ProDave

This should go in the boffins corner. But not for the first time I have a scrap lcd tv with a broken screen. The LED backlights and all the difusers from it would make a pretty good lighting lcd flat panel. If only I could make it not look like a scrap tv stuck to the ceiling......

I thought in England and Wales you needed part P sign off for electrics. In Scotland you just need an EIC from the electrician. At my last house BC were okay with a DIY oil boiler install, but I had to get an OFTEC engineer to "commission" the boiler later in order for the manufacturer to honour a warranty claim and give the 5 year warranty (needed a complete replacement boiler due to a leak inside the boiler) BC here usually want to witness a pressure test on the drains.

Oh how I wish we could have an accurate weather forecast. Yesterday it got to +1 degrees and the ice started melting, first time above 0 for a week . I swept as much snow and ice as I could off the drive but by 4pm it was frozen again. Last nights forecast was for -1. I thought it felt chilly this morning, and yes, it was another -11 night. Inside the new house, with no heating it has slowly dropped to 6 degrees.

If you do the NC500 to do it justice you need to do it slowly, hence I suggested the stag. Make sure you have breakdown cover with recovery. At times you would be a long way from help.

I would do the North coast 500 in the stag if it were me.

If the beam was in the centre and both sides are the same angle, the front and rear wall plates would be at the same height. I am sure the angles are the same, so that means if the right hand wall plate needs to be higher, then the ridge beam is too far to the right as seen in the picture. Raising the wall plate is no doubt the easiest fix if you can live with it looking odd from the gable end. I accept moving the ridge beam is not trivial.

Some might say I have a bit of OCD so bear with me. Looking again, the REAL problem is that dirt great big steel ridge beam is too far up the roof. It's not in the middle of the small section of roof. Your "fix" is to raise the wall plate on the right hand side. But now when viewed from the gable end it will be obvious the roof is now asymetrical. The proper fix is move the ridge beam. Sorry, I'll get my coat.

Raise the wall plate. If you don't want to lay more blocks, then a second wall plate above the first wall plate with timber spacers between them. We did this on our garage to raise the roof slightly so it did not cut across a door opening.

Sometime officialdom bureaucracy just makes you feel like you are banging your head against a brick wall.

A bypass valve goes between flow and return as far away from the boiler as you can get it (in the airing cupboard in our case) Normally it is shut. But if all circuits are shut and there is still a boiler demand, it opens and gives the boiler somewhere to pump to. In practice, the only time it opens is when (note when, not if) the microswitch in one of the motorised valves fails, so it is calling for heat even though the motorised valve is shut

Okay I will ask the daft question. If you have no plans for the basement, then why build one? it's not as though it is cheap additional pace is it?

You start by detailing the design of the construction method for the house, working out how much and what type of insulation you are using, U values of windows and doors etc. From that you can work out the worst case heating input requirement and then size your heat pump to match. e.g in my case when it's -10 outside and +20 inside I will need a little over 2Kw of heat input so I have bought a 5KW ASHP which will heat the house via under floor heating. Others on here have houses with an even lower heat requirement. JSHarris has made a spreadsheet which you can download from here http://www.mayfly.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Fabric-and-ventilation-heat-loss-calculator-Master.xls Enter the value for your own house and see what heat demand it gives you.

Didn't he ought to finish the bathroom first? Then they can live in that during the renovation

I read that at first as 84p per switch. Then I see it's 84p for a pack of 5. None in stock within 100 miles of me.

The other important thing with soldering copper is let the solder cool naturally and DON'T MOVE the joint while the solder is still setting. I love it personally, that and pipe bending to minimise the number of joints needed in the first place.

You can tell I am a dinosaur. My gas soldering torch was my dad's. It's probably as old as me. It connects via a hose to a 4.5Kg Calor propane bottle. I have another one that I don't use that screws onto the top of a Calor Dex bottle, I am not even sure you can get those refilled any more and even when you could the cost of the gas was stupidly expensive.

You already have support for the door opening. Can you proceed with the build, but make the lintel the full width, not just the width of the door. Dig and pour the founds for the extension now. Submit the amended PP application. Don't build the walls of the extension yet. Worst case if PP is denied, is block in the opening and fit the door in the original place for now then consider it as a permitted development extension after completion. If PP is granted then complete the extension as soon as it is approved.

Only £11.34 each if you buy 3. They have an inbuilt thermostat and 3 different power levels. We find the lowest 700W setting about right for keeping our bedroom in the caravan warm at night withut too much cycling of the thermostat.

I bought 3 convector heaters from CPC for not a lot http://cpc.farnell.com/pro-elec/pel00022/convector-heater/dp/HG0091607?ost=hg0091607&iscrfnonsku=false&ddkey=http%3Aen-CPC%2FCPC_United_Kingdom%2Fsearch I don't like fan heaters for unattended use. It's not pretty if the fan fails.

We have ice on the outside of the north facing 3g windows, The sun melted the ice on the south facing ones today. Mid day high here -5 We tried the dehumidifier in the 'van today and it barely removed drop of water. I guess that's because it's too cold for there to be much moisture in the air?

No photos but we hit a mid day high of -5 today after last nights -11 I think tonight is going to be colder still. Remarkably the 'van is staying warm with just the stove, though we will be using the electric heaters in the bedrooms overnight. P.S. looking at the photo, I would want a much more substantial mooring strop than that bit of string, and what's the point keeping your boat afloat but then not keeping it in commission over the winter?

Have we mentioned knock down and rebuild might be a better plan?

Your red Y in the second picture. That will only work if a red line continues down from the middle of the Y and you then have a section of flat roof, which you don't want.

I can't help as the last time I saw an AB pc, it had a CRT screen and ran Windows 3.1 Re the POST beeps. Are you sure someone hasn't nicked the memory sicks?

The skirt is already panned in with wood, with a couple of doors to give access to a dry storage area underneath (mainly to store my scaffold planks dry) The floor structure is 3 by 2 timbers set in between the steel chassis legs, and chipboard floor. When we got it i spent a lot of time insulating withing the floor framework with a load of offcuts of PIR insulation I got for free from somene on freecycle. Not perfect but better than nothing. Last night was -11 here. Ice on the inside of the windows in the 'van