ProDave

If you want to go sailing, buy a fibreglass boat. If you love sanding and painting and fettling, and don't particularly want to get out on the water, buy a wooden boat. Don't get an open dinghy unless you really are planning on keeping it ashore and launching to sail then retrieving. A much better prospect is something like I have, a small 1980's cruiser. It's only 18ft 6 and when new in 1983 was described as a "spacious family cruising yacht" a description we would laugh about now. But having the cabin to store all your gear and having a self righting boat that's unlikely to capsize anyway just seems a much better way to sail to me than an open dinghy. You will buy a boat like mine, a small 70's or 80's pocket cruiser for the same money you would spend on a good dinghy. Don't buy a "project" boat. History has shown anyone who does either gives up, sells it at a loss, or never gets it finished. And on the rare occasion they do, it has cost twice as much as it would to get one ready to sail.

Yesterday "summer" arrived and we all had another day on the boat. Lovely weather and great relaxing sailing but no dolphins this time. 3AM this morning the thunder storms started, and went on for the best part of 12 hours, the longest thunderstorm I can remember. This morning my internet connection was lousy, only some sites would load, and then only very slowly and intermittently, in spite of re booting the router 3 times. I guess something somewhere got damaged. All back to normal now. Weather back to normal, summer over. And this evening I find I'm getting grumpy at the lack of work done on the house, and the fact I have to work on Friday so still can't get to work on the house. Grrrrrrrrr......

Yes but I'm taling of flat 3 core and earth. I bet you don't see many industrial motors connected with that?

I am planning something like 75mm screws, to screw the boards, batten, osb and into the actual joist, to pull the whole sandwich together to avoid squeaks.

Don't get me started on the colour of 3c&e cables. WHY can we only buy 3c&e with three phase colours? Can someone please show me an installation where it has actually been used as 3 phases (3 phase supply with no neutral)? I don't think it ever has. It's usually used as live, switched live and neutral, but there is no neutral coloured cable, so we have to invent one and sleeve it appropriately. Now for some reason, it was okay with the old red, yellow blue cable, to use the blue core as neutral, even though at the time, blue was a phase colour. But now it is frowned upon for us to use the black as neutral, even though most electricians who have been in the business more than 10 years would find that logical. Why can't we buy 3 core & e cable as say brown, blue and grey? For domestinc work that would make a LOT more sense.

That is what I am planning to do in my new house as squeaking floors like we have at present will not be allowed.

What's your "final floor"? I am planning my "final floor", some kind of hardwod, to go direct on the battens, just like in the present house.

The issue here is you have PP to build a house that looks like the one in the PP. Whether it's an eco house, passive house or barely complies with building regs house is irellevant. That's a seperate matter. So I can't see anything stopping you making the "human" part of the house super insulated and air tight and leaving the loft cold and draughty for the flying rats. I wouldn't bang on about it being a passive house. Just agree with your ecologist to provide the cold draughty loft space he demands, and build the rest of the house well insulated and sealed and just don't make a big thing of that when talking to the ecologist. All he needs to know is it will have the cold draughty loft space he demands.

Sue the post office for criminal damage.....

I am just ordering another Rationel window, and it's the same price as it was 10 months ago so no price increase there (yet?)

Put a £50 sign on it. It will be gone next day.

Decent lengths of red and black t&e sell for more on ebay than new cable. I have sold anything from 5 metre lengths upwards. Othwerwise weigh it in as pvc covered cable. If you work out the hours it takes you to manually strip it to weigh it in as clean copper, it will be a VERY low hourly rate indeed. I soon realised I can do better things with my time.

My Sister is here for the week. Part of me says "bugger, I can't get on with the house" but it least I will be doing something different, including hopefully a day on the boat. Dolphins from a week ago (seen from the boat)

That's interesting. So nothing under the floor, no membrane, just bare earth?

I presume the "task" is just to round off the front corner to stop bruises? Why not just cut the corner off at 45 degrees with a panel saw, and then round the edges with a rasp / surform / belt sander?

Why do you ever "log out?" To be honest Firefox is a pretty poor browser, full of bugs.but is the least bad of the bunch.

I recall seeing a you tube video of someone trying to smash a toughened glass shower panel. He hit it very hard with a hammer and nothing happened. He then stood back to think about what to do next, and some time later it just exoploded.

So, I have ordered two stainless steel cowls, and a length of 150mm diameter rigid spiral ducting to go through the wall. Of course it has not arrived yet, and I want to get on. So daft question of the week: Do I drill a 150mm diameter hole, and expect to be able to insert the 150mm duct when it comes? Or does the "150mm" refer to something other than it's exterior diameter and do I need say a 160mm hole?

Is the issue protecting the frame? or progressing the build quicker by allowing work to continue on a wet day? If it's protecting the frame, I would not worry. I am just cladding the frame of my garage that's been open to the elements for 10 months now.

2.5mm will, under the right conditions, withstand up to 27 amps, so will be fine for 16A. The only thing to watch for is voltage drop, if it's a long run you might consider 4mm. P.S an RCD is a residual current device, to trip in the event of earth leakage. It is rated usually at 30mA. What you need is an rcd and a seperate mcb rated at 16A, OR an rcbo, which is an rcd and mcb in the same housing.

Here's another slant to this often talked about "forgot to put in a cable for......" Yes I will try to remember all the cables I need, but you also need to think about technology changing and a need for something new. So I am building my house in such a way that it should be possible to add new cables from just about anywhere to anywhere in the future. How am I achieving that? Well for a start there is a service void all around the house, so dropping cables down that should be possible. To enable that, when I fit the floor upstairs (chipboard and carpet) I will leave a small strip all around the perimiter of each room that is only screwed down. So to gain access fold back the carpet, unscrew an access strip, and you can drop a cable down into any segment of the service void (spare holes having been left at the top of each segment of service void). That coupled with posi joists throughout, should mean I can add new cables from anywhere to anywhere.

So here's the damage. First the crack that I can see from underneath. I think by removing the tank I will be able to get at that one from above. It's to far over to be accessed by removing the floor plate. But I did remove the floor plate and here I found crack no 2 My guess is one of these has been cracked for some time and the other has only recently opened up. I can close both gaps to where they should be by pushing down on the bucket. The plan is to weld crack 2 from above with the tank still in place. This is much further from the tank but I will still dothe wet towel thing. I hope that will then be enough to hold both cracks closed while I drain and remove the tank to weld crack 1.

One of the most nervous jobs I did once was replace the fuel sender in the tank of a petrol VW golf. I had dsconnected the battery so there could be nothing to make a spark but still had SWMBO watching over with a fire extinguisher and wet towel just in case.

It has always struck me as "poor" that a "built in " microwave is nothing more than a free standing one wioth a front plate put around it. It loks like that rather than a proper built in one. I get the feeling when we come to choose our new kitchen that for the first time have a "built in" microwave, that I am going to be very dissapointed with the offerings.

I haven't looked at removing the tank. I know from experience, that petrol vapour will ignite very easily. Diesel you actually have to put a flame to it to ignite it, so i had thougt as long as I am not welding to the tank I should be okay?