ProDave

The way I see it, the MCS company should charge a fair price for the labour they supply and charge a fair retail price for the material they supply. It irks me that they seem to charge way more than this because they are the only ones able to sign the paperwork for the FIT so abuse that position. The result is the only people that now "benefit" from the likes of FIT and RHI are the installers that end up with most of the payment in their pocket.

So that's in total of 6.44p per KWh (generation plus 50% deemed export} On a 4KW system here generating typically 3100KWh per year (a bit more down south) that would be a total payment of £199.64 per year. Assuming the "mcs premium" for having the system supplied and installed my an MCS contractor is £2000 (compared to a cheap DIY system) then that is 10 years payback time for the mcs premium. You may decide that is worth it? If you look at the total figures of an mcs system costing say £4K to install, then it will take the whole 20 years of the FIT contract to recoup the initial cost. You really have to want solar PV mostly for self usage to make it worthwhile. Gone are the days when the FIT payment would pay for the system in 5 or 6 years.

If you installed it yourself then take a photo and mark it up with dimensions so you have an accurate record. Of course all cable runs will be in safe zones won't they?

It is only the tundish that makes the D2 vent pipe open to the air inside the house. I think we talked before of enclosing the whole tundish inside something like a clear plastic bottle sealed at both ends so you could see it, but it would be sealed. The alternative is discharge internally into a stack pipe using a hepvo waterless trap. You must use ABS not PVC pipe for the run from the hepvo to the stack as it potentially may contain boiling water.

I haven't looked it up lately but even with the export payment it's well under 10p per KWh

The bit in bold seems unnecessary. Why take a spur to another pole. All I see in this situation usually is the transformer mounted onto one existing pole. You don't want them adding extra overhead lines across your land. They may need to add stays to that pole but that is usually the extent. You could do as some of us have done here. Make your meter box a permanent structure on a bit of fence or wall close to the pole. You can use it as a site supply there to start with then take your own feed from the meter box to the house rather than getting your supply moved.

Keep an eye on ebay. I have seen 4KW kits for as low as £2K I don't think the SAP cares if it's on FIT or not, the point is the house generates power so improves the SAP rating.

You are welcome to visit our build. If you don't already know our house is clad in wood fibre board and rendered.

We are a bit more down to earth up here. When we started we were living 2 doors away. I offered our loo at that house for the builders. They just "made their own arrangements " (went behind a tree to have a pee). Their vans were all the shelter they needed. I have worked on many individual builds and this seems to be the norm here.

Himlor bender. Yes that is the same valve.

Here you go. Sorry about the poor picture I just could not get the lighting right.

When I bought our floor tiles they were cheap end of line tiles. They only had just enough tiles of the same batch code, so we bought 1 spare pack of the same colour but a different batch code, thinking if we needed to use them, they would go along the back wall hidden behind the bath.where you would not notice. As it happens we didn't need them, but in any case I could not tell any difference in colour. We ended up using them as skirting tiles.

If you bought them all with the same batch code you would not need to worry....

Thanks. SWMBO will be going to screwy's for me tomorrow.

You have a 3 phase 11KV line there. Why do you think it is going to cost you £15K for the hydro to hang a transformer on one of those poles and drop a feed down to your house? A local build here cost £10K for the supply but that included undergrounding a section of the 11KV line that was in the way for his house. You don't have to do that so your cost should be a lot less than £10K If you are going for solar pv then you want a stored hot water system to dump excess power. I think re ASHP's the general consensus is buy one and fit it yourself. If you are intent on claiming the RHI you will most likely find the extra cost of having to get it supplied and installed by an MCS registered contractor will be more than the RHI payments would be. Many on here don't like wood burning stoves (I do) but given your woodland it would be foolish not to use all that free fuel. Make sure it is sized properly and get one with a ducted air intake.

I thought about that, but aren't those tapered threads? (they always seem to be when screwing an outside tap into one)

Plumbing my shower in the wet room at the moment. This is the arm onto which the rainfall head will screw onto. It looks like you should bolt it through the wall panel (wet wall in this case) and then make the plumbing connection. It is a parallel thread and a 1/2" tap connector fits onto it perfectly. However, here is the problem. Where it is going, I do not have rear access to the wall (already boarded skimmed and painted) So what I need is something I can screw (on a suitable cross member) inside the wall frame, connect my 15mm copper pipe to, fit the wall panel, then screw this arm into it. As it's a parallel thread and any fitting I am aware of almost certainly won't have a sealing washer, then it will rely on ptfe tape or similar to seal things. It's only the outlet from the thermal mixer to a rainfall shower head so pressure will be minimal ans none at all when it's off. So what fitting?

Is this a busy road? Why will it take 3 days? Can they not mole under the road? for just over £3K I am pretty sure I could buy (or make) a set of traffic lights. Who gave this quote? When I was looking at getting the road crossing made for all 3 services, I contacted a local contractor with a minor street works permit as well as the Hydro and Scottish Water. The independent contractor was the most expensive as although he has the street works permit he still would have to apply for and pay for a road opening permit (even if molling under the road) In contrast the utilities hold a permanent road opening permit. Even if it is a busy dual track road, all it needs is to do one half of the road at a time with traffic lights. It should be comfortably done in a day. I suspect the 3 day thing is they cannot guarantee which day, so they will book and (you will) pay for 3 days. THIS is the bit I would be contesting with them. We had a bit of a similar farce. Open Reach would not open and work in a junction pit right by the main road, so we had a long delay while they booked and waited for traffic management. The traffic lights arrived at 10AM and set up. OR did not arrive until after mid day. The traffic lights left at 3PM and OR continued to work in the pit without traffic management. (the pit was in the grass verge not in the road) Ours is only a quiet single track road so no traffic management, they just pushed a big steel plate over the trench with the digger when someone wanted to go by. ask them if you can provide your own traffic management. Here you go, a set of lights for £211 for a week https://www.speedyservices.com/22_0248-h-xlite-traffic-signals-2-phase-radiolink You just need some cones and signs. Over £3K for 3 days is taking the urine.,

Hi and welcome You seem to have the bedrooms facing the street with only arrow slit windows, and a corridor facing SW where you can have large windows. I would swap that around and have the corridor on the street side, who cares it only has arrow slit windows, it will give your bedrooms a sunny aspect overlooking your garden.

Up here, BC will issue a "certificate of temporary habitation" to allow you to move in and complete the work, then issue a completion certificate later. I don't know if this is possible in England. Ask them.

Or dig the hole at the wrong time of the year here, and watch it fill up with water all by itself. I have to say our partial soakaway then discharge to the burn is working well. At this time of year as I predicted it is working as a land drain to keep the water table down, there is a constant small trickle from it even when we are not discharging any water. In the summer it is the reverse with most of what we discharge being absorbed by the soakaway and very little going into the burn.

Just get the builder to leave a gap and install a lintel so later you can dig it out and thread a pipe under the wall.

Well foundation trench inspections are required by building control, as are witnessing a drain pressure test. So it's no a very big leap to ask for BC to witness a percolation test, other than the fact it will be a longer site visit waiting for the water level in the hole to go down.

For a minute I thought you were showering with warm beer, I don't know what made me think that.

I don't have much hair left and what is there is very short. Let's just say hair washing does not take long. Water heater is gas instantaneous so we will only run out of hot water if we run out of gas. The complaint is the stupid way it is plumbed making the run from the boiler to the tap about 3 times as long as it has to be.