ProDave

We did 18 months in a 30ft static caravan. I paid £4K for it and I got one in tidy condition ready to move into. I did add a wood burning stove which helped keep it warm in the winter. Ours is still there and will remain for the foreseeable future. With the access difficulties, I would be looking at some form of building that can be used as temporary accommodation, and will then have another use as a garden building after the build so it can stay, so whatever perilous journey to get there is one way. It really really helped that we had the shell of the house up before we moved into the 'van and that enabled us to have the laundry and an office set up in the house shell.

i and welcome. I could recommend a solicitor in Inverness, but that may not be so convenient for you?

I had several like that on our plot. To remove them. I loosened around the base wit the digger, before then using the digger to pus the tree over and tear it out of the ground. They then all got cut, dried and used as firewood.

I have used that sort of mixer on a shower and I hate them. You do not always want full flow. I would think that would be even more irritating for hand washing having to have full flow all the time. Flow and temperature should be separate settings. I love our shower mixer. the temperature is set to a comfortable level and we rarely touch that, we just turn it on or off at any flow rate desired.

I bought a cheap energy meter, one that has a clip on current probe that connects wirelessly to the display. Absolutely USELESS for anyone with solar PV. It does not understand the concept of energy direction and seems to manage a strange feat of the energy it displays on the screen is the SUM of what is being used in the house plus what is being generated.

When they stop DRAX burning wood, I might, just might. take some notice of environmentalists.

And if it becomes harder / more expensive to buy wood, then more people will make their own arrangements. Beware of unintended consequences.

Where does it say you have to? This is just placing resrictions on what can be SOLD.

And the water will come squirting out when you break through. Call the DNO if in doubt, I called them to identify an unexpected cable, they were not in the least bit bothered when they found it was a redundant telecoms cable.

As regards ROI. It cost me a total of £1500 (by some very careful buying) to put together my 4Kw grid tie system and I am typically self using £250 worth of electricity each year giving a 6 year payback. Most of the self use is the big appliances in the daytime and other house loads, with about 1/4 of the generation going into the immersion heater. Rarely enough to heat all the water for the day but a big contribution on a sunny day.

If you connect the new system wit a normal grid tie inverter, you will need prior permission of your DNO as you can only automatically install up to 3.68kW. There may or may not be a network upgrade charge to allow that. The off grid idea might be simpler and put it all to the immersion heater, no need to tell the DNO anything,. As to how to use it? Well don't heat the hot water tank in the morning. Leave it for the solar PV to heat during the day and heat it as necessary wit the boiler in the evening. But that is tricky if your family want to shower in the morning.

You know those long water stopcock handles, for reaching down a hole and turning a tap. Have you tried one of those? It would not surprise me to find the gap between the 2 "coin slots" matched the spacing of the stopcock handle tools.

I would get a hose up there running on the roof carefully to soak just the roof not the wall and leave it running for a few hours. Position it to try and soak the edge of the roof where it joins the wall. This will rule out a roof problem, or identify a roof problem.

Almost out of desparation I called in to Jewson on Tuesday. And there they had a ligtweight galvanised 600 by 600 and tey only charged me £28 First time I have seen one that size.

Not so silly as it sounds. On my LG heat pump, there is no "input" to control the DHW functions, just it's inbuilt timer. I wanted to control it from an external timer. So I used a small changeover relay to switch the thermistor out and in it's place put a fixed resistor, making it think the tank was at 85 degrees and so turning off the DHW heating.

What is the internal finish? Plaster straight onto the old render or a battened cavity and plasterboard? How quick does the damp appear after it rains? minutes? hours? or days?

Damn I missed it. Recording the end of it now on More 4+1 Annoyingly it is not being repeated at a different time on 4 Seven or any other channel I can find.

A bit late to discover your plot has covenants?

But in summer when the bedroom window is open, it will not be heating the house will it? It will only be doing hot water heating, and use the timer so it does not do that while you are in bed. My take on the noise thing. My ASHP makes about the same level of noise as an oil boiler burner roaring away. But people are happy to put an oil boiler inside the house so the noise it makes is inside the house, but seem to have a problem putting that same level of noise outside, just in case they might open a window and hear it?

Are you aware of such an "internal" ASHP? And what are the "tubes" you refer to? Apart from exhaust air heat pumps, all air source heat pumps have an outdoor unit.

Well here the "main" that serves 12 houses is 50mm and WELL over 100m long, so i would say 50mm for one house is over size.

I wonder if an air blower treatment plant can only cope with a small amount of sludge before the blower outlet gets blocked and then the build up will be rapid?

We have an island in a similar space, and like it. BUT our kitchen is not a through route. I have seen a similar kitchen with doors in opposite corners and when just "passing through" it is an irritation to have to dogleg one side or other of the island, particularly if there are stools or other items in the way.

I would not fit them personally. the only place I used unswitched sockets is behind appliances and tv's etc where you don't want to go to the bother of installing the appliance to ten find out you forgot to turn it on but can no longer reach. Do they not do a switched version?

Not stock issues, but I ordered some plasterboard, P5 flooring and other timber and am now waiting over a week for a delivery slot on the builders merchants wagon.