ProDave

If anyone is bulk buying solar PV I might well be interested.

I have got to the bottom of it. If you push the dip tube bit in (the bit with the O ring seal) and just push it down in the middle (the obvious place), it does not seal. It is so flimsy that what happens is it bends in the middle the web between the two tubes until that bottoms out. To get it fully home you have to push down hard on the two ends. Then it finally goes in far enough for the O ring to seal. I am willing to bet, 99% of these are in use with that bit just dropped in, not pushed down at the ends and not making a seal. The 1% where it is sealed properly are people like me expecting it to have to pass a drain pressure test and have spent the time to work out why it is not sealing. I continue to be underwhelmed by the design and engineering of this. It annoys the hell out of me when I encounter things like this that with a simple and obvious change could be so much better. If I get any drain pressure test issues with these I will be re opening this thread.

I did some work on the Alladale estate, several miles down a private track at the end of an already long single track road. It was off grid and generated it's power from a small hydro plant. You could see the intensity of the light bulbs going up and down and measure the rise and fall if the voltage. I expect the frequency was going up and down as well. If you are wanting an electrician and it's in the summer I may be up for a few days on the island

Hi again I did wonder if you were on one of the small isles, my other guess was the the Knoydart peninsula and the settlement around Inverie (I am sure there was a plot for sale there a while back) Stick building on site is not a problem. My frame was detailed by an architectural technician and a structural engineer and a full set of plans drawn for the building warrant. It was then built by a local building firm who built the frame in sections in their workshop and brought them to site. It would only be a very small step from that to build the frame on the island. It would be handy if there was a nearby barn or steading they could rent to give covered work space (the sun does not always shine on the west coast) I am guessing things like concrete will be mixed on site. I hope there is at least one digger on the island available for hire. Hopefully with a breaker otherwise getting a hole deep enough for a treatment plant will be a challenge. I know you have a private electricity supply but from a technical point, I can't see why a small amount of solar PV export would be a problem. Yes if every house had solar PV it might be an issue. But if you take steps, like excess power to water heating etc, or even in extreme to a dump load heater, I can see no technical problem. If you keep the solar PV off grid you are talking of battery storage so I will be interested in your thoughts on that. This sounds like a really interesting project, with it's own challenges due to location, but I suspect a fantastic community to muck in and make it work. I look forward to seeing it progress

At great expense I have just bought two Impey wet room shower trays, Impey waste fittings for them and the tanking kits. I have discovered a problem with the waste fittings, they don't appear to make an air tight seal. As a test, I ran water through one so the trap mechanism was full, and gently blew into the waste, expecting to hear glug glug glug as it blew air bubbles through the water trap. Instead I just hear a hiss, and feel almost no resistance to blowing through it. This is the waste fitting The "trap" is made up of 2 parts An outer bucket and an inner "tube" that dips down into the bucket. Yes I can see how that works BUT that will only seal, if the O ring on the oval shaped dip tube forms an air tight seal to the main part of the waste fitting It appears this one does not. It's not a particularly tight fit so there is no scope for the skinny little O ring to compress and make a seal. My concern is not so much that it is going to let smells into the room, but rather more fundamental, that if Mr building control inspector insists on a further drain test before completion, it is going to fail. Comments please. In the mean time I will unpack the other one and see if it has the same "fault" EDIT to add I have checked the second one and it is much the same. I was right about where it i leaking. If you press and hold down the dip tube, it does seal, and you do get "glug glug glug" as you blow up the waste. But with either of them blow just a tiny bit too hard and the air pressure lifts the dip tube slightly and breaks the poor seal. The only way I can see this ever passing a drain pressure test is if I place a heavy object on the dip tube. Not impresses I am afraid to say. There should be a screw or other positive means to hold the thing in place and make the seal on that skinny O ring.

Hi and welcome. I would be interested to know which island you are on? and why can't you grid tie to the electric supply? Due to the access issues, have you considered building the timber frame on site? then it's just raw timber to get to the site. Have you got accommodation to live in during the build? I suspect a static caravan is out of the question? Presumably there is local transport available to get stuff from the ferry to your plot?

ur last inspection was when the timber frame was complete. I asked when they next want to come back and the answer was "completion"

Once they have dried out, I would treat them with some wood preservative, as it's a shed and smell may no be an issue I would use creosote or something similar that soaks in a long way.

I know somebody that put the BBQ next to the shed after use. An hour or so later his shed was on fire. Old wet scaffold boards are likely to be rotten. I lost about 20 of mine to rot because I stored them badly. Unlikely to be a long term solid base.

Yes they are disappointing so far. Not had reliability issues but the light output and colour difference from lamps claiming to be the same power and colour is disappointing. Making me think the only way to to get a roomfull to look right is buy a bulk lot from one manufacturer so you have identical spares for a very long time. In the old days any make of 60W GLS looked the same.

So reading this, you can no longer make and sell a basic storage heater with an input charge control thermostat and basic heat output control?

I doubt building control would ever notice. As long as what you fit is as good, if not better than what is on your design SAP. Different windows would not normally affect the structure. At the time of my building warrant we did not know what windows we would be using. I ended up using rationel, which were in our case the cheapest of the quality windows, and the second best. Only Internorm offered slightly better Uw values but at twice the price of Rationel.

TIP (please don't take it as a criticism) Most computer screens are lansdcape orientation, so turn the phone on it's side next time.

What span is that? Our max span is 4.8 metres and our joists look a lot bigger than that at 100mm wide.

+1 I got my Gallup360 from ebay and borrowed a backpack sprayer to spray the plot.

I sprayed our plot twice with glyphosphate to kill the multitude of weeds. You have the spray the plants, during the growing season for it to be absorbed and drawn down. The instructions explicitly said do not trim before or after. Other week killers may differ.

As I have said before, I have refused to pay the (in our case) £150 fee and just started using the name we chose. The only "issue" is it is not on the postcode database, but it is now on the councils own house name database. I thought it would become an issue when we moved into the caravan and that got added to the council tax valuation list, but it didn't.

blackmore-house.co.uk appears to be available if you want to go and register that quickly

No it won't. you should treat them as they are, do not cut them first.

A few years ago I did all the wiring n a conversion of 2 cottages into one. Initially building control were going to insist the whole lot was brought up to modern insulation standards, which in an old stone cottage would be very hard. In the end the backed down a bit an only insisted on upgraded insulation in rooms that were being altered.

If your new build is not ready by the deadline, it might still be worth selling and moving into rented just to get the sdlt refunded. As long as the sdlt refund more than covers the rental so you don't want to be doing that for long. If the previous house was your main residence, there should be no CGT to worry about.

Put a static van on the site and tell them you are living in it

EXCEPT if you did buy this as a BTL and just pay standard stamp duty, then you later buy a more expensive property to live in, you would then pay the extra stamp duty on your main residence.

So whatever house you buy now will be your FIRST house, regardless of what you use it for, so standard stamp duty applies.

So what is your first home doing at the moment then?