ProDave

I wish I had read these last couple of posts 2 weeks ago. I deliberately bought a Grundfoss pump as I believed they were the best and disappointed to find I can hear it. Strangely it i quietest on it's fastest setting, at slow speed it has a pronounced drone. By comparison the "no name" pumps that came with the UFH manifolds are silent.

That reminds me. I priced a job this week to wire Jim's Gym. A 20 ft container, lined and insulated, with a pair of glass and timber French doors on the front.

I believe I have a resolution to this. I should know for certain before the end of next week if the offer that has been made is genuine and actually happens.. If it does I will tell you the outcome, and the action I took that I believe resulted in a resolution being offered.

Got it, by cutting and pasting https://gasproducts.co.uk/gas-regulators/pigtails/gaslow-easy-fit-1-5m-propane-gas-hose.html I am pretty sure the red easy fit ring is removable making them normal spanner operation. Otherwise BES have normal 1.5 metres hoses https://www.bes.co.uk/propane-pigtail-gas-hose-assembly-15m-pol-x-w20-16852

Your links are broken, they open this page again.

No problem at all. I am about 25 metres from my supply box to the house.

That is the UK wiring regs, There are two things that will limit the cable length, one is allowable voltage drop, and the other is the maximum circuit impedance allowed for a particular size of circuit breaker which will affect the "disconnection time" Put simply if the cable is too long and the impedance too high, then in the event of a short circuit, the circuit breaker or fuse might take too long to trip or might never trip. Both are overcome by fitting a larger cable than the current alone may suggest is needed.

As Jeremy says DP switch fuse and you can run as long as you like subject to things like volt drop, disconnection time etc in BS7671 Don't forget also a static caravan should be connected to a TT earth as well.

Have you considered doing what several of us have done. Don't get a temporary building supply (with a further cost to move it later) but instead make a permanent meter housing on a boundary and have the meter moved there, for good.

We are actually on what is rated as a 12KW supply, and that will be plenty for our house, even with an ASHP for heating (that's not much over 1KW anyway) In our case that came about because there is a 100KVA transformer serving 8 houses and I know if I had asked for a 21KVA supply there was a high probability of them wanting to upgrade that to a bigger transformer. The reality is I have the same size supply cable and same 100A fuse and could draw 21KW if I wanted to. As long as we don't all do that at once.

Just tell them 10KW They are after a figure for the "system" The man on the end of the phone does not know if this is a building site for 1 house, or a nuclear power station.

That then brings us to plot orientation. We have a south facing back garden, so all the main rooms face the back, look out over the garden and get the sun. The main room is triple aspect so looks over the front and side as well. Only the humble utility room is relegated to only having a north view over a (very quiet) road. So that would rule out a north facing plot. In fact yes that was another big issue with the plot we turned down, the back would have faced north. I sketched all sorts of bizarre schemes to try and come up with a front garden we could actually use and get the sun, without feeling like we were sitting on the driveway, and nothing really worked. Agree about kitchens. Something people don't think about when putting it upstairs either.

Not really. You have to work with the plot. It was easy with this plot as it was wide but not very deep, and a house like that, split down the middle very much models the traditional Scottish Croft house so it was not at all hard to design. One of the other plots we looked at was very much narrower and very much deeper and would have been a completely different design of house to the one we have now. One of the things we struggled with when trying to fit a house to that other plot, was dealing with a limited width south facing wall, meaning a lot of rooms would have no option but face north If the plot allows I can recommend a wide house as we have discussed split down the middle with the stairs and entrance, but that is not always possible. Our house is 12 metres wide, add a little over 3M for the adjoining single garage, and another 6M for the double car port. Not everyone has a 21 metre wide plot.

I too have not had any experience of anti English issues up here. I did however meet a (English) family who had moved here from the Borders where they said they were hounded out by the Anti English sentiment. I guess the Borders covers a large area.

Mine is very similar to that. It all stems from my plot suiting a wide, but not very deep house which fits that layout. Perhaps the more "normal" plot favours a narrow, deeper house that would not work with that layout.

PRICE An ordinary cooker hood that is built to fix to a wall you have plenty of choice, and they are relatively cheap. They only have 3 "good sides" as they mount against a wall. An Island cooker hood is much the same internal workings, but must be supported from the top and have "4 good sides" THAT fact alone means there is very much less choice and they are much more expensive.

My immediate thought is with 1 acre, surely you could knock down and build TWO houses half an acre each is a pretty decent sized plot. Even just by selling one plot and keeping one to build yourself would help a lot with the finances. And even with half an acre, you have to consider living on site in a decent static caravan to avoid the cost of rental.

I came from the industry that built those, and it saddens me that we long since gave up the knowledge and ability to build our own. Go and look up e.g the original planning application for Dounereay. Not much more than 1 bit of paper. Now it would be a 20 year process with at least 2 public enquiries.

Up here you would have had to tie that to the table, and you would probably lose the table as well. Gusts up to 62mph this morning. My boat is okay but watched one lose it's mast this morning.

What is the water companies responsibility now with a shared pipe like this?

That looks like a steel pipe. If you are talking about burying that under your extension, forget it. It's rotten, end of life, needs replacing. You talk of getting the neighbours water back on, so is this one stopcock feeds 2 houses, yours and your neighbours? You don't want to be leaving a rotten pipe in an impossible location to dig up again for WHEN it fails. So I would say both properties need a new supply pipe. the issue becomes who is responsible for it and who will pay.

In our house, any fat gets poured into the normal wheelie bin as long as there is plenty in there to absorb it, if not into some form of container, it does NOT go down our drain. Composting is good and when we get into the house we will set up a compost system. If it can't be composted then it is solid waste for the wheelie bin as far as I am concerned, not to be mashed up and hope my treatment plant can process it. We have a problem with society in that they think anything can go down the drain and it is not their problem. Witness the big problem in some places with fat burgs.

We rinse our plastics for recycling. The amount of extra "food waste" that goes down the drain is insignificant and no concern to our treatment plant. You do empty as much as you can into the normal bin first?

It oxidises and turns a horrible dark grey.

So you don't use ANYTHING wooden or plastic in the process of cooking or preparing food? Or an aluminium coffee pot or salad serving imlements? Or a plastic lunch box or water bottle that needs cleaning? Or plastic cat bowls? And you don't want to rinse out the plastic stuff going for recycling (last items through the washing up bowl) And you don't want to wipe around the cooker and worktops with a nice hot soapy dishcloth to keep everything clean? (first use of clean hot water before starting the washing up) We are obviously a very disorganised household as even with a dishwasher, one bowl full of manual washing up is done every day.