ProDave

See reply above. Buy the unit yourself and just employ a plumber and an electrician who are capable of RTFM. The LAST place I would look for such a thing is a "renewables" company.

You can buy a heat pump for £2K easily, a lot less if you shop around. The instalation is no harder than a system boiler. What you met was the "MCS Premium" an over inflated price by an MCS contractor so you can claim the RHI and give most of your payment to them in the form of a much inflated install cost.

What is the "cost of install" that has ruled out an ASHP? Is that the over inflated MCS install price? They are no more complicated to install than a system boiler. Have you considered a gas boiler now and get the LPG jets and run it from 47Kg propane cylinders until the mains gas is available? then put the mains gas jets back in. You can get room sealed wood burning stoves so again don't let that rule them out.

By way of another comparison, we paid Scottish Water £1000 for the road crossing under a 3 metre wide single track road, so double that for a dual track road. That was to excavate a 900mm deep 300mm wide trench, lay their pipe in the bottom and put duct in for electricity and telecoms as they filled then make good. In our case no traffic management, just a heavy steel plate they could push over the trench when someone wanted to come past.

You also want the DC isolators turned off before touching the panels. That ensures no current path on the panel side.

You could always do as we are, and have utility and WC all as one room. Not to everyones taste but building control are happy with it.

I don't want it to "look" like anything. That is why my first attack will just be line the back of the alcove that will be hidden by the fridge. And yes Carpet is one of the things I will try but will be a magnet for fluff and dust. Perhaps something like a very thick cushioned vinyl? If I end up lining the sides of the alcove then the appearance may become an issue, depending how far towards the front the lining goes.

"The Fridge" arrived today. In spite of some reviews saying how quite it is, I find it is just an ordinary fridge where you can hear the compressor purring when it is running. I want to make it quieter. Where it is going is in an alcove formed by timber and plasterboard walls. On one side is just a spur of wall for a door to open against and to provide a place for the light switches. On the other side of the fridge will be the wall to the pantry. Thus the fridge is enclosed on 3 sides but open at the top. Obviously I will fill the timber frames of these stud walls with accoustic insulation. That will cut down the noise transmitted and help enclose it. But what I am more thinking of is lining the inside of the alcove so created into which the fridge sits, with some soft sound absorbing material. Thinking a hard plasterboard finish will just reflect the sound out of it's recess so what is needed is something soft to absorb and not reflect the sound. The back wall of the alcove will probably be the one that most needs this treatment, as that is closest to the compressor that is open to the back of the fridge Treating the side walls would probably be less effective. Any ideas?

Hi and welcome. If the outer walls of the barn are structurally sound, would an insulated timber frame structure not be the easiest way to upgrade the walls?

The "felt" has to be a breathable membrane, e.g I used Protek VP400, there are plenty of other choices.

I would have said inverter fault as both strings seem to show the same voltage. I would also swap the strings over, and to be really safe wait until after dark to do that just in case you touch the wrong thing, And see if tomorrow the fault shows on the same string, in which case it is an inverter problem, or the fault moves to the other side in which case it is a panel or wiring fault.

If you just put water pipes into en existing un insulated screed it will be pretty ineficcient with most of the heat going down into the ground.

Making the sructural alterations to the roof for the dormers would have required building regs even if it was still just a store room. That is more likely what the buyer and their lender will be bothered about. I am surprised the builder did not mention that, he should have known. Often it's possible to "solve" this with an indemnity policy but ONLY if you have not tried to resolve it with building control. Talk to your solicitor about offering that option first before doing any more.

If you want to split the labour, I would say the plumber has to fit the shower former as he has to connect the waste to it. If he is not comfortable with the tanking kit, get the tiler to do that. It's also best not to fit the tanking kit until you are about to tile, less chance for it getting damaged if there is a long wait.

Our local tiler will do the tanking if you want him to. But it is not difficult. You could do it yourself it you wanted. http://ardross.altervista.org/Wilowburn/bathroom-wet-room-floor/ That's an Impey shower former and tanking kit.

I don't like to silicone a hob down, your might never get it out in one piece. but I DO seal the cut edges of the hole in thew worktop so if any water does get through it won't bugger it.

I tried that with plasterboard screws. They have some coating which tastes horrible.....

Someone trying to box a pipe in. Photo please?

No not massive, much less than the difference between radiators and UFH for instance.

Out last house has UFH ustairs and down. Upstairs has carpets, downstairs solid floors. Yes the upstaits UFH will take longer to heat up with carpets so just allow for that in your programable thermostat settings.

I am not understanding the question. Each house will require it's own supply cable and it is up to the network operator how they achieve that. The larger cable is more about reducing volt drop and impedance than anything else. They will fit a cable they deem meets anticipated needs. You might get a slightly cheaper connection price of all houses are connected at once, but then again you might not. Be carefull YOU are not paying for the full cost of the new run, only to find other then tap into it much cheaper than you. Many of us have put the meter box near or on the boundary and ran our own cable from there to the house.

We considered wall hung, but honestly I could not see the benefit of the huge extra cost just for not having the pan touch the floor. I absolutely "get" back to wall pans, but just don't "get" wall hung. I guess it is a personal choice.

Well I did a reasonably accurate costing to try and work out how we are going to finance the last bit, we have spent about £200K with another £20K to go. So I guess that puts me pretty well at the 90% done stage, so only 90% left to do then. Purely on the basis of finance, half way did not even get us to a wind and watertight shell, that is probably more like 75%

What is needed is a change of attitude. Yes it is hot here, but I don't see my water usage increasing massively. I don't feel the need to water the grass, it has pretty well stopped growing just now, why would I want to change that? I don't see the need to clean my car more often. We don't see the need to have a paddling pool. I might shower more often but that is it. So perhaps a hosepipe ban is what is needed to stop people making bad decisions and simply wasting water?

What you should do is come out of your isolator into a short bit of copper then into this for you flexi to fix to https://www.screwfix.com/p/male-coupler-15mm-x/69358 That will give you a flat surface for the washer to seat to. If you put the flexi straight onto the isolator, the washer will be seating on a much narrower edge where it is tapered to fit an ollive. Having said that one of my basins is working just fine straight onto the isolator.