ProDave

Can you post a picture? I can't imagine how a panel can go out of square after it is clad in ply, unless you mean it has simply warped and no longer flat?

We have used two "protection" products. One was sold to us with our porcelain tiles. It was painted onto the tiles pre grouting, it was supposed to make the grout not stick to the tile and be easier to clean off. Not sure if that really made a difference or not. The other product is a sealant for our slate tiles that you apply every couple of years to seal the tiles and it helps to bring out the colour of the slate. I am not sure what the stuff you have is hoping to achieve.

The metal will only be the corner beads. Cut that away with a fine tooth hacksaw, then chisel into the plaster with an old small chisel to allow the glass in. then make good with filler.

Narrowboats come in a range of prices. Sub £10 will get you something that floats (but for how long?) I reckon about £1K per foot will get you a decent one. When we retire we plan to buy a 50ft approx NB and live aboard for a couple of years and explore the whole network. At least you won't have to pay a mooring fee (assuming you have the right to moor one on your bank?) I actually find the larger ones easier to control that the "half pint" variety. More mass and more momentum makes them easier to keep going in a straight line slowly when you want them to. I have definitely been passed there, that was our first canal holiday up the Langollen nearly 30 years ago now. There is more to explore next time with part of the Montgomory now opened. The Langollen gets quite narrow above Trevor and over the aqueduct.

What I heard from a meter monkey once, was they throw a hissy fit of you have taken up space in "their" box because if there is ever a dispute, they need room to fit a second check meter.

I think what I would do is buy the new CU and mount it where you want it eventually. Then get a quote from the DNO to move the supply head to the new location and connect the supply to the new CU. then just connect a couple of sockets next to the CU for powering tools etc during the work. But please post a picture of the existing supply, meter and CU.

That looks a lovely garden. When are you buying a narrowboat?

Looks great. My guess is all "your" kit was added after the meter was in? I suspect if you put all that kit in the empty box first then waited for the DNO to come and fit the meter they would have had a hissy fit. P.S the reason I dislike double pole Henley's is I found one once damaged. The web separating the two blocks is not very thick and I found a broken one where the two blocks were very close indeed to touching each other. Just keep an eye on that and treat them carefully. That is never going to be an issue with singles.

Try these people https://gsi-insurance.com/get-a-quote/household-insurance/#gf_10 Several of us have had good quotes and insured or "non standard construction" houses with them and certainly in my case I was happy with the price. Whatever you do, you are best off going through a broker, they know the market and who will insure what. My entirely timber house, with a burn running through the garden and willow trees within 7 metres turned out not to be a problem at all to insure.

Then there is the debate about where to put the "middle" hinge. I put mine, in the middle, but look at most office installs and the third hinge is a long way above the centreline, often not very far below the top hinge. That must all be about weight. The top hinge(s) are in tension, i.e. the weight of the door is trying to pull the screws out, so 2 hinges near the top spread the weight over more points. The bottom hinge is in compression so unlikely the screws are in danger of pulling out.

When you need that much kit, it is far better to put two standard meter boxes side by side, one for their stuff and one for yours, as in @MikeSharp01 post above.

If there is room in the meter box I would do it,. You split the tails with a pair of single pole 5 way henley blocks (those black things bottom right of first picture above) I hate, and never use the 2 pole henley blocks Dangerous things imho. The split tails feed into a 2 way RCD mini consumer unit then out to your outside stuff. Ig it is feeding a socket I would use a 16A mcb. The big BUT here is to do this you need to be competent and understand how to isolate the tails out of the meter in order to do this safely. That is the bit where you are probably better off getting a sparky to do it.

That's just bonkers. That would have me firing an email to the CEO of the company and say "the plans are there on your design tool if you want the business YOU convert that to an order."

Normal wiring regs. It is only a special location if it contains a bath or shower, so no special requirements for a room with a wc, no different to a kitchen.

Ask your BC inspector how large it needs to be to be classed as a "landing" and make it that big?

Another vote for 3. And you only want to do this once so get decent ball bearing hinges.

Reason for non compliance would be all stairs must be same rise and going. Nothing wrong with the wrap around stair if it was the same rise and going as the rest.

Hi and welcome That looks like it should be on Grand designs. Best of luck.

