saveasteading

I look at the weather forecast time- related charts for your area with interest, and so often see the rain stopping after the eastward moving weather front passes the Cairngorms. But on a newspaper simplified forecast it will show rain. Don't tell anyone how good the climate is though or there will be thousands more white box estates. Bracing tomorrow though as Norway sends its unwanted weather south? The light blue produces the peaty water to go with the barley from the yellow. Mmmm.

This appeared in my Facebook stuff today. An ad for maps. Perhaps you will find it as interesting as I did. Eg the vast area of blue which is mostly uninhabited. Of course we all look at our location. What struck me was how tiny and precise some shaded areas are, especially where the brown which is showing as a long strip but very narrow. I haven't yet looked to see if there is any geographical feature coincident. Ahhh the quality has diminished in copying. But eg see Morayshire where I'd guess the brown band is 30 miles by 3 miles. Is black best for solar panels... sunny and regularly washed.

I prefer to catch leaves here.

It appears to be a requirement in owning an outdated but legal treatment system, that you explain it in basically a house maintenance manual. It makes sense to do the same for any quirky design decision like this one. This chapter is then displayed in a fuse cupboard so that it doesn't go missing. So @ProDave could do this re the tank and rest easy for any future owner or contractor being fully aware.

I don't like the idea of a massive concrete surround for a tank. Cost of corse and that it is not usually necessary. Beautiful work in the pic above btw. Tying it down to a slab will need reference to the tank chosen but should be easy and controllable. This is key. There is no reason why you can't put a notice up on your tank explaining this. And another one under the extract cover. If it's tied down anyway, this shouldn't matter, but better to be safe. In reality a good tank doesn't often need emptying so wait for a dry summer.

2 x half gates will be more stable Quick sum. All approximate. 45 gallons, 200 litres. Concrete is 2200kg/m3. so 440kg. A big bag of ballast is 800kg. So with cement and water one bag will do 2 barrels, approx. If not quite, then chuck in some rubble. Presumably you will cut the tops off the drums.

Underpinning is hard work and done in stages. Dig access trench along the wall to the bottom of the footing, then as far beneath that, as instructed. So you are quite deep. Tunnel under the footing locally, about 1m wide. Mining. Fill under the wall with concrete and wedge up. Repeat. Backfill. Commercially this would be many hundreds£ per metre. Anything is better. Is the ground that poor in bearing? The point of letting the existing wall take the load is to use the existing bearing capacity.

It has cracked some time ago, then been painted over. And stayed that way? If the key only fits in one place then that is not an overall crack of that width. Plus if the materials change in each leaf the weakest will crack with any shrinkage or movement. Helical bars would only move the stresses elsewhere. The outside leaf may have stronger bricks than mortar, so have moved gently.

BBC News - Tiny data centre used to heat public swimming pool - BBC News https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-64939558?app-referrer=webview Not such a new idea then. This is from 2 years ago. I researched seriously, a few years ago, into capturing waste heat from chill-stores, as we were building a few. Standing close, it is amazing how much energy is being pumped away. None of the installing companies knew / were interested at all.

the electricity that's generating that heat is paid for by somebody else". ie not the homeowner. it seems from the flag that the King is visiting.

What a good idea. And build new data centres beside wind farms. Data centre in the shed reduces energy bills to £40 BBC News - 'I heat my Essex home with a data centre in the shed' - BBC News https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rpy7envr5o

Agreed. And better yet, and easier diy, batten and board. @kyran what does the other side look like? BTW how wide is the crack at the widest point, excluding flaked away bits. What is the widest coin that would push in? I suspect none, so no worries.

I'd need to see it in life, but that looks more like a rough extension or rebuild, due to seeing the change in materials, and that cracks go through bricks not mortar. My worry would be that in any future sale, a surveyor would flag it up.

So nothing special. And it will be an oil drum filled with concrete? You could add bigger stones, half bricks and it would be fine.

I hadn't noticed!