ProDave

Just take the socket front off. Connect the wires in some heavy duty terminal blocks, and put a blank front plate on. No socket in bathroom, no problem. don't make life more complicated than it needs to be. I refused a request to put a socket in a bathroom once. I had to go back a while later for something else and found the washing machine sat next to the bath, a small hole drilled through the wall through which the flex was threaded so it could be plugged in in an adjacent room.

Fitting solar PV might be the easy fix for a landlord to boost an otherwise too low for rental EPC. And because the EPC is too poor for FIT's anyway, and they are so low now, might we see a lot of landlords fitting DIY solar PV just to bump up the EPC and not claiming any FIT?

Be VERY careful with your plumbing if you put them back to back. Search the forum for "swap contents"

Just to put it into perspective these were both free. It is a fact, that I have never bought a working television set. Since the age of about 13, I have been repairing the things. Every television I have ever owned came to me faulty and I repaired it. When I was younger I used to buy faulty sets just to repair and sell. I am always keeping my eye out for more. These present 2 I was asked to repair them for the owner, located the fault, quoted them a fair price to repair them and they declined, so I repaired them for me. That is probably more sad than the fact I have 50" But for a good viewing experience, sound is as important as the picture. As sets have been getting bigger and thinner, the excuse for speakers they fit into them has been getting smaller and more tinny. So both sets are hooked up to surround sound systems, and yes I got those as faulty and repaired them as well.

I am sure in your case it won't. But you now (or very soon will) need an EPC of E or better in order to let a property. That is going to give a lot of landlords a big upgrade bill, or they are going to stop renting them and sell them. Either way I predict a glut of old low EPC houses that have a much reduced demand with landlords not wanting to buy them, and that will have to push their value down somewhat? Personally I would now not buy anything worse than a C unless it really was priced lower to compensate for the higher running cost, or the upgrade costs.

And the sun never comes above the horizon in winter.

Yes this is the only downstairs space that's finished. And yes the "small" 42" tv is in here. The slightly larger 50" one will go in the snug living room when that's finished, along with my floor standing hifi speakers. No prizes for guessing which will be my favourite room.

I stripped the top soil (grass had long gone) and piled it up before marking out the foundation trenches.

Thar's a standard timer board used in millions of fans. I often have one or 2, if I replace a fan and the timer board is working, I keep it as a spare, but don't have any at the moment.

I was right about watching telly in the same room as the Fridge and dishwasher. Can't wait for the other living room to be ready. This stupid modern idea of having a lounge in the kitchen will never really catch on.

It would probably make a very good central location for a hot water tank to aid that hotpress function. Now it has gone, just where are you going to put the HW tank so it is central to all points of use?

Sunday dinner tasted very nice indeed. Things we like (compared to the caravan) in no particular order. Having a shower where you don't bang your elbows and it doesn't take an age to wash the soap off (decent flow rate) Sleeping in a bed where you can get out both sides with more than a 6" gap A kitchen with a decent amount of work surface, AND a bowl and a half sink. God I missed that extra half bowl. Part way through washing up and you realised you had not rinsed the coffee pot and the only place to do it was the bathroom basin. A dishwasher. Sitting on a proper sofa rather than the built in foam seats in the 'van Watching tv on a set with decent surround sound. God how I missed that and being forced to just use the crap built in speakers. Listening to music on a decent pair of speakers. God how I missed my hifi. A well detached house means I don't have to worry about troubling the neghbours. Going upstairs to bed. Don't get me wrong, the caravan did us well for the 15 months it was our residence, but we are glad that is now in the past tense (to all practical purposes) Later on it will get repurposed as a work space.