Well the job is done. What a morning of bodgery / adaptation. I bought the second one in my first post. As expected, I had to cut off the two "pips" on the bottom and it located using the two side notches for location. (bodge #1) As expected the body of this one is 2mm shorter than my original, and the locating ring would not clamp it down. I had to make a spacer washer. I found a large 2mm thick rubber washer and cut my spacer from that. (bodge #2) Next issue was completely unexpected and not mentioned as a "selection parameter" anywhere that I saw. In these, the shaft rotates (to select hot or cold) and tilts (to select flow rate) My original, the shaft tilts from lets say 10 degrees one side of vertical to 10 degrees the other side of vertical. The new one tilts from vertical to say 20 degrees off vertical. So clearly the tap handle mechanism is now offset and does not fit on. That one was a real challenge. I ended up filing 2 sides of the shaft to give it the angle I needed, which of course meant the shaft was now too thin across one dimension so I had to make a flat spacer to pack out the now correct angled shaft, to make it square again. (bodge #3) Then, due to a slight change in geometry, the microswitch in the tap handle mechanism did not work, I had to reposition the microswitch slightly, which involved a sharp knife and araldite. (bodge #4) Having re fitted it, the original leak has gone (gross leak from tap body) but only to reveal a slower leak from where the hoses join on at the bottom. That one I doubt I can fix so it will be a new tap eventually, but for now a cup can collect the drips.

There is your problem. ONE set of tails goes to the garage, which is where the solar PV power is coming from. The other set of tails goes to the house CU which is where most of the house loads are consuming power. You need to find the single set of tails after the summation point. It would be most unusual to actually have 2 sets of tails exiting the meter directly, so you probably have one set of tails out of the meter and then split with henley blocks or something similar. THAT is where your current probe needs to fit. Can you post a picture of that bit (not seen any pictures yet) At the moment your iboost is either seeing the generated power OR the consumed power, depending where you have put the clamp, but it has not yes seen the summation of the two.

Firstly there is something wrong with your meter or the way you are using it, it most certainly will NOT put 450V into the immersion heater between L and N. What it probably is doing is either phase angle firing our burst firing to regulate the power going into the heater, That might be confusing your meter? Who installed it? Can you post some pictures of the units in particular the placement of the current clamp that measures import / export.

No difference between hot or cold weather or stove lit or not. When it rained, the drip started pretty quick, so I am surprised sitting for a long time on the roof with the hose did not find it. I want a proper downpour of rain right now to see if it will leak again.

Dealing with a heat wave is a complex issue. Just turning the heat recovery "off" may not solve the problem. If the outside air is hotter than inside, then with no heat recovery, you will just be drawing warm air in to further warm the house. Think of "heat recovery" as "heat equalisation" as the heat exchanger does not know if it is supposed to be heating or cooling, only that it wants to equalise the temperature of the two airflows. If it is hotter outside than in, leaving the heat exchanger in circuit will cool the incoming air a bit to make it closer to the cooler inside air. Unless you are going to install some form of active cooling, we still find the best solution is shut the house up in the day to keep the heat out, and over night when it is cooler, open as many windows as you can to purge the house overnight with cooler night time air.

Almost 3 years ago, I fitted the wood burning stove and it's flue, detailed here All was fine until last winter, when every time it rained, there was a drip drip drip of rainwater coming off the sloping section of flue above the mezanine floor in this picture The water appears to be running down the outside surface of the flue pipe and dripping off the top or bottom of the sloping section in that picture. I have put off investigating as my own roof ladder is shorter than the roof so to use that means putting up a scaffold tower to reach up the roof from the platform. Today I borrowed a longer roof ladder so it can go up without scaffold, then spent some time on the roof, first with a watering can, then later with a hose, wetting the flue pipe, all the joints, the flashing where it goes through the roof, wetting the tiles above and to the sides of the opening. The hose has been running over an hour (and is still running now on the base of the flashing) and not a drop has been seen inside. What next? give the borrowed roof ladder back and wait for the next real rain? If it were my own long roof ladder it would be staying in place for some time. Just how do you find and fix a leak that has gone away?

I always use 1mm for lighting. You will need to feed something stiff through first and use that to pull it through usually. Can you not get onto the unused / unwanted leg of conduit and unscrew it? That will give you the side hole you want to exit the t&e cable.