ProDave

If the cable goes part way, then first feed something smaller as a draw string through. then try again with the end attached to the drawstring with one person gently pulling on the drawstring and another person feeding it in to the conduit making absolutely certain the cable enters flat with no twists or kinks. A bit of lubricant may help But this is why I used 25mm conduit for out island.

For the wall panels, a lot of us on here recommend Multipanel. I got mine from Jewsons's, they were a lot cheaper than some of the rip off prices in certain high street bathroom shops. I didn't use PB. My Multipanel sheets fix straight to the timber frame. (others may not agree that is good practice)

For it to extract air, replacement air has to get into the room. You did leave a gap under the door didn't you?

It's the only way for it to be viable now there is no longer any Feed In Tariff payment.

As an electrician, if doing a consumer unit change with old cotton meter tails, to avoid opening the meter seal, I will run new tails from the new CU and terminate them in henley blocks by the meter to the old tails, leaving enough length to connect into the meter. Then phone the DNO to report a "dangerous condition" (unsafe tails) and they can connect my new tails into their meter.

You should only smell Kerosene inside if you have an oil leak, or the last plumber was careless and spilled some. Once it gets into floorboards the smell is there for good.

I would make your first port of call that neighbour. Have a good look at what they have done and see if it would meet your needs. Ask them how much it cost in total. Find out who their builder and architect were and importantly would they recommend them. When I first built an extension 20 years ago I did more or less that. What surprised me is most people I spoke to would not recommend the builder they had just used. It took some while before I found a builder that actually came with a recommendation.

The plasterer that plastered our house phone me today. He is planning a new build of his own. Today he has been meeting with various people, one of whom is the local renewable energy contractor. He was getting a quote for an Air Source Heat pump. For some reason they never mentioned or discussed RHI. But the purpose of this post is this local firm is spouting the untruth that you NEED an MCS certificate for building control to accept it and issue your completion certificate. Sounds very naughty to me.

Yes, as long as you can get planning permission. @Crofter did just this, built a holiday let on his croft complying with the definition of a "caravan" (though it looks nothing like a caravan and sits on stilts)

I can't see what static caravans can do for an earth sheltered house. You are going to have to build a substantial stuucture for that, and I can't see the benefit of then slotting a couple of static caravans into the structure.

Planning permission only concerns itself with what the building looks like. It is BUILDING regulations that would concern this. In fact they would not concern it at all, as what you are proposing is a "twin unit static caravan" and under the Caravan act, construction of that is outwith building regulations control. You will still need a building warrant for the drainage connection and any treatment system. But now you have established the principles, don't just go sticking 2 ordinary static caravans together. the result will be a cold "house" with a high heating bill. Instead, use the legislation to your advantage, and design a custom build well insulated structure, that still meets the portability definition of a caravan and you can get up to about 100 square metres and still be in the size limit for a "caravan" It does not have to be on wheels, being capable of being lifted by a crane onto a low loader is enough to make it qualify. Several on here have done or are building like this already. Planning probably won't like it if it is obvious from the plans it is 2 standard statics stuck together. but if you designed it so it actually looked externally like a half decent house, I don't see any need to actually mention on the planning application that it is in fact technically a "caravan"

I also will not personally pull the fuse on an old cast iron fuse holder. That is firmly in the category of "somebody else's risk"

It is VERY variable what they do. Some meter fitters are good, some not so. It definitely is a good idea to be there and then say something like "My electrician says those are sub standard and need replacing with 25mm tails" Have the kettle on and the plate of biscuits ready often helps.

If I had the money I would be looking for a better trailer and a ride on mower from that lot. I would also have a look inside that caravan and see if it was worth bothering with. A couple of diggers and a wacker plate for self builders.