I much prefer that layout. Much better use of space and less "fussy" with no awkward corridors. The top one of the 3 revised layouts would be my favourite. Having a wardrobe tacked onto the end of each en-suite would give a bit of extra soundproofing between each en-suite and the "other" bedroom. The en-suite that has no window, I would fit a solar tube or light pipe to illuminate it, we had one in the last house and it worked very well. Re the architect and building control. To avoid delaying things I would let the building warrant go through so you can start the foundations, then submit an amendment. If your relationship with the architect has broken down, re do the drawings yourself

2 things don't work for me: The funny corridor to get into beds 2 and 3 off the landing Solve that by making the landing wider (less void over the dining, and reduce the stairwell void) That corridor takes a big bite out of what could be en-suite space. Secondly En-suite 2 is forced to be longer just to encompass the window it seems? That takes a bite out of the corner of bed 3 making it look awkward. Solve the corridor entrance, and move the window over, and both rooms can have a larger en-suite, both the same size, each taking up half the wall between the 2 bedrooms. I would still swap them over, the master and it's suite seems over sized to me. Why not share the space a bit better?

Unless there is a particular reason, I would swap the left and right hand halves over. You currently have the largest half as the master, dressing and it's en-suite and the smaller as beds 2 and 3 and their en-suites that look a little cramped. I would try the smaller left hand half as master, dressing and en-suite that would then give a bit more space for beds 2 and 3 and their en-suites in the right hand part.

Horizontal cladding will men you have to shape all the edges so they are not square, to give a chamfer for water to run off. Hit and miss vertical won't let water in. I would not do vertical with gaps.

The trouble with an ASHP is they are not good at heating hot water especially hot. I have ours set to a target temperature of 50 degrees at the moment. That means you really need more water storage volume as when you run a bath for instance, you will be using a larger proportion of hot water and adding less cold to it. So I suspect that tank at only 150 litres might let you down. Also you really want the high capacity heat pump input coil otherwise it won't get up to the heat pump temperature or it will take longer or force the heat pump to heat it hotter to get there.

My vote would be bath under window, toilet to left of bath straight ahead as you enter, really generous shower at the end (what you have drawn is too thin, take the shower area right up to the edge of the window) And your bid double basin along the wall adjoining the dressing room. And do the whole floor as a wet room so you don't even need a shower screen if you don't want one.

My LG Therma V has a cooling function that I won't actually be using. I am not sure I would recommend it though, so see what others suggest.

I just tried simulating that and open circuited the thermistor while it was heating the tank. It throws up a CH08 fault "fault with water tank sensor" after 3 seconds but resets and continues operating when I re connect the thermistor. So I think it should be okay with a brief O/C while the relay swaps over. The trouble with parallel, is if the hot tank is already very hot, it might cause a reading that is too hot (above 100) Oh and I have just discovered annoying quirk #5 with this unit. You cannot adjust the set point temperature for the hot water when the heating is turned off. To do that, you have to go and turn the heating on, where upon it will let you set the heating temperature and the hot water temperature, then go and turn the heating off. I get the feeling I am using "user interface version Beta A"

I took a second reading from the thermistor at a different temperature, and concluded the best fit to the curve is what is known as a 6K thermistor (6K at 25 degrees) From that about 510 ohm seemed a likely bet for my "temperature satisfied" resistor. So I have tried it with a 560 ohm resistor and that gives an indicated temperature of 85 degrees. So I will be using a relay to switch from the thermistor, to this fixed resistor, when I want the hot water heating off. I have just ordered 3 relays from CPC as I didn't have any with 240v ac coils. One will be used to do the HW switching, and the other 2 will be used to spare the heating motorised valves being energised when the heating is off.

Sounds like a lot of work and hassle to solve a problem with an odd neighbour. I would just over board the gaps, then plant a fast growing hedge instead on the top of the wall just your side of the fence

Coving is a personal thing. For me it's yesterdays style. Agree 1" Celotx / Kingspan etc then 9mm plasterboard to keep the walls thin. You could take the worktop off and drop a lot more insulation down behind the kitchen units.

Did it make much smell during the cleaning as it presumably burned off all the residue?

Absolutely. We considered a built in FF but baulked at adding another £350 to the price of the kitchen just to wrap the FF in a box to make it look like a cupboard. Plus the integrated ones were just too small anyway.