ProDave

Hi and welcome to the forum. I and many others would be interested to hear about your battery system. Start a new thread in the approprriate section.

Well my sub £500 ebay ASHP is (eventually) working. Can anyone with an RHI system and (inflated?) MCS installer costs really get a system for a net expenditure of £500?

This plasterboard waste thing. Perhaps it is just me, but doing my own boarding, I keep all the offcuts lined up, and when I need a small piece, I look FIRST at the stack of offcuts, and even work out if I lay it out slightly differently can I make it so I can use an offcut. Result is after boarding 3/4 of the house, the stack of offcuts ammounts to less than 2 full sheets, and what is eventually left over might just gradually make it's way into the bottom of that green thing on wheels. The other day I visited a neighbour who had just had a conservatory built. I ended up skip diving and recovering some sizeable offcuts of 50mm PIR insulation, a whole sheet of reinforcing mesh, and some useful bits of timber. Also in the skip was a bag full of left over brand new drainpipe fittings which I only left there as I don't have brown drainpipe. The sheer waste of some professionals (paid for by the customer) is astounding. Our local tip will allow you to take waste in a van or trailer IF you fill in a form to declare it is personal waste not trade waste. But of course it would be far too helpful for them to keep a supply of the forms actually at the tip.

Mind me asking how much it cost (for a comparison with say tarmac)

That is what I was told on the MSE site. I too was worried that I might accumulate a CGT liability by renting it, but it seems you would have to rent it quite a long time before that is the case if it has been your primary residence for a long time first. The exact wording of what I was told is here Perversely, it looks like if a property that has been your primary residence, is going to be left empty for more than 18 months, you can reduce or eliminate your CGT liability by letting it and claiming the letting relief (only available if it has at some time been your primary residence) In my case it looks like I will be liable only for the letting gain less the final 18 months. And when you take into account TWO CGT allowances, that would need to be in excess of £22K gain before we would have to pay anything. Which unless prices suddenly rocket before we actually sell it, would be about another 4 years of rental. If the tenant has not bought it by then he would be out and it would be back on the market anyway before that.

My BIL had a run in at his local tip. He had a pick up truck and in the back he had a 1 ton builders bag full of garden waste. He dragged it out of the truck and started unloading it. Immediately an operative came over and said you can't tip that much. My BIL eventually won the argument when he pointed to the sign saying "garden waste, 1 car, 1 bag" and he pointed out he only had 1 car, and he only had 1 bag of garden waste. TIP: (cough) the bottom half of a domestic wheelie bin is "very useful"

The Primary Residence relief covers the period you occupy the house as your primary residence AND the last 18 months of ownership regardless of use. So as long as you can prove it was your primary residence until no earlier than 18 months ago, then you should not have any capital gains tax to pay, even if you were letting it for that last 18 months. Our old house is currently under that, having now been let for 15 months. Even after the 18 months is up, there will then be a letting relief figure to apply (a more complicated "lesser of 3" calculation) and if that calculation shows some taxable gain, then there are two personal capital gains tax allowances to use up before you become liable to pay anything. So unless we rent our old house for many many years, there should be no CGT to pay,. If CGT is due, they take the purchase price and sale price (including all expenses) and assume a linear gain throughout the ownership and apportion it monthly for any period where CGT may be due.

I (as an electrician) generally leave all the waste from a job with the customer. If there is space, it is left in their own wheelie bin, which as their waste is legal. I must admit I do this mostly because there is not often space in my own wheelie bin for it. On the few occasions I do keep things removed from a job, they will be for re use or sale, so as far as I am concerned they are not "waste" but "stock" I quite often bring wood home for the stove. That is most definitely NOT "waste" but "firewood" On the very few occasions when for various reasons I so have to remove some waste from a job, I now stop at the first available public roadside bin and put it in there. I do agree the present system is bonkers. That, and the restrictions on what a householder can take to their local tip recycling center does indeed in my mind encourage fly tipping.

May I suggest we keep this to the topic of the house sale. If you want to talk BREXIT go and start a new thread in the general discussion forum please. Mods.

