ProDave

If the AAV has failed and is letting air out, then it will inflate the plastic bad you are about to tape over it.

If you are a regular hill or mountain walker you will know there is no such thing as a minimum width for a public footpath. What is your "failure" footpath used for? I doubt it if for the home owners to get access to their back gardens. More likely for walkers to gain access to / from somewhere in the countryside. The only "complaint" you might have is if the actual right of way shown on the definitive map is further to the left in that picture, then he won't have just made it narrower, he will have diverted it to a different location. That they could take action against.

How long since last de sludge? Check none of the traps have run dry, just pour a bit of water down each to make sure. An AAV won't let a smell in unless it has failed but that is unusual. Try taping a plastic bag over the AAV's to see if that stops the smell?

We did this. Using a local company I knew and trusted (had worked with them before) but they did foundations and timber frame build and errect so it would be their problem if the frame did not fit the foundations.

Because they will, and are already doing so in some parts of the world. Again, if they are in other parts of the world, WHY NOT HERE. What is our government doing wrong that other countries do right? We NEED to change how we do it.

Most "ordinary people" don't analyse it and work out why, they just look at "results" We are being told more renewables will reduce prices. We have been set a target of how much they will reduce by the next election, instead consumers are seeing them rise. They better damned well fall by £300 by the next election otherwise it will be "yet another failed election promise, this lot are no better than the last lot, we need something radically different. Welcome PM Mr Farage." I don't support Reform, but I perfectly understand the frustration and despair people have with the 2 parties that have alternated in power all my working life and fully understand people like me no longer believing a word that they say. I really would have thought one of them would learn by now you can't just go giving the electorate a load of hopes and wishes portrayed as promises, and not expect the people to be a little bit annoyed at you when you fail to do what you promised.

The point is we keep being told by Starmer that more renewables will lower our bills. Now we are going to face a further (yes small) rise to our electricity bills to help pay for propping up the creaking grid. However small, that is bills going in the WRONG direction. And do you really think the master of U turns is really going to deliver £300 savings per customer in 4 years? Yes the electricity price determined by gas price link needs to end, but ALSO and much quicker and easier is to put the green levies onto GAS prices not electricity. Whoever came up with a scheme that basically says "we want consumers to switch to cleaner electricity rather than gas, how shall we encourage them? By taxing the cleaner fuel we want them to switch to insteady of the dirty one we want them to stop using"

Buttering us up for the U turn on "more renewables will bring bills down" Why am I not surprised disappointed ?

Do you mean 2.4m? That is low for the apex of a vaulted ceiling and would not be high enough for that sort of multi pendant fitting.

It makes me angry that the law says the CIL won't apply to self builders. So WHY are they allowed to make the system so complicated and with so many "traps" to try and make self builders pay if they don't tick the right boxes in the right order?

We have one light fitting in our 5M by 4M bedroom. It is a high ceiling with a light fitting that hangs down a long way with 3 lamps in it. Works no problem. How easy to change at this stage? What is above? Accessible loft space, easy peasy. Vaulted ceiling with just a small service void could be very difficult.

I assume some sort of hand rails are still to be fitted? There is one lone wooden post in place at the moment suggesting that might be the case. I would have made them less wide, but perhaps they are that wide to allow an infirm person to use them with a helper with them? Agreed about the lack of edging, the grass will quickly encroach on the steps.

Why is anyone paying? I thought this was supposed to be covered by a government initiative to provide gigabit internet to all properties?

What was asked for and agreed? They are functional if not pretty. Of course the devil is in the detail that you can't see, what base has been laid under the grass to support them?

It's been plumbed wrong. The cold taps should be fed from the same pressure reduced feed as feeds the cylinder. Instead it sounds like yours are fed direct from the mains and since you turned the pressure down, as you say the cold feeds are now at a higher pressure.

The highlighted word is the important one. Judging by the way he butchered your wall I am not sure that word applied here?

"Summer bypass" is a poor description of this function. It is in reality "heat exchanger bypass" In summer when it is hot, the heat exchanger can actually work in reverse and COOL the incoming air. Operating "summer bypass" then, would just allow ever hotter air into the house. I have never used the bypass function on mine, I struggle to find the very few times it would actually be of any use.

You choices are get the kit and design for £0 which takes account of the grant, then pay your chaps to fit it. Or ignore the grant altogether, buy the kit yourself, pay your guys to fit it and get nothing.

One option to look at is a number of companies will supply the kit for free (using the BUS grant) with design and paperwork, leaving you (or your builder) to install it. Any competent plumber and electrician that can read the install manual will be able to install it.

When building a house, you can have cheap, fast and good. But you ONLY ever get at most 2 of those. We chose cheap and good with us doing a lot ourselves but it took several years. To have paid someone to just build it would have resulted in a house that cost way more than it was worth. Perhaps self building only suits the practical sort willing to do a lot of the work?

By far the simplest way to manage heat, is during the day keep all windows shut and curtains closed on sunny side of house. Then at night throw all the windows open to cool the house from the cooler night time air. Trying to tell someone NOT to open a window when "it's hot" just does not seem to sink in.

^^^ It makes my blood boil that some councils waste so much time and money on stupid things like the above, and fail to do the things they should be doing.

The holes are where he went probing to try and find a stud, and the long screws are because he didn't have any plasterboard fixings. All speculation of course.

Was this done on an empty house or furnished? Did any of the sealing gunk (whatever it is) settle on any visible surface of the house and need cleaning off afterwards? Before or after plasterboarding?

The contactor and wire got hot because the connection was not secure so created a resistance. Current passing through a resistance creates heat. The total current flowing would be less than if the connection was perfect so no chance of over current trip operating. The current still flowed Live to Neutral so no chance of tripping an RCD. The only thing that might have detected that is an Arc Fault Detection Device. Their uses has been discussed but not presently a requirement. Lots of th discussion has been on false trips, i.e. they are not regarded as reliable devices. Normally one's nose detects these things, if you smell and odd smell go looking for it's source.