ProDave

Tenant in our rental house phones this morning, water dripping through the ceiling. It's the expansion vessel in the top of the Telford UVC leaking AGAIN. It has rusted through at a weld where the threaded coupling is welded to the body of the vessel. No doubt rusted from the inside, This is less than 2 years old, replaced when the previous one leaked in the same place. I was shocked when the previous one rusted through and started leaking. Even more shocked that this one, failed at less than 2 years old. Of course the plumbers merchant I bought it from is shut, otherwise I would be arguing with them (I probably will when they re open) And I can't find a plumbers merchant open today. I will be trying again on Monday to find anybody open in Inverness that has one. Until I get a replacement the tenants have no hot water (they do have an electric shower they can use) Screwfix have one listed but not in stock and saying Friday. Can't get to speak to them. Utter shambles we are in, but the point of the thread is my disgust at the lack of quality of much of the stuff being sold. And yes it was an expansion vessel rated for potable water. Toolstation have one but don't say it's for potable water so I assume not.

A petrol chan saw won't stop the chain instantly just by releasing the trigger. That's what the physical chain brake is for.

This is the sort of thing that is available up here, seculded but not totally isolated. This one needs a lot of work though https://www.hspc.co.uk/Detached-Cottage-For-Sale-Rowan-Cottage-Strathnacro-Glenurquhart-IV63-6TH

Another thought. In the Tyne Valley west of Newcastle, (we have relatives there so know it quite well) there are a number of settlements of "huts" in the woods. They were built originally as weekend retreats for the heavy industry workers in the city. Their planning status is strange. You are allowed to live in them and maintain them, but not to demolish and completely rebuild them. Access to most of them is only on foot via public footpaths, though a few of them that are close to a road have been "maintained" in a creative way that almost equates to rebuilding. I don't know if they ever come up for sale. It might not suit you as they tend to be in small groups of huts more of a community than complete isolation.

What is your budget and do you mind where in the UK you live? Up here in the highlands there are some really truly isolated houses and we have one of the lowest house prices of the UK.

I would say £300 per day would be plenty. But this is "the south"

You put your hand up the outlets inside the IC until you reach the actual pipe and put the stopper in the end of the actual bit of pipe. Assuming your IC risers and lid have seals, you could assemble them with the lid on and test the whole lot in one go. I did that with the BC man watching to prove the outside drain runs. I was surprised the IC risers and lids sealed so well.

Yes even here in Scotland (where SEPA seem harder to get agreement from than the EA) a neigbour got permission to site a treatment plant closer to the burn as there was not physically room on the plot to meet all the distances. For SEPA I had to measure the flow rate in low water conditions to satisfy them of the dilution rate. Easily done with a temporary V notch weir which since it only had to survive a very short time, I made from a sheet of OSB.

Just check the regulations to ensure it's location is acceptable (it would not be in Scotland) And you will need to get a new discharge permit for it from the Environment Agency. That will all be part of the building control process.

I don't understand your drainage. You show a new treatment plant by the entrance. It would not be allowed that close to the road and a watercourse in Scotland, check the English regs? Where will it discharge to? you mention the old "treatment plant" is that really a treatment plant or a septic tank? Where does that discharge to? Why not keep that and use it for the new house?

Change it for a timber deck chair. And stop wearing your tinfoil helmet when sat in the chair.

No mention of a simple hand held electric plane or a multi tool in your list. They are essentials.

Plus you can bend the pipe a little over a 3M length to get a few mm more if needed.

I have had the windows of my sun room boarded up with plain untreated OSB3 for 5 years now. It has not fallen apart yet. It will be scrap when we eventually can afford the windows but it is lasting surprisingly well.

I had another USB issue that if you put the PC to sleep, it would wake up if you just pressed a key or wiggled the mouse. There was another setting to stop it waking up on USB activity or something. @Jeremy Harris trying to get a pc to run without a keyboard reminds me of the old "No keyboard detected, press F1 to continue" error message.

Can you do a sketch of what you are proposing please as I just can't understand how it can be anything other than how it is.

I come back yet again as I am still having spurious CH14 errors (low flow rate) As before they happen when the unit is idle. Heating is off now and for the last 3 days or so it has not even come on to heat DHW as the solar PV has been doing that all by itself. Yet I notices yesterday afternoon it had once more, while idle, thrown up a CH14 error. I have speculated in the past that I believe it to be a very short spurious heat demand being sensed by an over sensitive input and then processed by some badly thought out software. My previous attempt to fix this has been a pull down resistor and a snubber on the thermostat input. It seemed to work at first but now the problem is back, I don't know why. So this morning I have implemented what I think is a more robust fix. The input from the thermostat no longer goes directly to the thermostat input terminal. Instead it is used to energise a small relay that I have fitted inside the ASHP. And now I use a changeover contact on that relay to energise the heat pump. The relay common connects to the heat pump thermostat input terminal. The relay NO connects to L so when the relay energises the heat pump gets the call for heat demand as if it came straight from a room thermostat. But crucially now, the relays NC contact is connected to N. So when there is no call for heat, the input is not just floating, with a long length of wire attached, but is clamped down to N so there really should be no chance of any induced spikes that I think have been the cause of the problem. I now go into a "wait and see" period to find out if this has finally nailed it. If not, I am out of ideas.

As you get on with the neighbour, I would talk to them about the idea of taking down their garage wall, building your extension wall and re joining their garage to your new wall. It would mean a lot of disruption for them, but the plus point is their garage would probably get bigger by the thickness of it's existing wall. And for you it solves all the issues of leaving a gap.

That looks nice.

So how would you do that? You would have to put a bend in to get the WC waste into the end straight through port, then where would the shower go?

I would have been aiming for the WC straight into the side as you have it pictured, and the shower into the 45 degree outlet to the left of that. Our main stack comes into the side of an identical looking chamber with no issues.

I would dig away a bit more of that "island" of soil between the two exits from the house. Put whatever bend is needed so that the toilet waste goes into the first side branch and the shower waste into the second side branch. Then the rodding point into the straight through connection.

Just a word of caution. As much as I like the Gyproc Promix Lite it only comes in 22Kg tubs. That's fine if you have a lot to do. On one previous occasion I only had a small but to do so bought a small tub of something from B&Q. Unfortunately I can't remember what make it was. but it was dire. It's adhesion to plasterboard was poor, it was way too stiff and hard to smooth down with the float, and when dry very hard to sand it to get a good finish. So stick to a recommended product.

Do you mean tape and fill or plaster skim? I ask because in my world tape and fill is all done with one material, I use Gyproc Promix Lite

I suspect it would not be allowed in Scotland as the "accessible bathroom" must not be an en-suite. Perhaps you could argue it if all bathrooms were made to the accessible requirements?