ProDave

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?

That really does sound like boiling water to me.

How hot is your hot water? Normal temperature or scalding hot? That energy has to have gone somewhere.

I am looking for recommendations where to buy bioethanol from please? Not for the house but for the spirit burning stove on my boat. Currently using meths and I want something non stinky instead.

100kWh in 24 hours and something is going to get hot. VERY hot. Was your hot water normal temperature or scalding hot? Any sign of discharge through the tundish. That's over 4kW continuous over that 24 hour period, i doubt the HP would / could consume that much it sounds more like the immersion heater with a failed thermostat and boiling the water in the tank? Keep the supply to ASHP and immersion isolated until you have a proper chance to get it looked at. Electrician is more likely needed than plumber.

On the rare occasions that happens, they have only been interested in looking at the meter to confirm the serial number and confirm a real up to date reading. They never even looked at the inverter (in the garage) or looked up at the panels on the roof. Since Covid no meter reader has been, we were instead asked to send a photograph of the meter.

Where is "over here"? It would be handy to add your location to your profile so everyone knows where you are and what regulations apply.

My reading is if you are not changing the total installed capacity you don't have to do anything. So new panels of broadly similar size to the old and operating with the same original inverter I would just do it.

I like the open plan feel of that but think the rooms are disproportionately sized. I think the living room at the front will fill tiny compared to the huge open space at the back. Make the living room encompass what is currently laundry, and shrink the large open plan room a little to fit the laundry in that space somewhere.

The original UK grid was indeed centralised generation. But a major change now is very much more renewables, in particular wind, is being built in Scotland. The original grid had little generation north of the Central belt. Now there is more and more wind farms in the far north, meaning it is the high voltage gris that is struggling, not just local issues.

Another Octopus benefit is YOU can set your monthly payments at the correct level without someone else telling you what to do.

Why should you have to manually submit smart meter readings? Mine is not a smart meter, and nothing I read in this thread is making me want to have a smart meter.

I don't have this issue with Octopus. I submit a monthly reading on the last day of the month and they produce a bill based on that reading. Why does it have to be difficult?

Don't be too casual about it. A DC string can be a lethal thing to get wrong.

Our previous house had the soakaway in the field behind the house, that did not cause any problems. But I am not sure I would want the actual TP there, what if the field became used for stock? Would you want cows walking over the top of your TP?

Do you know anyone that has actually done that? It was launched then there seemed to be delays and problems and mention of an upfront payment to join?