ProDave

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

The stove is doing a good job of keeping the static caravan warm in this cold spell. Another 6" of snow last night and well below 0 all day. At least the wind has dropped. Still have @Onoff problem that the floor is cold, in spite of me adding extra insulation under it. We burn wood in the day, then bank it up overnight with coal then shut it right down. It stays in overnight giving out a gentle heat. In the morning put some logs on and open it up and it's going in no time.

I went around in the static 'van in the last few days taping up the ridiculous sized vents in the loo and shower room. I would rather open the window a crack after a shower to let the steam out than have an arctic gale all the time. Ditto the loo window if you have made a smell. We have @Onoff problem, just can't get the 'van warm at floor level.

The ever increasing levels of traffic were what made us give up with the SE and move to the Highlands. Every town or city is expanding it's housing stock, but there are no new roads joining the towns together. 30 years ago, I lived 6 miles from my work, a journey I could do in not a lot more than 6 minutes, certainly comfortably in 10. It was rural roads, passing through one hamlet and one village, with the only "obstruction" being 1 roundabout. 10 years later when I left that employment, most of the route had a 40mph speed limit slapped on it. The hamlet that had previously had a staggered crossroads just with give way junctions (and no serious queues) had been "upgraded" to two sets of traffic lights, resulting in long queues in all 4 directions. Further compounded by another road in the hamlet being closed off. My journey now took close on half an hour. It was that sort of nonsense repeated all through the county that led us to realise it was never going to get better, and for the sake of my sanity we had to move. My last job before finally leaving had me commuting daily up the A34 west of Oxford. The only way I could tolerate that was on a motorbike, even in winter. I loathed the days when I got up and there was ice on the road and I had to use the car for work. It doesn't take long when we return to visit, to want to get away again.

@Cpd I wasn't trying to imply you were going to do a poor job, just mentioning that the vast majority of builders do. One in particular I rewired a few years back, builder doing the refurb "insulated" it by including 25mm thick kingspan behind the pasterboard (still the usual plasterboard tent behind that kingspan) He genuinely thought he was doing a good job. He even told me that when he did his own house, he went overboard and fitted 50mm thick kingspan to insulate his plasterboard tent. It will be interesting to see how you make a proper job of doing it.

Not directly related, but our previous house, a timber framed house with UFH on both floors. When we fired up the heating on that, in November, it took about 4 days to get up to temperature. Initially I doubted the heating was adequate as the first day didn't seem to do much apart from burn a lot of oil. But once warmed up that proved to be a reasonably economical and certainly very warm and comfortable house. 2 bottles of gas in 4 days sounds like a lot.

£1000 for a CU change? Something is not right. Unless there's something unusual (like an all rcbo board) then the CU will cost about £100 and will take a day to swap and test everything. So either your electrician is on a damned high hourly rate, or he spent a week doing alterations and remedial work to bring it up to standard. There is no requirement to upgrade circuits you have not made alterations to. At the end of the day, all building control need is an EIC. I doubt they ever read it or would understand what it said if they did read it. It is just bit of paper to file away to show the electrics have been determined by someone to be safe.

The big mistake just about everyone makes with old Scottish croft houses, is to make a "plasterboard tent" inside them. I can almost guarantee that when I remove a switch or socket from the wall a howling gale will emerge from the hole. In almost every case, the framing and plasterboarding that lines the walls is open up into the loft space from where cold air can get between the wall and the plasterboard. Add to that, most have no insulation at all in the room in roof ceilings, no wonder they are cold.

There is an electrian on another forum who was complaining it regularly takes him an hour to do 10 miles from one side of Birmingham to the other. We once (never again) set off from Oxford to the Highlands on the August bank holiday Friday after work. We gave up and went to bed (in the caravan we were towing) at Shap. I calculated we had averaged 30mph from Oxford to Shap.

Surely the simplest is divide the plot. Sell one plot (your old main residence so no CGT?) Build new house to live in and reclaim the VAT. I think as soon as you start along the road of build 2 houses you become a "developer" and different rules apply. So the issue becomes either how to fund building the new house before you sell the old one? or sell the old one first then where to live while building the new one?

I briefly questioned whether to run the UFH without a blending valve and simply set the UFH temperature by setting the buffer tank temperature, but the consensus was that was a bad idea.

And why would increasing the ASHP flow temperature overheat the UFH? does that not have it's own blending valve?

Off topic perhaps. But wasn't this change to window installs supposed to mean they comply with building regs? The old bungallow that I am working on this week during it's renovation is having new windows fitted by Everest. The living room windows only have opening fanlights. I thought it was now a requirement to have at least one means of escape window?

Those things terrify me. If just one of the 2 per rung locking devices is not latched properly, or fails, the whole lot could collapse. The very last sort of ladder I would ever trust my life to, I think they are an accident waiting to happen. Give me the loft ladder any time.