ProDave

I selected Johnstones, that's what we use for final coats. BUT on a new build I thoroughly recommend Wickes trade matt white emulsion for the first coats on bare plaster. P.S do you want me to edit "Paint Pole" to "Paint poll" ?

You have to show him the drawing, and get him to explain why it is not according to the drawing.

Keep us posted.

I have done a few and recon 2 days for me the electrician and 2 days for the plumber so 4 man days. I might come out of retirement for £2000 per day.

Meter box designs are lousy to start with, you only have to walk round any housing estate to see how many are secured in place by duck tape. Fix some proper hinges and ignore the silly pins and it will be better that it ever was. I would nut and bolt them on with big washers to spread the load, I fear pop rivets may pull through the thin fibreglass.

Another self builder further down our road had the road crossing for services made by an unregistered builder, i.e did not have any form of street works permit. He made a far far better job than Scottish Water who did mine and did have the right permits. Just proves having a bit of paper proves nothing about actual competence.

All you can do now is wait and hope. If it does start moving now, you know why.

Confused. First picture is walls being built, without their facing stone? Last picture in post above is finished walls, with the stone front, and filled in and grass growing. So some time later? It's a bit late to ask if they are okay then?

Looks like it, less likely to be a cable fault. Could just, if you are licky be a connection inside the pump. Soak it in a bucket of water / bleach for 24 hours then have a go at opening it up?

Can you sketch a wiring diagram and I will give you some ohm readings to take Also post a picture of the pump.

Are you SURE it is registered with the Post Office. HOW did you register the address?

If the cap is located remotely, then both windings will be connected back to the control box. I would expect a 3 core cable in that case (but could be 4 core) With the mains disconnected, what is the ohm reading between the two pump wires connected directly from L to N? And what is the ohm reading from N to the pump wire that connects to the capacitor?

We kept ours as well, but our plot is big enough it is not intrusive and in any event there is access so it could be removed if I wanted to. I had a bit of a tussle with planning about it. They only wanted to grant temporary planning for the 'van with the clause it must be removed from site upon occupation of the house. I pointed out it's location would fall under permitted development as a garden outbuilding, so on completion day I could remove it, and then immediately replace it with an identical 'van in the identical position under permitted development. They agreed and changed the clause to residential use of the 'van shall cease upon occupation of the house. Ours is used as a storage and general work space now. We only paid £4K for it, lived in it for 18 months, and where else would you get a 30 square metre garden shed for that price?

Yes almost certainly the capacitor, the question is how easy is it to access. Is it a submirsible pump?

the heat pump will have a minimum flow rate below which it will throw an error. Fit a manifold circulating pump to be sure, or if you want to wing it, just try it, you might get lucky but if your HP throws a flow rate error be prepared to add another pump or 2 somewhere.

Cart before the horse. You can't have a soakaway design until you have a percolation test result.

Nothing at all wrong with UFH upstairs IF you actually need heating. Even if you do need some heat upstairs, it will be less than downstairs so the slower performance of UFH with carpet does not matter. Again if you have done it all properly you should have a house that does not heat up and down quickly so heat up times are irelevant. And like many of us on here you will find the upstairs heating never needed.

Would that still be certified as a fire door?

Impossible to get a fully compliant staircase there. It would fail on insufficient headroom on the "landing" (and the top few stairs) If you are going to do that, do it AFTER BC sign off and keep quiet. If you sell be prepared to remove the fixed ladder and call it a storage platform that you access with a portable ladder.

By making the first floor extension so small you introduce the complication of some probably substantial beams to support 2 of the walls of the extension and obviously that part of the downstairs cannot have the open vaulted ceiling.

I have so far replaced one clearly missing track with a wire link, and put wire links through 2 via's that were no linger making continuity through. But still is is resolutely totally dead. I have just downloaded the service manual that contains the circuit diagrams and the board layouts, so there might be a chance of resurrecting it.

But the copper has GONE. Not just lifted from the board, gone, dissolved, no longer present. Regardless of how the board was made, something has dissolved the copper. I have never seen that before

Your partner should have consideration not to use the en-suite for smelly jobs. Find a more remote toilet for that.

A remember a former member who had done a lot of work to improve his house, when he came to sell it and needed an EPC he showed the assessor details and photographs of all the improvements he had made, and the assessor ignored it all just made the standard assumtions. I wonder where us self builders that got an A with a full SAP taking all the actual details into account will fair if in > 10 years time we need to renew the EPC for instance to sell the house. I bet that will be an RDSAP and come out much worse?

This week I have been getting our touring caravan ready for the season. First job was fix the battery charger / monitor / control system that had died over winter. Simple and boringly monotonous electrolytic capacitor failure. that is not the question. Now the 12V electrics will turn on I find the car radio is dead. Withdrawing it from it's slot and a small amount of rusty brown coloured water dripped out. It seems the water has entered a leak at the roof mounted aerial and ran down the inside of the coax and entered the radio through the aerial plug. Inside the radio there was an area of dried up rusty water on the PCB. When I cleaned it off, it revealed that several of the tracks were missing, simply gone. Water won't dissolve copper. So I am wondering what compound has been created here that did dissolve the copper? I know Ferric Chloride is the normal chemical for dissolving copper. Is that what has been created by rainwater running down inside a coax cable and then rusting the steel aerial plug on the end of the cable? Or what other compound may have been made that dissolves copper?