ProDave

Since Grangemouth stopped as a refinery, our fuel now must come from somewhere in England. That is 300 miles or probably more to the nearest refinery to get our fuel.

I would settle for not being charged extra. At the moment. we in "remote" parts are charged MORE for our electricity due to distribution costs. Back in the day when electricity came from a small number of big power stations and there were none of those up here, then you could just about follow the thought process that they had to build lots of long high voltage pylons to get the electricity to us. But NOW more is generated here than we can possibly use and they are building more pylons to transport the power south. So at the very least charge the cost of that to the users in the south and reduce our charge for being "remote"

If the hose is your condensate pipe, where does the white pipe branching off to the side go?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp91md1lj92o Areas with more supply than demand (most of Scotland, certainly the Highlands) could get cheaper electricity pricing. About time, for a long time we have been paying more, in spite of so much renewable generation here.

Sorry I thought ALL types of export are just called SEG? Once you have given up the FIT deemed export payment I think you are free do do what you want.

In theory yes. The FIT pays for generation measured on your generation meter, plus a very much smaller rate for "deemed export" which is assumed to be half of what you generate. You can give up the deemed export part of the FIT while still keeping the generation payment, and that then allows you to export on one of the SEG schemes. Contact your FIT provider to discuss it with them.

And what about heating DHW? to get my HW to 48 degrees the heat pump flow temperature reaches 55. And since my heat pump delivers almost as much hot water in a year as it does heating, that is going to push the SCOP down. There is no way to measure it on my ASHP so I don't actually know what I achieve. I am not trying to downplay heat pumps. I just don't like the idea of them being "sold" to the customer as a cheaper way of heating, when in a LOT of cases, they are not. It is that sort of over optimistic sales talk that gets heat pumps a bad name when the owner finds it does not save money.

Whilst I have a heat pump and think they are good, in the right circumstances, I find it hard to believe for most people, that swapping a gas boiler for a heat pump will reduce bills by much, if anything. I have always believed a heat pump with a SCOP of 3 will deliver similar running costs to a mains gas boiler. You would have to achieve a much better SCOP to achieve a saving and I just don't believe the average retrofit ASHP can achieve that.

The point is there are several competent person schemes for electricians in England as well as Scotland. It makes my blood boil when a blinkered institution like this will only allow you to use one of them. It has to be either ignorance, which needs challenging, or the NICEIC are somehow "encouraging" them to only accept NICEIC contractoes.

Through ignorance, or they are taking a backhander to do so.

Suitably qualified is NOT limited to NICEIC, there are other competent person schemes including SELECT in Scotland.

£29 per month over 10 years is £3480 over 10 years. About the cost of a new ASHP. What do they actually do for that cost? £245 for an UVC service sounds too much. I just do my own, or I will call my local friendly non VAT registered plumber to do it for a lot less. The one bill I complain about is council tax. It is our largest bill after food, and is the one you cannot do anything about e.g by looking for a better deal or a different provider. CT is roughly twice our energy bill.

In case I did not mention all our window boards were leftovers from the engineered Oak flooring with a hardwood bead to finish the front. All still completely flat.

I didn't even screw mine down, just glued it. It depends if you think the wood will warp or not? See what I mean about the sill going into a slot each side cut into the plasterboard.

Am I seeing a gap down into a cavity between the window and the silver foil? If so that wants addressing first. I just cut a strip from the plasterboard each side so the sill slides in and fill around it afterwards and mine were just stuck down.

If that is where your soil pope for the WC is going to emerge through the floor then you are going to struggle to get the WC close enough to the wall. Our downstairs WC is a close coupled type and the edge of the soil pipe connector is touching the wall, and it fits well with a standard rigid pan connector. I cannot see how it would work without forcing the whole pan and cistern away from the wall in your situation. What is below that? What can you change? Though I generally hate them, I think the best bet to get the WC as close to the wall as possible is one of those long flexible pan connectors terminated at or below floor level. Alternatively if all posi joists, then you could route the soil pipe to the other side of the room, if that is joisted differently that would allow you to get the pipe closer to the wall?

Is this subject to building control? If so that may dictate the spaces you need? How far in are you? too late to change to a wet room for the shower area?

You roof has been extended when the garage and extension was added. The "joist" you talk about is the original end purlin from the original roof structure. It is not functioning as a purlin any more, there is nothing attached to it. As to whether it could be removed? That is a question for a Structural Engineer. Yours appears to say no. I would be interested to know why. Perhaps it is performing the task of a tie bar to prevent the purlins front and back that are still under load from spreading apart? If so providing alternative means to prevent spreading is what should be considered?

I did mine a few days ago, my usual 1/3 bleach 2/3 water in a hand sprayer. Used about half a bottle of bleach in the process. I chose a dry day with rain forecast next day to wash it all off and it is all clean again. but it was nowhere near as green as in the pictures above. I do this about once a year now.

That has changed then. It used to be 600 centres for 12.5mm (which is what we have) and 400mm centres for 9mm PB (which we did in a previous house) not that anyone uses 9mm PB now.

If I was the neighbour I would have kept an eye on things and raised the non centre issue as soon as it became apparent. Also I would have been asking the roofer for s stack of spare tiles to match the old ones. The problem now if they were to try and move that joint more central, all the old tiles have probably gone in a skip, or been sold?

The hard wired interlink will be the same so old and new generation alarms work together. But it is increasingly common for them to be wireless linked.

The later Aico ones that we have are mains powered and interlinked. It is not clear if the internal batter is rechargeable or a 10 years lithium. Regardless they all have a "replace by" date 10 years from manufacture.

The Aico interconnect works at 9V dc. Is still works and the interconnected alarms still sound if the 230V is off and they are working on their backup batteries.

Is the chimney offset? Or is the roof joint not on the party line?