ProDave

Okay in this case not perhaps so much of "high street" but a shed. So we are shopping for the kitchen. On our shopping list is a big fridge/freezer. A matching oven and built in microwave or combination oven. A built in dishwasher. An island cooker hood. A gas / electric hob. You would think there was enough there to get any shop manager drooling with excitement and wanting to relieve us of our hard earned for that little lot. Well sadly there only appears to be one outlet in town that might sell that lot, Curry's / PC world. So we have been there tonight. What a thoroughly miserable experience. Lets start with the Fridge / Freezer. We saw the one we liked a few weeks back at £449. That wasn't marked as a sale item, just it's normal price. Today it is marked as end of line sale for £499. The spotty faced assistant was no use so we asked for the manager. A sour faced lady appeared and offered us £20 off the £499. I told her we wanted it for £449. Nope no deal to be had. Ovens. Well they had a number of built in conventional ovens, but not a single built in microwave or combination oven. Another dead loss. Cooker hoods. About 4 back to wall hoods, but not a single one for an island. We didn't bother looking at dishwashers. So here we are, a couple expecting to buy all the kit for a new kitchen, they could not sell us a single item. Their shoddy stock and even more shoddy attitude to pricing and customers means I vote they should stop wasting retail space and close down, the sooner the better. Off to buy our stuff on line now.

Self build insurance is exactly what you want. It covers your public liability, employers liability, and the buildings at whatever stage of construction up to a finished building. No need to keep adding or subtracting anything.

our supply would have done that in less than 30 minutes

I did, and it was pretty clear. But I'll bet the bottom of the willis heater tube has some crud in it. And no way to drain that.

There can be no sensible debate about MMGW unless you include in that debate the NUMBER of people on the planet. That is the taboo nobody wants to mention. So do we reduce pollution per person, the number of people, or both? I still WANT battery storage, but it needs to be an economic decision.

I have ordered a flow meter from ebay. Here is a picture of the pump / phe / willis heater in the new one.

Rebuild cost has to allow a cost for demolition and clearance of the site in the even of the building so badly damages it has to be rebuilt, so add back on what you have taken off and you won't be far out.

Well I told them it was faulty and sent the picture of the pump. They swear it was brand new and are arranging for the manufacturer to fix it. Watch this space.

We painted the living room 4 days after the plaster was finished, it dries tha quick at this time of year. I am still a fan of Wickes cheapest trade mat white emulsion for the first couple of coats. We did this time try a slightly watered down first coat, but that did not cover as well and needed a third coat so won't be doing that again.

I am struggling to work out just how this got in such a state. It was not just a case of plain water was left in the pump for a while. Once I cleaned it up, the body of the pump was pretty good, and the impellor is plastic and the other bit stainless steel. So the rust did NOT come from the pump or any other internal part of the heat pump which is all stainless, copper or brass. So it must have been connected to a system full of dirty rusty water, and then not rinsed. Another unit with a dubious history? When I feel a bit less demoralised by the whole saga, I will try the simple thing of connect a hose to the return and see if water actually passes through to the flow, or is it blocked. But every time I drain a bit down to try something like that, more of my antifreeze goes west.

In this one the PHE is level with the pump, I will post a pic tomorrow. There is also a Willis heater in line, cunningly positioned to ensure it would be impossible to ever change the immersion element. But hopefully they will have been essentially empty of this foul water.

I liked the look of that. Until I found the postage would be more than the flow meter. Looking for something nice and simple like that. Plenty on ebay but all from China and I don't want to wait that long.

Okay still no joy. I feel before I throw this back at them again, I need to prove the water is flowing at the required rate to prove I do not have a plumbing issue. So can anyone point me at a flow meter or flow switch that will easily fit in line with a 22mm copper pipe

