ProDave

It's okay to short the probes. The damp piece of wood is a good test to give some confidence that it is working properly.

What make of valve, different makes behave differently? If you remove the actuator head from the actual valve, does the actuator move correctly off the valve? does the valve spindle rotate freely with the actuator head off?

I worked on a straw bale house build near me. But the straw bales were for insulation not structure. It was basically a larsen truss style timber frame with the gap between the inner and outer sections of the larsen truss matching the bale size and the bales were stacked up in there forming the wall insulation. Issues I recall, they were very lucky to get a dry enough spell once the straw was cut for it to dry and then be baled. they had trouble finding anyone with a working small square baler, most farms bale as very big round or square bales now. And then renting a barn to store the bales under cover until they were ready to build them in. Imho all it did was add complication and cost and made the finished walls very thick. Just so the builder had a cosy notion he had a "natural" material. He could have achieved the same building performance at lower cost and with thinner walls using some variation on mineral wool like Frametherm,

I'm going to work now dear, you can manage in the cold and dark until I get back can't you? (car runs out of charge half way to work)........

Camping stove and gas bottle. Totally silent, and the fuel won't go stale (though it may run out)

As soon as you mention air fryer or kettle that's 3kW minimum and then only one at a time. There shouldn't be a minimum load requirement, but they will be less efficient at small loads.

If you are doing a service void of 25mm and 12mm plasterboard, that is a perfect match to a 35mm back box.

You will get a reading in megaohms when set to insulation testing, and you are hoping for a very high reading, even infinity is good. anything less than 1 megaohm wants investigating, but typically a screw through a cable will read 0 If you get a low reading, look first at the other end of the cable in case the cores are touch each other.

Yes. If you look at the detail that is 2 double pole switches bolted together one normally open the other normally closed and that is a 2 pole busbar jumper across the bottom and the left hand terminals are only for connecting that busbar.

Most people consider that the old way of doing it but there is no right or wrong way. The disadvantage of loop at light, as that is called, is some consider it more tiresome terminating at a ceiling, and a lot of modern light fittings have inadequate provision for that many cables within the light fitting. Loop at switch I find easier to terminate as you are working at a nice height. It also provides a neutral at the switch if you want any form of smart switch, and in the case of say a string of downlights it really is the only sensible way to do it.

Yes test both cables individually

A changeover switch Mounted in a suitable enclosure with the generator in connected to a suitable INLET connector rated for the generator output.

You are testing that none of the cores of the cable are shorted to another of the cores of the same cable, which is typically what will happen if there is a screw through a cable. So start with one probe on bare earth wire of the cable and one probe on the brown, if you get good, high insulation repeat with one probe on the earth and one on the blue. To be thorough test again with one probe on the brown and one on the blue. Typically a light cable in the ceiling will go to the light switch box, as most houses now are wired "loop at switch" not directly to the consumer unit.

Please tell me you are not using a widow maker lead?

You will need an insulation resistance tester, if you are not doing it for a living you can get one cheap on ebay for example https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/256703940830 You need to measure insulation resistance between each of the 3 cores of each and every cable. Yes it can be tedious.

That earned the name "Tony Tray" on this forum a while back. Our builders erecting the frame did that for us with Intello air tight membrane. That paved the way to line the whole inside of the timber frame but using a cheaper membrane BarriAir (not sure how you spell it? Here is a picture

Looks good to me, you have done all the thin cuts well and nothing obviously looks wonky. There are threads on here of "professional" tilers doing a lot lot worse.

I would not do that yet. Pre existing condition that should have been noticed in the survey, might refuse the claim. For now I would monitor it. Get a long spirit level, cut a block of wood to go under one end that makes the bubble level, then keep that block, and keep checking to see if the slope gets worse. If it does, then consider the insurance.

Or, the house has been built on a raft foundation and the whole raft has sunk at one end. What is retaining the 2ft drop to the garden? Does the extension also slope the same amount? I would be asking the surveyor why he did not notice this?

Post a picture of how the floorboard joint will land with regards the notch so we can see the issue. It sounds like you need to get a screw closer to the pipes than the plate will allow, if doing that you have to be SURE you miss the pipes.

I think our record power cut was 3 days, being just a small cluster of houses we are well down the priority list for restoring power after a storm. That was in our previous house and we were very glad of the WBS to keep us warm, and the fact the hob was LPG so we could still cook.

I am assuming from the way he has cut blocks to fill the gap, that the notches in the joists were there already? It looks like a good job, a metal cover plate to stop nails or screws going into the pipe, recessed so the boards go down nicely, and a little bit of insulation so the pipes won't click and bang as they heat and cool.

I was reading on another forum of someone that made some oak doors for a kitchen unit. His SWMBO said she would paint them, so he gave her the brushes and the clear varnish. He came back from work to find instead she had found a different tin of dark oak stain and used that, and now they are too dark and don't match the rest of the doors.

The transducer is a high frequency speaker. It sends out an ultrasonic ping and then waits for the echo to come back and work out the depth. If you drill a hole, you then fill the hole with the sensor and seal it so the transducer is outside. The alternative is you glue it to the inside of the hull and then the hull acts just like your bath, to send the sound wave through and hear the reply. It is a little less sensitive when just glued to the hull.

That's a bit like I fitted a new ultrasonic depth meter to my boat this year. But instead of drilling a hole and mounting the transducer through it, I glued the transducer to the inside of the hull.