ProDave

He's looking a lot better now his is finished.

Not going well. Frozen / burst UFH pipes, cracked floor.

Looks like it is "spreading" I don't see anything fixing the rafters to the ridge beam. Ours has big galvanised steel brackets and a lot of screws at each junction.

First structural failure of a cantilevered roof.

They haven't edited out the "F" word.

The question turns to how many will die before completion? They also appear to be doing their own ground works? We have always been told the plots come with the "golden brick" foundation idea. If they were all sold at these prices and flexibility, it is starting to sound a whole lot more attractive than we had been led to believe? ICF build. How many blow outs?

Surprise #1 "His budget, including plot and foundations is £275K" And the next plot "the land cost £100K" I thought plot prices as talked about on here at Graven Hill were WAY higher than that.

Simple in line coupler should sort it, no problem with that being under ground.

The only thing I would have done different is change the site layout slightly. This is where it is a shame planning and building control are separate processes. The site layout was dictated by the need to provide space for a filter mound drainage system as at that stage SEPA would not allow anything else. But then building control refused it. After several iterations SEPA gave consent to discharge to the burn, which removed the filter mound. If I had known that at the start, I would have moved the house to the right a couple of metres, but by this stage that would have required an amended planning application and a delay to starting.

The market for renewables has been highly skewed by the RHI and FIT payment schemes and the requirement attached to those that it must be installed by an MCS registered installer. It is funny how the install costs from MCI installers seems to track the payout from the grant schemes meaning they are the ones that benefit the most, rather than the installer. PV is still worthwhile with no FIT if you can install it cheap enough, and at the moment that does NOT mean get an MCS installer to fit it. I have just installed mine and hope the capital cost will be repaid in electricity savings in 5 years.

As the title says, starting at 9PM tonight on Channel 4, Grand Designs is following 10 self builders at Graven Hill. Should be interesting. Sweepstake: How many will run out of money? How many will have a baby?

Yes I cut a square hole in the floor to fit the waste pipe from below once the bath was in. I was constrained by the position of a joist, so it ended up as just a slot. The outline of the bath is drawn on the floor there. So I fitted the trap, a short length of waste pipe from the trap and an elbow and lowered that onto the bath surround that left the waste pipe projecting down below the floor to connect to under the floor. There was enough height that the trap fitted in the gap between the bottom of the bath and the floor.

This was my bath waste thread And this was the waste that I fitted https://www.screwfix.com/p/mcalpine-bottle-bath-trap-white-40mm/21158?tc=CA2&ds_kid=92700020953274342&ds_rl=1249799&ds_rl=1245250&ds_rl=1249481&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIjo-qsemP2QIVDT4bCh0L4gPbEAQYFCABEgKsbfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=CJzK2ofqj9kCFZTiGwodso4Glw All completely servicable from above. No moving parts within the bath surround to ever need maintenance. With this trap and a floor standing bath filler, I cannot imagine a reason why I would ever need to lift the bath, but if some unforseen event happens and I do I will cut a small trap in the ceiling below to disconnect the rigid waste.

Render onto wood fibre board. Longest run 11 metres. No expansion joints. No cracking of render. Baumit.com lime render system with Silicon top finish coat.

Okay, so this is a free standing bath, presumably one that fits into a surround (otherwise if the waste was on show it would be a nice looking one) If it is like mine you are supposed to fit the bath into it's surround with this flexi waste. Then stand the complete bath up on blocks, connect this flexi waste, and remove the blocks and lower the bath into position. I thought the whole arrangement was total and utter carp. Instead my bath was mounted on the floor and I connected it from below using a conventional rigid waste and rigid pipe before the ceiling in the room below was fitted. IF I ever need to remove the bath again, I will cut a small trap in the ceiling below (utility room) to uncouple the rigid waste and trap. To mitigate the chance of ever needing to remove the bath from it's surround, I used a pop up waste with top entry cleaning, so no mechanics of say the type of waste where you rotate the waste fitting to pop it up for example to go wrong. And I used a floor standing bath filler, so no tap or flexi hoses within the bath surround to ever go wrong or need replacing.

We have ran out of hot water from out 300L cylinder 3 times now. At 15L per minute on full tilt that is only just over 20 minutes of showering and you should never under estimate how long a woman can spend in the shower. We only heat the hot water to 48 degrees to get the best COP from the heat pump so it is not diluted with much cold so probably gives a real world 30 minutes of showering. I have "solved" this by adding a modulating instant electric water heater on the output that will take over if the cylinder runs out. Be careful putting more than 3KW excess PV into the tank at one time. You will either need 2 solar PV diverters or one custom made one to deal with that load.

I chose the Telford UVC which at 1650mm for the 300L was the shortest UVC I could find. https://www.cylinders2go.co.uk/shop/renewable-energy/300-litre-telford-tempest-heat-pump-cylinder/

The problem with energy usage is I find we use more powering "stuff" than we do heating the house and the hot water. I have the heat pump individually metered for heating and hot water so I know exactly how much it is using for each function and I record that weekly, along with total, solar PV and export. The only way I stand a chance to reduce the "stuff" usage is to buy or make an individual energy meter and try it for a week at a time on different appliances so see how much the Fridge, Washing machine, Dishwasher etc use in a week. Then if my "stuff" usage after accounting for those is still high I need to move on to , well other "stuff" It all becomes a lot of effort probably just to find out you are not going to save anything unless you sit in the dark and never watch tv. But it would be nice to know how much the big things use.

Yes we have Click Mode in all places a "posh" switch was not deemed necessary.

Not at all. When I was first dealing with Open Reach, they told me a sum of about £3000 was allocated to each new connection, and the customer only paid if the work went over that cost. Shame the other utilities don't have a similar arrangement.

Flat plate screwless brushed chrome mostly.

Looks about the going rate https://www.machinerytrader.co.uk/listings/plant-equipment/for-sale/list/category/1033/excavators-mini-up-to-12000-lbs/manufacturer/kubota/model-group/u17

If I was the owner of property B I would continue on the basis that it was not, but have my case prepared for fighting it if any enforcement action was taken.

The 2 things to consider are making the hot water pipework from the cylinder to the taps as short as possible. So try and get the tank central to all points of use. And you will need a D2 vent pipe to discharge water in the event of a fault, that usually goes to a drain outside (though can via a waterless trap go to an internal stack pipe) That may make for example a ground floor location close the the centre of the house impossible.

What matters to the DNO is the maximum output of the inverter. So 14 panels connected to a 3.68KW inverter would be fine and a lot of the time would give more output than 12 panels would. Just make sure the max voltage is within the limit for the inverter when using 7 panels per string.