It's not over yet. Can I scream. AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!1 There I feel a bit better. The replacement unit arrived this morning. I have had a busy day trying to get it installed and working. Only to find. It does not work. I have only done the very basic connections to get it to run, there will still be a lot of further work to do but I wanted to prove it was okay. Well it's not. What happens is you give it a heat demand (in this case ask for hot water, but I doubt it would be any different if you asked for heating) and it trips on no water flow. It doesn't even get as far as starting the fan or the compressor. It tries to start the pump and then trips about 10 seconds later. I noticed the inbuilt WILO pump was making a sort of chirping noice once a second, then it's lights started flashing red and green. I don't have the instructions for it. but I guess that's not normal. So as a test, I swapped it for the (now spare) Grundfoss pump I have that I know to be in good order. And it is still the same, apart from the fact the pump runs for the 10 seconds before it trips with the no flow error. I have no contacted the supplier yet, as I just know they will say "it's your plumbing" Well I am pretty damned sure it is not. With the old heat pump, I had a pump and flow meter in the plant room (the old one did not have them built in) and I had plenty of flow showing on the flow meter. ALL I did to change the plumbing for this one is change the fittings on the end of the flexi hoses at the heat pump end, and bypassed the pump and flow meter as this one has them both built into the heat pump. I can't believe those 2 simple changes introduced a blockage. Anyway, I have done a post Mortem on the Wilo pump and it is not pretty. Clearly this unit has been sat some time with some horrible rusty water in it. The pump was seized solid. It would not surprise me if the plate heat exchanger is not gummed up solid as well. I guess I need to throw my complaint back to them again.

Just to conclude this, the new replacement unit arrived today. I will start a new thread about comissioning and putting that into use. I was pleased to see it came with the "sanitarty water kit" (hot water tank kit) I had noted in the manual that was an optional extra. And I put the old faulty one on Gumtree and that sold and was collected yesterday.

Run the DC cable into the house and into the DC isolator switch. Then it is safe for connection later when you are ready. Remember high voltage DC is a lot more dangerous than AC

You have to satisfy SEPA and Building control. So exactly what you are allowed to have might not be agreed until your building warrant is processed. I can say our air blower plant (Conder, very similar to the Bio Pure) is working very well. There is no odoor and what comes out into the burn is a clear odourless liquid.

We had to settle for .net for our new house name. It was all that was available for our chosen name, and the choice of name was partly influenced by the fact a domain name was available. ALL our domain names are on auto renewal with the domain host. The .UK version is still unused, the owner of the .co.uk version has not bought it yet. I have given up with the postcode database. I flatly refuse to pay a fee to the council to get added to that. All the utilities have it on their own databases, and the council lady even admitted it was on the councils own address database, so I flatly refuse to pay £100 just to get the house name added to Royal Mails database. Post gets delivered here without issue.

For the small extra cost, I would definitely fit a treatment plant now rather than a septic tank. We were doing that anyway and it ended up getting permit to discharge to the burn, which they definitely would not have allowed with a septic tank Our issue with SEPA was building control rejected our soakaway plan and it ended up with no option but discharge to the burn (with a small partial soakaway). SEPA have a presumption against discharge to a watercourse and only allow that as a last resort if all other options have proved unsuitable which is the situation we had reached.

At the moment their current offer is one free appliance, or a free wortktop. Their quote offers me the integrated dishwasher for £0. I wonder if I could stretch the "free worktop" to be the granite one, cut and installed? Somehow I doubt it.

On the Howdens quote, each item lists the % discount applied. They seem to have applied 65% to the cabinets and up to 85% from the appliances. Should I be negotiating for more discount from the cabinets?

Lamona, from Howdens, £450 plus VAT, and I though that was expensive. No reviews at least none that I have seen. There is this one on ebay for £300 but it does not tell me what make. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Instant-Hot-Boiling-Water-Kitchen-Tap-3-in-1-Cold-Hot-Water-Heating-Unit/192074602857?hash=item2cb889d969:g:pSkAAOSwi0RXzKr8

We want a separate microwave and oven, not both in one.

Thanks, the indicative prices on their website are about half what I have been quoted so enquiry sent.

We are getting prices for our kitchen, So far have approached Howdens, Magnet and a couple of the sheds, and had a look at DIY Kitchens. Howdens are currently cheapest, but still over budget. Some negotiating / redesign needed. My questions relate firstly to appliances as this may be where we can shave the costs. So does anyone have the "best price" for the following: Built in single fan oven (best price so far £350) Built in matching microwave. Note this must be a proper built in unit, not a free standing microwave with a front plate to try and make it look built in. (best price so far £550) Boiling water tap (i.e boiling water, domestic hot and cold all from one single hole tap) (best price so far £450) Island recirculating cooker hood (best price so far £290) Second question relates to a granite / quartz or similar worktop, cut to size with hole for under mount sink and hole for tap. I have never had one of these before, but I seem to be told you get a price for a blank, and then a price for "fitting" which means cutting it to size and cutting all the holes on site. Is this normal? If so then as this would be a "supply and fit" I would expect it to be invoiced at 0% VAT as it is going into a new build house. Is this gernerally what people find happens in practice?