ProDave

That depends where you are. Up here Open Reach supply armoured phone cable and tell you to bury it direct. I only used duct for it under the road crossing.

Back of envelope calculations Assuming you can store and use 6KWh of electricity every day, @12p per unit that will save £0.72 per day That's a saving of £262.80 per year. At a cost of £5345 that would take 20 years to pay for itself. I doubt you would really store and use 6KWh every day, especially in winter so savings would be less. Will the batteries really last 20 years? Not there yet I am afraid.

The latest is they are sending a new circulation pump. I will fit that when it gets here and hopefully should have the flow meter to fit as well. If that doe not fix it, the manufacturers service engineer will come. But they want the replacement pump fitted and tested first.

I don't like the idea of a wet solum and poor ventilation means it will be very humid under there, putting any timber at risk. I would want that sorted, and a vapor barrier and some gravel to hold it down would be the easiest, pour a concrete slab would be better. Then whatever you do in terms of insulating the floor it will be in a less damp environment.

If you are going to lay a vapour barrier to stop moisture from the ground making the sub floor void damp, I would think some form of gravel would be better to weigh it down, rather than sand, which would probably just end up being permanently damp and not solve the issue.

Sorted. That one ordered. Came down to £349 with a discount code, and remarkably, free delivery all the way up here. Buildhub. The forum that likes to save you money.

The "target" is to get one, delivered, for £449 or less so I can stop feeling cheated. So those are too expensive I am afraid. The Silver one from AO will do that is SWMBO finds the colour acceptable.

I will run it past the boss. We were looking at the white version of that, which AO have for £497 (plus £50 delivery to us) Perhaps colour is the compromise we need.

The integrated ones tend to be 60cm wide only, and you add another £300 for a cupboard to wrap round it. The FF is going on it's own, not next to the kitchen units so there is no merit in having it integrated into a unit.

The ovens are not such an issue. Actually Howdens have a better choice than any single shop I have seen, I just need to see how much room for maneuver they have in the prices when I go back. The issue is turning out to be the Fridge. That has been subject to a lot of discussion. SWMBO now does not want a double door American style thing, they are "too big" But nearly all the upright FF's are 60cm wide or less and just too small and just look too tall and skinny. We found this Beko one that is 70cm wide and has a lot more volume. If we can get it for the £449 it was previously on sale for, we would buy one. Nobody local has it. Can't find it on line. There are a few on ebay but down south and collection only. The blood boiling thing is it is now on "clearance sale" for £499. If only that stupid woman would do it for £449 we would buy it, I feel I am being ripped off, being asked to pay more than a recently advertised normal price for a clearance sale item. This is as much a matter of principle than anything else. Oh and the REALLY stupid thing, they also had the new model that is replacing it. Exactly the same body and interior, just slightly different designed doors. £300 more. Forget that.

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.