Recent content by Bigands

Thank you Tony & John, just tried the pen again - the solenoid is actually getting a voltage, I just wasn't close enough to the wires. I'm just interested in how the pump works & wether my symptoms ie. oil back through the tigerloop oil return (from pump) but none from pump to nozzle marry with...

Will try to keep this simple: spring last year oil got low in tank I tipped it up to get dregs out & it finally ran out just as the weather had warmed up (didn't bother topping up through summer - used immersion). In doing this I had let the water sitting at the bottom of tank into the oil feed...

Sorry - because I seem to have several things going wrong at once, it was quite difficult to make myself clear. I've found the reason for the pressure drop - kaput relief valve (it was o.k. but with fiddling around with the boiler, I brushed/pressed the head & let a bit of water out - now it...

Last spring I made the mistake of tipping up the oil tank when the level was low - it eventually stopped working & I assumed oil had ran out, totally forgot about it until last week when we filled with oil & tried to restart ! To cut a long story short I had a full line of water in pipe - this I...

Yes the ventilation would be cut-off by filling with foam or beads - not sure of any long term issue's here though - damp ingress from below is none - the tri-iso foil prevents it - from above there are tiles & roof membrane - to my mind, ventilation is only reqd where damp ingress is probable...

We live in a converted barn which in winter is difficult to keep warm, 2 main reasons being : 1) It's of exposed King post truss construction so no ceiling as such but lots of volume to heat - 20' interior height max & big rooms. 2) When converting, I used the tri-iso roll insulation which was...

We are just in the process of sending of our VAT claim for a barn conversion which is nearly 10 years on from starting. Process is a bit of a mare with 1000's of receipts - just wondering if anyone had been through this process and has any good advice on making the claim as easy as poss. Thanks...

Just thought I would throw this out & see if anyone could offer advice : I'm building a 8.5 * 5.6 m double garage (gable ended roof) - it is going to be quite tall so as to have decent attic space. Initially, I allways had it in mind to use a steel RSJ with cut rafters to form the roof (the...

All loads were taken off - forgot to mention, dodgy cable some where pretty sure. More I think about it, more it makes sense to get a sparky in. Could spent a while taking fronts off again and check continuity between earth - live and earth - neutral (have a multimetre) at least then I can...

We live in the sticks and recently had a power cut which lasted a good few hours - around 20 houses were affected. Since then the main trip on the main fuse box (we have an extension which is fed by this box but has its own 'sub box' with 3 mcb's in it) keeps tripping, by switching off all the...

So it's possible to get a 5 metre plus straight edge to bridge across the blocks at DPC and tamp like this ? Don't know if I would trust my biceps or my timber yard to stock a decently straight 5m length of timber ! What about the concrete float (looks like a snowboard) - anyone use these ? - if...

Will shortly be laying about 5 c/metre of concrete in new 7.5 x 5 metre garage, there's steel mesh reinforcement (I had some left over). It's too wide to use a straight edge from one block (at DPC) to the other so do I just go free hand with a wooden tamp and trust my eye or is one of them...