ProDave

Ours is also a convection stove and has very small distance to combustibles figures from the back and the sides of the stove. But the front is a normal door, with a large glass window, and that is just like any other stove, it radiates a LOT of heat and not at all surprising it could set fire to something with a low flash point close to it. Oddly enough there seems to be no requirement to publish a "distance to combustibles" figure for the front of a stove.

BS88 usually. You would normally only need that sort of information for an EIC.

Distance to flammable materials was one aspect that BC checked meticulously on their final inspection.

Don't come back complaining about the quirks and limitations of hot water from a Combi Vs an UVC. You were warned.

I would NOT trade a UVC for a combi. If you have a defective UVC change it for a new, better make of UVC. Who is offering this combi and why?

But he is talking of renting out his former home, not the self build with the CIL exemption. The question is does owning and letting another property affect the CIL exemption on the self build?

Who is offering you this combi replacement and why? Many of us here are happy with Telford stainless unvented cylinders.

I had had enough of being a landlord. Having previously owned 2 buy to let properties for a number of years, I have a low opinion of the average tenant and their inability to look after a property that they do not own, and the (usually avoidable) repairs needed at each change of tenants. That and the added raft of legislation a LL has to comply with, including paying to be registered as a LL (In Scotland) The final straw is end of no fault evictions, so if you let your house, then decide you do want to sell it, don't bank on being able to evict the tenant quickly, if they don't respond to you asking them to move out, then it has to go through court to get an eviction order etc. You might be fine with all that, we were not, we just wanted it sold but circumstances dictated what we had to do, but thankfully it all ended well.

It is NOT that simple. HMRC just take your original purchase price (which could be a LONG time ago) and your sale price, and draw a straight line and assume the gain has been linear throughout your ownership. Then the period of time it has not been your principle residence is charged pro rata CGT. the actual calculation to make it so is in true hmrc fashion a bit more complicated. The point of that being there could be a house price crash and you then sell it for less than it was worth at the start of letting it, but tough the hmrc calculation still shows an overall rise since you bought it donkeys years ago so you still pay on the "gain" while it is let. CGT allowance is now pitifully low so you almost certainly will be liable for some CGT and it has to be paid very swiftly after the sale, no more waiting until the end of the financial year as it used to be. We did this with our old house, as at the time we could not sell it, and like the OP we could see old house from our new house. It was not what we wanted to do but the best offer we had at the time and I would not want to do it again. BUT 6 years of rent from it before it sold did wonders for our final retirement position.

MCS is the root of the problem, I am sure many agree. Their heat loss calculations often come up with silly answers and result in an over large heat pump, particularly for new builds, and their pricing structure seems to end up with a very large figure, even after deducting the £7500 grant, leading many to conclude the only person benefiting from the grant is the installers who pocket a very large sum for the install. A TOTAL re think is needed. Zero VAT on heat pumps even to retail customers would be a good start. Get rid of the MCS monopoly. Allow anyone to install them, and then submit their invoice for parts, labour and material to receive some of the cost back as a grant. Make fitting of ASHP's permitted development under planning. Of course it won't happen, too many vested interests. Ask Norway how they do it? I bet they don't have anything like MCS? First thing is ensure from NOW (not some date in the future) all new builds have a heat pump for heating. Just write it into building regs. No heat pump, no completion certificate. No bureaucracy, simple. Or just make a properly calculated SAP EPC A mandatory for new builds. Same for at least some PV on the roof. Swapping out boilers for heat pumps is not proving value for money under the current schemes, concentrate on new builds first then find a better way to encourage heat pumps in existing houses.

Thanks,not seen that sort of offer before. All the kit and paperwork for free and you just pay your plumber and electrician to connect it all. Surely for a self builder that has to be the best way to avoid the sort of silly prices a lot are being quoted?

I would escalate this to a complaint to the CEO of Octopus. Have they explained what the problem is? I don't believe it is just because you are in rural Scotland though getting a smart meter to communicate may not be a trivial matter (but at least it would be a meter and you can get on)

And what price has MCS quoted you? Have you looked instead at just buying a heat pump and your plumber and electrician fitting it? Assuming it is a new house what does the SAP say about heating requirements?

Is this a light on the actuator or on the UFH control box? Post a picture of both the control box and the type of actuator you have so we know what you have please

What makes you think he is intending not to render the side facing you? Are you suggesting you will deny him access to your land to do that?

Not sure about England, but in Scotland the only way to do less than 6 months is a short term holiday let.

At what point in the construction did you tell the builder you wanted internal drain pipes?

The US president elect wants to "turn off the windmills" No I don't support that view but the next 4 years could be "interesting"

Yes. All very well for us to close our steel works and oil refineries as they are too polluting, but it's okay we will buy steel and fuel from others. but if everyone shuts down their steel works and refineries, then we are back to pre industrial. Which of course is what a lot of people want. But perhaps they might not want it so much when they see what that would really mean?

He is correct. A neighbour here had a massive tree, and Ash I think, that worried him when the wind blew as it would crush his house. but it was also close to and thus in danger of damaging an overhead power line. Electricity co came and looked and agreed they would cut the tree down for the safety of their line.

No this was the Douneray overhead power line. Originally only built with 3 conductors. It became dead when Dounereay closed as a generator decades ago. Within the last 10 years it was upgraded, the existing 3 conductors upgraded to larger and the missing 3 added, and new substations built to connect all these distributed wind farms. This tied into the Beauly to Denny new overhead line down through the Caringorms built at about the same time. And there is still not enough capacity, so somewhere, somehow, more are needed. Perhaps it is time to say Scotland has enough, no more here until every hilltop of the Cotswolds, Chilterns, South downs, Berkshire Downs, Malvern hills etc etc is covered with wind farms like is happening in Scotland. Build them down there instead and we might not need to many new long distance pylons?

I ran 10mm twin and earth to mine, in 25mm conduit with swept bends, so that could be pulled out and something else inserted. Currently my 10mm feeds just a couple of sockets but it is there in case we change to an induction hob.

Depends on the cladding? Are you using something substantial or DIY shop ultra thin shiplap cladding?

And who back in the day would have thought Memera, Merlin Gerin and Square D might become obsolete?

There is now far more renewable generation in Scotland than we can use, particularly in the Highlands. The local connection from a wind farm to the nearest large substation might be underground (one passes under my neighbours garden with a second to be added soon, they even approached me a year and a bit ago and I convinced the surveyor there were too many obstacles to putting one through our garden, thank god) But the north / south grid to carry it is at capacity already with many more wind farms proposed. In the time i have been here the one operational north / south grid has been supplemented by re conductoring and re purposing the old Dounereay line (which was unused since Dounereay shut down generation. That has more than doubled capacity (it is higher voltage and current than the existing line was). That is still not enough. Another high voltage overhead line is planned and the plans keep changing from a bloody eyesore out of my window to far enough down the glen to be barely noticable. and there is talk that might not be enough. While wind farms may be "distributed" it is a fact there are a lot of them in less populated windy parts of the uk and nowhere near enough in the flatter, less windy, more populated parts of the UK so there needs to be a lot more long distance delivery of electricity than the old days when there was a coal fired station in almost every county.