ProDave

And for mass take up of renewables like heat pumps and solar PV someone really really needs to give all the DNO's a kick up the whatsit and make it their problem to upgrade the grid rather than saying no you can't have. Take away the hostility that people like me would face if they wanted more PV for example.

The electric car thing. We are being told they are just as good as an ICE car and we should all have one. Just 2 problems with that. First they are NOT as "good" in some respects because range and charging times limit their use compared to almost instant refuelling of an ICE car, and they are even more hopeless if you want to tow something. The "sales pitch" needs to be more honest, they are just as good for many users that don't do long journeys or tow anything, but be HONEST that they are not a drop in replacement that will suit all uses. And if you answer that with "they will get better" then that just reinforces my point, they are not yet ready for all users so why buy a pre production development model? And secondly they are just too expensive, most people like me could not afford one even if I wanted one.

You build up the foundations from the existing ground to your finished floor height and then you infill the ground around the house to raise the level. Building up first would mean you are building on unstable made up ground.

That calculator gives me estimated 7KVA rising to 14KVA if I add a car charger. I better not tell anybody if I ever add a car charger then. Actually our 12KVA supply is in no way limiting, it is wired in the same 35mm concentric cable to the house as any other modern connection, and fitted with a 100A main fuse. So it is 12KVA only in name.

SSEN We are not far from the substation but we were the 8th house connecting to an existing 100KVA transformer. They seem to have calculated 100/8 = 12.5 and offered us a 12KVA connection hoping we would cough up to upgrade the transformer. They clearly have not heard of diversity.

Yes we need some "levelling up" They were equally hostile when applying for a new supply, 12KVA was all they could offer without charging for a network upgrade, I got the distinct impression they expected me to decline that and say "how much for an upgrade"

Here is a thought. Can't a solar farm share the same land as a wind farm? Mostly built in hills so not productive farmland. Yes some panels would get some shading from the towers but it would seem to be a good dual use of land and infrastructure.

The DNO's need to be forced to be less hostile and more accepting of solar PV. When ours was registered with the DNO (under the old names I forget which but 3.68kW) they read the model number of the inverter "TL4000" and without reading anything else rejected it, told us to disconnect it and apply for permission and there would be a network upgrade charge as it was over 3.68kW. Forcing them to read the documents and that even though the inverter had 4000 in it's model number, it was only 3.68kW resolved it and they accepted it, but it showed they are hostile, do not really want it, and will use any excuse to try and extract money from the customer.

I assumed they are supply pipes, but we just don't know do we. Surely the water co should at least be able to tell you if they are supply or drainage pipes? Of course there will be both in the vicinity, but if only one is on the map it still begs the question, where?

You need the lid off that chamber. There are no drainage pipes shown on the plan, but there must be some, somewhere. So perhaps that chamber is for the drains. I still say all would be answered in 5 minutes with the divining rods, then you know where to carefully dig for confirmation.

I did my 1/3 acre plot all on my own. Can you not do the same?

Not a name that rings a bell. Plenty of info and schedules here https://www.radiocaroline.co.uk/#home.html

It is used for streaming internet radio (mostly Radio Caroline) playing music from it's own memory, or from a phone (via Hi fi Cast) I would not know how to set up two Pi's to talk to each other like that, but the advantage of a hard wired audio link is they all play in sync throughout the house, no lag between one and another.

An example of "under engineering" In the tv's I only put power, 3 * coax and a cat 5 cable to the bedroom tv points. We then decided we wanted sound in the bedroom, from the same Pi Music box as downstairs. A quick bit of lateral thinking I repurposed the 2 spare coax cables as audio left and right to the bedroom.

I had the opposite. Scottish water subcontracted our water connection. The plan said the water was in the verge the other side of the road. The subbies dug for it and could not find it. They dug deeper and further from the road into the field, still no sign. They were on the verge of packing up and going home when I got my rods out. You could see them sniggering as I slowly walked further into the field and my rods reacted, so I said "here it is". Just to humour me they dug a bit further and there it was.

Frametherm 35 is quite stiff. I left this test piece for 6 months without any support and it did not budge or slump. But I would want something under it to support it.

I am interested in the cantilevered second floor. Is that what the external piers are for on the brickwork?

If you start talking galvanised conduit, then you need a die and cutting compound to thread the ends. Never worth it for a one off job. Use PVC instead. I question the circuit design, it sounds like spurring from and existing socket to then feed a CU in the garage. The total load will be very limited, and a real chance of overloading the 2.5 t&e. A spur like that is allowed to feed one socket, that will be limited in current by the plug(s) plugged into it, not for feeding a CU for multiple circuits. Look to get a feed from the main house CU in proper sized cable for this.

Go divining to locate the pipe. Yes I AM being serious.

There is no joined up thinking. We are building the wind farms where there is no more grid capacity, before the grid is upgraded to cope. 4 more are planned near here, soon there won't be a hilltop without a wind farm on it. The planned additional 400KV overhead north / south line is barely passed planning stage after nearly 10 years, yet to start construction. There is a hydrolyser plant about to be built. Being built to use the surplus power the grid can't take to make hydrogen to be trucked by tanker (hydrogen powered I hope) to feed local distileries. The hydrolyser needs water, a lot of it, so a new 15 mile pipeline is being built to pump it from a local river. Now my little brain says 2 things, surely it would be easier just to build a local distribution network to feed the distileries directly with electricity rather than have the losses making then transporting then burning hydrogen? And if you are going to build it, surely it would be easier to build it near the river and transport the electricity to the hydrolyser with a new cable, rather than lay a new pipe and pump the water up hill?

It will need planning permission, but the fact you already have a tall brick wall on the boundary should make that much easier.

That is strange. What little I can see of the exterior wood and paint looks okay. Almost as if water is getting in at the top, perhaps from the cavity that does not have closers?

I had multiple hdmi cables to our main tv points. They all lead back to the AV cupboard under the stairs where all the set top boxes reside so there is no (or little) "clutter" under the televisions. Wall hanging a modern flat screen tv raises the question where do you put any set top boxes, that previously would have gone on a shelf in the "tv unit" It also means the same set top box can serve both tv's downstairs so a recorded program can be watched in either room, and only one firestick for all the on line stuff. hdmi splitters and 10 metre long hdmi cables. Install more cables than you need in case one fails or you want to add something new.

Gas safe certificate from gas safe installer, just like any other gas installation. Note not all gas safe engineers are register for LPG.

Scrap the stupid CIL system. That has to be a major deterrent to builders and of course pushes up house prices as it effectively makes building land more expensive. The sustainability nonsense is just plain stupid. Up here the planning guidelines are more sensible, they want development in existing settlements not isolated individual houses. That is the guideline that allowed our present and previous self build. But we are 3 miles from the town and public transport. Yes you could cycle that, but it is uphill all the way back. Few do. But such development is still allowed. If the planners won't allow provision for an EV car (charge point and possibly PV) as "sustainable" then that is plain stupid.