ProDave

in 4 years the time gas sets the price will have reduced from 60% to 50% Don't expect to see much reduction in your bills any time soon Britain has already moved from gas setting the price of electricity around 90% of the time in the early 2020s, to around 60% today. Through the government’s clean energy mission, it is estimated gas will set the wholesale price around half of the time by 2030.

Other things you need to find out being a rural plot. Drainage. Both foul and rainwater. Is the plot big enough to support a treatment plant and associated drainage field and also a soakaway for rainwater. Taking into account building regs distance from buildings, boundaries and each other? If not is there an agreement in place with adjacent land owners for a drainage field under their land? Have percolation tests been done to prove the viability of land drainage (and calculate the size)? Cost of getting mains water to the plot, or alternative viable private supply? Cost of getting an electricity supply? Access to the plot including rights over any private tracks etc. If it is shared access over a private track how many houses use it already? When it gets to 5 houses it is required to be upgraded, surfaced to proper standards and then adopted.

Most heat pumps only heat the house OR the hot water, never both at the same time. So if you use 24kWh of hot water in a day and want the HP to heat it, the heat pump will spend just over 3 hours heating the HW leaving only 21 hours available to heat the house. So your 7kW HP will over those 21 hours add 147kWh to the house. That's an average of 6.125 kW over the whole day. Not sure where you are but designing for -2.7C is not very cold. Here I designed for -10, a very real winter temperature.

I have 2 coats of Wickes Trade matt white emulsion on my kitchen ceiling. Never been a problem, goes on well, covers well and lasts. Why do you want a specialist expensive paint?

I guess the key to this is exercise the valves regularly. Just as I do with the sea cocks on my boat.

Which is why putting the green levies on electricity prices was the most bonkers policy ever. Should have been on gas prices.

So just drill a hole in the board, just big enough to pass the cables through. Not a massive hole, just big enough, then seal around the cables once the board is paid.

If you can afford it, I would buy both. Then you can have more time to decide which half is best to build your house and sell the other. You might even be able to impose conditions on what is built on the other plot that way. Or just build one. Someone here bought a "double plot" and has only built one house and has a much bigger garden and no adjacent neighbour. He could likely sell it at any time but unless he needs the cash from doing so why would he?

What sort of shaft comes out of the valve (with the plastic knob removed) THAT is what I would be looking to buy / make a tool to fit. Applying more torque to a stiff valve via the plastic handle is likely to break the plastic handle. Bypass the weak link and drive direct on the the (assumed) metal shaft.

Yes sadly we have been closing our refineries because they cause too much pollution. Instead we export crude oil and import refined fuel shifting the pollution to another country so we look good. But lousy for energy security, loss of employment, and of course globally it makes no difference to pollution. We just kid ourselves closing our heavy industry saves the planet.

They have not even hinted where the first SMR power station will be built.

There is no shortage of drilling rigs, if we have not yet sent them all to the scrap yard. There are still a few in the Cromarty Firth, though not as many as there used to be.

What are all those wires for? Why are they coming up in the middle of a floor? Is another wall going to be built on top of the floor? Too many for just a floor socket. Explain what is going on? If you really need a hole for them, just drill a round hole with a drill bit. But I am still curious why you want cables coming out of the middle of a floor.

The current oil situation should be a wake up call for the government re energy security. But they can't see it. We have done a good job so far on renewable generation and that will continue. But we still need oil and gas and will do for some time. So let's drill our own. Most people seem to think if we drill our own it means we have abandoned the plan to go green. No it does not. It means we just want to get as much of the oil and gas that we need from a secure source closer to home, which has to be better than transporting it half way around the world from insecure sources via insecure shipping routes. Oh and the government would get more income from the extraction of our own resources not to mention the employment it would provide.

As mentioned many times, the ridiculous pricing system we have ensures we will be paying prices set by gas, until there is so much renewables that the very last gas power station has shut down. Ministers may say otherwise but that is the sad truth until someone changes the way retail electricity prices are set.

Yes that is exactly what you need to do.

I briefly did some work for a passive house building company here. I was not allowed to drill a hole through the external wall of the building (i.e. through the air tight layer) If I needed a hole, I had to discuss it, and one of the joiners would drill the hole in the agreed place (not always where I wanted it) and they would then seal the cable penetration afterwards.

How did you even get that past Building Control? Means of escape?

It is supposed to make the build more precise and more controlled. But the price. £800K for the build, not including the plot (another £650K) Eye watering figures for me, both of them. And I don't recall them saying how many square metres. Also no details of insulation levels, heating system etc. And in spite of it being built in a factory, it appears the plumbers got no thought in the design and they still had to work out pipe routes and drill all the holes just as they would in any other build.

And this is why I dislike "plastered on the hard" forcing cables to be chased in. Much better with a timber batten service void and plasterboard.

When I have been wiring a new house for the client, the first thing I do is go round with a tape measure, a big black marker pen and put a cross on the wall where all the sockets etc will be according to whatever drawings I have been provided with. Then I walk round with the client and discuss their needs, wants and preferences. Invariable most of the socket positions get changed as do lighting positions. As to kitchens. I have yet to see a new house built with the kitchen layout shown on the plans, another thing that gets changes as things evolve so don't even start the wiring for that until the kitchen is on order. What I am saying is don't get over excited about drawing plans. Unless you are the unusual client where nothing changes when you see the building for real.

Electric cables in a wall must run in a safe zone. Broadly speaking a safe zone is horizontally or vertically from an electrical accessory, e.g. a socket, or within 100mm of the corner of a room or ceiling. If you want to run electric cables around a room then do so at socket height, and ensure each wall has at least one socket to create that safe zone, and that is where all your mains cables can correctly run around a room.

BUT electric cables must tin in safe zones. So to ensure this the electric cable tray must be within 100mm of the ceiling all the way across the room. The data cable tray can be at any height you want.

Call that a Beech? Nah,

https://www.toolstation.com/universal-top-fix-seat-bung-kit/p46310