ProDave

Although the pump may be typically about 1KW or even more, it only runs when the pump chamber reaches a certain height and empties it. Most of the time the pump is not running, so I would not get bothered about the running costs at all. We ruled out (did not even oficcially investigate) a soakaway in the field behind us, becaue it is a low point in the field and rainwater sits in ponds in heavy rain so it would be pretty certain the water table is simply too high. If you can engineer the works needed to discharge to a watercourse you eliminate a whole host of potential problems and maintenance issues.

This is worth a read https://www.sepa.org.uk/media/151036/wat-sg-25.pdf You will need to find the EA equivalent for England Page 19 merely says "sufficiently deep" Be aware a river bed is a fluid thing. In a couple of places our burn has eroded the bed noticeably in the time we have been here, sufficient to expose 2 clay pipes underneath it that I did not know were there. Not on our bit, so not an issue for me, this is just under the bit of the burn passing through the edge of a field before entering our garden. It seems every time the burn is in spate, a bit more of the bed gets scoured away at this point. So I would want a pipe quite deep down.

I have seen them quote the standard depths for under a road, under a path, under a garden, under agricultural land, but not under a watercourse.

Except 99% of the time we are not entertaining, just cooking for ourselves. Our plot is a bit odd between houses and lots of trees. The kitchen sink window, by virtue of being on the side of the house, at the front, looking down the road in front of the other houses, is the only one that can see the mountains. So I do like it as a back drop to "sink work" For the same reason, the seating on the island faces the same way for that same view. It is all very personal and depends on your lifestyle etc. Oven is separate to hob. I long ago decided a low level oven is a silly place to put it imho.

Even with a dishwasher,, there is always some washing up. And you do all your vegetable peeling and preparation at the sink, so I like it having probably the best view in the whole house.

I would not worry. All quite normal I have had OSB covering the window apertures of our sun room for 4 years now with nothing covering it. It has swelled at the edges and will be scrap when it is finally removed, but apart from the swollen edges is still pretty sound,

To me the pantry looks like just a utility room with the inconvenience of an extra door put before the bit with the washing machine. I also note we have done something "odd" in our kitchen. We have put the hob in the island, and the sink is along the wall under the window. Everyone else seems to put the sink in the island and hob along the wall. I guess you just do what suits your needs and not everyone will like it. But if you do that is all that matters. I do agree about noise, I insisted we have a separate lounge as well as the "familly room" (kitchen / diner in my book) as I don't want to be watching telly with the bloody dishwasher churning away in the same room. But a dishwasher needs to be in the kitchen, I would find it a huge inconvenience to bury that in a separate room.

If multiple services will cross the ditch, your key is get the crossing for all services done in one go with ducts for all services installed. This is what I did (though it was a road crossing) for water, electricity and telephone. Tip find out from Open Reach where your phone line will come in and provision for that as well if needed. If the ditch is on the highway then officially you can't do it yourself, you need a contractor with a minor street works permit, and you may even need a road opening permit from the council. What I found was by requesting a quote from the utilities for my road crossing, and also a private contractor I could choose the cheapest. In fact in my case the water gave the cheapest for the road crossing so they did it and with the trench open I dropped in the ducts for telephone and electricity. You definitely can run a cable under a ditch. Just up the road from me under a neighbours garden, there is an underground 33KV line from a nearby wind farm, and that passes under the burn. I didn't see them actually do it so I don't know how deep and I don't know if they moled under, or dug a trench through the burn. With my electricity connection, I had ended up with a duct all the way from the connection point to my meter box, so I opened up the connection pit myself, and got the electricity to re quote on the basis all they had to do was pull the cable through the duct and joint it in the pit that was already open. That knocked about £1K off my electricity cost.

We have a pump station in our old house. That is because the soakaway is in the field behind the house and about 3 metres higher. It was a stand alone pumping station I believe made by Titon, just a holding tank in the ground with a submirsible pump. We did go through a series of pump failures and after the second one I just fitted cheap pumps from screwfix, but last year I investigated further and found a blockage in a pip fitting, it was in fact a non return valve that had failed and blocked. Since sorting that out it has been working fine. Since you will be changing to a treatment plant, many are available with a pump station built in so that would be a neater solution.

No, it is not going to be a practical issue. Three points really. Why is such a well known manufacturer as Burbidge selling a product that as far as I can tell in anything less than the standard 42 degree staircase, cannot meet building regs? I think we will end up with 95mm gap throughout. My OCD will notice the odd 100mm gap every time we climb the stairs, and so might the building inspector. We have a split flight with a half landing, so the spindles for each flight will overlap. So you try and make the spindles on each flight line up. Because you can't get less than a 100mm gap at the top, that also applies to the top of the lower flight. So to make the first spindles in either direction from the half landing line up, that means using a 100mm gap at the bottom of the flights as well. Double OCD. I have sent an email and my picture with the tape measure to Burbidge. I will let you know their response.

