ProDave

A 100A single phase supply is 21KVA. You will not get any higher than that for a single phase domestic supply. My 12KVA supply would allow me 52A.

So it means you need to request a "formal offer" only then can you discuss it and negotiate it. The formal offer should state which items are contestable (could be done by others) and which are not. I got my quote down a lot by doing all the contestable work myself. On the subject of capacity, I was offered a 12KVA supply as the most that was available, any more would require a transformer upgrade. That is ample for our needs.

Post pictures of what is on the outside, and the corresponding inside. I usually solve this by putting the switch for the lights on the inside if the wall they are fixed to and the switch creates the safe zone for the cables.

Looking in the loft will show you if it's a pipe leak or rainwater leak. It's above the fireplace, so strongly suspect a chimney issue. You should be able to see water running down the wall in the loft. If it is chimney then getting properly onto the roof is required which most likely will need scaffolding.

On an EICR that would be a C2 and so "unsatisfactory" so he should not have left it like that.

Up here, a 50KVA transformer feeds 5 properties, so start by arguing them fitting a 50KVA transformer is overkill and they are in effect asking you to fund the upgrade for another 3 houses to connect to it.

Post a picture of your controller. Unless it is really ancient a replaceent should just fit on the same back plate with no wiring changes.

Fair enough. But having done the right thing and told them you are parking it in a garage, for them to say if it gets stolen from your drive it is not covered is bang out of order.

Insurance companies can do strange things. when I built a garage I told my car insurance company it was now kept in a garage. How much did it reduce my premium? £NIL. Then I asked what would happen if I left it outside one night and it got stolen. NOT COVERED. I now declare the car is parked on the driveway.

I guarantee there is no insulation behind the panelling in the bedrooms, hence it is cold and condensation can form mould. Thousands of croft houses were like that. If you want to keep the panneling you can rewire leaving it largely untouched. You just need to create an access hatch to the coomb spaces at the eaves and be prepared to crawl or use a fish wire. Take the chance to at least insulate the coomb space. To insulate the sloping ceilings without blocking the ventilation is a whole other problem which will need the ceiling stripped and is probably impractical anyway as you would loose ceiling height, which there is not much of to start with.

I certainly would have grabbed a good number of those slates they ripped off before they got skipped, if nothing else so if you get anybody to improve things you have the material. If the builders had said anything i would just tell them I am reclaiming the ones they took off my roof.

Or a couple of courses of brick then a UPVC window to give light into the garage.

All this talk of what if the nut comes off. But no mention of nyloc nuts or even loctite?

This "housing crisis" is nothing new, it has not just appeared, but is the result of a generation or more of flawed policies limiting the number of houses being built and the policy of selling council houses to tenants, but not then being allowed to use the money that generates to build more council houses. And lets just say I am very glad I am no longer a landlord. The policy makers just cannot see the cause and effect link between the policies they implement and the result it has. People talk of Tory Austerity, but I have spent my whole working life under all sorts of governments and a common them all that time has been cutbacks, savings and efficiency. You would think by now having been trying for 40+ years we would have the most streamlined, and efficient public services on the planet providing tremendous value for money and an excellent service...... I am retiring now and I am probably one of the last that left school into a 4 year apprenticeship that set me up well for the rest of my working life. In a time when only the really bright kids went to university and did a proper worthwhile degree. Then it became fashionable for everyone to go to university how dare you say I am not intelligent enough. Then someone decided it was a good idea for the students to pay for it and start their working life with a massive debt burden. But in spite of that, the lemmings still continued to go to university.

My 5kW ASHP draws a maximum input power of under 2kW so happy on a 16A circuit.

Your complaint is not about the mix of the mortar, but the fact it is crumbling and falling out. No point claiming it is 6:1 and they counter that it is 3:1, it is still crumbling and falling out.

The solar PV will try and produce a sine wave output at whatever power is available. Burst firing of a PV diverter is easier and less likely to cause RFI problems, Just think of the meter as averaging it's reading over a short time period, hence the shorter higher bursts of dump load get evened out as far as the meter is concerned.

Many (including my home made one) work by burst firing. Most electricity meters work on an "energy bucket" and only register power consumed when one whole watt hour has been consumed. That takes a little under 1 second with a 3kW immersion heater. So I set my burst firing time to be half a second and the immersion is on anything from 0% to 100% of that time. So say there is 1.5kW surplus, then my immersion heater would be on for half of that half second period. As long as energy both ways does not exceed 1Wh the meter will not register, it will count up a bit then count down a bit.

I think it is a myth that buildings "settle" Yes timber will shrink and warp. Screw pops are usually the result of poor workmanship. Plasterboard needs to be flat onto what it is screwed to. If the joists are not level then some boards will not be touching the joist and the screw will be trying to bend the plasterboard to touch, and it's just wound up like a spring and screws will pop. But most definitely the builders problem to fix. Hint: any that are not visible from 2M just give the loose plaster / filler / paint that is covering it a little encouragement to fall off so it is visible from 2M.

For that small height change, I would not build a retaining wall, but cut the turf back a bit a re profile it so it slopes down to the slabs without a step.

Heat your domestic hot water is the easy and obvious one. It will reduce your HW bills to close to £nil for much of the summer. The next obvious one is use all your big domestic appliances like washing machine, dishwasher etc one at a time at around mid day.

A 100A leisure battery would have a theoretical storage of 1.2kWh, but in reality less than 1kWh as you can't discharge it to 0. So you could run a 1kW element for less than an hour or a 3 kW element for less than 20 minutes. In the middle of a power cut that is not going to warm your house up much. Save the battery for lighting and other useful things. On the other hand my WBS can deliver 5kW for as long as I keep adding logs to it. The one in our static caravan ran nearly non stop from November to March the winter we spent in it.

I would say it needs the same rail. Otherwise BC will say nothing to stop you walking onto the green roof then falling off that. Of course if that bit of handrail were to fall down after completion......

Before you dismiss alternatives like timber frame as "not solid" perhaps you should have a look at some that other buildhubbers have built. Unless larger plot = more £££ there is no reason not to put a small house on a large plot. Our plot is about 1/3 of an acre.

"Silent" will not be "best" I have fitted several of these recently for Landlords who report them as very effective for dealing with problems in bathrooms, but they are good because they are versatile and very powerful fans, which makes them neither cheap nor silent. https://www.nuaire.co.uk/product-list-page/cyfan You can adjust the idle speed so could end up with a quiet (but not silent) idle speed.