That sounds hopeful and the rest of the process can now proceed. So Octopus have something like the estimated 4 weeks to exchange to come up with an account number for you. Then let the buyer have the "fun" of switching if they wish. Were you also with IRESA at the new house?

Up here there is a remote hunting lodge that was abandoned for a reservoir project. Embarrassingly, someone got their surveying wrong, and even when full the water level never actually quite reaches the lodge.

I got all mine from ebay, mostly from a dealer called PSW Trade Supplies LTD

What use would new ones be? they would stand out like a sore thumb. When we extended our 1930's house, we were lucky that the builder found some reclaimed old tiles that were a perfect match, complete with moss and lichen to match the original house. New ones would have looked very stark, and you would have had to choose a colour that was close to the present faded colour, not the original colour 60 years ago.

Perhaps this highlights an issue with using an automated conveyance system? A real solicitor acting for you would surely put that issue on hold and get everything else in place? As a buyer, I would be very annoyed if this held up the purchase. Yes I would want to be sure about making sure the title is good, no awkward covenants, all that sort of important stuff, but I could not give a flying fig for who the energy supplier was as I would almost certainly be changing.

Just had an email from Octopus. Basically the contents of the email are here: https://octopus.energy/iresa/ One bit that might help: "Please bear with us and we will be in touch in the next few weeks. If you have an emergency such as a loss of supply, please call 0808 1781551, or email iresa@octopus.energy" It suggests the switch will take 14-21 days. I would contact your buyer and explain the situation and urge their solicitor to progress as much as they can without this information.

So Jeremy is buying the beers in November then? Might have a buyer for our boat, been on the market 2 days and have a viewing this afternoon.

Mine has an automatic overload preventer. The belt is so worn of you overload it it stops turning.

If it's just the clay soil shrinking in the dry weather, I would just be watering the ground around them for a while to make it swell up again.

There are a lot of variations in what councils accept. For instance I am not a member of any electrical competent persons scheme, yet Highland, Moray and Invernessshire accept an EIC that I give them for a new install. I am told that for instance Borders council will only accept a certificate if you are a member of a competent persons scheme.

It has about 20 or so "parameters" that you can set from a menu, some of which have sensible default values, others not so sensible.

I can't comment on your heat pump, but my LG one works like this. In heating mode, it modulates the compressor to maintain the water flow temperature to what you have set it, I currently have it set for 40 degrees but I will probably fine tune that when I start using the heating. In hot water heating mode, it seems to ramp the compressor up to pretty much full speed quite quickly, then you can watch the flow temperature slowly rising as the tank warms up. Flow temperature always seems to be about 5 degrees above return temperature, which is dependant on the temperature of the water in the tank. Mine prioritises hot water heating but you can swap it to prioritise heating if you want. Mine has a thermistor temperature probe to measure the tank temperature, it does not use the mechanical cylinder thermostat. By the time the tank reaches full temperature, the flow temperature from the heat pump is about 5 degrees hotter than the tank temperature. I am currently running a hot water temperature of 50 degrees so the flow gets up to about 55 degrees. Mine you can program to stop heating with the heat pump at a certain temperature and then use the immersion heater to get to full temperature. I might investigate that option in the winter if frequent defrosting becomes an issue.

I did my own percolation tests and building control accepted them. Any ground works contractor with a digger will be able to install the plant. Make sure they follow the instructions properly and concrete it in if it needs it.

A lot of the plastic drain lids rely on a trough around the edge being filled with water to seal the lid. In this hot dry summer they might have dried out. Pour a bucket or 2 of water around the edge of each drain lid to see if that helps.

I will never ever use felt for a shed roof again, Awful stuff with a hopelessly short life. I use the corrugated bitumen roofing sheets sold by B&Q and many others. One shed has had that for 10 years now and as good as new.

I can't help with the questions, but it looks a bit like my LG ASHP in so far as thee are a LOT of cables to connect to the HP. I did not want to be fishing lots of separate cables through bits of conduit, which would be even more of a PITA if you needed to add an extra one later. So I found a bit of 10 core control cable rated at 300V and connected every terminal I was likely to use to just 1 cable, and ran this to a marshalling box inside the house (standard 12 terminal central heating wiring centre) and split the wiring to all the various valves, thermostats and programmers from there.