At the risk of thread drift, the house I am wiring that is planning to use one of these Cool Energy units,. also tells me he is buying a a pre plumbed cylinder from them with all the controls and pumps on it. I can't see that on their website. All I can see is plain HW tanks, and heat pump hot water tanks, but I am reading that as a tank with it's own heat pump built in. I worry the guy is not going to get what he really wants.

Why is it not safe? as long as proper testing is done at the end in what way is it unsafe because he may not have come and re tested at some intermediate point in the build?

The problem with that, is at first fix it is typically a bare timber frame, or quite often the stud walls boarded one side only. Everything is fine when I leave after first fix. Then along come the bufoons who fit the plasterboard , followed almost immediately by the plasterer. By the time I get a chance to see if the bufoons have damaged a cable it's too late to do anything anyway, so it all waits for second fix to find the issues. They don't even have the gumption to look at the wall they are boarding and observe where the cables are and avoid screws at that position.

Offcuts of studding burn well. I often collect it from sites specifically for the WBS.

As a minimum, insulation test every run of cable L-E and N-E. That should show up a screw through the cable. Then all 3 to building earth, that should show a screw that just grazed a single core. I am wiring a new build at the moment, and everything was fine before the plasterboarders came. Shortly after they finished boarding, they found a stud wall in the wrong place so took it down to move it, and found 2 cables with screws through them. I am expecting grief with the rest of this house. Why is it NONE of the other building trades have the slightest idea of the concept of "safe zones" and keep their screws out of them?

Well I went ahead and did it. The threaded rod was M12 and I had an M12 tap so I drilled a 10mm hole and tapped an M12 hole down into the newel post, screwed the threaded rod in with plenty of epoxy, gave it time to set before setting the post bracket on and tightening it down. It all seems solid and I think looks better for not having holes in the side of the newel posts. But I have encountered a problem. At the top of the flight, the top spindle is fitted as far up the stairs as it possibly can go. The spindle bracket is touching the top handrail bracket. I am measuring the gap as exactly 100mm if not 101. That will fail the "a 100mm sphere will not pass through" I will see if I can find a contact to pose this issue to Richard Burbidge and see what they say. I suspect the problem is my stairs are too shallow. I had a bit of extra space so chose to make the going of each stair a little greater, all within building regs limits, to make the stairs a bit less steep. I have just looked it up and it's 40.21 degrees. What's the betting Burbidge tell me my stairs are too shallow? That should not be the case as they say suitable for a pitch between 38 and 45 degrees. The only solution I can see is cut a bit off that top spindle bracket, which is chrome plated plastic.

That looks like a fairly recent build. It would be unusual not to have any insulation. Are you sure that is not a warm roof? is that "board" I am seeing over the rafters something like kingspan or similar insulation sheets?

That was about what I paid from Jewsons. Someone told me SIG were cheaper but I never tried them.

If the salesman is telling him a £13K system will pay for itself in 2 years, he is telling lies. Could that even be fraud?

Funny enough I will be installing one of those soon. Only my customer is choosing this cheaper one, which is not inverter driven. https://coolenergyshop.com/collections/pro-range-heat-pumps/products/cool-energy-pro-range-8-41kw-stainless-heat-pump-model-ce-h8 Apart from being quieter and lower inrush current I could not give him a compelling enough reason to pay more for one that is inverter driven.

He does know the FIT has ended? The grid "buy back" now is only about 5.5p per unit and only for what you export, not all that you generate. Even buying very cheap panels and installing myself, and using much more myself (better value to self use it than export it for 5.5p) I will have a payback of about 6 years.

Did you I/R test the fan motor windings?

It was about 4 years ago. Scottish Water did give an "all works" quote on request but on the day it was a sub contractor that they appointed that came and did the work.

In particular the Newel Base Connector MMMC See this guide about a quarter of the way down https://www.pearstairs.co.uk/install-fusion/ The official method is drill a horizontal hole in the new post to insert a barrel bolt for the threaded rod to screw into. We used this on our last house. I was constantly annoyed at this hole left in every single newel post. The objective here is just to secure a length of threaded rod, that the chrome plated brass base bracket fits onto and the threaded rod holds it down to the newel post. I am wondering if there is another way? Self tap the threaded rod into a slightly under sized hole in the newel post? Even send an engineers tap down the hole first to cut a thread? And for final assembly load the threaded rod with epoxy resin and allow time to cure before putting the base bracket on and tightening. Sensible or silly idea?

Or enough heat to heat my whole house, squashed into one small room.