Since we got back from our recent holiday, our import meter is now alternating it's display between the meter reading and "rEd" This means Reverse Energy Detected, and a lot of import meters have this "feature" to detect if there has been an attempt to run the meter backwards to fiddle your bill. An unintended consequence is someone with a PV system with such a meter will trigger this function. I am not sure why it has taken until now to activate that feature. Is it perhaps that the total "backwards" power (now about 97KWh) has gone over a threshold? Or could it be it is triggered by a certain power level of export? It is most unusual for us to export more than 600W as the immersion heater soaks up the rest, but I will bet while on holiday there will have been periods with no hot water being used when the immersion thermostat had opened and with nothing to soak up the PV generation, then over 3KW could have been exported at times. I am in 2 minds whether to do anything about it (request a meter change) or just let it be.

I am planning to add two recirculating air fan coil units to our system to cool the 2 main bedrooms. I started a thread not long ago but it has petered out as I won't be doing it this year I don't think. My initial search found it is not easy to find suitable wall mounted fan coil units.

On my doorstep and lots there I would love to have a bid at. Shame I have no money.

I suspect over heating is going to be your issue. Look at and choose carefully to get the right coatings on the glass to minimise that risk.

I think the reason for the DHW only getting done in bursts is partly to reduce the time it is working hard in an effort to minimise the need for defrosting, and partly because when it is heating DHW it is not heating the house. So there is a presumed worry that the house might start to cool down if you stop the space heating for too long. That would not apply to our house, I doubt we would notice until the next day that the heating was off. It took some reading and re reading of the manual to really understand what some of the parameters actually do. the descriptions could be better.

A similar one here. A farmer applied for permission to build a house on the same side of the road as his existing farm house and barns. No, build it on the other side of the road (where there were currently no buildings at all) was the reply.

Yes. The way the hot water was set up was bonkers. It was set to heat DHW only for half an hour at a time (I kept that) but then with a 1 hour wait before the next burst (I changed that to half an hour) Then it was set to heat the DHW to 45 degrees with the HP then heat from there to 55 with the immersion heater. I disabled the immersion heater phase and set it to heat to 48 degrees with the HP I disabled the weekly heat to 60 degrees anti bacteria cycle after a discussion here suggested in our particular case that was unnecessary. I also reduced the DHW hsteresis to 3 degrees, I forget what it was set to originally. I set the maximum "water leaving" temperature in DHW mode to 55 degrees and in heating mode to 30 degrees. Enabling external thermostat control (the basis of external control via a programmer and room thermostats) required a DIP switch to be changed.

I just jook the view that the supplied LG controller would sit there in the plant room for setting parameters etc and otherwise play no role in controlling the system. I connected a conventional 3 channel central heating programmer to set the on and off times of heating and hot water, and conventional room thermostats. So much simpler to use.

The first certificate suggests it is one inverter per phase, with 10A MCB's. The second which I assume is the DNO notification seems to be a work of fiction. They won't all be on the same phase, and if I am reading that correctly two are 2KW inverters and one is a 1.5Kw inverter, so that one will have a different power surely? It will be interesting to see if the DNO raises any questions about the notification. They did with ours as they saw the inverter had "4000" in it's model number and assumed it was 4Kw output and thus over 3.68Kw. Only solved when I forwarded the manufacturers declaration that it was limited to 3.68Kw.

There do seem to be some odd things in the way planning is granted that seems often to push housing onto "odd" bits of land. The one that comes to mind is the one posted recently where the builders excavated a hillside and erected a massive retaining wall higher than the houses. Surely there must have been some flatter land nearby that would have been much better to build houses on and leave that steep hillside for grazing sheep? And witness the number of self builders building on awkward shaped often sloping sites with any number of other difficulties because that's all they can get planning on. I am sure most would love to build on that flat field over there but are not allowed. Our own plot is a bit like that. It's a strip of land previously used (over 100 years ago) as the wood storage yard for the sawmill that was at the top of our road. It's too small and irregular shaped to be used for agriculture, so lets build some houses on it? That seems to be the thought process in planning.

+11,000