Ferdinand

Suspect that only holds amongst relatively casual or occasional users, or those with small enough resources not to be able to afford a solid brand, or enough resources to be able to get one when they do not need it. Our closest Waitroses are 16 and 17 miles, and then about 20. We have at least 15, and maybe 20, Aldis closer than that. IT is not as if it is a low-population area ... there are 150k-200k people within 6-7 miles. Amongst people I know of, and there are numbers of serious diyers and tradesmen, it tends to be DeWalt to Makita for their own tools. If you talk to Letting Agents in eg Nottingham, a lot of their maintenance people live this way. But people are very sharp in buying the good ones from the Aldi or Lidl offerings. F

Welcome to @Marie Turner. On the post-feminist thing, I would be happy to post most of the activists I see on the Daily Politics, feminist or otherwise, to Timbuctoo or somewhere similar. WE do seem to be post-feminist though .. the latest numbers I saw from the Fawcett Society had more than 90% of both women and men refusing to self-identify as such. Now off back to the kitchen to cook dinner. Ferdinad

I thought we were getting leery of hi-tech and Les Grands Complications. This is more like it, perhaps, for us non-pros like me. (They seem to be sensitive about actual recordings.)

I think I would be inclined to joist out and put the 1st floor boards in in something weather resilient, rather than pay for temporary boarding then the real stuff. Needs calculating, though.

@newhome Re your hand burning experiences. A remote thermometer is cheap and may be useful. Eg from Amazon 9.99 - cheap as chips. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thermometer-Tacklife-58℉-1022℉-Temperature-Adjustable/dp/B01MFGU4P9/ref=lp_6286456031_1_4?s=industrial&ie=UTF8&qid=1519364643&sr=1-4 A little cheaper if you look on eBay, but Amazon will probably get it there quicker ... next day with Prime. Your local Maplin or similar may have one or similar if you have a local Maplin. Ferdinand

WHen Intalked to HB about banking for a business they essentially told me they were not interested in brand new startups, and focused on the top 1% in personal banking, and to come back when we were several years old and established/very profitable. I think you get the old fashioned personal service and pay for it. I was talking to a 35-40 year old former Director of one of the big banks who was glad to have got out. Very good people for what looks like a very good bank if it has what you want and vice-versa.

If we are confessing, the boot of my Corsa will never leak because it is liberally coated with Wickes paint on damproofer which fell over once. And dried eventually. Ubfortunately for my purposes, electrics can't tow very well.

THanks for the excellent range of replies. Having spent an hour this morning wandering around Available Car with a tape measure and an 880mm walking cane (to measure the width), I think the following can meet my loadspace criteria ... 2m and a bit long and 900mm wide. AS suggested, width is not a problem. IN a couple of cases it may involve having the front seat slightly more upright. I am 1.8m tall. More than I expected seem sufficient. Seem capable of carry several house doors flat Ford Mondeo Estate. Mercedes E Class. Audi A6. BMW 5 Series. Skoda Superb but I did not get to measure one, Perhaps VW Passat. DId not get inside one, The followIng seem too small Mazda 6 All the several 4x4 Tonkas I looked at. I believe the Jaguar, but again I did not get to measure one. Peugeot 308 Estate. The Skoda Octavia, which has a significant step in the floor. I will post again later with specific answers, and about what seem to be significant discounts at present (eg Merc E Class via Carwow is -20%+ around my area. Ferdinand

@newhome I am not sure if you have posted them but there a couple of relavant posts on your blog from 2010. Boiler with cover off http://bordershousenewbuild.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/march-2010-we-have-front-door.html#comment-form About UFH. Includes piccies of a couple of manifolds. http://bordershousenewbuild.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/february-2010-underfloor-heating-oh-and.html F

Fein MultiMaster is worth its weight in gold ... mine is inherited and about 20 years old. MY chosen alternative would be one of the cordless Makitas (or within your chosen battery system) with tool-free changes of implement. Do brushless motors apply to Multi-Tools? I always have slight psychological doubts about the Makita colour, as it so close to David Icke's turquoise shell suits, which are one of those better-never-invented things that irredeemably poison the memory like Vegemite or Abadoo Doo Doo. Ferdinand

