where it is easy to swap from one make to another. A LOT more people with the skills to service and repair them, at sensible prices, i.e. at a similar hourly rate to plumbers at the moment. Better availablilty of spares at a sensible price. I think the present MCS / BUS grant scheme and the way it is being applied at the moment leaving customers still with a large bill, is doing immense damage to the reputation of heat pumps, Something has to change. Until it is possible to get a heat pump installed as simply and cheaply as a gas boiler, and until servicing and repair is similarly easy and cheap, I will not be recommending any friend of mine to get an ASHP fitted, as I don't want to lose friends when / if it goes wrong and costs them a lot of money.

It's officially finished when BC issue a completion certificate. Then you are free to finish it as you want, when you want, if ever.

Also, the 110V secondary is usually centre tapped and the centre connected to earth. So if you did come into contact with a live wire the most it would be is 55V which is little more than a tingle. By the way who actually says they are going to use a 110V transformer or indeed any mains powered tools. I have worked on several new builds including 2 of my own, all timber frame and I don't recall much use of wired power tools. Plenty of wired chop saws etc but they are sited away from the actual build a little, and later in the build perhaps a large drill to drill a core through a wall. But most day to day stuff is all cordless tools now. So what I am trying to say, is mains power available next to the build is probably enough.

You sketch is wrong. The hing side of the door is still tight to the frame, not as you have sketched. Instead the door is no longer square. If you put a big square to the corners of the door, you would see they are no longer right angles.

If you raise the hinge side, that may start to clash with the top before the outer side has lifted enough to clear the cill. Your issue seems to be the glass unit has tilted or moved and putting undue pressure on the outer edge deforming the frame. You need the glass removed and refitted correctly. the alignment of the glass inside the frame is called heel & toeing and by using packers and wedges the glass is set to place all it's weight on the inner, hinge side at the bottom with further wedges to stop the resulting outward tilting force rotating the glass in the frame. You want a glass fitter to come and do this for you. EDIT: seeing your post with pictures you can see the upper glass panel has rotated in the frame just as I described. The fitter would neet to take the glass and the solid bottom infil panel out, square up the frame, and refit both with the correct setup of the packers.

Are you saying, that if you look at the bottom of the door as it closes, the hinge side is correct, but the outer edge of the door bottom is too close to the outer edge of the door frame bottom and that is where it is catching?

This sounds very much like one I encountered some years ago. Property was high up a hill. Mains water was provided to a buried tank, as high up the hill as the mains pressure would get it. From the tank it was pumped up to the house. They were responsible for the pump, the pipe and the switchgear. On one occasion when we looked in the tank, another party had simply added another pump to draw from it. Is it that sort of arrangement? if so it was I guess technically mains water with a break tank. More details would be needed to find a solution.

It won't just be the electrician using a 110V transformer, most trades will, and most will just bring their own and expect somewhere to plug it in. So get or make a very heavy duty long 240V extension lead, or since you have the cable that is going to feed the house already buried, buy a waterproof cabinet and put a temporary site consumer unit in it with power sockets etc right at the house site.

Don't pay a rat man. Buy rat poison and put it out yourself again and again until they are gone.

My understanding it is water running down the walls, dripping off the window drip beads etc that ends up on the wooden frame of the balcony fixed tight to the house wall. When I built my balcony I anticipated this issue. The timber "against" the wall was fixed on spacers so it sits about 25mm off the wall. Any such drips can just run down the wall as before without wetting the timbers. And I gave them all 2 coats of exterior wood paint before assembly. I don't see an easy fix here other than paint every bit of timber with at least some form of exterior wood preservative, and some local flashings formed over the worst affected parts.

You are proposing an air pressure test are you not, in which case there will be no problem.

I just don't like having to pass through the kitchen to get from the hall to the living room. Stairs from the hall is normal. Your proposal with the stairs at the back is just awkward.

I could see that being caused by a lintel if it was a steel lintel, now rusting and expanding. Re pictures. A lot of phones now try to be helpful by auto rotating an image. So if viewing and posting on a phone you may not even know it is coming out the wrong way up. I prefer not to uses such "helpful" features so I know if a picture is posted the right way up or not.

We have to pay for a proper pump out, but on the other hand we don't pay any other waste water charges.

I don't think they understand your roof. What they have supplied sounds like what we used. The flashing goes on the top (in our case for tiles) In the roof cavity the support bracket and then on the inside (plasterboard in our case) the internal trim. You don't have that inner layer so the support could go between the rafters but it would look ugly. What flashing have they provided for the polycarb roof?

Can I enquire why you want such a tiny hose ultimately connected to such a big fitting. It seems very unusual to say the least.

I see nothing wrong with DIY but you MUST have it pumped out first so you are filling an empty tank. So the replacement treatment plant will have to be installed an in use first, so if planning to refill with the excavations from that, you will have to store that somewhere.

That is a Proboil 2, the same as I have supplied by Howdens under their own brand. Ours was originally the Proboil 1 but the boiler was replaced under warranty as it failed in the first year and replaced with the Proboil 2. Ours only has ordinary hot and cold and boiling (actually 98 degrees) We are in a soft water area so no scale issues and I didn't even bother installing the supplied in line filter. There are also instructions on the Proboil site to dismantle and descale the boiler if needed. Our Proboil 2 has been in use for about 6 years now. Get a price from Howdens before buying.

The one on the right looks to be the connector that comes with a big submirsible pump. the multi barbed fitting is for connecting to different sizes of delivery hose. Where does the skinny pipe on the left fit into this? explain what you want to connect to what?

Picture please.

We did an entire 2 storey extension under a building notice when we were down south. It worked astonishingly well, no problems at all. But then the builder we used had come highly recommended and there was nothing particularly complicated about it. I also remember the astonishingly (by todays standard) cost of building the shell including foundations and roof of just £18K