ProDave

Get building control to look at it. If BC says no the builders won't be able to argue with him and they will have to correct it at their expense.

I would say get a Telford Stainless steel UVC with a standard and solar input coil. Nothing to stop you using the PV and the ST at the same time.

As I have eluded to, the 3 port valves are complex things with a couple of microswitches resistors and diodes. As well as being able to stop and mid position, they also create the "call for heat" signal to the boiler. In principle you could connect a 2 port valve direct to the boiler flow and return to power the UFH independent of anything connected to the 3 port valve. However there would be 2 issues doing that. Firstly the 3 port valve at rest connects to the DHW port, so whenever the UFH was on, water from the boiler would flow through the tank coil and also ignore the cylinder thermostat in the process. And secondly you would probably have issues if you just connect the call for heat from the 2 port valve in parallel with the call for heat from the 3 port valve. Feeding 230V into the 3 port valve like that might have some unexpected complications. So i still say replace the lot with 2 port valves.

I bought an insulated sleeve as part of my kit from flue-pipes.com but they don't seem to sell it any more, but at least this gives an idea what you are looking for. It comes as 2 halves with a band to strap them together. I fitted the sleeve to the pipe before putting it through the roof.

I only ever did that once when bodging a wrong fitting and it was for my own house.

Part it on the lathe gets it nice and square.

But at least when items are missing, they get them very quickly without quibble.

That explains why the trap was on the piss, the flange was not cut square. Hopefully the new plumber can cut / file it flat and square, or find anther one.

The general rule is no closer than 100mm to the wall. There is no harm if it is further, mine are no closer than 200mm to any wall.

Okay, so with the bowl in place, run a tap continuously and look for exactly which of the several joints in the wast fitting is actually leaking, you only need to fix the one that is leaking.

I am not understanding this. Is it dripping from the pipe to one of the taps i.e.that silver braided hose? Or is it dripping from the plastic waste fitting? My confusion is you say it stopped when you turned one of the isolators off, but if it was the waste leaking you would not have needed to do that, just turn the basin taps off and the trap will stop dripping shortly.

I think I would want a loo on the upper floor without having to go through the bedroom to the en-suite, or downstairs. Perhaps shrink the en-suite slightly to join a loo on the right hand end? I take it the lower floor is cut into a sloping site hence the lack of windows on the back wall?

Yes our upload speed is a lot slower so I can understand taking longer to send. Is there an equivalent to speedtest for emails to actually measure the speed we get. The ISP is BT standard copper broadband but the emails are those linked to my domain names and the email hosting service of the doman name host, connected using IMAP and thunderbird mail. Is the IMAP protocol very inefficient and could explain the slow speed? Or should I be raising a complaint with my domain host about the poor email service? I was trying to establish with a 3MBPS internet download speed and IMAP how long it should take to download a 2.1Mb document via email?

I thought the pink stuff is what goes in the flush tank of a caravan toilet, not much more than scented soapy water. The holding tank chemical is available as blue or green, definitely avoid the blue, the green one claims it is okay for a septic tank.

We have "end of line" copper broadband, that achieves a download speed of about 3MBPS that if I am understanding it correctly is 3 million bits per second. So allowing for stop, start and parity bits, and an 8 bit byte, that would probably equate to a download speed of about 250Kbytes per second. Is that a fair estimate. This slow broadband is capable of streaming live tv and all normal web browsing okay. So please tell me why I have just waited a painful half an hour for my email do download a 2.1Mb document? By the above calculation, that should have taken about 10 seconds. There is clearly some huge gap between theory and practice. Also, recently I tried to send a load of photographs totalling 20Mb. It failed after half an hour and the only way I could get it to send was one picture attached to each email and 12 separate emails. Even than a couple of them failed and had to be re sent. Clearly my email system is not working very well.

If you want to try fixing your old unit, turn the power off, remove the cover from the actuator head and buried deep down at the bottom you will find the 2 screws that hold the head onto the bottom, remove them and lift the head off. Then see if you can turn the shaft on the actuator head, chances are after a long period of non use it is seized and getting it to move with a pair of pliers and exercise it until it is free might be all that is needed.

In our new build, I set out to achieve a "good" house and my original mantra was I didn't want a ventilated cavity and blockwork outer as it was just a big rain screen and added almost nothing to the insulation. So I ended up with a house design clad in wood fibre insulation and render onto that, the idea being all elements of the build were adding to the insulation. My view has changed in light of recent issues and I am afraid I could not recommend that system at the moment and in particular could not recommend the Baumit render that we used as the system has proven to be "less than robust" and is presently undergoing some rework and the supplier and manufacturer have not been interested in helping determine what went wrong. Only time will tell after that if the issues have been fixed by the rework or re occur. So although the blockwork is little more that a rain screen, it is a proven and robust rain screen. Our previous house had dormers just like yours, the blockwork was continued up either side of the dormer, a concrete lintel and blockwork above the dormer. The side cheeks were clad in plywood, galvanised wire mesh fixed on and the same cement render on the side cheeks as the rest of the wall, and it has proved reliable.

So I take it the land plus barns is being advertised for sale now? HOW is it being advertised? As agricultural land or potential development land?

I doubt you will have problems installing a drainage system there as long as you have some of the land to do so (not just the barn plus a tiny bit) But do you know you will get PP to convert it? Has it gone through the procedure of trying to sell it for an agricultural use?

I wired a Cool Energy ASHP a couple of years ago. My only criticism was the customer, against my advice, bought the very cheapest version without an inverter and the controls flexibility was poor, e.g. it would only do HW and heating at the same temperature. Also last winter, we had the coldest spell I remember where it got to -17 one night. My LG ASHP did not bat an eyelid but this Cool Energy one shut down that night with an error message which translated to "too cold" I would definitely buy an inverter driven version but I have no experience of those.

That tank looks pretty clean, I have seen a LOT worse. Before you put it back, take the lid outside and give it a thorough clean with a pressure washer or similar.

Our 'van was connected into the main drainage run, and into the new treatment plant. That meant we did not connect the 'van to the drains until the house foundations were in and connected (but we were not wanting to live in it that early) and so building control inspected / tested the whole drain run including the connection to the 'van.

We used 13mm OSB on 600mm centre joists. Yes it was a bit springy but nobody went through.

How can we get so many different answers to the same sum here? @ValleyBoy1958 says a heat pump would use 5000kWh of electricity and at 18p that comes to £900. When you find someone still selling electricity for 15p per kWh please let me know. So his house takes 15000kWh to heat it, a gas boiler might be 90% efficient would consume about 16650kWh of gas at 4p per kWh would cost £666 plus the gas standing charge of about £100 per year = £766 So gas is cheaper but not by a lot. Add in annual boiler service cost for gas and it is even closer. I am not suggesting everyone with gas should be rushing out to buy an ASHP but this does show for a new build without gas, an ASHPis a very viable and competetive heat source.

I don't think testicles size is the issue here.