ON topic . I think prompt payment is important, ideally on the day or in the week the invoice arrives. it is also about making commitments and not keeping them (I am quite good at getting that wrong sometimes). That is perhaps the best way of making sure they are willing to come back, combined with being knowledgeable enough not to ask the wrong questions and letting them get on with the job after a thorough briefing. It can be a tricky balance, and if the supplier is not on the ball I am capable of losing things in my own system (*) ... particularly if the invoice comes via an unusual route. I have a couple of occasional suppliers who are not good at issuing or chasing up invoices even when requested. I have said before that means of effective communication seems to vary. I know one tradesman who never seems to reply to phone messages but is currently very responsive to emails because he has a new website and is getting enquiries that way. I tend to be better at responding to text messages if it is a routine request because they are a 'push' method and do not expire like voicemails, so I will find them when I next use the mobile. I am perhaps slightly different to some others here in that most of my stuff offers the potential for repeat business as I renovate houses and have paid maintenance done every year. Eg somebody who does kitchens or double glazing can reasonably expect several thousands of business each year, which while smaller than some of the big £10k to £50k ticket items discussed here is a regular few days work once or twice a year. I struggle sometimes with finding people for emergencies, as Tenants rightly have expectations for speed of response for important Items ... e.g. last November I had a boiler condemned and disconnected on the spot at the annual inspection and all gas was disconnected when the weather was cold (= no heating OR hot water) and ended up resorting to a Tradesmen site to find an engineer. Could have been VERY expensive as quotes were between £1900 and £4800 for a simple boiler swap at short notice. IN a note for @newhome it turned out that the existing system had been incorrectly installed in 2010 or so, and the roomstats were all not controlling anything at all (it is not just you) as the project had been in chaos when dad was caught by cancer. I very very rarely pay "cash" outside the system, even when offered. Even leaving the principle aside, in my case it is mainly business not personal so both parties can be better off anyway ... I get to count the maintenance cost against tax, and the tradesman may have a lower tax rate than me and be better off with the higher rate of payment. This area is quite heavy with people offering to work for cash at low rates, some of whom are quite good, and some of whom are unreliable or not very good. IT is quite possible to find middle aged people at under minimum wage if you are unscrupulous. I occasionally barter, most recently with a new Tenant wanting a rent-free first month because their previous landlord's agent was playing silly buggers with returning an appropriately large amount of the deposit on the previous house they had lived in, in a desire for a new lawn where the dog had scuffed one corner. Ferdinand * If I am not being efficient my desk works like a slow speed auto-Rolodex, with things rotating to the top once every few weeks.

MIssed this. Worst, you say? OK. There was an ex-Prof with a newt Who's need for a home was acute So he flew in from thither And built his house hither Post an aerial survey of newts Or was that supposed to be on topic comment?

For the record Open Office will edit PDFs; not sure whether it can do one that is that complex.

@newhome If it only the electrical cert, then print out, put a square of paper over the address, and photograph :-). Or screen shot and use an image editor to draw a rectangle. There are apps out there that will screenshot a full document bigger that the display window. Ferdinand

The title is probably self-explanatory. I am taking another look at cars as now seems to be a good time to buy with plenty of discounts around. I am looking for a large estate car which is able to carry about half a dozen doors inside with the rear door shut and seats down, since this is the arrest thing I have needed for the Little Abrown Bungalow renovation this side of an 8x4 sheet of OSB, and vans are out. Has anyone done this? I don't really want a big 4x4, and I am not keen on paying the 2k or so extra road tax on cars with a list price of 40k+, which leaves large estates new or recent secondhand. I was looking previously at Audi A6s but I think they are slightly too small, as are Jags and the current big Volvos; the most likely candidate at present is a Mercedes E-Class or something I have not found yet. Honda Civic Touring looks possible, maybe. The dimensions are 2040 x 826mm for a metric door, and 1981 x 838mm for an imperial size door, so I need 2040 x 838 plus corrugated cardboard wrapping and wiggle room. Online sites seem to measure space for 'boxes' to the back of the front seats, which are inclined backwards so the measurement is too short wrt the load deck floor. I would love to go round the dealers with a real door to try it out, but I can't fit it in the existing car :-o. So once I have a shortlist it is going to be a tour with a large piece of cardboard to check. Cheers for any comments. Ferdinand

I haven't noticed an address just the name, but it is something that we mention from time to time just in case :-). Sometimes people eg leave the lat and long in screenshots from Google Maps.

@newhome How big is the Thermal Store i.e. The big water tank? IF you do not know the model a measurement of the height and diameter will give us an idea since they are listed here. WHen we have helped you get the system at least talking to itself it would probably be useful to talk about things like the heat loss of your house. Just parking this question here for later: The Electric Boiler is a Fusion 24kW model from the invoice. Is that big enough for a 350sqm house with 6 (I think I read) showers and bathrooms? And a note to take care with eg posting your address or road in a picture of an invoice or similar inadvertently. IT is easy to do by mistake. They are easy to redact and we can point you at software if necessary to do it. This is not my subject so I will be mainly keeping quiet. Ferdinand

He looks OK from here, except for a missing Avatar. Could someone post up a pic of the offending wonkiness? Wonk .. yes. Wonky ... hmmm. Ferdinand

Snipped ... not relevant to topic.

Indeed. Literally unforgettable. Engraved on all our memories like a Poem by William Topaz McGonagall. And with that, back to topic and an end to my heckling ...

Did you get Bob Maxwell at Headington Hall?

I wonder if it would work to do a £10 subject access request under the Data Protection Act on the VOA for your personal information, then use Data Protection Principle 6 and the right to update inaccurate personal data to change their database to the new address . Even I would agree that that would be a tortuous route. Fun, though ... like Mark forgot his name flying over Fylingdales in balloons because there was a loophole. F

I think your Avatar makes this point comprehensively moot.

The relevant concept is 'self-cleansing velocity' iirc, where the solids neither get left behind or dropped. http://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_self_cleansing_velocity_for_a_drain Pointed put to me at an open drain running through a park in a valley in the centre of Luxembourg when I were a lad. Ferdinand

Either her or practical reality if 3mm was not possible. Nothing to do with you .