ProDave

They will in Scotland. A near neighbour had provisioned for DMEV only and his air test came in at under 3 and BC insisted on MVHR or no completion certificate. Having provisioned for DMEV that was the extract side of the ducting provisioned for, he just had to provide for inlet ducting, and the only way he could sensibly achieve mvhr so late in the build was 2 separate units one for downstairs and one for upstairs. I would say you need a friendly tester who "won't notice" if the result comes in under 3 and you go and crack a window open a little.........

The thing that gets me about spending countless hours configuring and setting up some custom home brew voice control system, is how do you easily back up all the configured software, so WHEN it goes wrong you can just re install it again in a flash and it will all just work again. It's bad enough with my Pi music box rebuilding that each time it crashes, and there is not much customisation of that.

I have Jeremy's old Stiebel Eltron 10kW instant water heater. It is on the hot feed out from the UVC to the bathroom pipework. It was fitted as a comfort blanket when only heating hot water in the tank to a low temperature, so a given size tank would not deliver as much as most people would be used to as dilution with cold would be a lot less. The theory was if you used up all the hot water part way through a shower you could carry on using it just like a 10kW electric shower. It is still there but I suspect it never turns on.

My first failure was a micro SD card in an adaptor to make it a full size SD card. I suspect the poor quality of the adaptor may have been at least part of the problem. This time around I searched and eventually found a full size SD card to avoid that. That was hard to find so then add in trying to find a particular type would be even more difficult.

Interesting about SD card failures. I have just reinstalled my Pi Music box on a new SD card, second failure in 5 years. That does seem to be a weakness of the Pi that they do not seem to be up to the job of being the boot disk and OS disk.

There was a pot hole here at the edge of a road that every day someone put a traffic cone in it. As soon as the council removed the cone, another one appeared, until they took the hint and filled it.

No, Don't pay them and find someone who actually understands it to do the job instead.

With that level of insulation and such a small space, don't fit a WBS, you will melt the first time you light it.

I have not tried the BG ones you linked to but I have used these https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/FB4235.html

If you have a proper void behind, AND if you have large enough wall lights, you can sink a round (conduit box sized) dry lining box into the plasterboard to accommodate a junction to flex. And check before cutting any holes, if you have said your prayers, you will find the fixing centres of the wall light match the round conduit box screw spacing.

That is pretty standard. I would use 1mm cable in that situation, though some electricians seem stuck in wanting to use 1.5mm and not open to reason. Of course you can strip the cables back to terminate them. But it looks to me like that is a plasterboard wall? If so leave some of the cable and push the spare back into the wall. You will thank me in 10 years when you want different wall lights and you need a bit more cable. Choose your lights carefully some can be a mare to fit more than one cable and keeping things neat and tidy is usually the key to getting everything to fit. If the lights are class 2 / double insulated, often they are the hardest to terminate as they require the connections to be contained inside a usually too small plastic box. Class 1 (those that need an earth) are often very much easier to connect and less demanding.

I would say three of the multiple fixings should be a nut and bolt right through old and new joists (one each end and one in the middle) them multiple screws as well.

Re overheating with your WBS. That is said a lot, and if heating a single room that is not huge that may well be so. But our house basically has 2 rooms either side of the entrance hall, each with double doors facing each other. So when lighting the stove all those doors are open so the stove can heat the whole house not just one room. Like that it will burn for a few hours nicely heating the whole house without any particular space being uncomfortable.

And don't waste time and money fitting UFH loops to the hall. When are UFH designers going to learn that. I was similarly duped and blindly followed the instructions in my first self build. There is simply no external walls to lose heat, so the hall and landing loops NEVER turned on. Complete waste. Sadly it shows lack of understanding by the designer which really puts me off. What is going upstairs?

The clue is in the writing on the right hand switch. It says "Kitchen switch" So leave the 2 in the cupboard always on. The tank will heat overnight on the off peak. Then IF you have used up all your hot water before the end of the day, you can turn on the switch in the kitchen and that will top up the tank from the peak rate. It saves you having to go to the cupboard to do so.

He also thinks carbon capture is a waste of time and is very pragmatic about what is possible. Not aiming for unachievable dreams regardless of cost.

Don't believe those figures. Just what is he suggesting that costs £4000 to get just 1 SAP point. I suspect your best bang for your buck improvement would be solar PV, very cheap now, and if you can't have it on your roof due to conservation area, ground mount it. The as built result will largely depend on details, like your actual air tightness test. That is mostly down to detail, not cost. How much will you be doing yourself? If you are doing a lot, you can take the time to get it right at little cost.

Well done. But why only aim for an EPC B. Aim higher, not hard to get an A.

We need Octopus's boss to replace Ed Milliband. THEN we might get some sensible policies. I have not heard anyone talk so much well reasoned sense for a long time.

The "cheaper source of electricity will reduce bills" is the Elephant in the room. Not until someone radically alters the way electricity pricing is calculated.

I would replace with this. https://www.screwfix.com/p/floplast-492015-mdpe-elbow-25mm-x-25mm/14096 Part of the locking mechanism when you tighten the compression bit is they physically dig into the pipe so there is no way they will pull out without dismantling the fitting. You First push the pipe into the fitting and you can check it has pushed properly into the O ring seal only then do you tighten the compression bit which ensures it is not coming out, pressure or no pressure. All my mdpe pipe is connected with that type of fitting.

Check it has the proper insert into the end of the pipe. Often missed out.

And my council tax is £1000 more than that, but unlike energy bills, I can't reduce it by switching "supplier" or making improvements to my house.

And neither is the claim that prices will come down as we have more renewable capacity. That has also been proved to be incorrect. It is a great shame it is our MP's that are still telling us these untruths.

A good "test" for internet dropouts is to stream an internet radio station. When we had ADSL in the bad old days, it would regularly drop out for seconds at a time. I said back then "whoever said broadband was always on was a lair or an optimist" Now we have decent broadband via a wireless (not mobile phone) connection, dropouts are extremely rare.