ProDave

It could well be the thermal mixer cartridge has failed. If you live alone so nobody else uses a tap while you are in the shower you might not notice it has failed and is just working as a manual mixer valve.

By 2008 building regs required a cavity to be ventilated. Unfortunately most builders have no idea about air tightness and you will have lots of leaks between the cavity and the inside of the house, most likely joist ends, poorly pointed blockwork that won't even have been plastered in the inter floor area etc. Sadly no easy fix. It's what I say about most of the UK housing stock is built to really poor standards, even some quite recently built houses. It's the sort of detail that is easy to get right when building, if you know what to do and can be bothered.

Yep I had a customer like that, running a washing machine AND a tumble dryer from a wound up extension lead. I think she said she was on the third one "they keep melting" before she called me to fit a new permanent socket to plug them into. The extension lead in the picture in this thread does appear to be fully unwound. My own "3kW" immersion heater appears to draw more like 2.8kW in real life.

Yep I have thought that for a long time. I just hate the whole concept that the water temperature coming out of the tap varies with the flow rate of that tap, and that is before you even consider turning other taps on in the house. And then the fact you turn a hot tap off, then turn it on a minute later and you get warm water to start with (what was in the pipe), then some cold water before it warms up again. People like them for "simplicity" but what's complicated about a system boiler and unvented hot water cylinder (as long as you avoid 3 port mid position valves) They just give a nice constant temperature regardless of flow rate and regardless of what other taps are on.

That's twin wall ducting with a smoother (usually white) inner layer? As long as the inner layer is not damaged it will be fine. I would just give the damaged outer layer a wrap of air tightness tape just for good measure.

The assessor never actually checked the panels were connected to anything (cough)

No. "use" the toilet and it's fan comes on, the other rooms are likely to get smelly.

Well an update. I bought the wood from where I could find something suitable. I have searched the area and visited loads of timber merchants and non really inspired me. After about 3 weeks clamped together I unleashed them, and made 4 more spindles from the straightest ones. the rest I cut roughly to length then clamped them together in shorter lengths for another week. All now made and fitted and all seem straight, though one has twisted slightly.

i would roll back the carpet from the edge, remove that bead (get a handyman in if you can't do it yourself) and you will probably need to re paint the skirting. Then get the carpet fitters back to resolve it. With the bead gone, they will not have an excuse for it not fitting properly. The damaged backing to the carpet is probably not an issue, it is not often they lay with a stock edge against a wall, usually all sides of the room are trimmed to fit and that less than perfect edge will have been cut off.

What is your budget? We just completed our self build for £1000 per square metre. That was only achieved (after a change of circumstances dictated) by doing a HUGE amount of the build myself and buying everything from the cheapest source possible, a build that took us just over 6 years. With the recent material price rises I could not do it that cheap if starting now. I think general consensus is you will be doing well at £2000 per square metre now. We would all be interested in your plans, floor layout etc and you usually get some constructive advice. Our own house was designed by me to make efficient use of space and there is not much we would change. My one thing I would comment on your "spec list" is don't go for cold roof. Warm roof is just as easy and SO much easier to detail for good air tightness, plus your loft space is nice and warm and dry. Choosing warm roof I maintain was one of our best design decisions.

Reading this thread remands me one of the best design decisions we made was to make it a warm roof, with 100mm of insulation over the top of the rafters and then no need to ventilate and you can full fill the gap between the rafters, we used Frametherm 35 for that, an easy job. I post this for the benefit of anyone at the design stage, it won't help in this case now unfortunately.

Although I like Hager CU's their labels are amongst the worst I have ever encountered, they lose their stick and fall off. As I am often fitting new or changing CU's I always have spares left over so mine is labelled up with a different make of label, but one that stays stuck. Having an all rcbo board is handy as I always have spare red "non protected" label strips

No, the whole house gets metered at the cheap rate during E7 times. The switched output to the off peak CU is just a convenient way to turn on the storage heaters at night when the cheap rate is on without you having to have your own timer.

The issue might be uneven joists? If the PB is not flat to the joist when screwed, the screw will bend the PB towards the joist. It will sit there like a wound up spring, and movement as someone walks above may pop the screw through the board. It may not be the plasterers fault.

Are we just talking the plaster over a screw head popping or something bigger?

Having just bought carpets, I think it highlights the importance of trusting your supplier and fitter.

So multiple issues The unneeded beading should have been removed first, before the skirting was painted and before the carpet was fitted. the fitter should have advised this when he came to measure. If the carpet needed a bit patched in with a join, was it an unusually large room with one dimension longer than the roll width of your chosen carpet? could you not have found a carpet with a roll width wider to avoid a joint? Did the supplier not suggest this? And I don't buy the can't stretch it theory. did you actually see them using a carpet stretcher?

Can you post a picture of this "beading under the skirting"? I am not sure what you mean?

No sorry that is carp for a proper carpet fitter. Is there underlay and grippers?

I don;t have HA but just having an ASHP to heat your house is "non standard" as far as most plumbers and electricians are concerned, so following on from your concern, I am planning to write a "home manual" detailing exactly how the ASHP is wired (including a few unconventional tweaks) including circuit diagrams etc, so that if it should go wrong in the future and I am not here to fix it, someone else might stand a chance of understanding it.

Well done. My design SAP with the standard assumed air tightness scored a B, just 1 point short if A. That would have been frustrating. It was BC that insisted on an air test so having got it done I gave that to the assessor for the as built SAP which of course was A

So do you have a fire alarm system as in what you normally see in commercial buildings, with each sensor linked to a central control panel? If so why? Or do you like most people have a number of individual mains powered interlinked smoke heat and CO detectors? If you paid for a professional company to install a fire alarm system, and what they have installed does not meet building regulations re the number and position of sensors then get them to correct that failing. It all hinges on what building regulations actually say. I am not up to speed on the English version, but in Scotland you would need a smoke alarm in the hall, and a heat alarm in the kitchen, and another smoke alarm in the living room. BC did not ask for any certificates for the smoke alarms, they just had a walk around and checked for their presence where required (we also have some others in places not actually required)

The blockwork is damp because it's unfinished and soaking up rain I assume? What finish will that have render or something else? I suspect all the problems will go away once the finishing coat is applied to the blockwork.

I think the answer to this is a buffer tank. The plumbers will be along to explain I am sure.

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